ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complex relationship between divination, rationality and ritual, and modern conceptions of 'rationality' and 'irrationality', in order to set in high relief the way in which such concepts have affected interpretations of the relationship between theurgy and philosophy, and the positions held by Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus on these matters. Berchman has demonstrated that scholars of Neoplatonism have generally relied on a hypothetico-deductive model of rationality, with a notion of correspondence rules which specify the procedure for applying theoretical terms to observed happenings. Both Iamblichus' notion of the 'intellectual and incorporeal' theurgy and Plotinus' conception of mystical union with the One need to be conceived of as 'ritual'. Furthermore, theurgy is considered to involve the attainment of supra-rational cognitive states, with supra-rationality envisaged as marking both the culmination and the transcendence of rationality.
