Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul

Description

Here is an astute study on the neo-Platonic concept of the vehicle of the soul, which writers such as Iamblichus and Proclus primarily based their interpretations on Plato's creation myth in the Timaeus and the soul's charioteer in the Phaedrus myth (no less important is the interpretaion of the Chaldean Oracles which overtly dogmatized the belief in the soul's vehicle). They also utilized select quotations from the writings of Aristotle to harmonize his works with Plato's to back their claims and further validate their thesis that these two authorities believed in the oxema-pnuema, an aetherial substance that not only linked to incorporeal soul to its body but also forged a link to the higher beings which were ordered according to an ontological hierarchy rooted in the One, processing from hyper-cosmic gods to the encosmic gods and sinking to its lowest projection in the divine souls, such as angels, daemons and heroes. The soul of man is in one shape or form “connected” to this ontological hierarchy and could thereby ascend or descend according to this order depending on one's disposition in this life or the next. Featured here are Finamore's distinction between the Porphyrian view on the soul's vehicle from that of Iamblichus; also, their views as to the nature and necessity of the art of theurgy in the soul's ascent to its higher god/gods, as was presented the 'De Mysteriis' where the priest Anebo (ostensibly Iamblichus) rebuts the more critcal view of Porphyry catalouged in his 'Letter to Anebo.' Overall, this a truly scholarly work that is very well researched, well written and backed by a plethora of citations from the original sources. When on reads this, the amount of data one will glean from this reading is truly mind-blowing. This work is a perfect dissertation on the neo-Platonic doctrine of the soul's vehicle.