How to Deal With the Evil Daimones
How to Deal With the Evil Daimones

Apotropaic Rituals of the Third and Fourth Centuries CE According to Porphyry, Iamblichus, and the Greek Magical Papyri

Author(s): Tiana Blazevic
Subject(s): History, Ancient World, Theology and Religion, History of Religion
Published by: Trivent Publishing
Keywords: Neoplatonism; Ritual Control; Magic; Theurgy; Daimones; Apotropaic; Egypt; Greco-Roman Magic; Ritual; Demonology
Summary/Abstract: This chapter analyses the self-styling of Porphyry and Iamblichus as Priestly-Philosophers and divine theurgists who were competing against the ritualists of the so-called magical papyri. Using an anthropological perspective and a close reading of the relevant texts, this study establishes that knowledge of daimones was unequivocally tied up in the production and negotiation of power relations in late antiquity. This chapter will demonstrate the striking similarities between Neoplatonic daimonic theories and the magical papyri. This chapter is also the first serious attempt at looking at the practical aspects of late antique demonology in pagan writers.

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