Neoplatonic Virtue: Beyond Sympathy: Plotinus, Iamblichus, and the Hidden Power of Ritual

Neoplatonic Virtue: Beyond Sympathy: Plotinus, Iamblichus, and the Hidden Power of Ritual

In this session of the Neoplatonic Virtue course, we conclude our reading of De Mysteriis II.11 and return to a set of questions raised in earlier discussions:

Can rituals work if the practitioner is not a philosopher?
Should non-philosophers also practice rituals?
How do we distinguish theurgy from magic?

To explore these issues, we begin with Plotinus’ account of both magic and prayer, which he sees as operating through sympathy— the organiz unity of the cosmos. Iamblichus agrees that magic works through sympathy, but disagrees about sacrifice as we shall see.

We then unpack what sympathy might mean, moving through several models: sympathy as a medical model, as narrative logic, as the poetic view of the world, going through some arguments for why to take it seriously. . But the key revelation comes at the end:
for Iamblichus, the efficacy of theurgy is not limited to sympathy. There is something beyond narrative coherence—some deeper metaphysical ground through which rituals operate, even when sympathy fails.

This sets the stage for our next session, where we will ask:
What is this something beyond sympathy? And what does it mean for the ethical life, that it invovles activities that go beyond or even frustrate the world's narrative frame?