sdi | Proclus on Magic

I found this extract concerning magic from Proclus' Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato in The Platonist vol. 1, nos. 8–10, p. 116 (and translated by Thomas Taylor). I thought it might be of interest to several people here. (In particular, it specifically refutes a comment I myself made to violetcabra not long ago. :p )

(I apologize for the hasty transcription, but I haven't much time today! Please forgive any errors.)

[There is no doubt but what the following treatise on Magic formed a part of Proclus' Commentary on the First Alcibiades, though the original Greek of it is not extant. It exists only in the Latin version of Marsilius Ficinus, and was first published at Venice in 1497, in a volume entitled "Procli de Anima ac Dæmone, de Sacrificio et Magia."
"Magic," according to Psellos in his work on Dæmons, "formed the last part of the sacerdotal science. It investigates the nature, power, and quality of everything sublunary, viz.: of the elements and their parts, of animals, all various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs; and, in short, it explores the essence and power of everything. From hence, therefore, it produces its effects. And it forms statues which procure health, makes all-various figures, and things which become the instruments of disease. It asserts, too, that eagles and dragons contribute to health; but that cats, dogs, and crows are symbols of vigilance, to which therefore they contribute. But for the fashioning of certain parts, wax and clay are used. Often, too, celestial fire is made to appear through magic; and then statues laugh, and lamps are spontaneously enkindled."
It will doubtless be objected by most of the present period, who believe in nothing beyond the information of their senses, that plants, animals, and stones no longer possess those wonderful sympathetic powers which are mentioned by Proclus in the following extract. In answer to any such objector, whose little soul, in the language of the Emperor Julianus, is indeed acute, but sees nothing with a vision healthy and sound, it must be said that this is not at all wonderful at a period when, as the author of the Ascleplan dialogue justly observes, "there is a lamentable departure of divinity from man, when nothing worthy of heaven or celestial concerns is heard or believed, and when every divine voice is by a necessary silence dumb." But to the philosophic reader it must be observed that, as in the realms of generation, or in other words the sublunary region, wholes, viz. the spheres of the different elements remain perpetually according to nature; but their parts are sometimes according, and sometimes contrary, to nature—this must also be true of the parts of the earth. When those circulations, therefore, take place, during which the parts of the earth subsist according to nature, and which are justly called by Plato fertile periods, the powers of plants, animals, and stones magically sympathize with superior natures, in consequence of a more abundant participation of them, through a greater degree of aptitude to receive, and alliance to the participated powers. But during those circulations, in which the parts of the earth subsist contrary to nature, as at present, and which Plato calls barren periods, the powers of plants, animals, and stones no longer possess a magic sympathy, and consequently are no longer capable of producing magical operations.
Proclus, in the 140th proposition of his Elements of Theology, says: "Hence also in last natures there are representations of such as are first, and all things sympathize with all; secondary indeed pre-existing in first natures, but first natures presenting themselves to the view in such as are second. For everything subsists in a threefold manner, either according to cause, or according to hyparxis, or according to participation." Thus, too, Hippocrates: "There is one conflux, one conspiration, and all things sympathize with all" He who under stands this will see that the magic cultivated by the ancient philosophers is founded in a theory no less sublime than rational and true. Such a one will survey the universe as one great animal, all of whose parts are in union and consent with each other; so that nothing is foreign and detached; nothing, strictly speaking, void of sympathy and life. For though various parts of the world, when considered as separated from the whole, are destitute of peculiar life; yet they possess some degree of animation, however inconsiderable, when viewed with relation to the universe. Life indeed may be compared to a perpetual and universal sound; and the soul of the world resembles a lyre, or some other musical iustrument, from which we may suppose this sound to be emitted. But from the unbounded diffusion as it were of the mundane soul, every thing participates of this harmonical sound, in greater or less perfection, according to the dignity of its nature. So that while life everywhere resounds, the most abject of beings may be said to retain a faint echo of the melody produced by the mundane lyre. It was doubtless from profoundly considering this sympathy between the mundane soul and the parts of the world that the ancient philosophers were enabled to procure the presence of divinity, and produce effects beyond the comprehension of the vulgar. And that this was the opinion of Plotinus, the following passage evinces: "It appears to me that the ancient wise men, who wished to procure the presence of the deities, by fabricating statues and performing sacred rites, directed their Intellectual eye to the nature of the universe, and perceived that the nature of soul was everywhere easy to be attracted when a proper subject was at hand, easily passive to its influence. But everything adapted to imitation is readily passive, and is, like a mirror, able to seize a certain form and reflect it to the view." (Enneads 4, lib. 3.)]
"By the first of these instructors they are taught the magic of Zoroaster the son of Ahura Mazda, by which magic is meant the worship of the Divinities."—First Alcibiades.
In the same manner as lovers gradually advance from that beauty which is apparent in sensible forms to that which is divine; so the ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity. Thus they recognized things supreme in such as are subordinate, and the subordinate in the supreme—in the celestial regions terrene properties subsisting in a causal and celestial manner, and in earth celestial properties, existing according to a terrene condition. For how shall we account for those plants called heliotropes—that is, attendants on the sun—moving in correspondence with the revolution of its orb; and selenotropes, or attendants on the moon, turning in exact conformity to her motion? It is because all things pray, and hymn the leaders of their respective orders; some intellectually, and others rationally; some in a natural, and others after a sensible manner. Hence the sunflower, as far as it is able, moves in a circular dance toward the sun; so that if any one could hear the pulsation made by its circuit in the air, he would perceive something composed by a sound of this kind in honor of its king, such as a plant is capable of framing. Hence, too, we may behold the sun and moon in the earth, but according to a terrene quality; and in the celestial regions all plants, and stones, and animals possessing an intellectual life according to a celestial nature. Now, the ancients, having contemplated this mutual sympathy of things, applied for occult purposes both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode. For, indeed, similitude itself is a sufficient cause of binding things together in union and consent. Thus, if a piece of paper is heated and after wards placed near a lamp, though it does not touch the fire, the paper will be suddenly inflamed, and the flames will descend from the superior to the inferior parts. This heated paper we may compare to a certain relation of inferiors to superiors; and its approximation to the lamp, to the opportune use of things according to time, place, and matter. But the procession of fire into the paper aptly represents the presence of divine light, to that nature which is capable of its reception. Lastly, the inflammation of the paper may be compared to the deification of mortals and to the illumination of material natures, which are afterwards carried upward like the enkindled paper, from a certain participation of divine seed.
Again: the lotus, before the rising of the Sun, folds its leaves into itself, but gradually expands them on its rising; unfolding them in proportion to the Sun’s ascent to the zenith, and as gradually contracting them as that luminary descends to the west. Hence this plant, by the expansion and contraction of its leaves, appears no less to honor the Sun, than men by the gesture of their eyelids, and the motion of their lips. But this imitation and certain participation of supernal light is not only visible in plants, which possess nothing more than a vestige of life, but likewise in particular stones. Thus the sun-stone by its golden rays imitates those of the Sun; but the stone called the eye of heaven, or of the Sun, has a figure similar to the pupil of an eye, and a ray shines from the middle of the pupil. Thus too the lunar stone, which has a figure similar to the Moon when horned, by a certain change of itself follows the lunar motion. Lastly, the stone called helioselenus—i.e., of the Sun and Moon —imitates after a manner the congress of those luminaries, which it images by its color. So that all things are full of divine natures; terrestial natures receiving the plenitude of such as are celestial, but celestial of supercelestial essences; while every order of things proceeds gradually in a beautiful descent from the highest to the lowest. For whatever particulars are collected into one above the order of things, are afterwards dilated in descending, various souls being distributed under various ruling divinities.
In the next place there are many solar animals, such as lions and cocks, which participate, according to their nature, of a certain solar divinity; whence it is wonderful how much inferiors yield to superiors in the same order, though they do not yield jn magnitude and power. Hence it is said that a cock is very much feared and, as it were, reverenced by a lion; the reason of which we cannot assign from matter or sense, but from the contemplation alone of a supernal order. For thus we shall find that the presence of the solar virtue accords more with a cock than with a lion. This will be evident from considering that the cock as it were with certain hymns applauds and calls to the rising Sun when he bends his course to us from the antipodes; and that solar angels sometimes appear in forms of this kind, who, though they are without shape, yet present themselves to us who are connected with shape, in some sensible form. Sometimes, too, there are dæmons with a leonine front who, when a cock is placed before them, unless they are of a solar order, suddenly disappear; and this because those natures which have an inferior rank in the same order always reverence their superiors; just as many, on beholding the images of divine men, are accustomed from the very view to be fearful of perpetrating anything base.
In fine, some things turn round correspondent to the revolutions of the Sun, as the plants which we have mentioned, and others, after a manner, imitate the solar rays, as the palm and date; and some the fiery nature of the Sun, as the laurel; and others a different property. For indeed we may perceive that the properties which are collected in the Sun are everywhere distributed to subsequent natures constituted in a solar order; that is, to angels, dæmons, souls, animals, plants, and stones. Hence, the authors of the ancient priesthood discovered from things apparent the worship of superior powers, while they mingled some things and purified others. They mingled many things indeed together, because they saw that some simple substances possessed a divine property (though not taken singly) sufficient to call down that particular power of which they were participants.
Hence, by the mingling of many things together, they attracted upon us a supernal influx; and by the composition of one thing from many, they produced an assimilation to that one which is above many, and composed statues from the mixture of various substances conspiring in sympathy and consent. Besides this, they collected composite odors by a divine art into one, comprehending a multitude of powers, and symbolizing with the unity of a divine essence; considering that division debilitates each of those, but that mingling them together restores them to the idea of their exemplar.
But sometimes one herb or one stone is sufficient to a divine operation. Thus, as a thistle is sufficient to procure the sudden appearance of some superior power; but a laurel, vaccinum (or a thorny kind of a sprig), the land and sea onion, the coral, the diamond, and the jasper, operate as a safeguard. The heart of a mole is subservient to divination, but sulphur and marine water to purification. Hence the ancient priests, by the mutual relation and sympathy of things to each other, collected their virtues into one, but expelled them by repugnancy and antipathy; purifying where it was requisite, with sulphur and bitumen, and sprinkling with marine water. For sulphur purifies from the sharpness of its odor; but marine water on account of its fiery portion. Besides this, in the worship of the gods they offered animals, and other substances congruous to their nature; and received in the first place the powers of dæmons, as proximate to natural substances and operations, and by these natural substances they convoked into their presence those powers to which they approached. Afterwards they proceeded from dæmon to the powers and energies of the gods; partly, indeed, from dæmoniacal instruction, but partly from their own industry, interpreting convenient symbols, and ascending to a proper intelligence of the gods. And lastly, laying aside natural substances and their operations, they received themselves into the communion and fellowship of the gods.

Proclus on Magic

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