Gregory Shaw Interview

In this episode, Justin and Monte have a long discussion with Professor Gregory Shaw regarding various topics, including Church of Thessaly, Iamblichus and Theurgy.

[Christoth]

Another great interview! Pls keep em coming. :D

[joshuaschmude]

The experience of the whooshing sound gave me chills bro. I had a similar experience but in a dream with the same whooshing sounds. What shape geometrically where the flowers? When the God posseses you, it often appears as a geometric shape which may take on a material form but the underlying image is something like a triangle or square or circle. Jung gets into this in his Psychology and Alchemy and Aion when he talks about the God image in the soul. Iamblichus describes this whooshing sound and says it is a sign of divine possession. The God, says Iamblichus, after possession, "sends forth its attendant daemons." This is another enamation from the one descending further into matter. According to the Chaldean Oracles, as the one decends further down to matter the divine fire illuminating the vision of these daemons seems more obscure. The theurgist, after receiving such a series of inner experiences then ascends back up to the God using the proper sunthema and sunthemata. Based on my own inner experiences, the daemons are actually instrumental in this process of ascent so they are the ones which provide the theurgist with the proper name and symbols after the theurgist has already had the initial divine possession experience. They also seem to ensure the theurgist transforms usually through an experience of suffering and separation from an old way of life. Seeing them is described as terrible in On The Mysteries and this is very true. For me it was a mixture of terror and awe. I do not feel these beings are evil per se but that our terms of good and bad are relative. They play an important role in cosmogensis and are garuntors of divine justice. Exchanging one life for another is the consumation of the union with the God and the daemons are essential in that process. Iamblichus is describing inner experiences of a particular kind which have been happening and continue to happen even into our present time. Plato's Symposium also alludes to this inner experience using Socrates and Diotima as Psychopomps initiating the reader into the mysteries in which Socrates is "like the statues of Silenus, far from beautiful on the outside BUT FULL OF LOVELY FIGURES OF THE GODS INSIDE."

[skillfulmeans]

you should have let the professor speak.

[shub]

I thought the interview was with Shaw and not about you.