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Led by Iamblichus of Chalcis Simulacrum
Ten tutorials on the foundational period of Western esotericism — from Mesopotamian and Egyptian divinatory traditions through Greek philosophy's encounter with the magical, the trial of Apuleius, the Neoplatonist tradition (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus), the Corpus Hermeticum, and Late Antique alchemy with Mary the Jewess. Convened by Iamblichus of Chalcis Simulacrum, the Syrian theurgist whose De Mysteriis is the founding theoretical defence of magical practice as philosophical discipline. The first strand of the Universitas Magic and Occult Science programme, modelled on the Exeter MA but reimagined to use our author-as-tutor faculty.
Courses are available to holders of a paid pass or membership. See passes & membership →
Led by Adad-shumu-usur, with Nabu-ahhe-iddina and the Royal Scribe of Nineveh Simulacrum
The question
The systematic study of ominous signs in nature — the entrails of sacrificed animals (extispicy), the appearance of celestial bodies (astrology), the behaviour of birds (augury), the patterns of oil dropped on water (lecanomancy), the interpretation of dreams (oneiromancy) — was developed first and most extensively by the scribal-priestly classes of Mesopotamia from the third millennium BCE through the Hellenistic period. The Mesopotamian divinatory tradition is the deepest layer of the Western magical inheritance: the Greek and later European traditions all emerge from, react against, or extend it. What did the Mesopotamian diviners actually do, and what does their work let us see about the original relationship between religion, science, and magic?
Outcome
The student has read the State Archives of Assyria volume X (Parpola's *Letters from Assyrian Scholars*) at least selectively (Adad-shumu-usur's letters to Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal are particularly accessible), Bottéro's chapter on Mesopotamian divination in *Mesopotamia* or Rochberg's introduction in *The Heavenly Writing*, and at least one piece of an actual divinatory text in modern translation.
Practice scenarios
Adad-shumu-usur Simulacrum walks you through one of the surviving cuneiform letters from the court of Ashurbanipal — the *Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal*, edited by Simo Parpola, contains over four hundred such letters; SAA X 226 (Adad-shumu-usur to the king on the appearance of Mars in the constellation of the Lion) or SAA X 8 (a letter on a lunar eclipse) is recommended. Read the chosen letter in modern translation (Parpola's edition is the standard; selections are also in Beaulieu's *A History of Babylon* or in Foster's *Before the Muses*). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is the diviner doing — what observation has triggered the letter, what omen-archive reference is being deployed, what political-administrative consequence is the diviner advising; what does the letter tell us about the relationship between the celestial-mathematical observation and the political reading; and how does the Mesopotamian diviner's method differ from what later European magical traditions would recognise as magic?
Your goals
Led by Isis, with Thoth Simulacrum
The question
Egyptian magical practice — *heka* in the native term, an aspect of cosmic order rather than a deviation from it — is the second great non-Greek root of the Western magical tradition. Where Mesopotamian magic was archive-empirical, Egyptian magic was deeply tied to the divine pantheon and to the language of priestly ritual; *heka* was a force the gods themselves used and the priests deployed by knowing the right names, the right gestures, the right materials. The Greek Magical Papyri (the *PGM*, Papyri Graecae Magicae) — collected mainly from Egypt and dating from the 2nd century BCE through the 5th century CE — preserve the late-antique synthesis of Egyptian, Greek, Jewish, and Mesopotamian magical traditions in operational form. They are the closest thing we have to a working magician's notebook from the ancient world. What did Egyptian magic actually do, and what does the *PGM* let us see?
Outcome
The student has read at least three substantial *PGM* spells in modern translation (Betz collection, easily available; the *Spell of Pnouthis* (PGM I.42-195), the *Mithras Liturgy* (PGM IV.475-829), and one of the love spells or healing spells are the recommended starting points), an introduction to *heka* as Egyptian concept (Ritner's *The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice* is the foundational study), and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.
Practice scenarios
Isis Simulacrum and Thoth Simulacrum together walk you through *PGM* IV.296-466 — the famous "Bowl Divination of Aphrodite" or another comparable *PGM* spell of moderate length. Read the spell in full in Betz's translation. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is the spell trying to do; how does the invocation work (the structure of names and epithets, the function of the *voces magicae*); what materials and timing are required and what does the materials list tell us about the practitioner's resources and assumptions; how does the spell combine Egyptian, Greek, and other elements; and what does the *PGM* let us see about the actual practice of magic in late antiquity that the philosophical-theoretical works (Plotinus, Iamblichus) hide?
Your goals
Led by Apuleius of Madauros Simulacrum
The question
The Greeks had no single word for what we now call magic; they had several — *mageia* (originally just "Persian priestcraft", picked up as a term of foreign-religious art); *goēteia* (sorcery, often pejorative); *pharmakeia* (drug-and-poison-and-charm work, ambiguously between medicine and witchcraft); *theurgia* (god-work, the term Iamblichus would later make philosophically respectable). Behind these terms is a varied set of practices: the *defixiones* (curse tablets, of which thousands survive across the Greek and Roman world); the love-spells; the necromantic rituals; the Pythagorean number-and-purification techniques; the philosophical-magical figures (Empedocles claimed to bring back the dead). What was magic in the Greek and Roman world, and how does the modern reader navigate the sources?
Outcome
The student has read selections from the *Apologia* (chapters 25-40 are the most relevant — the famous catalogue of "magical" objects the prosecution adduced and Apuleius's deflations), at least three *defixiones* in modern translation (Gager's *Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World* is the standard sourcebook), and Plato *Laws* XI.933 (the brief but pointed Athenian law on magic).
Practice scenarios
Apuleius Simulacrum walks you through one specific section of his *Apologia* — chapters 25-43, where he addresses the prosecution's catalogue of supposedly magical materials (fish dissected for divination, mirrors, mysterious cloths, exotic plants from the east, an alleged "boy collapsed by spells"). Read the section carefully (Vincent Hunink's edition is the best modern English translation; the older Loeb is also serviceable). Read also one or two *defixiones* from the Gager collection — recommended: Gager 6 (a judicial curse from the Athenian agora) and Gager 28 (a love-spell from Hadrumetum in North Africa). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: how does Apuleius's defence work — what rhetorical and philosophical resources does he deploy to deflate the prosecution's catalogue; how do the *defixiones* (operational-popular magic) compare to what Apuleius is being accused of (literary-philosophical practice); what does the contrast tell us about Greek-Roman magic as a multi-stratum phenomenon; and where does the modern reader's category "magic" fit (or fail to fit) the Greek-Roman material?
Your goals
Led by Mary the Jewess Simulacrum
The question
Alchemy — *khēmeia* in Greek, *al-kīmiyāʾ* in Arabic — was the systematic experimental investigation of the transformations of substances, blending metallurgy, distillation, and a theological-philosophical doctrine of cosmic correspondence. It emerged in Hellenistic Alexandria (1st-3rd century CE) as a distinctive synthesis of Egyptian metallurgical practice, Greek philosophical theory (especially Stoic and Neoplatonist), and Hebrew-Jewish religious symbolism. The earliest named alchemist whose work survives in substantial fragments is Mary the Jewess (Maria the Jewess, Maria Hebraea, *Marie la Juive* — c. 1st-3rd century CE, exact dates uncertain), credited by Zosimos of Panopolis (c. 300 CE) and the later tradition with inventing several of the foundational alchemical apparatuses. What was Late Antique alchemy actually doing, and what did Mary the Jewess contribute that the tradition would carry for fifteen centuries?
Outcome
The student has read Zosimos's *Visions* in modern translation (the Berthelot text is in Greek; modern translations are partial; the *Cambridge History of Alchemy* contains substantial English-language treatments), the Mary fragments as preserved in Zosimos and other sources, an introduction to Late Antique alchemy (Principe's *Secrets of Alchemy* chapter 1-2 is the recommended starting point), and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.
Practice scenarios
Mary the Jewess Simulacrum walks you through the *Axiom of Maria* in its surviving formulations — *"One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth"* — as Zosimos preserves it (and as later Byzantine, Arabic, and Latin alchemists quote it). Read at least the first chapter of Principe's *Secrets of Alchemy* and the relevant Zosimos passages (Mertens's edition is the modern critical text). Read also Jung's discussion of the Axiom in *Psychology and Alchemy* (paragraph 209ff) for the major modern reception. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the Axiom claim — what is the procedural-numerological-philosophical content; how does it function as both a description of an alchemical operation and as a metaphysical principle; how does Jung reinterpret it psychologically and what does that reinterpretation gain and lose; and where does the Axiom sit in the Late Antique synthesis of Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish elements that constitutes early alchemy?
Your goals
Led by Plotinus of Lycopolis Simulacrum
The question
Plotinus (c. 204-270 CE), founder of the Neoplatonist philosophical school, was not himself a magician — he was famously cool toward ritual practice — but his metaphysical doctrine of the One, the procession of being from the One through Intellect (*Nous*) and Soul (*Psychē*) into the material world, and the cosmic sympathy (*sympatheia*) that connects every level of the procession, became the metaphysical foundation on which the next thousand years of Western magic would build. The doctrine of correspondence between the celestial and terrestrial worlds, the doctrine that *like attracts like*, the doctrine that the magician operates by drawing down higher powers through their lower correspondences — all of these have their philosophical foundation in the *Enneads*. What is Plotinian metaphysics, and how does it underwrite magical practice?
Outcome
The student has read *Ennead* IV.4.40-44 (the magic treatise — short, about ten pages), *Ennead* VI.9 (on the One — the foundational treatise), and at least one other treatise of the student's choice (recommended: *Ennead* I.6 *On Beauty* or III.8 *On Nature*).
Practice scenarios
Plotinus Simulacrum walks you through *Ennead* IV.4.40-44 — the most explicit treatment of magic in the *Enneads* and the foundational text for the Neoplatonist account of why ritual practice could be philosophically respectable. Read the passage in modern translation (Armstrong's Loeb is the standard; MacKenna's older translation is more readable but less accurate). Read also *Ennead* II.9 chapters 14-16 (the parts of *Against the Gnostics* most directly relevant to the question of cosmic sympathy and benign cosmic order). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is Plotinus's account of magical efficacy; how does it relate to cosmic sympathy; where does it differ from Iamblichus's later theurgic position (which you will encounter in Module 8); and what does Plotinus's relatively cool attitude toward actual ritual practice (despite the metaphysical framework that licenses it) tell us about the philosopher-magician distinction in late antiquity?
Your goals
Led by Porphyry of Tyre Simulacrum
The question
Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-c. 305 CE) — Plotinus's pupil, biographer, and editor; author of the *Isagoge* that would become the medieval logic textbook; author of the (lost) *Against the Christians*, the most thorough pagan philosophical critique of early Christianity; author of *De Abstinentia* (on vegetarianism), *Letter to Anebo* (a sceptical interrogation of Egyptian theurgy), and *Philosophy from Oracles* — sits at a particular hinge in the Western magical tradition. He inherits Plotinus's metaphysics and shares his coolness toward ritual practice, but he also takes oracles and divine signs seriously enough to write a book on philosophical lessons drawn from them. His *Letter to Anebo*, addressed to an Egyptian priest with whom he had philosophical disagreements about theurgy, would prompt Iamblichus's *De Mysteriis* — the foundational defence of magical practice as philosophical discipline. What did Porphyry contribute, and how does his ambivalence about magic illuminate the late-antique tradition?
Outcome
The student has read the *Letter to Anebo* in modern translation (Sodano's edition is the critical text; Clarke and Dillon's *De Mysteriis* edition includes the *Letter* in English), Porphyry's *Life of Plotinus* (any modern translation; the Armstrong Loeb of the *Enneads* contains it), and a selection from *De Abstinentia*.
Practice scenarios
Porphyry Simulacrum walks you through the *Letter to Anebo* — the surviving fragments (the work survives only as Iamblichus quotes it in *De Mysteriis*; Sodano's reconstruction or Clarke/Dillon/Hershbell's English edition prefaced to *De Mysteriis* is the standard). Read the *Letter* in full (it is short — about thirty pages in modern English translation). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what are Porphyry's specific philosophical questions to Anebo (and through him to the theurgical tradition); how do these questions reflect Porphyry's broader philosophical commitments (Plotinian metaphysics, philosophical austerity, scepticism about elaborate ritual); what would a Plotinian metaphysician find theologically problematic about theurgy; and how does Porphyry's *Letter* set up the Iamblichean response in the next module?
Your goals
Led by The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum
The question
The Corpus Hermeticum — eighteen Greek philosophical-religious treatises composed in Egypt between roughly the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, attributed to the legendary figure Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, the Greek-Egyptian fusion of the god Thoth with the Greek Hermes) — would, when Marsilio Ficino translated them from Greek into Latin in 1463 (and published the *Pimander* in 1471), trigger a transformation of European intellectual life. The Renaissance read the *Corpus* as a pre-Mosaic revelation, the original ancient theology (*prisca theologia*) of which Plato and Moses were derivatives; the Renaissance was wrong about the dating but right about the importance. What does the Corpus Hermeticum actually say, and what is its place in the Western magical tradition?
Outcome
The student has read CH I (*Poimandres*), the *Asclepius*, and CH XIII in modern translation (Copenhaver's *Hermetica* is recommended), an introduction to the Hermetic tradition (Fowden or Ebeling), and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.
Practice scenarios
The Corpus Hermeticum Simulacrum walks you through CH I — the *Poimandres* — the foundational treatise of the corpus. Read it in full (Copenhaver translation; about ten pages). Read also one or two other treatises of your choice (CH X *The Key* and CH XIII *On Rebirth* are recommended). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the *Poimandres* claim — the cosmogonic vision, the descent of the soul, the path of return; how does the treatise work as religious-philosophical literature (the dialogue form, the visionary account, the doctrine of cognition as salvation); how does the *Poimandres* relate to its Greek (Stoic, Platonist), Egyptian (Hermes-Thoth tradition), and Jewish (Genesis-echoes) sources; and what is the theological-philosophical core that the Renaissance recovered when Ficino translated it?
Your goals
Led by Iamblichus of Chalcis Simulacrum
The question
Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 245-c. 325 CE), Syrian-born Neoplatonist, founder of the Syrian school of Neoplatonism, author of the *De Mysteriis* — known in Greek as *On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldaeans and Assyrians* and originally circulated under the pseudonym "the Master Abammon" in response to Porphyry's *Letter to Anebo* — produced the foundational theoretical defence of theurgical practice as a philosophical discipline. Where Plotinus had given the metaphysical framework that licensed magical practice but had not himself worked it, where Porphyry had questioned whether ritual could be reconciled with philosophical austerity, Iamblichus argued that ritual practice was *necessary* for the philosophical ascent — that pure contemplation was insufficient, that the gods must be approached through the materials, signs, and operations they had themselves established as the ladder of return. The position would shape the next fifteen hundred years of Western magical theory. What does the *De Mysteriis* actually argue, and why does it matter?
Outcome
The student has read substantial portions of the *De Mysteriis* (Books 1-3 are the most accessible and contain the core philosophical argument; Clarke/Dillon/Hershbell translation), Shaw's *Theurgy and the Soul* introduction, and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.
Practice scenarios
Iamblichus Simulacrum walks you through *De Mysteriis* Book I (the foundational philosophical-theological framework) and the relevant portions of Book II that respond directly to Porphyry's specific questions on the mechanism of theurgical operation. Read both in full. Re-read Porphyry's *Letter to Anebo* alongside (the questions Iamblichus is answering). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: how does Iamblichus answer Porphyry's central philosophical question — how can ritual practice move impassible gods; what is the doctrine of *sumbola* and *synthēmata* and how does it work; where does Iamblichus depart from Plotinian metaphysics in order to make room for theurgy; and what is at stake philosophically in the move he makes (Porphyry would say Iamblichus has compromised the metaphysics; Iamblichus would say he has saved the practice without compromising it)?
Your goals
Led by Proclus of Athens Simulacrum
The question
Proclus of Lycia (412-485 CE) — head of the Athenian Academy from c. 437 CE until his death — was the great systematiser of Neoplatonist philosophy and theurgical practice. His *Elements of Theology* (211 brief propositions, each demonstrated more geometrico, like Euclid's *Elements*) is the most rigorous philosophical treatise in the late antique tradition; his *Platonic Theology* is the most extensive systematic theology of Greek paganism produced anywhere; his *Commentaries* on the *Timaeus*, *Parmenides*, *Republic*, *Cratylus*, and *Alcibiades I* are the deepest readings of Plato to come out of the late ancient world; his theurgical works (*De Sacrificio et Magia*, on the technical aspects of ritual practice) extend Iamblichus's framework into operational detail. He is the late antique magical tradition at its philosophical peak — and through Pseudo-Dionysius (who reads Proclus and Christianises him c. 500 CE), Proclus's framework would shape Christian mystical theology for the next thousand years. What did Proclus achieve, and what is his place in the Western magical tradition?
Outcome
The student has read at least the first 50 propositions of the *Elements of Theology* (Dodds translation; the work is short and the propositions are brief), one or two of the Hymns (Robbert van den Berg's translation in *Proclus' Hymns*), and an introduction to Proclus (Siorvanes's *Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science* is recommended).
Practice scenarios
Proclus Simulacrum walks you through Propositions 1-13 of the *Elements of Theology* — the foundational propositions on the One, on unity, on plurality, on the relationship between the One and the multiplicities. Read the propositions and their demonstrations carefully (Dodds's translation is the standard; the Greek text is on facing pages). Read also one or two of Proclus's hymns. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is Proclus's philosophical method (the geometric demonstration, the rigour of derivation); how does the metaphysical system unfold in the first thirteen propositions; what does the systematic-deductive form accomplish that more discursive philosophical writing does not; and how does the Proclan synthesis represent the philosophical capstone of the late antique magical tradition that Strand 1 has traced?
Your goals
Led by Iamblichus of Chalcis Simulacrum
The question
Strand 1 has traced the foundational period of Western esotericism from Mesopotamian divination through the late Antique Neoplatonist-theurgical synthesis. The corpus the strand has assembled — the Mesopotamian divinatory archive, the Egyptian *heka* tradition, the Greek-Roman magical practice, the Hermetic literature, the Plotinian-Porphyrian-Iamblichean-Proclan philosophical framework, the Late Antique alchemical tradition begun by Mary the Jewess — would all pass into Arabic translation between the 8th and 11th centuries CE through the great translation movement based at the *Bayt al-Ḥikma* (House of Wisdom) in Abbasid Baghdad. The Islamic intellectual world would receive, organise, extend, and (through the Latin translations from Arabic in the 12th-13th centuries) return the corpus to Western Europe, where the Renaissance would recover and synthesise it. This closing module of Strand 1 pulls together what has been studied and gestures forward to Strand 2, where the Islamic synthesis and the Renaissance recovery are the principal subjects.
Outcome
The student has revisited at least three of the Strand 1 modules and produces a 1,500-word integrative essay that draws together the strand and gestures toward the Strand 2 material.
Practice scenarios
Iamblichus Simulacrum convenes a final tutorial. The integrative essay is 1,500 words. The student chooses one of the following theses and defends it, drawing on at least four primary sources from across the strand: (1) "The cosmos as living, sympathetic, hierarchically structured is the through-line of Strand 1's tradition; the differences between Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek-Roman, and Neoplatonist contributions are differences in elaboration of a shared metaphysical assumption." (2) "The strand traces a genuine evolution from technique-archive (Mesopotamia) through ritual-religious (Egypt, Greek-Roman) to philosophical-systematic (Neoplatonism); each layer adds rather than replaces, and the late Antique synthesis is the integration of all three." (3) "The strand's most important figure is not the most philosophical (Plotinus) or the most systematic (Proclus) but the one who saved the practice from being dissolved into pure metaphysics — Iamblichus — because his defence of theurgy made possible the entire subsequent transmission." (4) "The Western magical tradition is fundamentally Egyptian, with Greek philosophical garments; reading Strand 1 in chronological order makes the Egyptian substrate visible at every level."
Your goals