The Greeks and the Irrational
Page 21
The luminous apparitions go back to the Chaldaean Oracles, which promised that by pronouncing certain spells the operator should see "fire shaped like a boy," or "an unshaped fire with a voice proceeding from it," or various other things.127 Compare the which the "Chaldaeans" are said to have exhibited to the Emperor Julian;128 the which Proclus claimed to have seen (Marin. vit. Prod. 28); and Hippolytus' recipe for simulating a fiery apparition of Hecate by natural if somewhat dangerous means (Ref. Haer. 4.36). At de myst 3.6 (112.10 ff.) these phenomena are clearly associated with mediumship: the spirit may be seen as a fiery or luminous form entering or leaving the medium's body, by the operator by the medium (r# and sometimes by all present: the last (Proclus' is, we are told, the most satisfactory. The apparent analogy with the so-called "Ectoplasm" or "teleplasm," which modern observers claim to have seen emerge from and return to the bodies of certain mediums, has been noted by Hopfner129 and others. Like "ectoplasm," the appearances might be shapeless or formed one of Porphyry's oracles (Praep. Ev. 5.8) speaks of "the pure fire being compressed into sacred forms but according to Psellus (PG 122, 1136c) the shapeless appearances are the most trustworthy, and Proclus (in Crat. 34.28) gives the reason— . The luminous character which is regularly attributed to them is doubtless connected with the "Chaldaean" (Iranian) fire-cult; but it also recalls the of the papyri130 as well as the "lights" of the modern seance-room. Proclus seems to have spoken of the shaping process as taking place "in a light" :131 this suggests a like that prescribed at PGM vii.540 ff., where the magician says (561), (sc. Eitrem132 would translate here as "perceive" (a sense not elsewhere attested); but in view of the passages just referred to I think we should render "give shape to" ("abbilden," Preisendanz) and suppose that a materialization is in question. The "strong immortal light" replaces the mortal light of the lamp, just as at PGM iv.1103 ff. the watcher sees the light of the lamp become "vault-shaped," then finds it replaced by "a very great light within a void," and beholds the god. But whether a lamp was ever used in theurgy we do not know. Certainly some types of were conducted in darkness,133 others out of doors,134 while lychnomancy does not figure among the varieties of listed at de myst. 3.14. The similarity of language remains, however, striking.
NOTES TO APPENDIX II
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