Neoplatonism Prayer and Invocation Tradition

This entry addresses Neoplatonism as a broader philosophical and ritual tradition beyond the two specific surviving hymns of Proclus catalogued individually elsewhere in this atlas, since Neoplatonism as a school of late antique philosophy, developed from Plotinus through Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, incorporated an extensive practice called theurgy, ritual action understood as assisting the soul's ascent toward and reunion with the divine source of reality, involving invocation and ritual technique considerably more extensive than the two surviving hymns alone can represent, material largely known today only through philosophical discussion and description in surviving Neoplatonist texts rather than through preserved liturgical scripts of the specific rituals themselves. Iamblichus in particular developed extensive theoretical justification for theurgic ritual practice within Neoplatonist philosophy, arguing against Porphyry's more purely contemplative approach that ritual action, properly understood, plays a necessary role in the soul's return to the divine, a genuine internal philosophical debate within ancient Neoplatonism this entry notes without attempting to adjudicate.

Contemporary academic and philosophical interest in Neoplatonism has also produced a smaller number of modern organizations and study groups seeking to revive Neoplatonist philosophical and, in some cases, ritual practice, generally developing their own specific contemporary teaching material and ritual adaptation rather than claiming unbroken transmission from the ancient schools, which effectively ended as organized institutions following the closure of the Platonic Academy in Athens under Emperor Justinian in 529 CE.

Because ancient theurgic ritual technique is known mainly through philosophical description rather than preserved liturgical scripts, and because modern organizations working with this material develop their own specific and separately owned interpretive and ritual content, this entry limits itself to describing ancient Neoplatonism's general theurgic practice and the existence of modern interpretive interest in it, rather than presenting any specific ancient reconstruction or modern organization's ritual material as authoritative or representative of the tradition as a whole. Plotinus, generally regarded as Neoplatonism's founding figure, was notably more reserved about ritual theurgy than his successors, emphasizing contemplative philosophical ascent instead, so the tradition's own internal history already contains real disagreement about how central ritual practice should be to genuine philosophical and spiritual progress.