Gregory Shaw

PLATONIC TANTRA
Theurgists of Late Antiquity*

Like a child begging for both, he must declare that reality or the sum of
things is both at once – all that is unchangeable and all that is in change.
Sophist 249d

Formerly I thought that the body was foul.

Then I saw that Ultimate Reality was within the body.
Tirumalar1

The great American Neoplatonist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, concludes his foundational
essay, Nature, with the song of an Orphic poet.

Man, the Orphic poet sings, is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved
by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and
the moon […]. The laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externalized themselves
into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But, having made for himself this huge
shell, his waters retired; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He
sees that the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally. […] Rather, once it fitted him,
now it [merely] corresponds to him from far and on high. He adores timidly his own work.
(Emerson 2000: 37)

For Emerson, «man is a god in ruins.» (Emerson 2000: 36) We suffer a profound
self-alienation; we possess only a fraction of ourselves. Yet, despite this, we believe we
master the world with our rational understanding. «[Man’s] relation to nature – Emerson
says – his power over it, is through [his] understanding […]; the economic use of fire,
wind, water, and the mariner’s needle; steam, coal, chemical agriculture; the repairs of
the human body by the dentist and the surgeon. This is such resumption of power as if a

* I wish to thank Loriliai Biernacki for her help clarifying uncertainties I had concerning Tantra.
This paper would not have been written without the intellectual support of Mike Murphy and
other members of his Center for Theory and Research at Esalen Institute. This paper was initially
presented at the Prometheus Conference under the direction of Tim Addey. I wish to thank him
and the organizers for their generosity.
1 Fuerstein 1998: 225. Tirumalar was a Tantric teacher who lived sometime between the 7th and
the 12th centuries CE.

Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei X (2017): 269-284

270 Gregory Shaw

banished king should buy his territories inch by inch, instead of vaulting at once into his
throne.» (Emerson 2000: 37)
Platonic theurgy was the art of recovering our thrones. Derived from the Greek theios
(divine) and ergon (action), theurgy was a ritual practice developed by Iamblichus in the 4th
century CE to allow Platonists to recover their luminous and immortal bodies and to take
the «shape of gods» while still remaining mortal (Iamblichus 2003).2 After urging us to take
our thrones, Emerson provides examples with figures such as Jesus, the Shakers, Mesmer
and other healers who performed miracles not through rational understanding but by fol-
lowing divine instinct, by their «grasp of the scepter» (Emerson 2000: 37). The exercise
of this divine power was an integral part of the Platonic tradition and yet from reading the
scholarship on Platonism we might never suspect as much. We have, I believe, been mis-
reading the later Platonists by overlooking this essential component of their tradition. The
6th century Neoplatonist Hierocles refers to it when he says:

Philosophy is united with the art of sacred things since this art is concerned with the
purification of the luminous body, but if you separate philosophical thinking from this art,
you will find that it no longer has the same power. (I. Hadot 2004: 48)

It should be obvious that philosophical thinking in the West has been separated from this
theurgic art for a long time, which is why philosophers today lack power and why most
of them dry us up with desiccated discourse.3 People no longer come to philosophers for
an experience of divine presence, for darshan,4 for transformation, because philosophers
today lack the power to transform. This affective dimension of philosophy has become lost
to us, but it was integral to the later Platonists.5 The exercise of supernatural power was part
of their repertoire; it was evidence of their divinity. Marinus reports that Proclus performed
a ritual that caused it to rain (Marinus 2000: 101-105). Eunapius reports that Iamblichus,
after performing a sacrifice, was walking with his companions when

2 All references follow the Parthey pagination preceded by DM (de Mysteriis); DM 184.6.
3 That philosophy for the later Platonists is not what philosophy is today – an exercise in
discursive reflections and explanations – is evident in Damascius’ comment: «I have indeed
met some who are outwardly splendid philosophers in their rich memory of many theories, in
the shrewd flexibility of their countless arguments, in the constant power of their extraordinary
perceptiveness. Yet within they are poor in matters of the soul and they are destitute of true
knowledge.» (Damascius 1999: Fragment 14) Simplicius asks that if his philosophizing did not
transform his life «would I be anything other than a grammarian?» (P. Hadot 1995: 27)
4 Darshan in Hindu traditions refers to the blessed vision of the divine in a human form; darshan
allows one to receive a blessing through contact with one’s spiritual guide imagined as an
embodiment of god.
5 Socrates in particular seemed to have embodied a transformative presence. One need only
consider his description by Alcibiades in the Symposium. The following testimony of Aristides
captures vividly the power of Socrates as an embodiment of divine wisdom. He says: «By the
gods, Socrates, you’re not going to believe this, but it’s true! I’ve never learned (mathein) anything
from you, as you know. But I made progress whenever I was with you, even if I was only in the
same house and not in the same room – but more when I was in the same room. And it seemed, to
me at least, that when I was in the same room and looked at you when you were speaking, I made
much more progress than when I looked away. And I made by far the most and greatest progress
when I sat right beside you, and physically held on to you or touched you.» (Theages 130d2- e2)
Platonic Tantra 271

… suddenly, while conversing, he became lost in thought, as though his voice were cut
off, and after staring at the ground, looked up at his friends and told them in a loud voice
«Let’s go on another road for a dead body has just been carried on this path.» (Wright 1968:
367)

A few skeptical disciples remained only to encounter a funeral party that had carried a
corpse on the road earlier that day. For Platonists, such awareness «beyond the reach of
reason» had been recognized as a sign of divine presence since the time of Socrates (Plu-
tarch 1959: 580F). Sosipatra, a 4th century theurgist, was in the midst of a lecture when
she suddenly became silent and announced that one of her students had been in an ac-
cident; she described in detail each of the injuries he sustained, all of which proved to be
true (Wright 1968: 415). And Plotinus detected that he had been psychically attacked by
astrological sorcery; although he repelled the spell, it had caused his body to be squeezed
tight (Porphyry 1966: 33).
Controlling the weather, seeing without eyes and hearing without ears, repelling spells,
such phenomena are not highlighted in our histories of ancient philosophy; in fact, they are
rarely mentioned at all. They are something of an embarrassment, most often dismissed
or explained away as the superstitious residue or cultural baggage of otherwise intelligent
thinkers who, like us, knew better than to believe such things. But such events were an
integral part of their experience. Supernatural abilities were understood to be the result of
having lived a philosophical life nurtured by the theurgic purification of the etheric body.
Describing the culmination of this art, Iamblichus says theurgists ritually weave themselves
into all the powers of the cosmos until the soul «is fully established in the demiurgic god»
(Iamblichus 2003: 292.12-13).6
For the Neoplatonists this demiurgic god is not an entity fixed in a metaphysical hierar-
chy. The Demiurge is an activity, specifically the activity that divides the One and unifies
the Many. For Platonists, the Demiurge is the weaving of opposites, the endless circling and
pulse of procession and return that creates our world.7 The cosmos is his agalma, the shrine
in which this activity dwells (Timaeus 37). For theurgists, Nature is the body of this god
whose activity and breath they come to recognize as their own.
It is from this perspective, with theurgist homologized to the cosmos and exercising
godlike power, that we may turn to a different tradition, born in a different culture and to
a later time, Tantra. I have been struck by the remarkable similarities between Tantric and
theurgic practices as well as by parallels in their respective metaphysical contexts. By
highlighting these parallels, I hope that the solutions theurgists brought to philosophical
problems will be more clearly understood and that we can appreciate the richness of a
Platonism where the goal is not to escape from the material world but rather, as Emerson
put it, to take our thrones and wield our scepters as embodied gods, to become incarna-
tions of the divine.

6 To be established in this god unites theurgists with the «activities, intellections, and creative
acts» of divinely creative powers (cf. DM 292.11-12); the theurgist becomes an embodied
Demiurge.
7 My understanding of the role of the Demiurge in later Platonism has been influenced by Jean
Trouillard’s masterful study of Proclus (Trouillard 1982: 71-91).
272 Gregory Shaw

The Philosophic Context: Plotinus and Iamblichus

I begin with the context of 3rd and 4th century Platonism and the tension between the
teachings of Plotinus as transmited and promoted by Porphyry and the Platonism of Iambli-
chus. They have a great deal in common; in fact, I suspect that the differences Iamblichus
had with Plotinus might have been exaggerated by the fact that when Porphyry edited and
promoted the Enneads and his Life of Plotinus he was competing with Iamblichus for lead-
ership of the Platonic school (Porphyry 2012: xlv).8 Even though most Platonists followed
Iamblichus and adopted the disciplines of theurgy, these practices require a living tradition.
They are more a way of life than a set of doctrines, so when that way of life ended in the
6th century, Iamblichean theurgy disappeared, at least in its platonic form.9 Plotinus’ Neo-
platonism – which lacked an explicit ritual component – could more easily be appropriated
by Christianity, so the Platonism we have received is Christian and in important respects is
quite unlike Iamblichean Platonism. Scholars have only recently come to an understand-
ing of Platonic theurgy. It was, after all, initially condemned as demonic by Augustine
(Augustine 1950: 10.10),10 as “irrational” by Enlightenment thinkers,11 and is now virtually
unthinkable in our materialist age.12 But thanks to the scholarship of Jean Trouillard, John
Dillon, Polymnia Athanassiadi and others,13 we can still savor the smoke of ancient theurgic
altars. By following these scholars, we can feel the fire and warmth of those Platonists who
embodied gods. But let us first examine the context in which theurgy arose, the contrast
between Iamblichus and Plotinus.
Plotinus is arguably the greatest mystic in the history of religion and philosophy. He pos-
sessed an unmatched gift for communicating his union with the One and for evoking such
experiences in his readers. In Ennead 4.8, On the Descent of the Soul Plotinus begins with
an interesting confession. He says:

8 Henri D. Saffrey and Alain Segonds have explored this tension and provide persuasive
arguments: «… la Vie de Plotin, comme l’édition des Ennéades dans la mise en ordre
porphyrienne, peuvent aussi être considérées comme l’affirmation d’une position opposée à
celle de Jamblique. …» (Porphyre 2012, xxix-xxx, my emphasis). Thus, Porphyry highlighted
differences with Iamblichus in such a way as to promote Plotinian Platonism at the expense
of Iamblichus. Armstrong has noted that theurgy represents another trajectory of Plotinus’
thought. When referring to “Plotinian Platonism” I am referring more to the trajectory followed
by Porphyry, one that was highly critical of the theurgic development in Iamblichean Platonism.
9 The recent scholarship of Niketas Sinnosglou has explored with great insight how Neoplatonic
teachings were preserved and veiled in Byzantine Christian circles (Sinnosglou 2008).
10 Augustine’s demonization of theurgy stands in stark contrast to Dionysius the Areopagite who
spoke of theurgy as an integral part of the sacramental life of the church. For a discussion of
their respective attitudes about theurgy see Shaw 1999: 573-599; see also Rist 1992: 135-161.
11 For E. R. Dodds as for most scholars of the early 20th century, Iamblichus’ On the Mysteries
was «philosophically worthless» (Dodds 1970: 538); a «manifesto of irrationalism» (Dodds
1949: 287).
12 On the sense in which scientific materialism has come to function like a revealed dogma:
Wallace and Hodel 2008: 86-107.
13 Sarah Johnston, Algis Uždavinys, R. M. Van den Berg, John Finamore, and others, including
my own work.
Platonic Tantra 273

Many times, awakened to myself away from the body … believing myself then especially
to be part of the higher realm … having become one with the divine and based in it, advancing
to that activity, establishing myself above all intelligible beings, then going down from this
position in the divine, from Nous down to discursive reasoning, I am puzzled how I could,
even now, descend, and how my soul has come to be in the body. (Plotinus Enn. IV.8.1.1-
10)14

The question of embodiment was acutely existential for Plotinus and he draws from
Plato’s Phaedrus and Timaeus to outline its positive and negative aspects.
On the positive side, the soul’s embodiment is part of the manifestation of the One. The
One unfolds its powers, Plotinus says, «as does a seed» (Plotinus 1966-1988: IV.8.6.9).
From the highest level down to the lowest and densest materiality, the world is a manifesta-
tion of divine power and goodness. Embodiment, therefore, is an expression of the One and
we are invited to recognize our existence as part of this theophany. The Emersonian exulta-
tion: «the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God»
is a perfect example of this sensibility (Emerson 2000: 7), and Iamblichean theurgy is the
fleshing out of this trajectory of Plotinus’ thought. But Plotinus himself seems less inclined
toward this positive interpretation of embodiment and concludes his essay by denying that
the soul is truly in the body. He says:

If one ought to dare to express one’s own view more clearly, contradicting the opinion of
others, our soul does not altogether come down, but there is always something of it in the
noetic realm. (Plotinus Enn. IV.8.8.1-4)

Despite Plotinus’ positive view of matter and embodiment, he is far more attracted to the
disembodied state, away from the pollution of the physical body (Plotinus Enn. I.6.5) and
sensible matter that he describes as «evil itself» (Plotinus Enn. I.8.3.38-40). There is a de-
cided split in Plotinus. As A.H. Armstrong put it, Plotinus «knew perfectly well that he was
two people … a rightful inhabitant of the world of pure intelligence … [and] here below,
body-bound and immersed in earthly concerns and desires.» (Armstrong 1979: 189-190)
Inspiring and uplifting as Plotinus’ descriptions of noetic experience are, as deeply as he
penetrates the veils of uniting with the One, his method of communicating this, the upaya
of Plotinus – to borrow a Buddhist term15 – is of little help for most of us. As Emerson put
it, «man is a god in ruins», and the question is what to do with the ruins of our embodied
life. Plotinus encourages us to discard our ruins and ascend to the purity of the noetic realm.
In the Christian Platonism that we have inherited, this not only defines Neoplatonism but
Platonism more generally: Platonism as dualism. In Platonic dualism our sensate world is
a poor reflection of the realm of Ideas and we should exercise our intelligence to withdraw
from the material world and ascend to the Intelligible.16 Despite his spiritual brilliance
and unparalleled descriptions of entering unitive states, Plotinus’ language invites a dual-

14 My translation is based on that of O’Meara (O’Meara 1995: 104).

15 Upaya, a term used in Buddhism to describe the “skillful means” of a teacher who adjusts the
teaching to the capacity of the student. In this sense, the “true” teaching is whatever enlightens
the student.
16 It is this dualist reading of Plato that informed Christian metaphysics and theology and it is the
imaginative frame that continues to shape our understanding of Neoplatonism.
274 Gregory Shaw

ist interpretation, at least in comparison to Iamblichus.17 The Syrian theurgist devised an

elaborate system for working with our ruins and incorporating our material attachments as
a necessary part of his mystagogy. Theurgy is an upaya that embraces and transforms the
ruins of our lives. The obstacles to our divinization become the vehicles through which we
become divine. It is in this sense that Iamblichus’s theurgy is a kind of platonic Tantra.
Iamblichus followed Plotinus in most aspects of his thinking and shared the same met-
aphysical assumptions: all things are rooted in an inexhaustible source that continually
overflows, divides, and eventually reveals itself in the phenomenal world, each creation
mysteriously reflecting and revealing the hidden source. We exist in this continual emana-
tion and bear its traces. Emerson captures this vision very well: «Man is a stream whose
source is hidden.» (Emerson 1993: 51) The problem for Neoplatonists is existential: what
happens when the stream runs dry? What can be done when we become so congealed in the
density of physical life that we lose awareness of the divine principles that bring us here?
The outflow, or procession of the One, must have a reciprocal inflow or return, and to fa-
cilitate the soul’s return is the goal of Neoplatonists. But Plotinus and Iamblichus disagree
on how to achieve this return, how to imagine our union with the One. They both under-
stood that the One is beyond conceptualization, but as J.M.P. Lowry argued, Iamblichus de-
veloped the «mystical side of Plotinus more systematically than Plotinus himself had done»
(Lowry 1980: 20-21).18 For, if the One functions evocatively rather than descriptively, it is
not a philosophic concept but an icon, a symbol that may be more fully engaged through
religious imagination and activity than by philosophic reflection.19 Thus, for Iamblichus,
ritual theurgy is necessarily the culmination to philosophy. Iamblichus differs from Plotinus
in other significant ways: while Plotinus says the soul does not entirely descend into a body,
Iamblichus maintains that it does. The Iamblichean soul, therefore, reunites with divinity
through engaging the attractions of embodied life. Since we are immersed in material real-
ity, we must discover the activities of the gods revealed even in our attachments. Theur-
gists therefore include objects such as stones, plants, animals, songs, and visualizations to
receive and enter the activities of the gods. Since we discover our identity with the divine

17 I do not mean to suggest that Plotinus was a dualist in an anti-cosmic sense. Nevertheless, it
seems to me that although Plotinus argued vigorously against the view of Gnostic dualists that
the material cosmos is an error, he shifted the “primal error” of Gnostic cosmologies from the
cosmos to the psyche. For Plotinus, the material cosmos is good but our identification with the
body is a mistake. In this sense Plotinus affords a greater “reality” to the physical cosmos than
does Shankara, but he nevertheless sees the soul’s presence in the body as a problem.
18 Lowry continues: «[I]t could be argued that Iamblichus, in trying to make sense out of Plotinus,
developed philosophical principles which make possible mystical unity with the divine. By
doing this he could then be said to have showed that this unity was not primarily philosophical.
This should perhaps be the position that any Neoplatonist, especially Plotinus, should have
made explicit.»
19 The One is semantically meaningless but serves as an evocative sunthēma for theurgists. In the
same way, the material objects of theurgy are not worshipped for their physical properties but
as icons to the gods. Iamblichus’ clarification and development of Plotinus’ thought led to what
has been disparagingly seen as the “religious” turn among later Platonists. But it is a turn that
Platonists found perfectly consistent not only with Plotinian Platonism but with Plato as well.
As John Bussanich succinctly puts it, «For Platonists the highest knowledge is experiential,
non-discursive, non-propositional, and incommunicable.» (Bussanich 2005: 13) Iamblichus
characterizes this experiential and non-discursive knowledge as «innate gnosis» (DM 7.11-8.1).
Platonic Tantra 275

only through these rituals, sensible matter must not be, as Plotinus put it, «primal and abso-
lute evil» (Plotinus Enn. I.8.3.38-40). This is a critical difference between Iamblichus and
Plotinus: sensible matter for Iamblichus is not evil. In fact, the soul needs matter to unite
with the divine. Drawing from Pythagorean teachings, Iamblichus maintained that sensible
matter is a manifestation of the One in its dyadic (dividing) power. Material diversity is the
correlate to numeric multiplicity and both are rooted in and expressions of the One.
Because, for Plotinus, embodiment pollutes the soul, his mystagogy aims to escape from
materiality and the body. Iamblichus, on the other hand, believed the soul requires an em-
bodied mystagogy. Because sensible matter is not evil but an expression of the Divine Dyad,
it is not only advantageous but absolutely necessary for the soul to incorporate matter. The
goal for both Neoplatonists is henōsis, union with the One, but this too is approached in
different ways. Plotinian henōsis is exclusive; it is the result of the soul stripping from itself
all attachments to materiality. Iamblichean henōsis is inclusive; it is the result of the soul
embracing the unifying activity that manifests the material world.20
Their respective mystagogies also were quite different. The culmination of mystagogy for
Plotinus lifts the soul above the cosmos, entirely removed from the material realm. In ef-
fect, despite his positive evaluation of the cosmos against the Gnostics, for Plotinus the soul
somehow does not belong here. He is «puzzled how the soul could come to be in a body» 21
and Porphyry’s biography begins with the unforgettable statement: «Plotinus, the philoso-
pher, seemed ashamed to be in a body» (aischunomenō hoti en sômati eiē ) (Porphyry 1966:
1). Despite his monism, Plotinus’ mystagogy is effectively dualist because the soul must set
itself apart from the material realm. Iamblichus, in contrast, believed embodiment was our
way to participate in divinity.22 After receiving and uniting with the gods in their expression
of the powers of the One, the soul becomes an embodied icon of divine action; each theurgist,

20 The difference between Plotinus and Iamblichus might be more semantic than substantive,
more a difference in their respective upayas than in the substance of their insights. Yet most
scholars understand Plotinian henōsis to exclude multiplicity and it is precisely because theurgic
henōsis includes multiplicity that Iamblichus has been so difficult for us to understand. Having
been shaped by a Christian and dualist Platonism, our assumption is that the goal of Platonists
is to “ascend” to the realm of the Forms, away from the changes and multiplicity of the material
realm. This, I would argue, is based on our misreading Platonic myths in a literal way. As
Jean Trouillard put it: «We constantly run the risk of slipping into a scholarly Platonism that
would double the world of objects by taking for a definitive system the mythic presentation
of the theory of the Ideas. But Plato himself had vigorously criticized this interpretation … »
(Trouillard 1982: 135).
21 This characterization of Plotinus must be nuanced by taking into account whether Plotinus is
speaking from the perspective of the soul moving up to the One or from the One moving down
to the soul. As Margaret Miles puts it: «When his goal was to describe the unity and integrity of
the universe he spoke of body as a necessary and beautiful reflection of the One … [but w]hen
he aimed at generating motivation for contemplative ascent to the One, he spoke of the body as
a hindrance against which we must struggle.» (Miles 1999: 163)
22 In cosmogenesis, Iamblichus says, the soul functions as a mathematical mean to reveal divine
proportions (logoi) in the generated world. Without its descent into a body the soul could not,
as Iamblichus puts it, «serve the work of creation» (Iamblichus 2002: 30.18-19), or function as
the «mean between the divisible and indivisible, corporeal and incorporeal races.» (Iamblichus
2002: 30.20-21)
276 Gregory Shaw

established in demiurgic activity, becomes a co-creator of the cosmos.23 Iamblichus’ mysta-

gogy was radically non-dual: the material world is transparent to the immaterial, nature is the
manifestation of the supernatural, and the human being is the mortal vehicle of an immortal
god. Theurgical Platonists do not escape from the world. In Emerson’s terms, they become
Lords of this world: their bodies become thrones and nature is their kingdom.

Theurgy as Tantra

It is from this contrast between Plotinian and Iamblichean mystagogy that we may turn
to South Asian traditions which present almost identical tensions that gave rise to Tantra,
an embodied mystagogy standing in opposition to the world-denying tendencies of Indian
philosophy and religion. Tantra is a Sanskrit word that, according to David Gordon White,
derives from tan, meaning «“to stretch”, as one would a thread on a loom» (White 1996:
1-2). Tantra thus refers to the weaving of reality itself, to a ritual object stretched on an altar,
to the texts that discuss such sacrifices, and to the way of life that embraces these rites. Ac-
cording to White, «Tantra has been the predominant form of religious belief and practice in
South Asia since its emergence in the medieval period. Tantric practitioners – the religious
specialists known as yogis, siddhas, and viras … have been prominent actors on the South
Asian religious and political scene for well over 1000 years.» (White http://www.religion.
ucsb.edu/?page_id=697) White defines Tantra as follows:

Tantra is that Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that
the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine
energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate
and channel that energy, within the human microcosm, in creative and emancipatory ways.
(White 2000: 9)24

Thus defined, Tantra stands at odds with the goal of traditional schools of yoga as we
have understood them in the West. From the earliest Upanishads to the teachings of Advaita
Vedanta in the 8th century CE, the dominant view of Indian philosophy portrays the mate-
rial world and the body as a trap from which one must escape. Through the disciplines of
yoga, one can free oneself from the body and the world, culminating in a state of absolute
absorption in unity. Georg Fuerstein characterizes these yoga traditions as «verticalist»,
moving up and out of material reality (Fuerstein 1998: 49). In Patanjali’s Yoga and the later
Samkhya schools, liberation consists in the separation of the principle of consciousness
from the principle of matter in all its dense and subtle forms (Fuerstein 1998: 256). The goal
in these yoga systems is not to «ritually appropriate» the energy of the cosmos as it is in
Tantra; the goal is to escape from it. As Fuerstein puts it: «The final state is called kaivalya,
or “aloneness”, meaning the transcendental isolation of the spirit.» (Fuerstein 1998: 256)
The Enneads of Plotinus present a remarkable similarity to these verticalist yoga tradi-

23 I explore this point in Theurgy and the Soul (Shaw 1995: 115; 45-57. Now see second edition,
Theurgy and the Soul, Foreword by John Milbank and Aaron Riches, Shaw 2014: 131; 50-52).
24 As this paper hopes to make clear, White’s definition of Tantra is also a definition of theurgy:
simply replace “Tantra” with “Theurgy” and “Asian” with “later Platonic.”
Platonic Tantra 277

tions. Liberation for Plotinus is, as he puts it: «deliverance from things of this world, a life
that takes no joy in the things of this world, a flight from the alone to the Alone» (Plotinus
Enn. VI 9.11.49-51). Describing this experience Plotinus says:

He is one himself with no distinction in himself either in relation to himself or to other

things – for there is no movement in him and he has no emotion, no desire for anything else
when he makes the ascent – there is not even any reason or thought, and he himself is not
there. (Plotinus Enn. VI.9.11.8-12; my emphasis)

Plotinus testifies to a complete erasure of multiplicity, even the distinction that allows for
self-consciousness. Compare this to a description of nirvikalpa-samadhi, the highest libera-
tion in the verticalist schools of yoga:

The mind does not hear, smell, touch, see, experience pleasure and pain, or conceptualize.
Like a log … [it] neither knows nor is aware of anything. The person who is thus absorbed
… is said to abide in ecstasy. (Fuerstein 1998: 258)

It is hardly surprising that scholars have discovered profound similarities between Ploti-
nus and Shankara, the 8th century teacher of Advaita Vedanta. Plotinus and Shankara are
both rigorous monists and both emphasize the importance of experiencing union with the
divine: the One of Plotinus, or Shankara’s Brahman, «the one without a second.» Shankara
holds that the “self” is ultimately none other than Brahman, as expressed in the formula
Atman is Brahman; which is functionally similar to Plotinus’ notion that the soul remains
in the divine world and only appears to be embodied. Shankara is a teacher of Advaita,
literally “not two” or non-dual, meaning that the phenomenal world with all its diversity is
fundamentally not real; Brahman alone is reality. Those who follow these teachings seek to
overcome their attachment to their illusory selves and the objects of this world; by dissolu-
tion of this Maya, the illusion of the world, they enter nirvikalpa samadhi, undifferentiated
union with Brahman.
Escaping from the world is not the Tantric path. According to the teachings of the 11th
century Kashmir Shaivite, Abhinavagupta, the Advaita philosophy of Shankara, while
claiming to escape dualism, in fact confirms it. Here I rely on the scholarship of Mark Dy-
czkowski who characterizes the Advaita position as follows:

The Vedantin, who maintains that non-duality is the true nature of the absolute by
rejecting duality as only provisionally real, is ultimately landed in a dualism between the
real and illusory by the foolishness of his own excessive sophistry. (Dyczkowski 1987: 37)

The contrast between Advaita Vedanta and the Tantra of Shaivite schools is reflected in
their views of the world.25 The Tantric Shaivite believes that all phenomena and multiplicity
are expressions of the absolute while the Vedantin denies these phenomena are real. Again,
Dyczkowski:

25 Shaivites derive from Kashmir, the northwestern region of India at the foot of the Himalayas.
Shaivites are so designated because they are devotees of Shiva whom they worship as the god
who pervades all reality and who provides release from bondage.
278 Gregory Shaw

The Shaiva method is one of an ever widening inclusion of phenomena mistakenly

thought to be outside the absolute. The Vedantin on the other hand, seeks to understand
… the absolute by excluding every element of experience which does not conform to the
criterion of absoluteness, until all that remains is the unqualified Brahman. The Shaiva’s
approach is one of affirmation and the Vedantin’s one of negation. (Dyczkowski 1987: 38)

In formulaic expression, Advaita Vedanta seeks to escape from desire; Tantra seeks to
embrace desire (Dyczkowski 1987: 39). Material life and desires are not rejected in the
path of Tantra but are employed as vehicles to the absolute. As Dyczkowski puts it, «[t]he
finite is a symbol of the infinite» (Dyczkowski 1987: 40). This formula applies equally to
Iamblichean theurgy where finite material objects become symbols to achieve union with
the One; even more revealing is the Tantric critique of those who deny material reality.
Dyczkowski writes:

The Vedantin’s way is one of withdrawal from the finite in order to achieve a return to the
infinite. This process, however, from the Shaiva point of view is only the first stage. The next
stage is the outward journey from the infinite to the finite. When perfection is achieved in
both … man participates in the universal vibration of the absolute and shares in its essential
freedom. (Dyczkowski 1987: 40, my emphasis)

In Tantra, ascending from the finite to the infinite culminates in the initiate pouring
back to the finite, united with the «universal vibration of the absolute». This ascent and
descent of Tantra mirrors Iamblichus’ understanding of theurgic transformation. As Iam-
blichus puts it, the soul’s catharsis begins by withdrawing from foreign elements, restor-
ing one’s essence, and ascending to the demiurgic cause, but this ascent must culminate
in the soul’s demiurgic descent, joining parts to wholes and contributing «the power, life
and activity of wholes to the parts [of the cosmos]» (Iamblichus 2002: 70.1-5, my transla-
tion). In sum, the culmination to the soul’s cathartic transformation is not to escape from
the cosmos but to share in its creation. According to Iamblichus, this is the ancient teach-
ing, which he contrasts with the view of Platonic dualists who, like the Vedantins, see
the goal of catharsis as deliverance from the body and escaping from the material world.
These are merely the “lesser goals” (smikra telē) of catharsis, (Iamblichus 2002: 70.1-5),
and to make them the final goal leads to the kind of dualism seen in Plotinus’ desire to
escape from the material realm altogether (Shaw 2014 [1995]: 15-18 [13-15]. It aborts
the birth of theurgists into gods.
Iamblichus articulated a non-dual Platonic philosophy in 4th century Syria that was
rearticulated in Tantric terms of 11th century South Asian Shaivites. Withdrawal from mate-
rial fixations is necessary for theurgic and tantric initiates, but to take it as the final goal,
as encouraged by Vedantins and «many Platonists» (Iamblichus 2002: 70.9), is to remain
trapped in dualism. For Tantra and theurgy, escaping from the world is a profound self-
delusion. For both traditions, the world is theophany. Why would one need to escape it? As
Dyczkowski puts it:

The Vedantin who distinguishes between duality and unity, saying that the former is
false while the latter is true, is under the spell of Maya – the ignorance he seeks so hard to
overcome. (Dyczkowski 1987: 41)
Platonic Tantra 279

In the outward turn to the finite and material realm, the Tantric initiate participates in the
universal vibration or pulse of the absolute. This, I believe, is equivalent to the Iamblichean
soul bestowing power, life, and the activity of wholes to the finite parts of the universe.
Theurgy and Tantra trace the same path. In Tantra, it is characterized as spanda, the pulse
of the infinite through the finite. As Dyczkowski puts it, «the Absolute oscillates between
a passion (raga) to create and a dispassion (viraga) from the created» (Dyczkowski 1987:
41). «This eternal pulse – he says – is the spanda of the Great Oneness» (Dyczkowski 1987:
41). In theurgy the Great Oneness is expressed through the diastolic and systolic rhythm of
prohodos and epistrophē, the eternal procession and return of the One as orchestrated by
the Demiurge.26 In both systems the finite and material is an expression of the infinite and
invisible. The theurgist and Tantric initiate both partake in this divine pulsation and share in
its power. In Tantra, this power is manifest in supernormal abilities called siddhis, powers
that were also evident among theurgists.
In both theurgy and Tantra the initiate enters into the “body” of the god through the
performance of rituals. Through the chanting of mantras in Tantra and divine names in the-
urgy the initiate unites with the gods through their sounds, and through entering the god’s
audible body the theurgist and tantric initiate become that god in embodied form. Their
orientation fundamentally shifts; they enter divine totalities; they assume divine power.27
And in both traditions to enter this pulse of divine activity: the spanda of Tantra or the
prohodos-epistrophē of theurgy, the initiate must first ascend to the divine cause and then
descend, having become identified with the activity of the god. The crucial moment is the
descent, for it is in the emanation of Great Oneness into material diversity that the soul truly
enters the non-dual state where discrete objects of this world, including our bodies and the
senses that perceive them, are experienced as manifestations of the One. It is then – with
Emerson’s Orphic poet – that we take our thrones and wield our scepters.
There are an abundant number of similarities between theurgy and Tantra but perhaps
the most revealing and the one most unlike the verticalist traditions of Advaita Vedanta and
dualist forms of Platonism is that the physical senses are no longer obstacles to the divine
but portals by which the divine enters our world and through which the soul becomes the
vehicle of an incarnating god. Tantra is explicit about this. In his Hymn to the Circle of Dei-
ties in the Body, Abhinavagupta says: «I venerate … the circle of deities eternally active in
my own body … » (Dyczkowski 1987: 145-146),28 and he identifies goddesses with each
of the physical senses. Iamblichus says that the gods «reveal the incorporeal as corporeal
to the eyes of the soul by means of the eyes of the body» (Iamblichus 2003: 81.10-82.1).
Elsewhere, he approves of Calvenus Taurus’ teaching that «the will of the gods is to reveal
themselves in human souls», that «the gods appear in the bodies of pure souls» (Iamblichus
2002: 54.20-26, my translation). In both theurgy and Tantra there is ambivalence about

26 As Trouillard put it: «Qu’est-ce que la démiurgie selon Proclos? C’est la puissance expansive
de l’unité.» (Trouillard 1982: 83)
27 A point made by Algis Uždavinys who says «[t]he “acoustic images” (mantramurtim) of the
Tantric gods are analogous to the Platonic agalmata phoneenta, the divine names regarded as
“vocal images” or “vocal statues”.» (Uždavinys 2010: 123)
28 «All Tantric traditions … teach that the senses, along with the body, should be venerated as
manifestations of the sacred power of consciousness which emits them as the sun does its rays.»
(Dyczkowski 1987: 144)
280 Gregory Shaw

whether one is focused on the soul or the god revealed in the soul, but in both traditions
the divine is embodied.29 Iamblichus explicitly says that theurgists are united with the gods
«while still in the body» (Iamblichus 2003: 40.14-41.8). Yet it should be said, there is noth-
ing in Platonic theurgy to match the unbridled effusiveness of some Tantric writers. For
example, Utpaladeva describes the presence of Shiva realized through his senses saying:
«I am drunk … on the Elixir of Immortality which is Your worship, perpetually flowing
through the channels of the senses, from the goblets full of all existing things» (Dyczkows-
ki 1987: 150). The theurgists of later Platonism seem more reserved, which might reflect
the different social contexts of the two traditions.30
Another shared principle of theurgy and Tantra is that both traditions assert an unbroken
continuity between the immaterial and material worlds;31 as correlate to this macrocosmic
continuum they describe a microcosmic continuum, maintaining that each soul has a subtle
body that functions as a mean between our immaterial spirit and our physical body: the
ochēma of theurgists and the suksma sharira of Tantra. In both traditions, the degree of
light in this subtle body is the index of the soul’s deification.32 Iamblichus describes several
techniques for intensifying this light under the rubric of phōtagōgia, the induction of light
(Iamblichus 2003: 133.19-134.8), while in Tantra the soul’s deification comes through tech-
niques that intensify awareness of prakasha (divine light) (Müller-Ortega 2004: 45-79). As
the subtle body becomes filled with light it is also homologized to the cosmos, which allows
the soul to assume the body of a god.33

29 In his work on Sufi angelology, Henry Corbin characterizes this ambivalence as a bi-unity:
«They are not two heterogeneous beings, but one being encountering himself (at once one and
two, a bi-unity, something that people tend to forget).» (Corbin 1969: 147) This bi-unity of
Corbin has recently been elaborated in a brilliant monograph by Charles Stang who explores the
importance of the divine presence in the soul in Platonism, Manichaeanism, Gnosticism, and
other early forms of Christianity (Stang 2016).
30 Even in the Hymns of Proclus that are as richly evocative as Utpaladeva’s confession, the
ecstasy and inebriation of the theurgist is more “scholarly” and focused on the rites of divine
books (Orphic, Chaldean, Platonic and Pythagorean); see Hymn #2 to Aphrodite and #4 to the
Chaldean gods (Van den Berg 2001).
31 The continuum from the divine to the material realm is demonstrated in Iamblichus’ spiritual
interpretation of Aristotle’s categories, applying them to the intelligible and divine realm.
According to R. M. Van den Berg, Iamblichus’ interpretation of the categories was «clearly
at odds with both Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s thesis that the categories are intended to describe
just the sensible world» (Van den Berg 2008: 76). As applied to the category of «being in a
position», Iamblichus asserts an analogical proportionality of containing and being contained
as applied to sensible bodies and extending all the way up to the god in whom all things are
contained (Van den Berg 2008: 77). Another principal innovation of Iamblichus to guarantee
continuity from the immaterial to material worlds is his articulation of the “law of mean terms”
drawn from Pythagorean numerical speculations and applied to all levels of reality, insuring an
unbroken continuity from the highest principles to the lowest (Dodds 1963: xix).
32 On this critical but largely unexplored dimension of later Neoplatonism: Addey 2013: 149-163.
33 White aptly compares homologization in proto-Vedantin alchemy to Neoplatonism: «… a
system that is very similar to the emanation and participation of Neoplatonist thought … The
universe in all its parts is a single organic entity, with all that exists on the great chain of being
the internal flux of a divinely constituted whole, to which all emanated form necessarily returns
in the fullness of time … Moreover, since all exists on the same continuum of this divine
outpouring, all is comparable, even identifiable.» (White 1996: 189-190) This comparison
Platonic Tantra 281

Conclusion

What do these striking similarities tell us? Was there, as Mircea Eliade suggests, a trans-
mission of «Western mysteriosophic» practices to India in the late 4th century (Eliade 1958:
202)? Or, as Thomas McEvilley suggests, did ancient Indian practices, including Tantra,
influence Western philosophies?34 We simply do not know, but I believe that McEvilley is
correct in asserting aboriginal elements in Tantric rites preserved by common folk (McE-
villey 2001: 586). This is the Tantra that has recently been discovered by scholars who
previously evaluated Indian religions by privileging Advaita Vedanta as its highest expres-
sion; highest because it most clearly resembles our Enlightened, rational, and Protestant
worldview. Similarly, our evaluation of Western philosophy has been based on these same
criteria, and theurgy has been subjected to the same negative judgments that were applied
to Tantra. Because theurgy presents a different kind of Platonism, one that includes ritual
practices and ecstatic states, it was initially dismissed by scholars as irrational and supersti-
tious. Like Tantra, theurgy claims ancient roots, and since Iamblichus was a Platonist and
theurgist we now have been forced to re-evaluate and reimagine Platonism.
What accounts for the common elements of theurgy and Tantra if it is not cultural dif-
fusion? I believe John Bussanich correctly suggests that such similarities may not be the
result of diffusion but of spiritual experiences independently realized (Bussanich 2005:
5-6). In the case of Tantra and theurgy the spiritual experience and insights are, I believe,
remarkably similar and disarmingly simple. Both traditions, as we have received them, are
responses to the verticalist traditions of their time: Advaita Vedanta and Plotinian Plato-
nism. And both share fundamental insights that might be enumerated as follows:

1. The desire to escape from materiality, to become liberated from the world, is necessar-
ily the desire of a soul that feels trapped in a mortal and material body.
2. So long as one aims at liberation from the body one remains bound to and defined by
the body. As Dyczkowski argues, the very urge to escape from the Maya of dualism puts
one under its spell, trapped in spirit-body duality.
3. The language of ascent and denial of the world is dualist. It is, in Iamblichus’s terms,
to limit oneself to the lesser goals of catharsis. Although necessary in preliminary stages,
if withdrawal and ascent become the final goal, it aborts the process that allows initiates to
enter the divine prohodos – the outbreath of spanda – and become embodied gods.
4. Theurgy, like Tantra, maintains that liberation does not reject the body but allows it
to be penetrated by the divine. In Emerson’s terms, theurgy allows our existential “drop”
to become the oceanic whole. Theurgists followed Plato’s Timaeus. They believed that the
Demiurge desires to share his goodness, which is why he unfolds his powers into the world

is particularly apt in theurgy where Iamblichus says the presence of the gods extends to the
densest levels of matter and is “more piercing” (drimuterai) there than the presence of even
lower beings; thus the gods pervade all physical reality (Iamblichus 2009 [1973]: 236).
34 McEvilley suggests in several sections that Greek monism, which he attributes to pre-Socratics,
derives from the influence of the Upanishads: «… it is time to acknowledge that one of the major
strains of Greek thought was Indian–influenced, that it might even be called the Indianized or
Greco-Indian lineage.» (McEvilley 2001: 642; 44-46)
282 Gregory Shaw

and into mortal bodies.35 Theurgists aspire to share in the joy of this demiurgy and inhabit
their bodies in a way that allows gods to become embodied. Liberation is realized not by
going up and out of the body but by providing a receptacle for the god to come into it. In
Tantra, this is the highest form of liberation; it is known as sahaja-samadhi, not removed
from the world but living in it naturally, manifesting the god through one’s body.36 In Tantra
the term for such a person is jivanmukta, completely liberated while still alive. I am not
sure there is an equivalent term in Platonic circles, perhaps theios, or possibly tetheiasmenē,
“made divine,” used for Sosipatra after her initiation by Chaldean theurgists (Wright 1968:
#469; Johnston 2012: 99-117).
5. However many differences of nuance, temperament, and social context between
Shaivite Tantra and Neoplatonic theurgy – and they are significant – there remains the com-
pelling fact that both traditions say “yes” to physical experiences and to a material world
that were being denied by the spiritualities of their age. In light of the Tantric and theurgic
notion of liberation in the body perhaps it is significant that Iamblichus and Abhinavagupta
are both described as being surrounded by disciples in a relaxed atmosphere, drinking wine,
conversing and, as Eunapius says of Iamblichus, «filling his companions as with nectar»
(Wright 1968: #458). That the description of Abhinavagupta includes «crowds of women
yogis» and sexual rites might indicate a good place to begin exploring the differences in
these non-dualist traditions.37

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