Stargates | 'Terrestrial Gods and Statues of Light' presented by Wouter Hanegraaff

In this lecture Wouter Hanegraaf (University of Amsterdam) discusses the famous (or notorious) passages about animated statues in the Asclepius, an important Hermetic treatise in Latin that is based on a lost Greek original known as the Logos Teleios. It is well known that Augustine condemned Hermes Trismegistus’ praise of what Christians were bound to see as idolatry; and the Hermetic practice of statue animation came to be seen as a model of talismanic magic since William of Auvergne. First of all, he places Hermes’ discussion with his pupil Asclepius about statues in the social and political context of third-century Roman Egypt; secondly, he argues that it is most plausibly interpreted in the context of Iamblichean theurgy; thirdly, he tries to answer the question of how we may explain the conviction of practitioners that statues could actually come alive; and finally, he discusses the connection of these “god-making passages” to the other famous part of the Asclepius, Hermes’ lament about the imminent decline of Egypt.

[@petermarkadams]

As late as the 12th century Constantinople’s statues, collected from every
corner of the Empire by Constantine, were treated as possessed of the powerful
agency of their resident gods and daemons whose aid could be petitioned by
those ‘in the know.’ In the Forum of Constantine stood two statues; one called
‘the Roman woman,’ the other ‘the Hungarian woman.’ Whilst campaigning
against the Hungarians, the 12th century Emperor, Manuel Comnenus, learned
that ‘the Roman’ had toppled over. Understanding the fateful implications of
this event and seeking to reverse its potentially catastrophic effects he ordered
the statue to be re-set and ‘the Hungarian’ to be toppled over in its place, thus
deflecting the trajectory of revealed fate.

[@fernandojavierblancoesmori3914]

Gracias por su lección. Saludos desde argentina. 🧙🏽

[@caneskinazi280]

In the video I'm linking to, we may have in front of us an instance of a contemporary practice of the theurgic art. It was very interesting to see how the quotations from Asclepius describe almost perfectly what Sadhguru is (or is claiming to be) doing here: ua-cam.com/video/A876Dz16F7k/v-deo.html