Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity by Algis Uždavinys

Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity Reviews

• 
  Monty Milne

  After reading this, I now think about the roots of western philosophy in a completely different way. The author’s startling premise (startling to me, anyway) is that the philosophy of the ancient Greeks was essentially a development of ancient Egyptian religion:
  
  “Plato’s contribution to western philosophy was that he put into terms understandable to his contemporaries, and thereby made accessible, teachings that were essentially esoteric and hitherto had been wrapped in secrecy, under the protection of the Egyptian priesthood.”
  
  Ancient Greek philosophy, certainly when I first encountered it at school, was presented as a kind of foreshadowing of Victorian Anglo Saxon achievements in science and rationality. Even as a youth I felt that was a partial and unsatisfactory presentation – the images flickering in Plato’s cave were too poetic and mysterious to be fully accessible to the cold light of reason. In this book the philosophers are presented primarily as poets and mystics.
  
  I found this intriguing and fresh, and I can see the connections between the wisdom literature of ancient Egypt and the Near East, including the Bible, and the Greeks. This is no easy read, and I felt stretched as I struggled with some of the text, but it was worthwhile. Wisdom, according to the author, is the exercise of our intellectual capacities by focusing on that which is eternal and unchanging. Alas, the author himself is no longer with us to share his insights: he died of a heart attack in 2010 at the age of only 48, a great loss to the western wisdom tradition in general, and Lithuanian academia in particular.
  
• 
  Ryan Denson

  This is quite a challenging read. It is certainly not intended to be an introductory text to the principles of theurgy, as the simplistic title might suggest. Instead, it is a dense academic read with a multitude of Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian terms that one would need to understand. One of the author’s main premises is that philosophy in antiquity was originally a deep, usually mystical, way of living, rather than merely the antecedent of what we would now call philosophy. The author thoroughly examines the similarities between Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity and the ancient Egyptian religion. Again, there is lot of material here and I think even after several readings of this, one would still find something new each time. I suppose it’s an excellent work for anyone interested in hard to comprehend metaphysics, but it’ll be quite a headache for anyone else.
• 
  Maan Kawas

  Another great book by Algis Uždavinys!
• 
  John Thumos

  While definitely not a "beginner" book, it is one of the best on late antique Platonism. With refreshing admiration and inspiring depth, this book can create a very real sense of connection and reverence for the holy intertwined world of the late antique pagan world-view.