What modern people call "mysticism" is just vague, feminine spirituality. What in the past gets identified with "mysticism" is just Platonism. Sometimes the former is just a vaguer restatement of the latter.
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Replying to @Oppianus
Hard disagree on this. What we call mysticism is reified apophatic theology which results in progressive renunciation of all things human to attain a union with the divine.
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Replying to @Oppianus
Pseudo-Dionysius had an essential influence on Middle Age mystics through his reception as an author of near-apostolic degree of authority
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Replying to @nastyinmuhtaxi
And Pseudo-Dionysius was just restating Proclus and Iamblichus. Also Christian ascetic discipline was very early on broken down according to the Aristotelean distinction between the practical and theoretical (in Evagrius). The former purifies the latter by way of negation.
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Replying to @Oppianus @nastyinmuhtaxi
And Dionysius has the metaphor of the statue which is revealed by the removal of the marble, an ironic use of an image to stand in for the purgation of images.
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Replying to @Oppianus
It's taken from Plotinus' second Ennead. But I agree with you on Dionysius simply restating Proclus and Iamblichus, however his removal of the theurgical aspect of Proclus (which is not entirely self-evident) was decisive for his reception as a major theologian
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Replying to @nastyinmuhtaxi
But it wasn't removed, it was just limited to the Christian sacraments. And Augustine said in a sermon that what the Platonists called theurgy the Christians called sacraments.
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Replying to @Oppianus
Actually it's from the first Ennead, 6. I feel there is a deep rift between theurgy as conceived of in Proclus (the Hieratikè) and that in Plotinus and thence Porphyry. Also, mystics wouldn't derive their union with God from the sacraments, Theresa didn't even attend communion.
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(Communion isn't a sacrament, but it gives the idea of one whose approach to the religious experience is silent, as in contemplative theurgy, opposed to the symbolic one of Proclus who danced with an asparagus in each hand to meet Fire Demons and ask them for exegesis of Plato)
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