A History of Light

A History of Light
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A History of Light
The Idea of Photography
Junko Theresa Mikuriya
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Cover Photograph by Junko Theresa Mikuriya, ‘Eight Hours of Sleep 12:30 am–8:30 am’
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

In memory of my mother Mary Kwok Chiu Tse
and His Holiness Grandmaster Lin Yun
vi
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on References ix
Introduction 1
1 Plato’s Allegorical Camera-cave 11
2 Plato’s Chora and the Uneasy Place of Photography 33
3 Iamblichus’s Receptacle of Light 57
4 Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos 83
5 Marsilio Ficino: Light and Photosensitivity 95
Coda 121
Notes 127
Bibliography 159
Index 169
Acknowledgements
This book would not have come into being without the guidance and support
of Howard Caygill and John Hutnyk, whose erudition, intellectual rigour,
insightfulness and generosity have continued to inspire me. I would like to
thank Peg Rawes and Scott McQuire for their extensive and detailed comments
on an earlier version of this project. I am also grateful to Scott Lash for his
interest in my work. The Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University
of London provided me with a nurturing and stimulating environment for
intellectual growth. I would like to thank Sean McKeown, Joel McKim, Lisa
Power, Craig Smith and Benny Lu. I am also deeply grateful to James Burton
for his encouragement, generosity and friendship, and for the many inspiring
discussions that we’ve had about this project in its earlier incarnations. I would
like to thank Peter Bennett, Mark Cousins, Garin Dowd, Michelle Henning, Jon
Kear, Linda Lai, Aphrodite Papayianni, Grant Pooke, Ben Thomas, Nancy Tong,
Hector Rodriguez and Peter Whelan for their support and belief in me. Parts
of Chapter 1 formed the basis of an article that appeared in Stimulus-Respond
(October 2007). I would like to thank the editor for permission to re-use some
of this material.
I owe a great deal to my sister Frances for her love and sustenance; her
strength and willpower serve as an inspiration that constantly spurs me
onwards. I am grateful to Her Holiness Khadro Crystal Chu Rinpoche for her
encouragement and guidance throughout the years. I am deeply indebted to
His Holiness Grandmaster Lin Yun, whose infinite wisdom, compassion and
love are like the rays of the sun. This book is dedicated to him and my mother.
Notes on References
Unless otherwise indicated, all references to the Platonic Dialogues are drawn
from The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton
and Huntington Cairns. 11th edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1982. This includes Phaedo, trans. Hugh Tredinnick; Republic, trans. Paul
Shorey; Sophist, trans. F. M. Cornford; and Timaeus, trans. Benjamin Jowett.
In Chapter 3, DM refers to Iamblichus, De mysteriis, trans. Emma Clarke,
John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell, Writings from the Greco-Roman
World 4. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.
x
Introduction
Photography is difficult (chalepon). Elusive both theoretically and materially,

it is often described as having no identity of its own. It is treacherous – at
times it hides behind its object of depiction, other times concealing itself
underneath its bedazzling technical splendour. Its apparent instability belies
its generosity; its hospitality is such that its boundaries are porous and
mutable, inviting the encroachment of others. Hence photography is often
considered to be overly reliant upon its surroundings; attempts to define and
to theorize photography would reduce it to a set of cultural, social, political
or technological productions, identifying its history solely as the development
of the photographic camera, or the inevitable outcome of a changing aesthetic
sensibility.
As a topic of enquiry, the history of photography has produced a vast corpus
consisting of divergent strands. Some of these titles are recognized as classics in
the field, such as The Origins of Photography by Helmut Gernsheim, Beaumont
Newhall’s The History of Photography and Georges Potonniée’s The History of
the Discovery of Photography. These works present a historical narrative of
the medium through the figure of the grand photographer, the evolution of
artistic and photographic movements as well as the development of various
film and camera technologies. They also tend to prioritize a historical account
of photography which is told through an established canon of photographers
while overlooking the usage of photography in other domains. However, there
are also historical studies that place a stronger emphasis on the cultural and
social implications of the photographic medium, such as Michel Frizot’s The
New History of Photography, Jean-Claude Lemagny and André Rouillé’s A
History of Photography and Mary Warner Marien’s Photography: A Cultural
History. Any attempt to write a history or theory of photography would have
to address the challenges presented by the ubiquity of the photographic image
and the changing forms of its technological manifestations. To find productive
ways to engage with the photographic medium, photo historians and theorists
have drawn upon discourses in psychoanalysis, feminist theory, literary studies,
art criticism, deconstruction, Foucauldian historiography, Marxism, semiotics,
cultural theory and other disciplines.
2 A History of Light
What all of these works have in common is the recognition of the camera
obscura as the site of origin of the photographic camera and the necessary
condition for the production of the photographic image. When constructing
a genealogy of photography, the camera obscura is frequently considered as
the technical apparatus that gave rise to the photographic camera. This is, for
example, reflected in the title of a 1955 work by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim,
The History of Photography from the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the
Eleventh Century up to 1914. As a technical process, the invention of photog-
raphy is usually situated around the 1820s, with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s
heliograph View from a Window at Gras (c. 1827) marking the moment that an
image can be captured and fixed successfully inside a camera obscura. Further
chemical experimentations led to several independent inventions that emerged
around the same time – in France, the daguerreotype (Louis Jacques Mandé
Daguerre) and l’effet positif or the direct positive (Hippolyte Bayard), and in
England, the calotype (William Henry Fox Talbot). However, as Geoffrey
Batchen has shown in Burning with Desire, the history of photography is much
more complex; instead of a single origin, Batchen suggests that photography is
the outcome of a particular set of cultural conditions and aesthetic sensibility to
emerge at the end of the eighteenth century. Before we look at Batchen’s work,
it might be worthwhile to examine some of the problems arising from attempts
to theorize or conceptualize photography.
The ubiquity of the photographic medium – how it is entrenched in every
aspect of our lives – contributes to the seemingly nebulous character of the
photograph. In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes, describing his ‘ontological
desire’ to search for what Photography is in ‘itself ’, writes: ‘[S]uch a desire
really meant that beyond the evidence provided by technology and usage, and
despite its tremendous contemporary expansion, I wasn’t sure that Photography
existed, that it had a “genius” of its own.’1 Barthes’s comment reflects the
anxiety that arises from attempts to conceptualize and locate photography.
Thirty years on, the question of ‘what photography is’ still constitutes a topic of
heated discussion, as seen in a round-table discussion chaired by James Elkins
at University College Cork, Ireland in 2005.2 The ubiquity of the photograph
is undoubtedly a source of this problem as highlighted by Sabine Kriebel, in
an essay that appears in the same volume as the edited transcript of the panel
discussion in Cork. Kriebel asks what we should consider when writing about
the photographic medium: is it photographic practice, the photographic object,
its function or the genre of photography (such as documentary, landscape, fine
art, portraiture, or snapshot)?3
Introduction 3
In those early years of photography, following François Arago’s decla-

ration in 1839 to the Académie des Sciences, presenting the daguerreotype as
France’s gift to the world, photography was immediately incorporated into the
fabric of the social structure of the time. The photographic image infiltrated
portraiture (replacing miniature painting), astronomy, tourism (postcards,
stereoscopic images), pornography, medicine and criminology (classification of
criminal types). If the pervasive characteristic of the photograph is described
as a radiating light upon its inception, literature from the nineteenth century
often comparing photography to the sun, perhaps it is precisely this blinding
brightness that constitutes the elusive nature of the photographic medium,
making it a difficult subject to write and theorize about.
These uncertainties regarding photography’s identity are played out in
various ways. For example, John Tagg turns Barthes’s ontological concern for
photography’s lack of identity into the basis for an examination of it as a social
and cultural technology. In his work on photography’s complicit relationship
with the political apparatus and its role in the construction of the individual and
the state, Tagg examines photography solely as a technological tool defined by
a set of social and cultural practices. In The Burden of Representation, he writes:
Photography as such has no identity. Its status as a technology varies with the
power relations which invest it. Its nature as a practice depends on the institu-
tions and agents which define it and set it to work … Its history has no unity. It
is a flickering across a field of institutional spaces. It is this field we must study,
not photography as such.4
Looking at photography uniquely through the perspective of technological

production, ‘across a field of institutional spaces’, is problematic and restrictive
because it gives priority to photography’s efficiency as a technological tool and
the ways in which it is embedded within the system of its production and usage.
Furthermore, Tagg’s statement is indicative of a reductionist attitude towards
the medium and presumes an absence of photography’s being. Mary Price in
The Photograph: A Strange, Confined Space presents another viewpoint drawing
upon literary studies; she observes that ‘photographs without appropriate
descriptive words are deprived and weakened, but that descriptions of even
invented photographs may adumbrate a richness of use that can extend the
possibilities of interpreting actual photographs’.5 For Price, the photograph is
defined by its context; the subordination of the photographic image to language
is such that even the description of an imaginary photograph can be more
powerful than a real one if the latter is not accompanied by words.
As we have seen so far, it seems that photographic theory is unable to divorce

itself from the camera as a technological apparatus. A similar viewpoint is
reflected by Joel Snyder, whose debate with Rosalind Krauss on medium speci-
ficity and the notion of indexicality continues to this day. Whereas Krauss is
interested in examining photography through the concept of the index or trace,
in particular its link with what Barthes calls the referent – the thing or person
photographed, for Snyder the photograph is nothing but pure construction
and has no connection with the natural world; the images produced by the
camera obey a specific set of rules that conform to Renaissance perspective.6
Snyder’s viewpoint echoes that of Tagg’s, who rejects Barthes’s reading of the
photograph as ‘an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art’.7 Addressing
Barthes, specifically his search to find the unique being of his mother through
photography, Tagg writes: ‘The photograph is not a magical “emanation” but
a material product of a material apparatus set to work in specific contexts, by
specific forces, for more or less defined purposes.’8
Geoffrey Batchen’s work enables us to move beyond the restrictive discourses
of Snyder and Tagg by searching for the ‘identity of photography in the history of
its origins’.9 In Burning with Desire, he proposes instead to look at the emergence
of the ‘desire to photograph’, before the official announcement of the invention
of photography in the mid-nineteenth century. In his search for the origins of
photography, he singles out the last two decades of the eighteenth century as a
crucial moment, identifying a list of proto-photographers, ‘those who recorded
or subsequently claimed for themselves the pre-1839 onset of a desire to photo-
graph’.10 He links the birth of photography to the rise of modernity, marked by a
crisis of representation in which new configurations of power and subject/object
relations are established. The uncertainty towards nature and its representations
is echoed throughout the early nineteenth century, where man is no longer seen
as a passive recipient but an active agent. Alongside the inventors of photography,
Batchen sees the writings of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the picturesque
theorist and classical scholar Richard Payne Knight, and the Reverend William
Gilpin as exemplifying the emergence of a new form of subjectivity where man
is simultaneously the subject and object of his knowledge.
Burning with Desire succeeds in revealing the ambivalent nature of the
origins of photography. By questioning the timing of photography’s conception,
the book can be seen as an attempt to rewrite photography’s history. What is
assumed to be of a fixed origin, the discovery of photography, in fact possesses
multiple beginnings and cannot be attributed to a single individual.11 Batchen
identifies a specific period in history where certain discourses emerge which
Introduction 5
point to a shift in the organization of the human subject – the period that
directly precedes the invention of photography, noting the sudden irruption of
photographic-like discourses in art, literature and science in the era preceding
the 1830s: ‘Clearly it was only possible to think “photography” at this specific
historical conjuncture; photography as a conceptual economy thus has an
identifiable historical and cultural specificity. This is why the principal question
… has been not “Who invented photography?” but rather “Within which
specific dynamic of cultural/social forces was it possible for photography to be
thought by anybody?”’12
Batchen’s project, although admirable in many ways, still falls into a theori-
zation of photography that is bound up with its technological status. For his
rewriting of photographic history situates the origins of photography in the
late 1700s, thus identifying the medium as a product of a ‘modern’ sensibility,
arising from a crisis of representation. He writes:
Much more overwhelming in this regard is the vast absence, prior to this period,
of talk along the lines I have described. From a virtual dearth of signs of a desire
to photograph, the historical archive reveals the onset only in the last decade of
the eighteenth century of a rapidly growing, widely dispersed, and increasingly
urgent need for that-which-was-to-become-photography.13
I disagree with Batchen’s argument that the thought of photography was only
made possible in the last decade of the eighteenth century. For to desire photog-
raphy is already to be conscious of it, or of something that is akin to it. This
sudden irruption of photographic-like discourse in art, literature and science in
the late 1700s is in fact the rationalization of photography. I argue instead that
the invention of photography is only the material manifestation of that which
has always existed.
Against the widespread tendency to associate the origins of photography
with the nineteenth-century inventions of Niépce, Daguerre, Talbot and others,
I argue that as a philosophical project, photography goes further back in time
than what is generally recognized as the period of its inception, the nineteenth
century. In fact, its presence can be uncovered right at the roots of Western
metaphysics, within discourses of magic, mysticism and spiritual practice.
Instead of locating the origin of photography at the site of the camera obscura,
I will complicate the history of the medium and suggest that intimations of
photography can be found in the core of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought.
One of the aims of this book is to question the all-too-ready dismissal of
photography by historians and critics as a medium with no inherent qualities,
the assumption of it being nothing more than a technological system of visual

representation based upon Renaissance perspective. To address the often-
reductive discourses on photography, I propose a different way of thinking
about photography in terms of photagogia or the ‘evoking of light’. As I have
said, while Tagg, Price and others have all engaged with photography in
diverse and productive ways, reflecting upon the various problematics of
photography, they often take the conditions that produced the object of their
critique as a given, thus omitting to examine the underlying reasons behind,
for example, photography’s apparent lack of identity, which, I argue, can be
considered as something other than the weakness of the medium but an
outcome of that which is much more complex. As a consequence, instead of
delving into the reasons underlying photography’s mutability, the volatility
of the photograph is often accepted as an a priori and one of the failings of
the medium. I suggest that the uncertainty experienced when confronting
the medium can be conveyed by the Greek word chalepon (χαλεπόν), a word
which frequently appears in the Platonic dialogues. I am inspired by John
Sallis’s use of the word in his reading of Plato. In The Verge of Philosophy he
writes: ‘How, then, is it possible to read Platonic dialogues together in a way
that is both critical and productive? What needs, above all, to be stressed
can perhaps best be expressed by a word found often in these texts, the word
χαλεπόν’.14
This book attempts to explore that which lies behind photography’s diffi-
cultness (χαλεπότης), by examining how photography is already implicated in
Western thought, before the arrival of its technical regeneration as the photog-
raphy with which we are all familiar. By showing how photography has always
been parasitic upon the history of philosophy and by uncovering the dreams
of photographein concealed within theurgy and mysticism, I hope to open up
new possibilities in reading photography, which in turn will shed light on the
ways in which we reflect upon the history of Western philosophy. Both Barthes
and Benjamin have alluded to the presence of magic in their encounters with
photography; these observations have curiously gone unnoticed or perhaps even
been deliberately overlooked by subsequent thinkers.15 As we have seen earlier,
Barthes describes the photograph as ‘an emanation of past reality: a magic, not
an art’.16 Benjamin, in his essay ‘Little History of Photography’, notes the ‘magical
value’ of the photograph, which painting cannot produce.17 It is interesting that
indexicality, the trace or imprint, seemingly the basis for the realist perspectives
so often associated with photography, also seems to evoke this sense of magic
for these thinkers. What is this wonderment of photography? Is it driven by the
Introduction 7
longing (ephesis) for the divine; does it coincide with the Neoplatonic dream of
achieving homoiōsis theō?
I argue that the history of Western philosophy can be read as the movement of
photagogia (φωταγωγία) or the ‘evoking of light’, a term used by the Neoplatonic
philosopher Iamblichus. The history of philosophy is an appropriate host for the
photagogic, since light occupies a privileged place in its figures of transcendence.
The presence of light pervades philosophy’s own origin myths, from the sunlight
in Plato’s cave allegory, the oscillation between light and night in Parmenides’s
poem ‘On Nature’, to the light of creation in the Corpus Hermeticum, not to
mention philosophy’s historical obsession with representation and reflection.18
The writing of photographic history is inseparable from the writing of a
history of light. Photographein brings out the strange traces of the absolute
contained within the wider practice of photagogia. As I looked into the early
writings on light, I noticed something that began to reveal itself – the constant
presence of divine light (a photophania that is also a theophania and agath-
ophania).19 In the Republic, Plato refers to light as a third kind (triton genos) that
constitutes the conditions of seeing. Socrates says: ‘Though vision may be in the
eyes and its possessor may try to use it, and though color be present, yet without
the presence of a third thing specifically and naturally adapted to this purpose,
you are aware that vision will see nothing and the colors will remain invisible’
(507e). Another figure which frequently makes its appearance in this book is
the sun – the sun as representative of the transcendental Good in the sensible
world, as manifestation of the Divine and as the residing place of the hidden
primordial light. As Derrida remarks in his essay ‘Demeure, Athènes’: ‘Toute
photographie est du soleil.’ (‘Every photograph is of the sun.’)20
In the following chapters, I will attempt to reconstruct a genealogy of phota-
gogia of which photography, now a dominant way of collecting light, is an
example. I hope to show that photography, understood as a mode and practice
of photagogia, has always existed prior to its ‘invention’, deeply embedded
within the roots of Western metaphysics, in practices of mysticism and magic,
waiting to surface and to be revealed. This book offers a history of photography
that departs from the more conventional, technologically oriented accounts of
the medium. My aim is not to replace these other narratives but, instead, to
suggest ways of rethinking photography’s ontological instability in a manner
that is not reductive to the medium, to move away from the critical studies
that tend to overlook, suppress, or deny photography its ontology. Perhaps
there is something of the chora in this book’s uneasy relationship to conven-
tional discourses on photography, for it is part of the nature of this project
not to fit, not to sit comfortably within the mainstream critical and theoretical
writings on photography. By reading the underground cave in Republic VII
as a photographic camera, Chapter 1 reflects on the different processes of
photography (exposure, development, the negative, the darkroom) through the
Platonic discourse of light and shadow, reflections, the world of appearances,
phantasmata, simulacra, and the Good as exemplified by the sun. This sets out
my main argument: that photography has always existed in Western thought,
even before the advent of photography. Whereas in many previous writings on
the Platonic speleology, more emphasis has been placed on the illusory nature
of the cave and its dark interior, I examine both the inside and outside of the
cave, with the aim of highlighting the alternating transition from darkness to
light which is crucial to the allegory, and explore how this oscillating movement
may be considered as an embodiment of the photographic process. I suggest
that Socrates is a photographer who teaches Glaucon through a series of images,
and examine the implications of this – in terms of the allegory of the cave and
the simile of the line. By looking closely at the line as marking out the different
degrees of truth of a thing, I hope to show that photography can provide us with
a better understanding of the ways in which a thing can reveal itself. The chapter
continues with a discussion of the image-making properties of the Good. I then
move on to a reading of the Timaeus in Chapter 2, looking in particular at the
elusive chora (χώρα), which I shall argue is photography.
The Timaeus is about beginnings; beginnings are fraught with difficulties,
troublesome (chalepon), obscure (amudron) and hard to discern.21 The chora
emerges in the middle of Timaeus’s discourse after many beginnings and
withdraws almost immediately as it is being made known. In Double Truth, John
Sallis describes the chora as ‘the mother of images, the virtually unspeakable
condition of doublings’.22 In Chapter 2, I suggest that Sallis’s statement about the
chora can also apply to photography.
Although photagogia does not make its appearance until Chapter 3, its
presence has already been haunting the first two chapters. In this chapter, I
explore the notion of photagogia in the theurgic practice of the Neoplatonic
philosopher Iamblichus and show how the collection of light is the determining
factor for the ascent of the soul (anagōgē) to take place. Thus, right at the
core of Neoplatonism resides the practice of capturing light. I argue that the
verbal cognate of chora – chorein – is the condition of Iamblichean theurgy.23
In Iamblichus’s writings on theurgy, we see a tension between flashes of light
(opening a difference in charges) and a continuous collection of light. It is in the
second stage of anagōgē that photography takes place, for the marking of divine
Introduction 9
light on the theurgist’s soul constitutes a photographic act. Chapter 3 argues that
Iamblichean theurgy is the site of the re-emergence of the chora as photography.
Chapter 4 presents the story of St Philotheos, a ninth-century monk from
Mount Sinai who used the verb phôteinographeistai (jwteinograjeἱsqai)
or ‘to write with light’ to describe the mystic union with God. This chapter
examines the photographic experience of divine ecstasy – the imprinting of
God’s image on the soul of the devotee. Does the encounter with the divine
always necessitate an extreme form of photagogia, leading to blindness and
overexposure?
In Chapter 5, by examining the work of the Renaissance philosopher and
magus Marsilio Ficino, I hope to show how theourgia gives place to therapeia. In
Ficino’s work, the emphasis on an upward movement that characterizes theurgic
ascent is displaced by the inclination towards a descent, the drawing down of
divine light. Photagogia consists of acclimatizing oneself to the reception of the
divine, enabling one to see the image of God. I argue that Ficino’s writings on
life and light are propelled by the idea of the enhancement of photosensitivity.
The pursuit of photosensitivity is not restricted to the spiritual domain but is
inseparable from one’s lifestyle. Ficino proposes to his reader an entire regime
based on the cultivation of a solar environment; this includes the consumption
of solar food and the use of solar objects. I will show how the enhancement of
photosensitivity for Ficino affects not only one’s spiritual cultivation but also
one’s cognitive and physiological system.
The coda which concludes this study alludes to an essay by Jacques Derrida,
‘Demeure, Athènes’. Derrida’s essay has been an inspiration behind many aspects
of this project. From the Renaissance, the setting for the previous chapter, we
flash forward to the twentieth century, to a modern-day Athens under the
scorching heat of the sun, where glimmers of the past are intermingled with the
present, like the multiple reflections of light bouncing off from one surface to
the next. Thus the movement forward is also an act of reflecting back. Contrary
to the continuous absorption of light which predominates Ficino’s photagogia,
in ‘Demeure, Athènes’ exaiphnês takes centre stage, characterized by sudden
bursts of light. Derrida dreams of dreaming the same dream as Socrates. What
is the nature of this dream? What does this have to do with photography?
To borrow the beginning of a phrase which constantly appears in the
Platonic dialogues, ‘ti esti’ or ‘What is …?’ (τί ἐστι), I would like to ask, ‘What is
photography?’ (ti esti photographein) (τι εστι φωτογραφειν), if such a question
can be asked again, after so many have responded that it is nothing. Perhaps it
should be followed by a second question, ‘What is the chora of photography?’
10
1
Plato’s Allegorical Camera-cave
The light of the sun in water is a kind of shadow.

Ficino, De amore VI.17
The writing of this chapter can be described as chalepon – difficult, troublesome

and dangerous. Chalepon is a word that appears in both the Republic and the
Timaeus, which Plato uses to describe the Good and the chora. My experience
with chalepon (χαλεπόν) works on many levels. I find my engagement with the
Platonic texts chalepon; the heterogeneity of the dialogues is troublesome and
difficult and, as a result, I find myself circling and hovering above the texts,
hoping to lower myself into a point of entry. On the one hand, this may be a
kind of daydream – for at the same time that a distance separates me from the
text, I am in fact deeply embroiled in it, unable to tear myself apart from the
object of my study. This thing that I am studying is chalepon, for it is silent –
unspeakable, unphotographable and impossible to behold.
Despite what Socrates says about the escaped prisoner, that he is finally able
to behold the sun ‘as it is, in its own place’ (auton kath’auton en tèi autou chorai),
what awaits us at the end of the line and at the apex of the prisoner’s ascent is an
impossible image, for how can one stare at the sun when it is precisely the sun
that bestows vision? How can one take a photograph of photography? How can
one capture the origin that withdraws and resists being fixed?
The writing of this text is therefore chalepon, for it is a strenous and
dangerous task to incorporate the different aspects, loose strands and discon-
tinuities that reflect the richness of the Platonic dialogues and to demonstrate
how they are interwoven so tightly together with photography. I find myself
constantly reordering, removing, and reinserting things again and again. This
partly arises from the complexity of Plato’s work with its multi-faceted mirrors
in which appearances are perpetually captured and deflected.
It seems that a discussion on the Good will always be haunted by a kind of
doubling. I am aware that at many times I am doubling John Sallis in my writings
on the Good. Perhaps one cannot move away from any form of doubling when
truth and being are spoken about. Timaeus uses the word chalepon to describe
how difficult it is for him to tell the story of the beginning (48c). This comes
as no surprise since the discourse on the origin cannot be but troublesome,
dangerous and bordering on the unsayable.
In ‘The allegory of the cave’ in Plato’s Republic, Book VII (VII. 514A–521B),
Socrates resembles a magician conjuring for us two contrasting spectacles, one
immersed in darkness and the other in sunlight. The first moving picture which
Socrates unveils to Glaucon is that of a dark cave where men are held prisoners
by chains.1 Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine the situation: unable to turn their
heads and to see each other, these prisoners are forced perpetually to look at a
wall in front of them where shadows in the forms of humans and animals move
about. These shadows are cast by the firelight and belong to marionettes that
are carried by performers hiding behind a parapet. Often the performers would
emit some noise, which the prisoners, having known nothing but the reality of
the shadows, would mistake for sound coming from the shadows.
In one of the English translations of Plato’s Republic by F. M. Cornford,
Socrates says to Glaucon: ‘Here is a parable to illustrate the degrees in which
our nature may be enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine the condition of
men living in a sort of cavernous chamber underground, with an entrance open
to the light and a long passage all down the cave.’2 The same passage has been
translated in different ways, with the word parable becoming situation, ‘here’s a
situation which you can use as an analogy for the human condition – for our
education or lack of it’,3 or experience, ‘take the following sort of experience as an
image to the degree’.4 In a translation by H. D. P. Lee, we find Socrates speaking
in a more commanding tone: ‘I want you to go on to picture the enlightenment
or ignorance of our human condition.’5
Taking into consideration the usual problems encountered when trans-
lating from one language to another, how can we explain the differences in
the various English versions of the text? Consultation of several translations of
Plato’s allegory of the cave reveal variations in interpretation, omissions from
the original text as well as additions to it. Perhaps the ambiguous nature of the
passage accounts for the different versions in translation. For example, we do not
know whether the fire burning behind the prisoners is located inside or outside
of the cave; we are told by Socrates that it is placed at a higher position: ‘At some
distance higher up is the light of a fire burning behind them.’6 Similarly, when
one of the prisoners is set free and forced to turn his head towards the light, is
he looking at the firelight or the daylight that is coming through the entrance
of the cave? Here are two versions of the passage: ‘Suppose one of them was
unchained, and was immediately made to stand up and turn his head around, to
Plato’s Allegorical Camera-cave 13
walk about and look up the cave towards the firelight.’7 Cornford translates the
above sentence as: ‘Suppose one of them set free and forced suddenly to stand
up, turn his head, and walk with eyes lifted to the light.’8
Paul Shorey also chooses not to specify the type of light: ‘When one was freed
from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around
and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light …’9 The original word that Plato uses is
phôs or light. When Socrates first presents to us the spectacle of the cave and asks
us to consider it as an analogy, parable or experience, he uses the term apeikason,
which can be defined as ‘to represent from a model’, ‘to copy’ or ‘to imagine’.10
Glaucon’s replies to Socrates’s questions are all related to sight. Even the name
Glaucon (Γλαύκων) refers to ‘gleaming’ as in ‘gleaming eyes’.11 When Socrates
asks him to imagine the cave, Glaucon replies with ‘I see’ or ‘I can picture this.’
When he is surprised by the strange vision of chained men watching the spectacle
of shadows on the walls of a cave, he exclaims: ‘It is a strange picture and a strange
sort of prisoners’ (515).12 The Greek word used here is atopos (ατοπος) which
is defined as ‘out of place, without a place’. The word atopon will take on greater
significance later in this chapter when we discuss the place of the Good. We also
encounter atopon in the Timaeus, when Timaeus prays to the gods to guide him
through his telling of the strange narrative of another beginning (49d).
In contrast to the darkness of the underground cave, the exterior world is
filled with light. When one of the prisoners in the cave is set free and dragged
up the slope into the exterior world, he is at first blinded by the sunlight. The
picture of the upper world is a spectacle of sunlight and of its multiple reflec-
tions in the water and other surfaces. The man who left the cave gradually learns
to discern the shadows, then the reflections of men and animals in water and
other surfaces, followed by the constellation at night. It is by peeling back each
layer of illusion that man moves closer to reality. Finally he is able to look at the
Sun, not its ghostly apparition in water or in an alien medium, ‘but itself, just as
it is, in its own proper place’13 or ‘as it is in itself in its own domain’.14 I will return
to the significance of this sentence at a later point in this chapter.
On the walls of the caves are shadows
The figure of the puppeteer in the cave reappears in the Sophist as the sophist,
the type of philosopher-educator whom Plato despised and saw as dangerous.
For Plato the sophist falsifies reality by fabricating illusions using ‘words that
cheat the ear’, presenting ‘images of all things in a shadow play of discourse’ and
misleading naive minds into thinking that they are presented with the truth.15
He is described by Socrates as:
the man who professes to be able, by a simple form of skill, to produce all things,
that when he creates with his pencil representations bearing the same name as
real things, he will be able to deceive the innocent minds of children, if he shows
them his drawings at a distance, into thinking that he is capable of creating, in
full reality, anything he chooses to make. (234b)
The sophist resides in the realm of darkness and shadows, the world of the cave
with its enchained inhabitants, as opposed to the philosopher whose lumines-
cence dazzles those blinded by ignorance: ‘Whereas the philosopher, whose
thoughts constantly dwell upon the nature of reality, is difficult to see because
his region is so bright, for the eye of the vulgar soul cannot endure to keep its
gaze on the divine’ (254a). This brightness that is associated with the divine,
belongs to the dominion of the sun. In the cave, in order to release the prisoners
from the snares of blindness and ignorance, light must enter its dark interior.
Light floods through the entrance of the cave just like the light that bursts
through the aperture of the camera; the chamber is saturated with so much
light that contours melt and shadows are effaced. The brimming light is the
moment of divine unification, where the self becomes translucent. This is what
Didi-Huberman describes as the ‘infinite ecstasy of the formless image, the pure
tactile intensity of the flooding light’ on one’s face, the ‘face seen by the light as
by a mother who nurses her infant’.16
The inundation of light into the cave resonates very well with certain
technical aspects of photography, especially overexposure. Overexposure makes
the negative thick, so thick with light that at the time of its printing, its very
opaqueness prevents the light in the enlarger from coming through and, in
turn, renders the resulting image a dazzling white – just as the light that the
philosopher lets into the cave is so overwhelming as to become opaque to those
inside. Black light, white light, in the plenitude of light nestles its darkness.
Inhering in the divine white light is the black light of the Sufi mystics. The divine
darkness does not come from the lack of light but from a super-abundance of
light, what the mystics would call ‘the Night of light’, ‘luminous Blackness’ and
‘black light’.17
The black light renders all lights visible; it brings about vision although it is
itself invisible. The Hermetic black light can only be attained when one reaches
the highest spiritual level. The mystic, when faced with this light – the cause
of all seeing – cannot see it, for it is present in every act of seeing. ‘It dazzles,’
writes Corbin, ‘as the superconsciousness dazzles.’18 The mystic Shaykl Lãhiji
describes his experience just before he reaches the black light. He finds himself
in a world of mountains and lakes full of all kinds of coloured lights, before the
black light swallows up the entire universe absorbing him into the light.19 The
mystic seeks the Orient where the midnight sun and the black light resides. This
Orient cannot be found on the map for it does not refer to the east as opposed
to the west, which are the usual divisions of cartography. The Orient is in fact
located at the centre, or the summit, what is known as the heavenly North Pole.20
The midnight sun of Iranian Sufism finds its resonance in the sun of
Parmenides’s quest, when he voyaged to the depths of Hades to Tartaros, guided
by kourai, daughters of the Sun, and welcomed by Persephone the Queen of the
underworld. In Peter Kingsley’s work, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, he argues
that, contrary to the prevalent understanding of Parmenides as the exponent of
rationality and logic, the Pre-Socratic philosopher was actually an Iatromantis,
a prophet and healer. Like Pythagoras, Parmenides practised the technique
of incubation (enkoimesis) – lying still (hêsychia) in the darkness of the cave
(phôleos) to prepare one’s entrance into a state of consciousness which hovers
between sleeping and waking, in order to receive wisdom from the gods and to
be able to heal those in need. As Kingsley points out, the word phôleos refers to a
lair or den in which an animal goes into hibernation.21 Lying inside the phôleos,
the Iatromantis is ‘neither alive nor dead … at home not only in this world of
the senses but in another reality as well’.22
The cave in which incubation takes place is not a space reserved solely for the
Iatromantis. Patients are also encouraged to lie inside the cave under the super-
vision of the priest, otherwise known as the Phôlarchos, or ‘lord of the lair’.23
Sometimes the incubation would last for days during which the gods would
appear in dreams and bestow guidance and answers to patients’ questions. A
preparatory ritual is often involved, consisting of prayers, fasting, purification
baths and sacrifices, such as those that took place at the temple of Asclepius
at Epidaurus, a popular healing site during the fourth century bce.24 In this
enclosed and sacred chamber which serves as a platform for divine contact, we
see an example of how magic, medicine and religion are intrinsically bound
up in the ancient world before drifting their separate ways. Among the many
inscriptions that recorded the healing process and the ‘testimonials’ of the
patients at Epidaurus, we find the story of a woman who successfully gave birth
to a child after a pregnancy of five years, a man who woke up with the scars on
his face removed and a patient who dreamt of a god (either Asclepius or Apollo)
pouring medicine into her blind eye and who awoke completely healed.25
In the nether regions, what we ‘rationally’ perceive as antithetical elements

no longer remain in opposite poles; it is the realm where light resides in
darkness and where the sun god Apollo returns with his chariot every night.
As Kingsley puts it: ‘Right at the roots of western as well as eastern mythology
there’s the idea that the sun comes out of the underworld and goes back to the
underworld. That’s where it has its home; where its children come from. The
source of light is at home in the darkness.’26
The photographic movement – its continuous rhythm from light to dark, dark
to light, where the two are simultaneously present at each instant, reveals the
true nature of divine darkness – an excess of light. The light-sensitive emulsion
is enframed in the darkness of the camera awaiting its moment of exposure. The
shutter is released and a certain amount of light is allowed to make its mark on
the surface of the film. The film stripped bare of its armour of metal is rolled on
to a reel and developed inside a dark tank. The immersion of different chemicals
one after the other follows a certain rhythm; the film, held in the tank’s embrace,
is rocked from side to side. The resulting negatives are exposed to a light source
projected from the top of the enlarger, which resembles the sun shining down
from above. Light seeps through the negative image and traces the shadows on
to a blank piece of photographic paper, which in turn is plunged into various
liquid baths. After the image is fixed and washed, it is ready to take on a life of
its own and circulate the world as a photograph.
Shadowplay
We can distinguish two types of shadows in the allegory of the cave. The
ex-prisoner, unaccustomed yet to the dazzling light of the exterior world, first
learns to rest his gaze upon the shadows. Unlike the ever-changing projections
on the walls in the cave, which are devious, deceptive and unnatural – manipu-
lated by conjurors and pretending to be the thing itself, the shadows in the
outside world – ‘likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things’
(748) are of a higher order for they belong to the domain of phusis. They are
‘phantasms created by God in water and shadows of objects that are real and not
merely, as before, the shadows of images cast through a light which, compared
with the sun, is as unreal’ (532c). These real or natural images are described by
Plato in the Sophist: ‘Dream images, and in daylight all those naturally produced
semblances which we call “shadow” when dark patches interrupt the light, or a
“reflection” when the light belonging to the eye meets and coalesces with light
belonging to something else on a bright and smooth surface and produces a

form yielding a perception that is the reverse of the ordinary direct view’ (266c).
An earlier passage in the Republic known as the simile of the line will help
us in our understanding of the prisoner’s ascent from the cave to the exterior
world. In some ways the different levels of the line correspond to the experience
of the escaped prisoner, his journey from the darkness of the underground cave
to the highest point, where he is finally able to gaze at the sun. In the previous
sections, I have attempted to show how the Platonic cave can be read as a photo-
graphic camera. With my analysis of the line, I hope to show how photography
is intrinsically bound up with Western metaphysics.
When shadows and reflections are mentioned in Socrates’s presentation of
the line (509d–511e), Plato is undoubtedly preparing his reader for the ensuing
section on the allegory of the cave. Socrates explains the four levels of knowledge
to Glaucon by dividing a line into four unequal segments, two segments each
belonging to the visible world and the intelligible world. At the lowest level is
eikasia, at the second level is pistis, above it is dianoia and at the highest level
is episteme. Dianoia and pistis are of the same proportion. The image/copy is
placed at the bottom of the line; the original is placed directly above it in the
level of pistis. These two comprise the visible world or the world of belief (to
doxaston). The higher two levels, episteme and dianoia, make up the intelli-
gible world. Dianoia describes mathematical knowledge or knowledge gained
through enquiry into the originals residing in the visible world. Episteme, which
is at the highest level, does not require images but uses Forms as a method of
understanding.27
Socrates positions images (eikones) at the lowest level in the visible world.
He says: ‘By images I mean, first, shadows, and then reflections in water and
on surfaces of dense, smooth, and bright texture, and everything of that kind, if
you apprehend’ (510).28 These images have their counterparts as living creatures
and natural elements, all products of divine creation. It is curious that Plato
would group together shadows, reflections in water and reflections in mirrors
(‘surfaces of dense, smooth and bright texture’), because if we look closely at the
two types of reflections, the surfaces that support these images are different –
water is an element of nature whereas the mirror belongs to the realm of technê,
although in this case what it reflects is of the natural order. However, in Republic
X, Plato cautions us against the deceitful nature of reflections and he chooses
the mirror to illustrate the different levels of appearance. In a discussion identi-
fying the art of production as either imitation or original, Socrates tells Glaucon
that a craftsman, an artist, or anyone in fact, can quickly and without difficulty
produce all things in the heavens and on earth by using a portable mirror: ‘You
will speedily produce the sun and all the things in the sky, and speedily the
earth and yourself and the other animals and implements and plants and all the
objects of which we just now spoke’ (596e). In this amazing passage, we are not
far away from the picturesque world of the Claude glass and the daguerreotype’s
mirror images.
John Sallis’s reading of the line simile in Being and Logos facilitates an
understanding of the complexity of the line and how closely interwoven Plato’s
metaphysics is with the process of imaging. Sallis points out that the different
sections of the line do not refer to separate objects but are ‘different degrees of
truth (manifestness) of the same things’.29 The line is a plotting of the movement
in which a thing can reveal itself; the segments of the line representing various
levels of concealment. Sallis notes that the intelligible and the visible are not
two separate domains. In fact, like the lower segments of the line, the two levels
of noesis – both dianoia and to a certain extent episteme, need to rely upon
images.30 Dianoetic knowledge is constructed by hypotheses that are drawn
from the visible. Although at the level of episteme, one no longer needs to
rely upon images from pistis in the visible world, images are still required, for
epistemic knowledge derives from eide, which are images of the Good.31
Sallis locates the passage from pistis towards dianoia as the ‘beginning of
philosophy’ since it represents the ‘very opening-up of this difference’ between
the intelligible and the visible.32 Socrates’s task here, as teacher, is to bring
his pupil Glaucon to this level of understanding which corresponds to philo-
sophical thinking through the discussion of the line and the image of the cave,
but the dialogue between the two never moves beyond dianoia.33 Even Socrates’s
explanation of episteme is presented through the understanding of dianoia.
When Glaucon asks his teacher to continue the discussion until the end of the
line, Socrates replies:
You will no longer be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my

part there will be no lack of good will. And, if I could, I would show you, no
longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth, as it appears to
me – though whether rightly or not I may not properly affirm. (533)
The ‘very truth’ (αύτò τò άληθές) here, refers to that which is ‘unconcealed’ –
the original.34 Socrates is telling Glaucon that if he could, he would show the
very truth as it appears to him. Does this mean that even at the level of dialectic,
we can never move away from images, that we can never see truth as it is, in its
place? As Sallis remarks: ‘to speak more directly, there is no end of the road, no
haven where one would finally have the highest idea present without reserve
before one’s vision. Always there would remain images, difference – that is, the
bond to concealment.’35
Even the line itself is an image. There is an inherent performative aspect
concerning the line; what it demonstrates also applies to itself.36 Sallis suggests
that if we regard the line as a ‘thing’ at different stages of concealment, then
Socrates’s verbal description of the line can be considered as an ‘image’
belonging to the level of eikasia. By following the verbal description and actually
drawing the line, we are moving upwards towards the level of pistis. And by
measuring and marking out the ratio of the line, thus applying mathematics to
what we know so far about the line, we are in the realm of dianoetic knowledge.
Sallis differentiates between two types of dianoia in his reading of the line.
Downward dianoia involves a return to the visible, to obtain an understanding
of the images which reside in the realm of doxa in relation to the intelligible.
This downward-looking movement from the level of the intelligible elucidates
the visible through ‘genuine measure … as opposed to the merely relative
determination with which it is presented to perception’.37 He explains that
upward dianoia is closer to philosophical reflection, drawing the soul away
from the visible, for it brings about a realization that the visible is uncertain,
that visible things are merely images ‘in the sense of supplying a locus where
the determinate things, the eide, show themselves but in such a way as also to
conceal themselves’.38 In explaining the ascension of the soul, Sallis suggests that
this realization must be a forceful one; upward dianoia has to be ‘provoked’ by
the ‘downward movement of clarification [which] shatters against the indeter-
minacy of the visible’ (emphasis added).39
Sallis observes that there is a discrepancy between the ratio of the line
segments and the degrees of clarity to which each segment supposedly corre-
sponds. According to Socrates’s description of the line, dianoia and eikasia
would be in the same proportion. How can things that exist in the realm of
the visible possess the same kind of clarity as those residing in dianoia? One
way of understanding this seeming contradiction would be to regard dianoia
as also reliant on images – images which are the ‘originals’ or pistis from the
lower realm, as we have seen earlier with the downward movement of dianoia.40
In a later work entitled The Verge of Philosophy, Sallis returns to the line simile
in the Republic and describes this segment of the line as dianoetic eikasia, thus
emphasizing its dependence upon images from the visible world or doxa. At
the end of the line, the reliance on images or what he calls the ‘image-original
dyadic structure’ will be dispensed of, ‘for the sake of a vision of the ἀρχἠ, the
beginning, which is not itself an image of something else’.41 At this ultimate

point, there will be no more images but the original – the Good, ‘in and by itself
in its own place’ (516b). But whether or not one can reach this highest point is
another matter which I will return to in my discussion of the Good.
Proclus’s commentary
In his commentary on the Republic, Proclus, the fifth-century Neoplatonist

philosopher, draws our attention to Plato’s definition of the image (eikon) in
the simile of the line.42 He suggests that although ‘copy’ may refer to sculpted or
painted images, Plato focuses on images that are produced by sources of light
on illuminated surfaces: ‘Il (Platon) dit nommer “copies” des images telles que
celles qui sont produites par les éclairants dans les éclairés, soit les ombres soit les
images réflechies tant à la surface de l’eau que dans les autres sortes de miroirs.’43
(‘He (Plato) calls by “copies”, images such as those that are produced by the
illuminating in the illuminated, either shadows, or reflected images as much
on the surface of water as on other types of mirrors.’) Proclus elaborates on
the three properties of the reflective surface as described by Socrates – density,
smoothness and bright texture. Density is necessary, says Proclus, in order for
the reflection to be brought forth as a singular image. Although the reflection
may come from different sources, it is important that the reflected image is not
lost when it falls upon the pores of the surface. For the reflected image to appear
even and complete, the surface should be smooth and without indentation.
Brightness is required in order for a dark reflection to be fully seen. Proclus
evokes the beautiful image of light streaming through the windows revealing
particles suspended in air. These molecules by themselves are dark and invisible
without the presence of light.44
Shadows are of the same nature as reflections because they are copies of
things and possess a strong resonance with the objects from which they project
themselves. According to Proclus, this affinity between objects and their
shadows is fully exploited by magicians when they conjure up ghosts. Is Proclus
referring to an early form of phantasmagoria, necromancy, or the esoteric art of
magicians?45 It is probably the latter, for he points out that animals also possess
such magical powers. He gives us the example of the hyena, which is capable
of dragging a dog down from above if it steps on the dog’s shadow.46 Is this due
to the resemblance between the hyena and the dog thereby investing it with
power over the latter’s shadow? He also refers to Aristotle who proclaims that
if a menstruating woman looks at herself in the mirror, her reflected image

will take on the colour of blood. Proclus concludes that certain qualities of the
original are inherent in the simulacrum and that reflections are actual realities
of those spectral bodies produced by divine artifice, ‘les reflets sont les réalités
substantielles de certains corps spectraux’.47 We are far from the shadows in the
cave that have no real connection with the objects which the prisoners, in their
uneducated minds, take them to be.
Outside of the cave, the ex-prisoner habituates himself to the recognition
of reflections; he then directs his gaze at the actual objects themselves. His
perception shifts upwards and the man raises his head to look at the night sky
with its constellations, before he learns to discern the sun, the representation
of all Good and Beautiful. The order of vision during his ascent is extremely
important: from shadows we move on to reflections, then to the objects
themselves, followed by the stars in the night sky, before finally reaching the sun.
As we can see from Proclus’s observations, the various stages of the ex-prisoner’s
upward movement appear to correspond to the different levels of Plato’s line.
Proclus explains that stars are copies of the intelligible, and the fire burning
in the stars is of the same nature as the sun. Just as the stars possess some
essence of the sun, because they benefit from the light emanating from it, the
intelligible is divine because of the light that issues from the Good.48 Proclus
reminds us that Socrates teaches through analogy, although there is nothing
physically similar between the sun and the Good, it is possible to draw an
analogy between the light of the sun as the source of all things visible, that
which renders objects perceptible and that which allows the viewers to see
them, ‘qu’elle [cette lumière] fournit aux visibles la cause de ce qu’ils sont vus et
à ceux qui voient la cause de ce qu’ils voient’, and Reality, creator of objects of
knowledge and the motive for those who seek the intelligible, ‘de même que la
Réalité est cause pour les Intelligibles de ce qu’ils sont intelligés et, pour ceux qui
intelligent, cause de ce qu’ils intelligent’.49
Contemplating the entire sky and its constellations before seeing the sun
is just like looking at all that resides in the intelligible world and in the world
of appearances before perceiving the Good. Proclus suggests that when Plato
writes ‘the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the
good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to
them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence
in dignity and surpassing power’ (509b), the Good is a kind of super-essence,
transcendent and prior to the most divine essences, beyond essence and being
(ontos).50 It is only in the intelligible world that the Good allows itself to be
seen. Just like the Sun, the light emanating from the Good is the most divine of
all light, shining forth from the objects in the intelligible world. Inferior to this
light would be the light from the stars, which Proclus sees as more divine than
the starlight reflected in the viewer’s eyes. We can perhaps compare this universe
of sympathies to a hall of mirrors or even a kaleidoscope, where things are
reflected within each other, creating a continuous mise-en-abyme. Or would it
be more appropriate to perceive these rings of affinities as a world of concentric
circles produced by a pebble thrown into the smooth mirror of a pond?
In Proclus’s treatise On the Priestly Art According to the Greeks,51 he explains
how elements belonging to the different orders of being are related to each other
through a series of ‘chains’ (σειραί):
Why do heliotropes move together with the sun, selenotropes with the moon,
moving around to the extent of their ability with the luminaries of the cosmos?
All things pray according to their own order and sing hymns, either intellec-
tually or rationally or naturally or sensibly, to heads of entire chains. And since
the heliotrope is also moved towards that to which it readily opens, if anyone
hears it striking the air as it moves about, he perceives in the sound that it offers
to the king of the hymn that a plant can sing.
In the earth, then, it is possible to see suns and moons terrestrially, but
in heaven one can also see celestially all the heavenly plants and stones and
animals living intellectually. So by observing such things and connecting them
to the appropriate heavenly beings, the ancient wise men brought divine powers
into the region of mortals, attracting them through likeness. For likeness is suffi-
cient to join beings to one another … Thus, all things are full of gods: Things on
earth are full of heavenly gods; things in heaven are full of supercelestials; and
each chain continues abounding up to its final members.52
In this ‘essential community between visible and invisible beings’,53 a bond

of affinity can be established between the sensible and the intelligible world,
through the heliotrope, the sun and the transcendental Good. Proclus uses
the example of the plant turning its head towards the sun to demonstrate
how sympatheia operates and manifests itself in the natural world. Further in
the text, he identifies both animate and inanimate objects as possessing solar
properties – the lotus, a stone called the Bel’s eye, the lion and the cock. He
writes: ‘So it seems that properties sown together in the sun are distributed
among the angels, demons, souls, animals, plants and stones that share them’
(lines 67–9).
With sympatheia, we are no longer in the realm of analogy, for within the
same chain (σειρά), each of the lower elements is regarded as a sumbolon
(σύµβολον) or sunthema (σύνϑηµα) of the higher one.54 As Proclus states in his

Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus:
For the divine does not stand aloof from anything, but is present for all things
alike. For this reason, even if you take the lowest levels [of reality], there too you
will find the divine present. The One is in fact everywhere present, inasmuch
as each of the beings derives its existence from the gods, and even though they
proceed forth from the gods, they have not gone out from them but are rather
rooted in them … For what is beyond the gods is That which is in no way
existent, but all beings have been embraced in a circle by the gods and exist in
them. (209.14–28)
In Chapter 3, we will see how the philosopher-priest draws upon these

properties to carry out various theurgic manipulations.
In his commentary on the Republic, Proclus draws our attention to the diffi-
culty of seeing the Good, which leads us to think of the sun and its blinding
light, as the ultimate moment in the prisoner’s ascent from the cave. However,
we cannot regard it as the final goal because the ex-prisoner, now enlightened,
has to risk his life and descend into the cave once again. As Plato tells us, the
man’s ascent from the underground cave towards the luminosity of the sun
corresponds to the gradual awakening of his intelligence, ‘the passage from
the deeper dark of ignorance into a more luminous world’ (518b). Armed with
knowledge of the idea of the Good, ‘the cause for all things that is right and
beautiful’, and ‘the authentic source of truth and reason’ (517c), he then returns
to the inhabitants of the cave, reluctant though he may be, ‘he would feel with
Homer and greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless
man, and endure anything rather than opine with them and live that life’ (516d).
He faces the danger of being ridiculed, for, unaccustomed to the darkness, at
first he is unable to discern the shadows. He may even be killed by the prisoners
who laugh at him, who think that his eyes have been damaged by the light. Even
if he is required to surrender himself to the most unfavourable circumstances, it
is the task, perhaps even the fate of the philosopher, to fix the shadows in the cave
with light and to reveal the true nature of illusions. For Socrates says:
Down you must go then, each in his turn, to the habitation of the others and
accustom yourselves to the observation of the obscure things there. For once
habituated you will discern them infinitely better than the dwellers there, and
you will know what each of the ‘idols’ is and whereof it is a semblance, because
you have seen the reality of the beautiful, the just and the good. So our cities
will be governed by us and you with waking minds, and not, as most cities
now which are inhabited and ruled darkly as in a dream by men who fight one
another for shadows. (520c)
The Good
When the prisoner is dragged out of the cave and his eyes habituated to the
world of light, Socrates tells Glaucon that the man will finally be able to look
directly at the Sun, not its ‘reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien
setting, but in and by itself in its own place’ (516b). What does it mean to behold
the sun ‘as it is’? What is the place of the sun? To look directly at the sun is
surely painful and dangerous for it will culminate in the destruction of sight.55
As Sallis tells us, blindness leads to an obscuration of things, resulting in their
withdrawal and concealment.56 How then can the loss of vision function at the
same time as a form of enlightenment, providing us with insight into the things
themselves? In another Platonic dialogue, one finds a very different discussion
of the sun. In the Phaedo, Socrates warns of the dangers of looking directly at a
solar eclipse (99d) unless it is through a reflection of some kind: ‘It occurred to
me that I must guard against the same sort of risk which people run when they
watch and study an eclipse of the sun; they really do sometimes injure their eyes,
unless they study its reflection in water or some other medium’ (99e). Socrates
fears that the reliance on sight or the other senses to understand the nature of
beings would lead to the blindness of the soul (99e). Instead one should turn to
logoi: ‘So I decided that I must have recourse to theories, and use them in trying
to discover the truth about things’ (99e).
Here I would like to introduce the notion of doubling and highlight its impor-
tance in the above passage from the Phaedo; to turn away from the sun signifies
a turning away from the original towards the image (eikon), its double.57
However, this movement does not only involve the image but also logoi. As
Sallis points out:
[T]he recourse to λόγοι is nothing but a way of redoubling the drive to origin,
of posing in every instance the thing itself (τò πραγµα αυτό) as ειδος and thus
(re)launching the advance towards the originals. It is thus anything but simply
a recourse to images, and one soon realizes that a redoubling haunts that very
turn with which philosophy would begin.58
Thus the movement towards unconcealment. Here it may be useful to recall that
the various degrees of showing from eikasia to episteme posited by Plato includes
both an advancement and a regression – each step that brings us closer to the
origin entails a regressive turning away from it. In order to behold ‘the thing
itself ’ (τò πραγµα αυτό), one needs to rely upon logoi and eikon, thus simultane-
ously moving away from the original object ‘to the images through which, if not
among which, one would advance only by a double vision’.59 Diagrammatically
one may be tempted to plot a divergent movement with arrows moving in
opposite directions, one pointing towards the origin and the other towards logoi.
However, Sallis argues that this is not the case; the search for truth involves a
redoubling at every turn – each turn is simultaneously a movement towards and
a movement away – thus ‘the double turn both directs one toward the origin and
opens the space of the difference between the εἴδη and the things of sense’.60 It
is a double doubling, for turning away from the original to logoi, what one may
consider as a distancing, entails at the same time a moving forwards, bringing
one closer to the original.
Socrates’s cautionary words in the Phaedo concerning the sun are contra-
dictory to the passage in the Republic, where the ex-prisoner only gains access
to truth (aletheia) when he is finally capable of looking directly at the sun as
an original and not as a copy. How do we account for the differing views on
the vision of the sun? Could it be that what is involved here in the Phaedo
consists of a different type of looking since we are denied a direct vision of the
sun, which is hidden in an eclipse? Referring to the passage from the Republic,
Sallis suggests that instead of a persistent beholding of the sun which can be
detrimental to one’s eyesight, Socrates is referring to a momentary glance at
the sun and not a constant gaze. Sallis argues that a direct vision of the sun is
impossible, for the sun withdraws itself from our sight with its blinding light. If
we turn away from the sun, we experience dark orbs temporarily emblazoned
on to our retina. These are blind spots, ‘the most immediate images that the sun
makes of itself ’.61
I want to take this proposition further and suggest that the momentary
glance mentioned by Sallis may be likened to a fast shutter speed that exposes us
briefly to the light of the Good. To leave the shutter open for any longer duration
would lead to overexposure, resulting in a blank image – an obliteration of the
photographed object. Perhaps the Good can only be perceived between the
‘blinds’, in the space that define the ‘trait’, the line, the trace, or when the shutter
opens to allow light to come through.62 This spacing or gap belongs neither
to the sensible nor to the intelligible realm; encompassing both absence and
presence at the same time, it is defined only by its in-betweenness or, as Derrida
calls it, ‘the law of the inter-view’.63 The aperture then, resembles this in-between
space of the blind; what its contours mark is neither sensible nor intelligible, for
it indicates both absence and presence at the same time.64
The analogy that Plato sets up in the Republic between the sun and the
Good, the sun providing light and nourishment to all beings in the sensible
world just as the Good operates as generator of knowledge and truth, suggests
that the momentary gaze experienced by the escaped prisoner may stand for
the possibility for one to catch occasional glimpses of the Good when it shows
itself through eide.65 It also indicates that we can never fully comprehend and
possess a firm grasp of the Good for it is beyond being (epekeina tes ousias)
(509b). As a consequence, one needs to look to logoi and images. Even Socrates
himself indicates that he can only contend with the image of the Good as
it appears to him, when Glaucon urges him to lead their discussion further
towards noetic knowledge (533).66 When Socrates describes the ex-prisoner
who is finally able to behold the sun, he does not use an affirmative tone but
rather one of speculation with words such as ‘I suppose’ (516b).67 And in an
earlier passage (506d–e), he is reluctant to speak of the Good, preferring to
comment on its offspring.
There is a curious moment in the Republic, towards the conclusion of the
allegory of the cave (517b), where Socrates uses analogy once again to differ-
entiate between the intelligible and visible worlds, comparing the image of the
cave to the images of the exterior region. The fire inside the cave, he explains,
resembles the light shining forth from the sun, and the man’s departure from the
cave represents the soul’s upward movement towards the intelligible. At which
point he claims that his observations, impressions or surmise (elpidos) are words
that Glaucon had wanted to hear. He then questions himself and exclaims: ‘But
God knows whether it is true.’ What is the significance of this sudden doubt?
Is it a form of resignation in face of the impossible beholding of the Good? Are
Socrates’s words meant to be ironic or a sign of mere playfulness? I want to
draw attention to the sentence immediately following his exclamation, which
continues to reveal the uncertainty of ever grasping the Good, when Socrates
says: ‘But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the
known the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the idea of the good …’
(emphasis added). The allusion to dreams is significant here, for dreams are
also mentioned in the Timaeus when Plato introduces the notion of the chora
as triton genos, a ‘third kind’ in addition to the two orders of nature: being and
becoming. It seems that one must enter a dreamlike state before even beginning
to understand the idea of the Good (idea tou agathon) or the chora. I will return
to the role of dreams in the next chapter.
In the whole of the Platonic Dialogues, the only instances in which one finds
epekeina tes ousias (beyond being) are in the discussions of the Good. Yet Plato
also describes the chora as residing outside of the sensible and the intelligible.
I would like to draw attention to a question posed by Derrida in ‘Tense’, an
essay that addresses Sallis’s work. Derrida asks: ‘And yet why does not Plato
say that χώρα is επέκεινα της ούσίας? Why is that so difficult to say and to
think?’68 In his essay ‘… A Wonder that One Could Never Aspire to Surpass’,
Sallis responds to Derrida’s question by attributing Plato’s silence to the chora’s
wildness, which he argues could be epekeina tes ousias. To support his claim, he
singles out a sentence in Book VII of the Republic – at the ultimate moment of
the prisoner’s ascent, when Socrates says that the escaped prisoner can finally
look at the sun ‘not in some alien place [εδρα], but the sun itself by itself in its
own χώρα – and see what it’s like’ (516b).69 Thirteen years later, writing in The
Verge of Philosophy, Sallis revisits the discussion between Derrida and himself
on the chora that began in 1982 tracing the paths of divergences in their
respective readings of the chora. Here he compares the chora to a wild animal
that evades capturing. Whereas for Derrida, the word chora used by Plato in
the Republic at the moment of the prisoner’s ascent (516b) is a mere homonym
and entirely distinct from the chora in the Timaeus, Sallis proposes to draw a
link between the Republic’s epekeina tes ousias and the chora in the Timaeus.70
Recalling two passages in the Timaeus, in which the formlessness of the chora
is compared to gold and to a wax-like mould (ekmageion), Sallis proposes to
view the chora as a happening or an operation, thus leading him to formulate
the following question: ‘Is it the χώρα, operative in such a manner, that grants
to the good its abode επέκεινα της ούσίας?’71 Paying tribute to Derrida, Sallis
writes in a poignant passage that he would have liked to renew and continue
his dialogue with his good friend ‘on the verge of such Platonism, such perhaps
exorbitant Platonism … as I turned, once again, back to these ancient texts,
calling again on what they hold still in reserve, he would have smiled. With
reserve yet with generosity. The smile of a friend. And, continuing, the voice
of a friend.’72
As we have seen above, the discussions centred on the Good in the Republic
can be described as chalepon (χαλεπόν), the Greek word which means difficult,
dangerous and troublesome. Plato uses chalepon in both the Republic and the
Timaeus, although more frequently in the latter. The importance of chalepon
has been commented upon by Sallis on numerous occasions, in reference to the
heterogeneity of the Platonic dialogues, the elusive characteristic of the Good
in the Republic, the triton genos in the Timaeus and the doubling of truth in
Western philosophy.73 The difficulty of grasping the Good lies in its transcendent
nature, for it is outside the categories of the intelligible and the sensible.74
We find here an affinity with other belief systems, as reflected in the following
observation by Adriano Clemente, writing of Dzogchen practice in Tibetan
Buddhism: ‘In all the gnostic traditions, the absolute is the equivalent of the
ineffable, of that which transcends word and thought. For example a famous
invocation by Jigmed Lingpa reads that “even the Buddha’s tongue is weak
to explain [i.e., the absolute condition]”.’75 We can also find resonances of the
conditions of hyperousia in the teachings of negative theology, which draw
upon the unspeakability of the Good. As Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the
major figures in the via negativa, writes: ‘Now if the Good is above all things (as
indeed It is) Its Formless Nature produces all-form; and in It alone Not-Being
is an excess of Being, and Lifelessness an excess of Life and its Mindless state is
an excess of Wisdom, and all the Attributes of the Good we express in a trans-
cendent manner by negative images.’76
For Derrida, the hidden Good cannot be seen, just as the act of seeing, itself,
remains imperceptible to us: ‘[T]he absolute Good, the intelligible father who
begets being as well as the visibility of being (the eidos figures an outline of intel-
ligible visibility), remains as invisible as the condition of sight – as visibility itself
– can be.’77 The threat of blindness lurks in the background of the entire Platonic
discourse on the Good, an indication of the intrinsic link that ties knowledge
to sight.78 The loss of sight does not merely refer to the ‘blindness’ of the cave
dwellers in the Republic or the difficulty of vision that the escaped prisoner
experiences twice as he struggles to habituate himself to the exterior world and
again upon his return to the cave, nor is it the potential damage to the eyes
caused by a direct viewing of the solar eclipse; it is the excess of the Good, its
hyperekhon which induces our blindness, for its transcendence ensures its invis-
ibility.79 However, if one is guided by noesis, one may be allowed a momentary
glimpse of the Good as if through the fast shutter speed of the camera.
The image-maker
For Sallis, the Good operates as an image-maker. Writing of its self-propagatory

properties, Sallis explains: ‘So, the sun is something like an image of the good,
an image of the good begotten by the good itself. This indicates something that
is of utmost importance regarding the good: the good possesses the power
of image-making; the good makes images of itself.’80 If we follow through the
implications of this, we can see that there is something inherently photographic

about the Good, which enables it to make images of itself.
What kind of images does the Good create? One must be careful to underline
the distinction between the images that are generated by the Good – these are
the sun and the eide in the intelligible world as opposed to the eikon in the
visible world. Elaborating on the images created by the Good, Sallis writes:
To say that the good bestows being upon the knowable (that is the intelligibles)
is to say precisely that it grants to each its distinct oneness. Constituted as one
with itself, each is such that it need not show itself only mixed up with others
that it is not; rather, each can show itself as it is, in its being one with itself; and
it can show itself openly and unconcealedly, that is, truly, in the original sense
of άλήθεια.81
In Book VII, Socrates tells Glaucon on two occasions that the Good generated
the sun in its own image. Socrates’s words would imply that the sun is a photo-
graphic imprint of the Good – ‘The offspring of the good and most nearly made
in its likeness’ (506e); it is begotten by the Good ‘to stand in a proportion with
itself (on tagathon agennesen analogon)’ (508b).
In the Verge of Philosophy, Sallis observes that the image-making action of
the Good is a form of giving, the generosity of the Good consists of its bestowal
of being (ούςία) and truth (άλήθεια) on things, granting us knowledge by
exposing things as they really are.82 The gift of truth or aletheia is to enable
beings to reveal themselves as they truly are, not merely as ‘imitations’ but
‘rather to show themselves in such a way that their very whatness, their what-
being, their ειδος, shines through them’.83 It is important to keep in mind that
the gift of the Good entails that the origin is still discernible through its image.
This indicates that the Good’s proximity to the photographic is even more
remarkable, for the photograph, as Roland Barthes observes, is an ‘emanation
of the referent’.84 In the photograph, the photographed thing manifests itself
through the flat surface of the image. As Barthes explains so eloquently in
Camera Lucida: ‘A sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed
thing to my gaze: light, though impalpable, is here a carnal medium.’85 This
unique property of photography, which consists of the origin shining through
the image, is precisely what renders it such a paradoxical medium; the loved one
is there yet at the same time not there, leading Barthes to describe it as a strange
medium, hallucinatory and mad.86
Socrates the photographer
As we have seen in the cave allegory, which revolves around darkness and light,
seeing and not seeing, and in Socrates’s discussion of the line, image-making
plays a crucial role in Books VI and VII of the Republic. In these two passages,
not only are images discussed, the pursuit of aletheia and the ascent towards
noesis are, in themselves, image-making processes, ‘a continuum of modes of
showing running from a showing through the very poorest images up through
a showing in the original’.87 Referring to an earlier passage in Republic VI
(487e–489a) in which Socrates describes himself as ‘straining after imagery’,
Sallis sees Socrates as an image-maker who is greedy for images.88 I will take
Sallis’s suggestion further and propose that Socrates is in fact functioning as a
photographer who captures and fixes images for Glaucon.
As in the discussion of the line, there is a performative aspect running
through the allegory of the cave.89 Socrates, by presenting Glaucon with the
initial image of the cave dwellers, continues to make images by telling the story
of one prisoner’s ascent.90 Let us consider the first image that Socrates presents
to Glaucon: ‘Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long
entrance open to the light on its entire width … Picture further the light from
a fire burning higher up’ (514). This first photograph taken by Socrates would
probably resemble a negative image, all darkness except for the areas lit by the
single light source inside the cave. What we see in the photograph are shadows,
the shadows on the walls, the silhouettes of the inhabitants, the hazy outlines of
the puppeteers and the dancing firelight.
If we take into consideration Sallis’s analysis of the line as ‘a continuum of
modes of showing’,91 then this first photograph of the cave, in which shapes
replace details, would be a murky image. It would offer the weakest level of
visibility, thus corresponding to the bottom of the line in the category of eikasia.
In a similar fashion, as the prisoner begins to make his ascent, the images that
he sees will no longer be underexposed and dense. As the prisoner makes his
way out of the cave, climbing up the various levels of the line, things will become
clearer and more discernible. The photographs gradually become brighter and
more in focus; even when one photographs the night sky, one will be able to
make out the stars clearly. This level of visibility thus corresponds to the higher
division of the line – the realm of the intelligible.
It is important to bear in mind, however, that this is not the end of the line.
In fact, Socrates’s and Glaucon’s discussion stays at the level of dianoia and never
reaches episteme. The ultimate image that the escaped prisoner sees in his ascent
is a completely blank photograph, a luminous picture and not a dark one, for it
is infused with so much light that all traces are obliterated. As Socrates says, the
ex-prisoner is finally able to see the sun ‘in and by itself in its own place’ (516b).
This photograph of the sun is an impossible image since a direct beholding of
the sun damages the retina and results in blindness.
The photograph taken at the apex of the man’s journey will not be the
last picture that we see in the story of the cave. For the ex-prisoner now has
to return to his original habitat, thus we find ourselves once again moving
downwards, from an overabundance of light, slowly descending into the
darkness of the underground cave, from photographs of lightness and clarity
to darker images where things are once again indistinguishable until we find
ourselves re-immersed in the obscurity of the cave. Socrates’s role as photog-
rapher functions at two levels. At the same time that he uses pictures to educate
Glaucon, he is also fixing the dancing shadows for us, revealing photographi-
cally the truth of our existence.
In my discussion of the images photographed by Socrates, I have tried
to show how negativity operates at different levels in relation to the various
pictures presented to us in the cave allegory. The idea of the negative plays an
even more fundamental role in the Platonic hierarchy of things since it helps us
to distinguish the original from the copy.
Note how photography is implicated in this discussion, for it is precisely
the negative which liberates us from the confinements of the original. After all,
in the history of photography, it is Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype that survived,
whereas the daguerreotype became obsolete. The success of Fox Talbot’s method
can be attributed to the negative, which enabled one to produce multiple copies
of the same image. If we return to Socrates’s discussion of the line with Glaucon,
eikones or images are positioned at the bottom segment of the line in eikasia.
These are copies – shadows and reflections whose originals can be found in
pistis – the portion of the line directly above eikasia. In Sallis’s reading of the
line, he emphasizes the negativity or concealment inherent in eikon and points
out the strong link between eikasia and pistis as two ways of showing. The
original manifests itself through the image; it ‘shine[s] forth in and through
it’.92 It comes as no surprise then that these words can be applied to the printing
process in the darkroom where the light of the enlarger shines through the
negative, casting shadows on the photographic paper.
How does one distinguish an image from the original? As Socrates tells us
in the Phaedo, it is by recognizing that an image is an image because it shows
the original as it is and as it is not.93 Here I would like to draw another link with
photography by thinking through the ways in which an image can reveal itself.
In Socrates’s explanation of eikasia, the first example that he gives is the shadow,
for the shadow is an image which shows the outline of the original object and
nothing else.94 In the Phaedo, Socrates explains the image–original relation and
the power of recollection by using the example of portraiture. Just as the portrait
of Simmias is Simmias but at the same time it is not Simmias, what we see in
an image or copy of the original is the original and what it is not.95 Photography
would push this tension between image and original even further until the two
become so inseparable that they are what Barthes would call laminated objects
– any attempt to tear one apart would inevitably destroy the other, ‘as if the
Photograph always carries its referent with itself ’.96
2
Plato’s Chora and the Uneasy

Place of Photography
Not to have anything of one’s own, isn’t that also the situation or site, the
condition of khora?
Derrida
Let us begin by looking at the various instances in which the word chora appears
in the Platonic dialogues. In the Timaeus, Plato chooses to use an ordinary word
from the Greek lexicon, chora (χώρα) to designate the triton genos or third kind
in his cosmology. As we have seen in Chapter 1, the word ‘chora’ appears in Book
VII of the Republic when Socrates tells Glaucon of the crucial moment in the
prisoner’s escape from the cave, when the ex-prisoner is finally able to look at
the sun, not in an alien setting but ‘auton kath’auton en tèi autou chorai’, ‘in and
by itself in its own place’ (516b). The summit of the climb culminates with the
beholding of the sun and is immediately followed by the prisoner’s descent back
into the cave. The word ‘chorai’ here refers to place. Not only does this denote the
place of the sun but, if we follow through the analogy set up by Plato in Book VI,
then ‘chorai’ would also allude to the location of the Good. This will prove to be
of great significance in light of my suggestion of chora as photographic. ‘Chora’
also appears in the Sophist and depicts the bright region in which the philosopher
resides, as opposed to the darkness of non-being that enshrouds the sophist
(254a). The Stranger tells Theaetetus that it is difficult to look at the philosopher,
for the chora of the philosopher is filled with so much light that it dazzles those
who are ignorant. Thus one can see how the word ‘chora’ in the Platonic dialogues
brings together the philosopher, the sun and the Good by providing them with
an abode (ἕδρα) that is overflowing with light. As Sallis remarks: ‘Here the place
is, then, not only just that of the philosopher but also, as such, the place of the
brightness of being, even (as the Stranger goes on to suggest) a godly place.’1
At a later point in this chapter, I will explore the implications of this gathering,
for chora in the Timaeus is described as triton genos, a phrase that is also used
in the Republic in reference to light. However, one must be careful not to make
generalizations in terms of the word itself. ‘Chora’ was a common word at the
time of Plato and is still used today to designate space, place, a partly occupied
room, position, post, land and country. The associations of ‘chora’ with a sense
of illumination and enlightenment, as we have seen above, is clearly not the case
in the Republic 495c, where it is used to depict the barren place of philosophy,
resulting from the polluting of young minds by sycophants and flatterers in the
polis. Nor is it in the Laws, where the word appears on numerous occasions,
in reference to the country as opposed to the city (704c and 763c), rough land
(695a) and the foreign country to where the murderer is banished (864e).2
In the previous chapter, I examined the presence of the photographic in
Platonic thought, using the allegory of the cave as a starting point to explore
the place of the Good. Now I will look at another figure in the Platonic
dialogues which, along with the Good, can be considered as ‘epekeina tes
ousias’. Introducing chora at this point of the text already proves to be difficult
(chalepon) and we shall see how resistant it is to discourse, for Plato tells us that
chora is a third kind (triton genos) outside of Being and Becoming, thus beyond
language, before the existence of time, and can only be understood through a
kind of ‘bastard reasoning’ (‘logismô nothô’), as if in a dream (52b). By looking
closely at the Timaeus, I will explore the ways in which chora can be considered
photographic.
The Timaeus is a story about origins. It is a curious text, in the way that the
origin is constantly being deferred. There are in total three beginnings that are
recounted throughout the course of the dialogue. The difficulty of speaking the
beginnings reflects the difficulty of locating the origins of photography. Hence,
the Timaeus and its structural deferral of commencement will detain us and our
entry into the pressing question of the photographic which abides there in its
narrative.
Beginnings
In the Timaeus Plato examines the origin of the world and the creation of the
cosmos.3 In this story of genealogies, he leads the reader through a labyrinth
of many beginnings; the multiple commencements of the Platonic dialogue
operate on two levels: thematically, as a story of origins, and structurally, in the
organization of the text. As soon as the reader is immersed in the story, he is
made to realize that what he thought of as the starting point of the story is in fact
Plato’s Chora and the Uneasy Place of Photography 35
not the true beginning, for there exists a story prior to the tale that he has just
read, which in turn will be narrated by another interlocutor. After two or three
‘false’ starts, it is not until mid-way through Timaeus’s discourse, after Critias’s
story, that the true origin is revealed to the reader.
The Timaeus is set during the festival of the goddess. Although she is never
named, the celebrations are probably held in honour of the goddess Athena, the
patron of Athens. It is the disciples’ turn to tell Socrates a story, in return for
their teacher’s speech the night before, on the subject of the utopic state and its
citizens. Critias decides to tell Socrates an ‘old-world story’ (21), which was told
to him by his ninety-year-old grandfather Critias, when he was a ten-year-old
boy. This tale of the wonderful feats of the Athenians and the secret island of
Atlantis, lost through the crevices of time and memory, is ‘not a mere legend but
an actual fact’ (21). It is authentic, ‘though strange, is certainly true’ (20e), for it
was told to the elder Critias by the poet Solon, recognized as ‘the wisest of the
seven sages’ (21), a relative and friend of Dropides, Critias’s great-grandfather.
Therefore, right from the beginning of the Timaeus, we are presented with a
narrative resembling a kaleidoscope, composed of stories within stories, myths
which recall other originary tales and recollections of past remembrances
embedded in other people’s memories – Critias the disciple telling us a story
told to him by his grandfather Critias, who heard of it from his own grandfather
Dropias, who was told the story by the noble Solon, who heard about the feats
of his ancestors from an Egyptian priest.4
During his travels to the Eyptian Delta, Solon visited the city of Sais, where he
first heard the story of the magnificent Athenians from an elderly priest. Solon
was presenting an account of the origin of humans, of Deucalion and his wife
Pyrrha and how they survived the Great Deluge in their ark, when an elderly
priest approached him and commented on the incompleteness of his story: ‘As
for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they
are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single
deluge only, but there were many previous ones …’ (23b). The priest explained
that the goddess founded the city of Athens 9,000 years earlier. It was an ideal
state, perfectly governed and inhabited by the best people, ‘And there you dwelt,
having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all
virtue, as became the children and disciples of gods’ (24d). Under the aegis of
the goddess Athena, who was the patron of wisdom as well as war, the city of
Athens was a valiant state and protected its citizens and neighbours from the
onslaught of Atlantis, the powerful island empire. However, in one single day
and night, earthquakes and floods destroyed both empires, Atlantis disappearing
under the sea and the Athenians swallowed by the earth. Solon would not have
known about the ancient city for the written records of this wonderful race of
Athenians had been destroyed by natural disasters. Its histories, however, were
preserved in the temples of Salis.5 This failure to fix and preserve history was due
to geographical location, the habitats of Solon’s ancestors were more vulnerable
to natural disasters, unlike that of the Egyptians who lived in a land protected
from draught and floods, ‘for which reason the traditions preserved here are
the most ancient’ (22c). The priest explained that those who survived a natural
disaster did not have the writing abilities to record the past:
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with
letters and other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down and leaves only those of
you who are destitute of letters and education, and so you have to begin all over
again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either
among us or among yourselves. (23b)
Thus memory, the failure to remember and the necessity for inscription pervade
the beginning of the Timaeus. Critias’s tale is reconstituted through the effort
of a triple memory: the memory of Critias who tells the story to Socrates, the
memory of the elder Critias who repeated the story to the ten-year-old Critias,
having heard it from Solon, who himself remembered a meeting he had with
an Egyptian priest. The priest in turn knew this story from the written records
in the temple. Despite its authenticity, emphasized many times by Critias the
narrator, this tale is unfinished as a story of genealogies. For, as the grandfather,
Critias, laments: if Solon, upon his return, had not been as occupied with other
matters and had written down the complete story as a poem, he would have
been as famous as Homer or Hesiod (21d).
Critias describes his attempts at recalling the tale before he presented it to
Socrates: ‘For a long time had elapsed and I had forgotten too much; I thought
that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would
speak’ (26). Throughout the night, he managed to retrieve nearly the entire story
from his childhood memories. It is almost as if Critias, the young boy, wanted
to ‘photograph’ the story in his mind when he asked his grandfather to repeat
the tale to him many times so that it could be imprinted on his memory ‘like
an indelible picture’ (26c). In the Burnett translation of the Timaeus, the same
phrase (hoste hoion enkaumata anekplutou graphês emmona moi gegonen) reads,
‘so it has stayed in my mind indelibly like an encaustic picture’.6 Here, Critias
compares the fixation of memory to a type of wax painting renowned for its
durability. And when it is Timaeus’s turn to speak, one will also find allusions
to impressing, marking and moulding in his discussion of gold and ekmageoin,
in relation to chora.
Encaustic painting
Used in portraiture, sculpture and architectural decorations such as ceilings and

walls, encaustic technique was valued for its ability to produce vivid colours and
realistic renderings, as well as for its durability. Pliny writes in Natural History:
In early days there were two kinds of encaustic painting, with wax and on ivory
with a graver or cestrum (that is a small pointed graver); but later the practice
came in of decorating battleships. This added a third method, that of employing
a brush, when wax has been melted by fire; this process of painting ships is not
spoilt by the action of the sun nor by salt water or winds. (Book XXXV, 41)7
In encaustic paintings, pigments are mixed with molten beeswax and applied
to a surface with a cestrum, a utensil that is shaped like a spoon on one end for
holding the melting wax and with a flat handle on the other end for applying
the pigment on to the surface.8 The resulting image is then sealed with a heated
iron rod known as a rhabdion.
The application of molten wax demands speed, resulting in images that
convey a sense of spontaneity and vivacity. In addition to the adornment of
ships described by Pliny, encaustic painting was also used in portraiture work,
as seen in the mummy portraits unearthed in the Fayum region in Egypt. In the
period of Greco-Roman Egypt (100 bce to 200 ce), an encaustic portrait was
usually painted on thin wooden panels and kept in the house as an ordinary
painting during the owner’s lifetime, but upon death the same portrait would
be trimmed into a smaller size and placed over the face of the deceased. It is
striking how realistic these portraits are – the detailed rendition of the facial
features by the artist attempts to capture the vivid expression of the subject.
Moreover, by virtue of its positioning, the simulacrum of the face, placed upon
the actual face of the corpse enabled the deceased to appear as if it were gazing
back at the observer.
In a curious manner, the way that encaustic paintings are incorporated into
Egyptian funereal traditions foreshadows certain cultural practices involving
photography in Asia. The encaustic portrait reminds one of the practice popular
in places such as Taiwan, of affixing a headshot photograph (of the kind used
in passports) to an individual’s tombstone following their death. The encaustic

painting removes the anonymity of the body hidden under the mummy
encasing and, in a way, restores the corpse to its former living glory. Just like the
photograph, it captures the individual expression of a loved one. Friends and
relatives can continue to visit the deceased, whose body is laid out in a wooden
box with a lid that can be opened specifically for the viewing of the encaustic
portrait.9 Critias’s allusion to encaustic painting is important to us, for the
reference to wax and imprinting will become more significant as we examine
the notion of chora in this chapter.
Recollections
The effort to recollect does not feature only in the stories told by Socrates’
disciples. The conversation in the Timaeus opens with a question concerning
memory. Socrates asks his disciples, Timaeus, Critias and Hermocrates, whether
they remember the topics that were discussed during the previous night
regarding the governance of the perfect state – the education of its citizens,
the defence of the city, and the procreation of children. Whereupon Timaeus
replies: ‘We remember some of them, and you will be here to remind us of
anything which we have forgotten, or rather, if we are not troubling you, will
you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then the particulars will be more firmly
fixed in our memories?’ (17b).
It is not sufficient for memory to be lodged deeply within the recesses of the
mind; it needs to be reanimated and projected like a moving picture. Socrates
requests his students to make the story come alive: ‘I might compare myself to
a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by the painter’s art,
or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with a desire of seeing them in motion or
engaged in some struggle or conflict to which their forms appear suited’ (19c).
Critias then hands over the discourse to Timaeus, who, being the astronomer
among the group, tells the story of the creation of the world. It is at this point
that the narrative ‘begins’ once again, with Timaeus invoking the gods before
launching into an inquiry on the nature of the universe. Whereas Critias’s tale
involves the magnificent deeds of the ancients and the matter of governance
in early civilization, Timaeus’s story opens further back in time, right at the
beginning, before humans were created. Timaeus begins his story by alluding
to the generosity of the Good. He says: ‘Let me tell you then why the creator
made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any
jealousy of anything’ (29e). Linking Timaeus’s opening words, ‘Good he was

[ἀγαθὸς ᾖν]’ (29e) to the discussion of the line simile in the Republic, where
the Good is presented as the beginning (ἀρχή), Sallis suggests that there is a
‘four-fold compound beginning’ at play here, the beginning word uttered in
Timaeus’s beginning on the subject of beginning is the Good, which is the ἀρχή
or beginning.10
Timaeus begins his discourse on the genesis of the cosmos by establishing
a distinction between the intelligible and the sensible. He asks the question:
‘What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which
is always becoming and never is?’ (28) The intelligible which consists of the
eternal paradigms is unchanging and perfect, ‘that which always is’ (τὸ ὂν ἀεί),
whereas the sensible, apprehended through opinion, sensations and without
reason, is variable and imperfect. Those things that belong to the intelligible are
perpetual, eternal and always the same whereas those belonging to the sensible
realm are generated. In a constant state of becoming, they are susceptible to
disappearance. Thus one notes that, right from the beginning, a juxtaposition
is established between the ways of accessing the two kinds. It is through ‘intel-
lection with discourse’ (νοἠσει μετὰ λόγου)11 that we can gain an understanding
of eidos (είδος) whereas doxa (δόξα), which Timaeus presents as without logos,
leads us to the things that reside in the visible world.12 The world is presented
here as a copy, modelled after the eternal Forms – it is the ‘fairest of creations’,
created by the ‘best of causes’ (29) and ‘framed in the likeness of that which is
apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of
necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something’ (29b).
The following question posed by Timaeus sums up the major preoccupation
of the text: ‘I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning
of an inquiry about anything – was the world, I say, always in existence and
without beginning, or created, and had a beginning?’ (28b). F. M. Cornford
notes in Plato’s Cosmology that Timaeus as a cosmogony differs from previous
philosophical writings on the genealogy of the world, for Plato includes the
figure of the Demiurge who operates as the divine craftsman. He points out that
whereas other cosmogonies present the birth of the world as either evolutionary
or atomistic, Plato wants to show us that there is divine Reason at work in the
universe.13
The Demiurge did not create the world from scratch but from pre-existing
material. Cornford cautions us against perceiving the Demiurge as an
all-powerful God in the Christian tradition, for Plato’s God faces constraints
and limitations. Comparing the Demiurge to a craftsman who needs to make
the best out of the materials that were given to him, Cornford explains that the
Demiurge is ‘confronted with “all that is visible” in chaos of disorderly motion.
For this disorder he is not responsible, but only for those features of order and
intelligible design which he proceeds to introduce, “so far as he can.”’14
After explaining the actions of the Demiurge in instilling soul into the world
and framing the universe by binding the heaven and creating the four elements
– water, air, earth and fire – in equal proportions, the narrative continues with
the emergence of time and the division of day and night, the birth of the planets
and the stars, and the creation of the demi-gods, children of God who are
entrusted with the task of bringing humans into being. Following an exposition
on the importance of sight and a description of the fire that flows from one’s
eyes to the object of vision, we find ourselves suddenly back at the beginning,
‘I will first go back to the beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all.
Once more, then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God and
beg him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted inquiry, and to bring
us to the haven of probability. So now let us begin again’ (48d–e).
Triton genos
In this new beginning, Timaeus offers us a more detailed account of the two
kinds of being (duo eidê). In his discussion so far, we are presented with to on
aie (τὸ ὂν ἀεί), eternal and perfect, and to gignomenon (τὸ γιγνόµενον), forever
in the state of becoming. Just before he introduces the third kind (triton genos),
Timaeus tells us that the second kind, which is visible and generated, resembles
the first kind. It is the chora that enables this resemblance to take place. This act
of doubling, described as ‘the duplicity of being’ by Sallis, will be of the utmost
importance when we look at the photographic properties of the third kind.15
Now, Plato brings forth the triton genos:
There is also a third kind which we did not distinguish at the time, conceiving
that the two would be enough. But now the argument seems to require that
we should set forth in words another kind, which is difficult of explanation
(chalepon) and dimly seen (amudron). (49b)
Two words are used to describe the third kind, chalepon (χαλεπόν) and amudron
(ἀμυδρόν). The word amudron is associated with the act of seeing and can be
defined as vague, dimly seen and difficult to discern by eyesight. As for chalepon,
it is not the first time that the word is used in the Timaeus. Chalepon, defined
as difficult, dangerous and troublesome, appears frequently throughout the text.

Right at the onset, Timaeus asks Socrates to recount the discourse which took
place the night before, if it is not too troublesome for him (17b). Here, chalepon
is used in conjunction with the task of remembering and reiteration. Timaeus
hopes that by asking Socrates to repeat the story of the previous night, all those
who are present will have the details fixed and reinforced in their minds. Sallis
notes the significance of chalepon at such an early point in the text; he writes:
‘His [Timaeus’s] request puts into play for the first time a word that will serve
as an indispensable marker later in the dialogue, a word that could indeed serve
to mark the character of the Timaeus as a whole – the word χαλεπόν’.16 Timaeus
continues, ‘What nature are we to attribute to this new kind of being? We reply
that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all generation.’ We are told
that all things enter and leave the receptacle, ‘the forms which enter into and go
out of her are the likenesses of eternal realities modelled after their patterns in a
wonderful and mysterious manner’ (50c), yet the nature of the receptacle is that
it has no form in itself. One finds an undertone running through the narrative
suggesting that language is insufficient in articulating the qualities of the triton
genos. The difficulty in speaking of the triton genos is implicit in the following
statements by Timaeus: ‘I have spoken the truth and I must express myself in
clearer language, and this will be an arduous task for many reasons’ (49b), and
later, ‘Let me make another attempt to make my meaning more clearly’ (50).
Furthermore, in his presentation so far, Timaeus has not yet designated the third
kind with a proper name. One has to wait until 52a before Timaeus names the
triton genos as chora (χώρα).
The notion of the triton genos is something that I want to develop in this
section – the obscurity of the third kind, its elusiveness and resistance to
discourse, may elucidate our understanding of the uneasy place that photog-
raphy occupies in cultural and art theory. By looking closely at the chora – I
am hesitant to use ‘properties’ of the chora, for this would imply that chora is a
‘kind’ – I hope to reveal that which is photographic in the chora. In many ways,
the difficulty for Timaeus to speak of the beginnings reflects photography’s
own nebulous beginnings.17 Timaeus describes his discourse on the chora as
atopos (ἄτοπος) or ‘out of place’: ‘Once more, then at the commencement of my
discourse, I call upon God and beg him to be our savior out of a strange and
unwonted inquiry … So now let us begin again’ (48d–e). I will show how the
notion of atopos is also shared by photography.
As I have mentioned earlier, the triton genos remains unnamed until 52a.
Before it is designated with the name chora, Timaeus tells us that it resembles a
receptacle. Over the next few chapters, what becomes apparent is the frequent
allusions to the receptacle in discussions related to light and the divine. In the
Timaeus, two concrete examples are chosen to explain the nature of the receptacle
(hupodochê), each one curiously pertaining to a type of artisanal work. In his
explanation of the receptacle’s unchanging quality, Plato gives us the example of
the goldsmith who is constantly moulding gold into different shapes. Gold will
always remain the same material despite it being transformed into various figures.
In Natural History, Pliny explains that the popularity of gold does not stem from
its brightness (silver is shinier) nor from its resemblance to the stars (gems are
brighter). It is due to its consistency as a metal, impermeable to wear and tear:
gold is the only thing that loses no substance by the action of fire, but even in
conflagrations and on funeral pyres receives no damage … Whereas all other
metals when found in the mines are brought into a finished condition by means
of a fire, gold is gold straight away and has its substance in a perfect state at once,
when it is obtained by mining. (Book XXXIII, 19.59–62)18
The other example that Plato uses to describe the hupodochê pertains to the
fabrication of perfume. This is a distinctive quality of the receptacle – as
generator of all things, the receptacle does not take on the shape of the thing
that is impressed upon its surface, similar to the base oil used in perfume-
making, which has to be odourless in order to receive the scents.19
So far we have known the ‘invisible and formless being’ (51a) as the recep-
tacle (hupodochê), nurse (tithênê) and mother (mêtri). It is in the middle of
the Timaeus that Plato introduces the term chora to designate this place of
generation: ‘And there is a third nature, which is space (chora) and is eternal,
and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things’ (52b).
Whereas the intelligible can be accessed through reason and contemplation,
the sensible, which is always in the process of becoming, is comprehended
through the senses and opinion, the chora is defined as ‘hardly real’ and can only
be perceived as if in a dream, ‘when all sense is absent, by a kind of spurious
reasoning’ (52b).
What is chora? As noted earlier, the Greek word χώρα is defined as space,
place, a partly occupied room, position or post, land and country. Plato chooses
to use an ordinary word from the Greek lexicon to designate the third kind. In
the beginning of this chapter, we have looked at several instances in which the
word was used in the Platonic dialogues, in particular at its associations with the
brightness of being of the philosopher and the place of the sun. In the Timaeus,
‘chora’ is different, for it is no longer a word, except in the sense of designating
something that resists language and all systems of signification.20 Chora in the
Timaeus defies all explanation, for we are told that it is dimly seen and ‘most
incomprehensible (χαλεπόν)’ (51b). If we think of the Platonic universe as
composed of the intelligible world and the sensible world, where then does one
place chora? The Timaeus tells us that the creation of the cosmos is already a
copy of the intelligible – the Demiurge looked to the Eternal and fashioned the
world according to the most perfect form. With chora, a rupture in Platonic
discourse occurs, for the chora has no referent, belonging neither to the intel-
ligible nor to the sensible. As Derrida writes:
And yet, half-way through the cycle, won’t the discourse on khôra have opened,
between the sensible and the intelligible, belonging neither to one nor the other,
hence neither to the cosmos as sensible god nor to the intelligible god, an appar-
ently empty space – even though it is no doubt not emptiness? Didn’t it name a
gaping opening, an abyss or a chasm? Isn’t it starting out from this chasm, ‘in’ it,
that the cleavage between the sensible and the intelligible, indeed between body
and soul, can have place and take place?21
Although the receptacle and nurse of generation22 has no form of its own
(amorphos), it is nonetheless a generator of forms. A key passage states: ‘In the
same way that which is to receive perpetually and through its whole extent the
resemblances of all eternal beings ought to be devoid of any particular form’
(51). This statement however needs to be read in conjunction with an earlier
passage concerning the receptacle (49a–51e) before Plato introduces the term
chora (52a), we are told that the elements or qualities that enter and leave the
receptacle – fire, water, air and earth – are in constant change; the only thing
that is permanent is the receptacle itself.23 These qualities entering the receptacle
are already images – ‘But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the
likenesses of eternal realities modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and
mysterious manner’ (50c).
Cornford compares chora to a mirror where images are constantly being
reflected, ‘The Receptacle is not that “out of which” (έξ ού) things are made; it is
that “in which” (έν ᾧ) qualities appear, as fleeting images are seen in a mirror.’24
Chora acts as a support for the eidolons, ‘like images crossing a mirror’.25 One
must bear in mind that there is no reference to the mirror in Plato’s description
of chora. However, the mirror does appear several times in the text, in a passage
that examines the mechanics of vision (46b–c), and towards the end of the
Timaeus as a metaphor for the liver’s role in the lower region of the body (71b
and 72c). The spleen, adjacent to the liver, is described as a napkin whose
function is to wipe the mirror clean. We are told that the liver is the seat of
divination (72b); this would therefore make the mirror metaphor especially
befitting since the mirror is an instrument often used in soothsaying practices
and the occult.
Plato tells us that things enter the receptacle and impress themselves upon
its surface, leaving imprints that are immediately erased. Chora, eternally blank
and void of form, is what Derrida describes as a virginal substrate:
Now what is represented by a virgin wax, a wax that is always virgin, absolutely
preceding any possible impression, always older, because atemporal, than
everything that seems to affect it in order to take form in it, in it which receives,
nevertheless, and in it which, for the same reason, is always younger, infant
even, achronic and anachronistic, so indeterminate that it does not even justify
the name and the form of wax?26
In the question above, not only does Derrida highlight the self-effacing property
of the substrate, for it never takes on the forms that are impressed upon its
surface; more importantly, he brings to our attention chora’s position which is
outside of language, beyond the Platonic schemata of all things residing in the
world of forms and the world of particulars. Hence, assigning it the name of wax
or comparing it to wax is inadequate, for chora cannot be identified as any kind
of being that exists in the Platonic world. It stands outside of Western ontology.27
Chora is virginal because it is a priori to all beings; it is, at once, out of date
– ‘anachronic’ and timeless – ‘achronic’. It is in chora’s nature to be ‘anach-
ronic’, forever incongruous to any time period within which it is inserted. As
the prerequisite for everything to exist in the world, chora’s existence must
precede that of the origin of the cosmos, for the origin is the moment of
inscription inside the chora by the Demiurge.28 Chora is ‘achronic’ for it is
eternal and indestructible. Its atemporal quality, in this sense, resembles that of
Form – ‘one kind of being is the form which is always the same, uncreated and
indestructible’ (51e).29 This would suggest that both chora and eidos are already
present before the demiourgos commenced his work. However, one must bear in
mind that the first and the third kind are different – the first kind, as an eternal
being, is self-same; it does not receive anything nor does it enter anywhere. It
is also distinguished from chora by the way that it is apprehended, for eidos
can only be understood through rational thinking whereas the obscurity of the
third kind, its resistance to discourse and its elusiveness, necessitates a form
of ‘bastard reasoning’ (λογισµῷ τινὶ νόθῳ) and a dream-like state. The word
‘νόθῳς’ or ‘bastard’ refers to a child born out of wedlock or the offspring of an
alien mother and an Athenian father.30 ‘Νόθῳς’ also points to inauthenticity,

counterfeit and corruption. One may even argue that the presence of chora is a
corruption within Plato’s cosmology. Derrida describes the chora as a ‘foreign
graft within Plato’s text’,31 thus reinforcing chora’s ‘alien’ status. The fact that
chora can only be apprehended through an oneiric state and a kind of bastard
reasoning emphasizes its inaccessibility.
A passage in Book V of the Republic may be able to shed some light on
Timaeus’s evocation of dreams as a medium to discern the chora.32 In a
discussion on those people who recognize the beautiful in itself as opposed to
others who are only capable of recognizing beautiful things but refuse to believe
that there is the beautiful in itself, Socrates posits that the latter, who mistake
images as originals, are living in the state of a dream: ‘Is not the dream state,
whether the man is asleep or awake, just this – the mistaking of resemblance for
identity?’ (476c). It seems, then, that in the dream one takes representation to
be the original thing itself. And it is in such a dream-like state, as Sallis suggests,
that one can perceive the chora, where a merging of the image of the chora
with the chora itself takes place and where one finds a collapse of the difference
which originally sets chora apart from sensible things: ‘In the dream the χώρα is
pictured as the place in which all that is must be. In the oneiric vision the χώρα –
or rather, its dream-image – hovers before us as a place so all-encompassing that
whatever is set apart from it can only be nothing.’33 I will return to the dream in
my discussion of Derrida’s text Demeure Athènes.34 Derrida dreams of dreaming
the same dream as Socrates. What is the nature of this dream?
Although both eidos and chora have existed before the creation of the
cosmos, what marks the singularity of the latter is its existence outside of time.
In the Timaeus, time is presented as an image modelled after Eternal Duration,
constructed by the Demiurge when he created the heavens and the planets. This
would place time in a different category from chora, for the latter is ‘original’
and not a copy; it is a pre-existing factor outside of the Demiurge’s creation of
the cosmos. For time to exist, it would have had to endure the ‘rite of passage’
by impressing itself upon the surface of chora. Cornford draws our attention to
Giuseppe Fraccaroli’s observation that there is no archetype of chora;35 it is a
‘condition without which Reason could not produce the visible order. Time is a
feature of that order, inherent in its rational structure.’36
Epekeina tes ousias
In the French translation of the Timaeus by Joseph Moreau, one finds the
following footnote relating to chora: ‘Le réceptacle, dépouillé de tout attribut
sensible et défini par sa fonction propre, est une essence; mais cette fonction même
exige qu’il soit denué de tout essence; c’est donc à proprement parler, un être donc
l’essence est de n’en avoir pas.’37 (‘The receptacle, removed of all sensible attribute
and defined by its particular function, is an essence; but this same function
demands it to be deprived of all essence. It is therefore strictly speaking, a being
whose essence is not to have any essence.’) Although Moreau’s reading acknowl-
edges the amorphousness of chora, it still locates chora inside the realms of the
intelligible and the sensible – chora’s presence is regarded here as a manifes-
tation of its essence. However, one must note that the non-being of chora lies
precisely in its position outside of Western metaphysics. It is integral to Western
philosophy yet cannot be encompassed by it.38 As Derrida writes: ‘Chora is no
essence. It is beyond the opposition of essence and accident, beyond all the
traditional oppositions in philosophy.’39
Language fails to accommodate chora for the latter overturns all systems of
representation. Derrida points out that many commentators of the Timaeus
have analysed Plato’s use of metaphors in describing chora as ‘mother’, ‘nurse
of all generations’ and ‘receptacle’ but have failed to recognize that these are in
fact not metaphors, for the metaphor is a rhetorical device that draws upon the
division between the intelligible and the sensible; the chora exists beyond the
Platonic dichotomy. Derrida writes: ‘We shall not speak of metaphor, but not in
order to hear, for example, that the khôra is properly a mother, a nurse, a recep-
tacle, a bearer of imprints or gold. It is perhaps because its scope goes beyond
or falls short of the polarity, no doubt analogous, of the mythos and the logos.’40
As we have seen earlier, chora resists all kinds of definition due to its position
outside of representation; hence Timaeus, who tells us that it is ‘hardly real’
(52b) and ‘is most incomprehensible’ (51).
After a passage comparing its movement to that of a winnowing basket, the
chora vanishes from the text and is never mentioned again. I would like to propose
that there is something of the chora in photography. Does photography reside
in an uneasy place similar to that occupied by chora? Photography receives and
gives form to all things that impress themselves upon its light-sensitive surface,
yet it is often seen as formless, without an identity of its own. Roger Scruton in
his essay ‘Photography and Representation’ argues that photography cannot be
an art form for, unlike painting, it is not a mode of representation. He writes
The photograph is a means to the end of seeing its subject; in painting, on the
other hand, the subject is the means to the end of its own representation. The
photograph is transparent to its subject, and if it holds our interest it does so
because it acts as a surrogate for the thing which it shows.41
Scruton attributes the aesthetic interest that one may have towards a photograph
solely to the subject photographed, thus reducing the role that the photographer
has to play in the creation of the image and, at the same time, disregarding
the materiality of the photographic support. His reductionist attitude towards
photography is typical of many critical writings in photographic history and
theory: for example, John Tagg regards photography as lacking an identity of
its own; Mary Price argues that a photograph acquires meaning solely through
language and the context that surrounds it.42 The easy dismissal of photography
to a third kind, inferior to art, subservient to the network of social and linguistic
forces within which it is embedded, is the result of a misreading, substituting
the manifestation of photography’s essence, which is a kind of formlessness, for
a lack of identity. The following statement about chora may shed some light on
to the ‘invisibility’ of the photographic medium:
Khôra receives, so as to give place to them, all the determinations, but she/
it does not possess any of them as her/its own. She possesses them, she has
them, since she receives them, but she does not possess them as properties,
she does not possess anything as her own. She ‘is’ nothing other than the sum
or the process of what has just been inscribed ‘on’ her, on the subject of her,
on her subject, right up against her subject, but she is not the subject or the
present support of all these interpretations, even though, nevertheless, she is not
reducible to them.43
The description of chora above can easily apply to photography. By considering

the affinity between the two, one may be able to understand the difficulties often
encountered in attempts to theorize photography. That chora is ‘nothing other
than the sum or the process of what has just been inscribed “on” her, on the
subject of her’ echoes Tagg’s comment that
Photography as such has no identity. Its status as a technology varies with the
power relations which invest it … Its function as a mode of cultural production
is tied to definite conditions of existence, and its products are meaningful and
legible only within the particular currencies they have.44
Tagg and Price’s respective views of photography are symptomatic of a wider

theoretical aporia concerning photography.
Theorizing photography is often reduced to identifying a set of relations

external to the medium that are determined solely by usage or context. In a
round-table discussion on photographic theory that took place in 2005, at the
University College Cork, James Elkins’s comments bring to the forefront the
often frustrating and difficult (χαλεπόν) attempt to define photography. On the
subject of ‘why we find photography so hard to conceptualize’, his remark is as
follows: ‘One immediate reason is that it is not one subject, but several.’45 Tagg’s
error is to misrecognize photography’s ubiquity as a lack, whereas what I have
hoped to show so far in this chapter is that photography functions like chora: it
withdraws in order to give place.
A passage in the Platonic text where Timaeus tells us that chora may take
on the appearance of fire when the traces of fire, or, rather, a proto-fire, are
received by the receptacle will enable us to better understand the ‘invisibility’
of photography. Timaeus tells us that ‘as far, however, as we can attain to a
knowledge of her [mother and receptacle of all created and visible] from the
previous considerations, we may truly say that fire is that part of her nature
which from time to time is inflamed … in so far as she receives the impressions
of them’ (51b). How does one reconcile this statement to what we have been
told so far about the chora – that it gives form but doesn’t take on the form of
things that enter the receptacle? Sallis’s reading of this passage may help shed
light on the apparent contradiction. He explains that the total invisibility of
the chora would otherwise have resulted in a discourse which is ‘even more
than most perplexing … difficult, troublesome, dangerous’ and would collapse
upon itself, ‘utterly blind, completely unbound by anything but itself ’.46 He
continues, ‘Even if as fire, it nonetheless appears; it appears, even if never as
itself.’47 Sallis’s comments on this specific passage help to elucidate our under-
standing of photography’s perplexing nature as a medium. A photograph is
always a photograph of something, it necessarily points to something, ‘it points
a finger at certain vis-à-vis, and cannot escape this pure deictic language’,48 but
it never refers to itself. This transparency, which Barthes describes as belonging
‘to that class of laminated objects whose two leaves cannot be separated without
destroying them both’,49 leads to a misunderstanding of the medium; as we have
seen earlier, one such problem arising from many photographic theories is the
assumption that photography has no identity of its own, its existence being
solely defined by the set of social, political, cultural and historical relations in
which it finds itself immersed.50 Hence Mary Price, who observes, ‘The range of
uses for a single photograph is limited by its visible content … Use is limited by
the image even as the image lends itself to varying uses.’51 In Burning with Desire,
Geoffrey Batchen notes that there are two groups of photographic theorists, the
‘naturalists’ who seek to define photography through its formalistic qualities
and the ‘postmodernists’ who deny photography of its essence and instead focus
on its intertwining relationship and complicity with discourses of power, gender
and culture.52 Instead of photography being subsumed under a network of social
and cultural relations, or reduced to merely formalistic qualities, I would like to
suggest the following: what if photography acts as a support, providing things
with an abode, like the hupodochê or the liver-mirror in Timaeus 71b, holding
up these phantasms that pass through?
Thinking photography through the Platonic chora is productive in several
ways. It allows one to acknowledge that the ‘invisibility’ of the medium is
not equivalent to an absence; invisibility is its mode of operation. Second, it
confirms the argument of this book that photography is embedded in the roots
of Western thought. One recognizes in the elusive presence of the triton genos,
in its generosity and its formlessness, something that is photographic.
Impression
I want to suggest that photography shares the same tropes of ekmageoin

and hupodoche as the chora. The word ekmageoin first appears in 50c, in a
description of chora as ‘the natural recipient of all impressions’ (ekmageion gar
phusei pantei keitai). It is curious to note that in the French translation, there
is a direct reference to soft wax that is absent in the English versions, ‘Telle une
cire molle, sa nature est prête pour toute impression’,53 whereas Burnett translates
the same phrase as ‘by nature it is there as a matrix for everything’54 and W. R.
M. Lamb’s translation reads: ‘For it is laid down by nature as a molding-stuff for
everything.’55
The following definitions of ekmageion in the Liddell and Scott Greek-English
Lexicon reveal the opposing forces that are contained in the single word – the
dual action of imprinting and erasure. The entry of ekmageion (ἐκμαγεῖον)
reads: napkin; that which wipes off, gets rid of; that on or in which an impression
is made; impress, mould and model.56 These opposing forces are constantly at
play in photography – every act of fixing with light is threatened by the possi-
bility of immediate erasure by a superabundance of light. Ekmageion as napkin
appears in a description of the spleen in the Timaeus (72c). Plato explains that
the spleen ensures the proper functioning of the liver, just like a napkin that is
always available to wipe the surface of the mirror clean. A napkin that is capable
of both erasing and imprinting reminds us of the legend of Veronica’s veil, a

cloth used to wipe away the sweat and blood of Christ while simultaneously
fixing his image on to its surface. The Turin Shroud, the gospel of Guadalupe,
the Mandylion of Edyssa and Veronica’s veil are among the many miracles that
record the impression of the holy body on to fabric. It is interesting to note that
both the Mandylion of Edyssa and Veronica’s veil perform the double action of
inscription and erasure. The Mandylion of Edyssa was created when Jesus wiped
his face with a towel, thus fixing his image on to the piece of cloth. The word
mandylion derives from the Latin mantele, which refers to a napkin or a towel
and the Arabic mandil, defined as handkerchief and veil.57 The towel was given
to King Abgar of Edyssa, who asked Jesus to heal him from leprosy. Unable
to visit King Abgar in person, Jesus sent Abgar’s messenger the fabric. Upon
receiving the holy relic, the king was cured.
The miraculous images mentioned above are known as acheiropoietoi –
images made without the intervention of the human hand.58 These are often
seen as metaphors of photography, as suggested by Ewa Kurylik. Referring to
Veronica’s veil, she writes: ‘Like an exposed film, the cloth contains Jesus’ image
which, however, can be “developed” only when the proper light is “switched on”,
i.e. under the gaze of a few true believers who, like Veronica, Volusianus, and
the Emperor Tiberius, see in it the Lord’s soul.’59
The idea of the ‘automatic’ image or the picture made without the inter-
vention of the human hand pervades the literature of photography in the early
years of its inception.
Niépce in an attempt to name the photographic process that he and Daguerre
had been working on, experimented with various word combinations based on
the following Greek terms: phusis, auté, graphé, typos, eikon, parastasis, aléthés.
From which was devised, physautographie (‘painting by nature herself ’), physau-
totype (‘imprint by nature herself)’, iconotauphyse (‘image by nature herself ’),
paratauphyse (‘representation of nature by herself ’), aléthophyse (‘real nature’),
and phusaléthotype (‘true imprint from nature’).60 As we can see from the above
neologisms, a strong emphasis is placed on the notion of automatism – nature
recording herself. Next to the Greek word typos, we find the following defini-
tions: ‘marque, signe; empreinte; vestige; image; effigie; modèle’.61 Curiously, this
leads us back to the ekmageion as imprint and model.
If we follow the French translation of the passage from the Timaeus
mentioned earlier, the direct allusion to a wax substrate brings us back to the
beginning of the Timaeus, where Critias describes his efforts to memorize
Solon’s story as if he were making a wax painting. The analogy between memory
and the wax substrate can also be found in Theaetetus where the quality of the
wax, its hardness and the level of its purity, are compared to the human capacity
for memory. Socrates explains to Theaetetus that erroneous judgement often
arises when the block of wax in one’s mind is too soft or too hard; however,
‘When a man has in his mind a good thick slab of wax, smooth and kneaded
to the right consistency, and the impressions that come through the senses
are stamped on these tables of the “heart” – Homer’s word hints at the mind’s
likeness to wax – then the imprints are clear and deep enough to last a long
time’ (194c–d).62
It is important for us to note that chora is no ordinary wax tablet, for it is life-
giving and a nurse of generation (pasês einai geneseôs hupodochên autên hoion
tithênên) (49a). An element enters and passes through chora, and after making
contact with its surface, departs with something extra; the passage through the
receptacle sanctions it to become part of the visible order. Similarly we can
associate the photographic camera with a receptacle (hupodochê) that enables
images to be fixed and sent forth into the world. Images impress themselves
upon the photographic substrate, scorching the silver emulsion with light. After
these eidolons – ‘resemblances of all eternal beings’ (51) – pass through the dark
chamber, they will become photographs that circulate in diverse networks of
production and consumption.
Batchen, in Burning with Desire, writes: ‘As an index, the photograph is
never itself but always, by its very nature, a tracing of something else.’63 Can
we take this statement further and say that photography is chora, for, in its
non-being, it receives and gives form to all matter? In a dialogue with the
architect Peter Eisenman, Derrida, referring to the Timaeus, asks: ‘One of the
questions of this text is, what does “to receive” mean?’64 Derrida compares
Socrates, as triton genos to chora.65 In the beginning of the Timaeus, Socrates
positions himself as an outsider; he gives place to Critias, Timaeus and
Hermocrates: ‘And thus people of your class are the only ones remaining who
are fitted by nature and education to take part at once both in politics and
philosophy’ (19e). By identifying himself as resembling the genos of the poets
and the Sophists – ‘tribe of imitators’ (mimêtikon ethnos), Socrates declares
that he is therefore unable to ‘celebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting
manner’ (19d). Derrida writes:
Socrates effaces himself, effaces in himself all the types, all the genera, both
those of the men of image and simulacrum whom he pretends for a moment
to resemble and that of the men of action and men of their word, philosophers
and politicians to whom he addresses himself while effacing himself before

them. But in thus effacing himself, he situates himself or insinuates himself
as a receptive addressee, let us say, as a receptacle of all that will henceforth be
inscribed.66
I will return to the implications of the dual action of receiving and erasing which
takes place within the hupodochê in the next chapter when I discuss the theurgic
practice of Iamblichus. In an essay entitled ‘Containing Ecstasy: The Strategies of
Iamblichean Theurgy’, Gregory Shaw draws parallels between the formlessness
of the chora in the Timaeus and the theurgist’s practice of emptying one’s soul
in preparation for divine possession. Iamblichus’s teachings place a strong
emphasis on the cultivation of oudenia or nothingness. In order to be possessed
by the gods, it is imperative that the theurgist realizes his own worthlessness
(oudenia) in face of the divine.67 This ability to become the receptacle of the
divine is characterized by what Shaw describes as ‘the capacity to enter states
of not-knowing receptivity’.68 He notes that in De Mysteriis, Iamblichus uses the
verb ‘χωρεῖν’ to describe the theurgist’s emptying of the soul in order to become
a receptacle for divine light.69 I will present Iamblichean theurgy as the site
where one sees a re-emergence of chora as photography.
There is another triton genos which merits our attention; it appears in 507e
of the Republic: ‘Though vision may be in the eyes and its possessor may try to
see it, and though color be present, yet without the presence of a third thing
specifically and naturally adapted to this purpose, you are aware that vision will
see nothing and the colors will remain invisible.’ This third kind is light.
Shadow drawing
In Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, there is an entry on the origins of painting
and the plastic arts. In Book XXXV, Section XLIII, Pliny tells the legend of
the Corinthian maiden, Diboutades, who traces on a wall the shadow cast by
candlelight of her lover on the eve of his departure to foreign lands. Her father,
Boutades, a potter, pressed clay to the outline and made a sculpture out of the
man’s profile. Earlier on in Section V, Pliny writes:
The question as to the origin of the art of painting is uncertain and it does not
belong to the plan of this work … As to the Greeks, some of them say it was
discovered at Sicyon, others in Corinth, but all agree that it began with tracing
an outline round a man’s shadow.70
For Derrida, blindness is at the origin of drawing and painting – the stick that
Boutades’ daughter uses to trace the outline of her lover’s shadow is a blind
man’s cane.71 Referring to two paintings depicting the legend – J. B. Suvée’s
Butades or the Origin of Drawing and Jean-Baptiste Regnault’s Butades Tracing
the Portrait of Her Shepherd or the Origin of Painting, Derrida proposes that the
necessity of not-seeing is a condition of drawing; the Corinthian maiden does
not exchange glances with her lover. Immersed in the fixing of his shadow, her
face is turned away from him.72
Blindness is also inherent in the act of photography. At the instant of
exposure, a lacuna takes place – a momentary blindness. The photographer is
prevented from seeing the subject when the shutter is released. This is more
pronounced with the single-lens reflex camera – inside the body of the camera
is a mirror which flips up at the moment of exposure. The range-finder camera
avoids such blackout; its direct-vision viewfinder is separate from the lens and,
as a result, the vision offered by the viewfinder does not coincide with the actual
view seen through the lens. This creates a constant disjuncture between what is
seen and what is photographed. Is this also a kind of blindness? But then again,
is photography not built upon the tension between what you think you have
photographed and what appears in the resulting image?73 Temporary blindness
is even more pronounced with digital photography where the screen turns blank
at the moment of image capture.
The legend of the Corinthian maiden is often depicted iconographically
with the figure of Cupid guiding the hands of the young girl.74 The invention
of painting is a mark of love, made by the hand of the lover who attempts
to preserve the essence of the original object of desire by tracing its shadow.
With photography, this will be quite a different story, for no human hand nor
the guidance of a god is required in this ‘writing’ or ‘tracing with light’. The
degree of automatism and the mechanical nature of the photographic medium
contributed greatly to the amazement experienced by both practitioners and
viewers in those early years, when photography first emerged as a technological
invention, hence phrases such as ‘Nature drawing itself ’, ‘autogenic drawing’,
‘magic mirror of nature’, and ‘mirror of memory’ abound in the literature of the
nineteenth century. The affinity between the Diboutades story and photography
is even more significant when one considers that as early as the 1850s, the
Swedish photographer Oscar Rejlander, famous for his composite photograph
The Two Ways of Life, created a photographic version of the Diboutades story,
entitled The First Negative. In Rejlander’s black and white photograph, the
Corinthian maiden is tracing her lover’s shadow by hand with what seems to
be a pencil or a charcoal stick. It is surprising that the theme of drawing in this

image still assumes centre stage even when the title makes a direct reference
to photography. Why is the maiden depicted as tracing her lover’s shadow
with a pencil when the allegory points to photography? In this evidently self-
referential work, could she not have posed with a camera instead? In another
Rejlander photograph entitled Infant Photography, a child resembling Cupid is
portrayed handing a brush to an artist. The child has one hand leaning against
what may be a daguerreotype camera and is stretching out his other hand
towards the artist. A statue of a male nude is placed at the bottom left-hand
corner, possibly suggesting the classical arts. Behind the child is what looks
to be a concave mirror. The body of the artist is cropped out of the frame; all
we see are his hands, one of which is holding several brushes and is receiving
one more from the child. The caption reads: ‘The hand of the artist holds many
brushes; young photography – only a child – gives him one more.’75 In both
photographs it is curious that Rejlander chooses to use the paintbrush or the
pencil, a tool that is dependent upon the human hand to depict photography.
By equating photography with painting, one senses Rejlander’s own viewpoint
towards photography, which is also reflected in the way that he works. Rejlander
carefully crafts his photographs by creating scenarios and tableaux as opposed
to the straight portraiture of his contemporary, the French photographer
Nadar, whose photographs of celebrities and the Parisian catacombs are highly
dependent upon the photographic medium as a documentary tool.
The tracing of shadows in portraiture (skiagraphy, silhouettes, shadowgraphs,
shadow picture) became a popular artistic practice in the late 1700s until it was
eclipsed by the invention of photography, with the French Academy of Science’s
declaration of Daguerre’s invention in 1839 and the simultaneous discovery of
the calotype by Henry Fox Talbot.76 The physionotrace, a type of machine for
reproducing silhouettes, is often presented by photo historians as a precursor
to photography.77 Invented by Gilles-Louis Chrétien in 1786, this device for
drawing silhouettes enjoyed great popularity in Europe and in America; due
to its mechanical nature, it was seen as an accurate and scientific method
for reproducing one’s likeness. In the Paris Salon of 1797, 600 physionotrace
portraits were shown. When the French portraitist Fevret de St-Mémin went to
the States, he made more than eight hundred portraits.78 The physionotrace is
equipped with a stylus that is attached to several wooden rulers; by moving the
rulers around, one can accurately trace the outline of the sitter. The stylus traces
the profile on to metal engraving plates. Portraits made from the physionotrace
were cheap and the results were speedy – in one sitting the client could obtain
12 copies. A low-priced and rapid process, the physionotrace took part in the
economy of mechanically reproduced images.
According to John Caspar Lavater in his well-known work Essays on
Physiognomy, first published in Germany in 1775, silhouettes provided an
accurate means into the understanding of a person’s temperament and character.
Physiognomy, defined by Lavater as ‘the science or knowledge of the corre-
spondence between the external and internal man, the visible superficies and
the invisible contents’, was so popular in the nineteenth century as a tool to see
into the true nature of mankind that it was studied fervently by leading novelists
such as Honoré de Balzac and Emile Zola.79 In a chapter entitled ‘On Shades’,
Lavater writes:
Shades are the weakest, most vapid, but at the same time, when the light is at
a proper distance, and falls properly on the countenance to take the profile
accurately, the truest representation that can be given of man. The weakest, for
it is not positive, it is only something negative, only the boundary line of half
the countenance. The truest, because it is the immediate expression of nature,
such as not the ablest painter is capable of drawing, by hand, after nature. What
can be less the image of a living man than a shade? Yet how full of speech! Little
gold, but the purest.80
Note the choice of words in the above statement, as if foreshadowing the

invention of photography in the nineteenth century – ‘negative’ and ‘immediate
expression of nature’; all of which are dependent upon the accurate measurement
of light. Lavater is confident that the shadow, as the ‘truest’ copy of the original,
provides us with access to see beyond the world of simulacra and appearances.
In retrospect, Lavater’s work on physiognomy and his faith in the ‘truthfulness’
of shadows may seem incredible to us, whereas photography, with its fixations
of light and movement and its ability to mirror nature, appears to provide us
with a more sophisticated and firmer grasp of reality. Yet to what extent, one
may ask, does the photographic portrait allow us to delve into the inner being
of the photographed subject?81
56
3
Iamblichus’s Receptacle of Light
But the end of ascents is the participation in divine fruits and the filling [of]
the soul with divine fire, which is the contemplation of God, the soul being
placed in the presence of the Father.
Proclus, On the Chaldean Philosophy
Very little is known about the life of the Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus.
Scholars have established his birth year to be sometime before 240 ce and his
birthplace as the ancient city of Chalcis, in Syria. He was born into a renowned
and wealthy family, descendant of royal priest-kings of Emesa. He studied with
Porphyry before establishing his own school in Syria, probably in the city of
Apamea. It was said that when Iamblichus prayed, he would levitate himself in
mid-air, his entire body emanating golden light.
Eunapius, writing fifty years after Iamblichus’s death (c. 325 ce), tells us in the
Lives of the Philosophers some of the wondrous feats performed by Iamblichus.
Although Iamblichus was reluctant to display his powers in front of his students,
he did on several occasions reveal his extraordinary abilities to them. One of
Iamblichus’s disciples implored his teacher:
O master, most inspired, why do you thus occupy yourself in solitude, instead of
sharing with us your more perfect wisdom? Nevertheless a rumour has reached
us through your slaves that when you pray to the gods you soar aloft from the
earth more than ten cubits to all appearance; that your body and your garments
change to a beautiful golden hue; and presently when your prayer is ended your
body becomes as it was before you prayed, and then you come down to earth
and associate with us.1
Eunapius recounts several miraculous events that bear testimony to Iamblichus’s

spiritual powers. To reassure his reader of the authenticity of his narrative,
Eunapius tells us that he learned about Iamblichus’s amazing feats from his own
teacher Chrysanthius of Sardis, who was in turn the disciple of Iamblichus’s
pupil, Aedesius. One summer day, Iamblichus, accompanied by a group of his
students, visited the warm baths of Gadara in Syria. As usual, his pupils begged
him to perform a miracle. Iamblichus reluctantly agreed, declaring: ‘It is irrev-
erent to the gods to give you this demonstration, but for your sakes it shall be
done.’2 He sat down near one of the smaller springs and touched the water with
his hand while uttering an incantation. A blond boy appeared out of the water,
his torso emanating light. Iamblichus then repeated the same ritual at another
spring, and this time a boy with dark hair emerged out of the water. The youths
were in fact Eros and Anteros, water spirits from the two springs. Before they
were sent back, they hugged the sage affectionately, and ‘clung to him as though
he were genuinely their father’.3
Even if these accounts of Iamblichus’s exceptional powers were heavily
embellished by Eunapius, what they reveal is the strong presence of the esoteric
and all that which defies logic and reason – what would later be dismissed by
scholars as exemplifying corruption in Iamblichus’s teachings and in subsequent
generations of Neoplatonic thought, including the Athenian school.4 Syrianus,
Proclus, Damascius and others would regard these manifestations as revealing
the divine status of Iamblichus, and not as mere hocus-pocus. Eunapius,
himself, was aware of the dangers of disclosing too much of the mysteries,
declaring: ‘Even more astonishing and marvellous things were related of him,
but I wrote down none of these since I thought it a hazardous and sacrilegious
thing to introduce a spurious and fluid tradition into a stable and well-founded
narrative.’5 It is important, however, to keep in mind that the ability to perform
these miraculous deeds is an outcome of Iamblichus’s spiritual cultivation and
not the aim of his teachings and practice. In his writings, Iamblichus constantly
warns us against the delusion of thinking that humans can control the gods.
For Iamblichus, humans do not compel the gods to perform miracles. It is
the divine will at work, and not the practice of magic. Theurgy is not wonder-
working. Magic creates illusions, ‘for these have neither the energy, nor the
essence of things seen, nor truth, but present mere images, reaching only as far
as appearance’ (DM III.25, 160.13–161.2).
In this chapter, we will look at photagogia, a term coined by Iamblichus in
his treatise De Mysteriis. Photagogia (φωταγωγία or φωτός άγωγή) is often
translated as ‘evoking the light’6 or ‘the leading on of light’.7 It encompasses a
variety of techniques such as the projection of light into water or on to a wall
inscribed with sacred letters (DM III.14, 134.3). In order fully to understand
the significance of photagogia, we need to examine Iamblichus’s practice of
theourgia or ‘god-work’. Although Iamblichus uses photagogia to describe a
specific theurgic technique – the collecting of divine light in theurgic rituals,
Iamblichus’s Receptacle of Light 59
I will suggest that photagogia plays a far more important role in Iamblichean
theurgy.
For Iamblichus, theurgy is photagogia.8 In fact, throughout the De Mysteriis,
there is a constant tension at play, an oscillation between the continuous
drawing down of light and the interrupted exposures of light.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, the verbal cognate of the word chora
contains the movement of both withdrawal and reception.9 I will demonstrate
in this chapter how a variant of the chora plays an important role in photagogia.
This permutation of the chora is not without significance; I argue that the
theurgist in ekstasis transforms himself into an empty vessel and functions as a
photographic camera, absorbing the burst of divine light. Iamblichus’s theurgic
practice raises the issue of how the visual is marked and fixed; the activity
of anagōgē or the elevation of the soul during theurgic ritual plots a shifting
movement from a flashing of light to the marking with light. In the soul’s ascent
towards the divine, photography takes place within photagogia.
The Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon defines chorein as the following: ‘to withdraw,
to give place, to receive, to be in constant motion.’ The verb takes on a particular
meaning in Iamblichean theurgy; it is used to describe the specific movement
which takes place within the theurgist during divine inspiration as he receives
the light of the gods. Gregory Shaw compares the ‘quiet receptivity’ of the
theurgist as he prepares for ascent (anagōgē) to the ‘primal matter that receives
the Forms’.10 One of the characteristics of chora as described in the Timaeus is to
provide an abode (ἕδρα) to all things. What is of interest here is the association
between ἕδρα and the divine. The word often refers to the seat of a god, an
altar or a temple.11 This takes on even greater significance when we consider
Iamblichus’s use of chorein to describe the act of the theurgist withdrawing
himself in order to give place to the gods during divine possession. Thus chorein
is the precondition of anagōgē. For light to be collected, the theurgist must
empty his soul-vessel through the process of kenosis.
A response to Porphyry
The De Mysteriis is generally attributed to Iamblichus. In the text, Iamblichus

takes on the guise of an Egyptian prophet, Master Abamon, and composes
a defence of theurgy as a response to Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo. Written
between 280 and 305 ce, the entire treatise comprises ten parts. The text is a
reflection of Iamblichus’s Neoplatonism, which draws upon ancient teachings of
magic, the Corpus Hermeticum and the Chaldaean Oracles, incorporating these
doctrines into Platonic thought and other Hellenic philosophies.12 Proclus, in
his Commentary on the Timaeus, identified Abamon as ‘the divine Iamblichus’.13
One must note that the title of the treatise as it is known today is not the
original title of the work but an addition made by the Renaissance philosopher
Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century. Iamblichus’s text was originally entitled
‘The Reply of the Master Abamon to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo, and
the Solutions to the Questions it Contains’, and was changed by Ficino, who
renamed it De Mysteriis Aegyptiorium, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum. The original
title indicates to the reader Iamblichus’s intention to set up the treatise as a
direct riposte to Porphyry’s letter; the latter’s work can be seen as an attack on
theurgy. It is interesting that Iamblichus, who was in real life Porphyry’s pupil,
chose to take on the persona of Abamon and presented himself not as Anebo
– the addressee of Porphyry’s epistle, but as a more authoritative figure – the
teacher of Anebo. Porphyry’s letter, extant as fragments only, expresses his views
on theurgy as a highly suspicious activity and his disapproval of traditional
rituals such as sacrifice and divination. For Porphyry, these are not valid modes
of philosophical enquiry into higher truths; he sees divinatory rites as either
the outcome of human imagination gone wild or resulting from the corrupting
influences of daemons. Although scholars have not been able to establish
whether Anebo was a real or fictional figure, Porphyry’s letter is generally
regarded as a direct criticism of Iamblichean theurgic practices. For Porphyry,
Iamblichus’s interest in the occult is symptomatic of the corrupting influence of
Egyptian magical practices in Greek culture.14
Iamblichus has often been blamed for corrupting philosophy with magic.
His teachings have greatly influenced subsequent Neoplatonic thinkers such
as Syrianus, his pupil Proclus and the pagan emperor Julian. As Anne D. R.
Sheppard observes: ‘The later Neoplatonists have acquired a bad name for
practising theurgy and have often been accused of debasing the rationalism
of Plotinus by substituting magic for intellectual contemplation as a means of
achieving union with the divine.’15 The unwillingness or failure to understand
the esoteric elements in Iamblichus’s work is reflected in E. R. Dodds’s comment
that later Neoplatonism, after the death of Plotinus, was ‘a retrogression to
the spineless syncretism from which [Plotinus] had tried to escape’.16 Dodds’s
labelling of the De Mysteriis as ‘a manifesto of irrationalism’ exemplifies the
type of pejorative view described by Sheppard above.17 However, scholarship
in the past two decades has considered Iamblichus in a different light and
seems to have veered towards the other extreme. Emma C. Clarke cautions
against the overzealous efforts in recent studies to reinstitute Iamblichus’s

text ‘in philosophical terms’ as an ‘intellectual masterpiece’, reminding us
that Iamblichus saw philosophy ‘as a worthwhile but fundamentally limited
method of understanding’.18 For Iamblichus, it is theurgy and not philosophy
that possesses salvific possibilities. Gregory Shaw, in Theurgy and the Soul,
argues that Iamblichus ‘provided a philosophic rationale’ for the incorporation
of ritualistic elements into late Platonism and that his practice of theurgy ‘in
Platonic terms … fulfilled the goal of philosophy understood as homoiōsis
theō’.19 Theurgic ritual provides a platform for the gods to manifest themselves
in human form. It also enables mere mortals temporarily to assume the guise
of the gods during ekstasis.20 Referring to a phrase in De Mysteriis IV.2, ‘to tôn
theôn schêma’ or ‘taking the shape of the gods’, Shaw writes: ‘Ecstasy trans-
forms theurgists into gods, yet because theurgists are human, the gods become
human.’21 In fact, Iamblichus, in his treatise De Anima, alludes to the teachings
of the second-century Platonist Calvenus Taurus to support his argument that
the purpose of the soul’s descent into this world is to allow the gods to reveal
themselves through human forms.22 The affinity between the human and the
divine exemplifies the Neoplatonic principle of simile similibus.23 Union with the
divine entails that the theurgist be assimilated into divine light through constant
prayers and theurgic rituals, and as Iamblichus explains: ‘[B]y the practice of
supplication, we are raised gradually to the level of our supplication, and we
gain likeness to it by virtue of our constant consorting with it, and, starting from
our own imperfection, we gradually take on the perfection of the divine’ (DM
1.15, 47.13–48.23).
Iamblichus’s Platonism, with its emphasis on ritual and mystical elements,
and its drive towards re-establishing contact with the divine, brings it closer
to a form of religion than philosophy.24 As Shaw suggests, to understand
Iamblichus’s role in the development of the ritualistic aspect of Neoplatonism,
one must distinguish theourgia (god-work) from theologia (god-talk).25 For
Iamblichus, theologia is a purely human activity and belongs to the domain of
logos whereas theourgia ‘the work of the gods’, moves beyond human under-
standing while enabling one to connect with the divine.26 The distinction
between the two also reflects the predominance of practice in Iamblichean
theurgy. One does not only think theurgy, one needs to do theurgy. Refuting
Dodds’s dismissive attitude towards Iamblichean theurgy as merely a set of
techniques, Polymnia Athanassiadi argues that it is a ‘dynamic state of mind’
and ‘often an involuntary manifestation of an inner state of sanctity deriving
from a combination of goodness and knowledge in which the former element
prevails.’27 Recognizing the transformative power of theurgy, the enactment of

theurgic rituals is Iamblichus’s answer to the Neoplatonic project of spiritual
cultivation and salvation. It is through the practice of theurgy that one can
achieve the status of homoiōsis theō. The collection of light or photagogia brings
about an elevation of the soul, propelling it upwards towards the Platonic Good,
bringing it closer to the ineffable. Divination (manteaia) is merely a by-product
of theurgic activity. For Iamblichus, the goal of theurgy is henōsis (ἕνωσις) or
divine union, which can only be achieved through a combination of virtuous
living and theurgic activity. Thus there are prerequisites before photagogia can
take place; the theurgist needs to prepare himself to be ‘fit’ (epitēdeiotēs) in
order to receive the divine visions. As Iamblichus explains, the theurgist who
is equipped with ‘infallible truth in oracles’ and ‘perfect virtue’ in his soul, will
be granted ‘ascent to the intelligible fire … a process which indeed must be
proposed as the goal of all foreknowledge and of every theurgic operation’ (DM
III.31, 179.6–8).
When Porphyry asks whether there are alternative ways, other than theurgy,
to attain happiness, Iamblichus makes it very clear that theurgy is the sole
path for salvation, for it is the only way which will lead us to the gods: ‘For if
the essence and accomplishment of all good is encompassed by the gods and
their primal power and authority, it is only with us and those who are similarly
possessed by the greatest kinds and have genuinely gained union (ένώσεως)
with them that the beginning and the end of all good is seriously practised’ (DM
X.1, 286.1–7).
Iamblichus is aware of the failure of language or logos to encapsulate the
highest kind of gnosis which can only be accessed through theurgic practice.
Right at the outset of De Mysteriis, he declares his inability to address certain
issues: ‘Some of these, such as require experience of actions for their accurate
understanding, it will not be possible “to deal with adequately” by words
alone’ (DM I.2, 6.6–7.1). One recalls Plato’s Seventh Letter in which he states
that certain truths cannot be divulged by language alone.28 As Plato explains:
‘Acquaintance with it must come rather after a long period of attendance on
instruction in the subject itself and of close companionship, when suddenly,
like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, it is generated in the soul and at once
becomes self-sustaining’ (341c).29
The term theourgos (θεουργός) or theurgist first appeared in the Chaldaean
Oracles, a collection of mystical poems in dactylic hexameter, purported to be
of divine provenance, recorded by Julian the Chaldaean and his son Julian the
Theurgist in the second century ce.30 Psellus wrote of Julian the Chaldaean
conjuring Plato’s spirit as a guide for his son the Theurgist. With the spirit of
Plato as one of the ‘direct’ sources of the Oracles, the poems would be even more
highly regarded.31
Thus one hears of the various miraculous deeds performed by the two
Julians. Julian the Theurgist was known for the rain miracle that he produced in
174 ce, which saved Marcus Aurelius’s army from the Marcomans.32 From the
Neoplatonists’ point of view, the Chaldaean Oracles were direct transcriptions
from divine sources; hence the poems were quoted as teachings from the gods
and not as interpretations by the two Julians.33 Only fragments of the poems
have survived.
Salvation for the soul
Underlying Iamblichus’s advocacy of theurgy (θεουργία) is his concept of the

embodied human soul.34 For Iamblichus, knowledge of the gods is the only
way to set man free from the bonds of his embodiment. It is through theurgy,
which he describes as a ‘method of salvation for the soul’ (DM I.12, 41.9–11),
that one can find true happiness, enabling the human to reunite with the divine.
For Iamblichus states: ‘[M]an who is conceived of as “divinised”, who once was
united to the contemplation of the gods, afterwards came into possession of
another soul adapted to the human form, and through this was born into the
bond of necessity and fate’ (DM X.5, 290.8–11). Iamblichus’s view of the human
soul is a departure from both Porphyry’s and his teacher Plotinus’s interpreta-
tions. For Porphyry and Plotinus, part of the human soul is undescended and
remains in the intelligible realm.35 It is through philosophical contemplation
that one can reconnect to the higher part of the soul. Plotinus believes that
union with the One can be achieved through quiet contemplation whereas for
Porphyry, rational thought is sufficient in understanding the divine.
Since Iamblichus believes that the soul has not lost its divine part or older
presence (πρεσβύτεραν) in the process of its embodiment, theurgic rites
allow humans to gain true knowledge of the soul, without resorting solely to
intellectual reflections.36 For Iamblichus, theurgy represents the means for
the human soul to become whole again, allowing it to rise to divine heights,
theurgic rituals serving as a channel for the gods to reawaken this dormant part
of the soul. In contrast to Plotinus’s focus on inner contemplation as the path
to divine knowledge, Iamblichus’s quest for the attainment of noetic knowledge
involves a transformation of the theurgist’s body into a receptacle of light. The
illumination of the theurgist’s soul comes from the outside, through the epiph-
anies of the divine entities, leading towards the final goal of henōsis. Humans
cannot reach this ascent on their own. Iamblichus explains what happens when
invocations are addressed to the gods:
[T]he gods in their benevolence and graciousness unstintingly shed their light
upon theurgists, summoning up their souls to themselves and orchestrating
their union with them, accustoming them, even while still in the body, to detach
themselves from their bodies, and to turn themselves towards their eternal and
intelligible first principle. (DM I.12, 41.3–8)
What interests us in the passage above is the emphasis that Iamblichus places on
the generosity of the gods, whose goodwill is indicated by the abundance of light
that they unreservedly project upon the theurgist, and the way in which their
light assumes different functions during the various levels of the ascent. At the
initiatory stage, illumination helps to prepare the soul for the gradual loosening
of its corporeal ties, before it becomes the driving force that propels the soul
towards the intelligible realm.
Iamblichus tells Porphyry that the main aim of theurgy is anagōgē (ἀναγωγή)
or the elevation of the soul. It is through anagōgē that the soul of the theurgist
regains its divine status which was lost when it descended into the sensible
realm.37 Although anagōgē is also mentioned by Plotinus in the Enneads, it
is different from the theurgic ascents of the Chaldaeans and Iamblichus. The
Plotinian anagōgē is a purely intellectual endeavour, where the philosopher,
through the act of contemplation, leaves the material world behind and reunites
with the undescended higher part of his soul. This progression towards one’s
higher self requires mental rigour, self-scrutiny and the observance of virtue.
Hence the constant call for introspection, as seen in the Enneads I.6:38
How then can you see the sort of beauty a good soul has? Go back into yourself
and look … just as someone making a statue which has to be beautiful cuts
away here and polishes there and makes one part smooth and clears another
till he has given his statue a beautiful face, so you too must cut away excess and
straighten the crooked and clear the dark and make it bright, and never stop
‘working on your statue’ till the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, till you
see ‘self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat’.39
Contrary to Plotinus’s introspective mode, anagōgē for both the Chaldaeans

and Iamblichus is powered by photagogia. Illumination comes from an external
source, through the generosity and benevolence of the gods, as we have seen
in the earlier passage from De Mysteriis (DM I.12, 41.3–8). The performance
of ritual enables the theurgist to receive the light of the gods, which in turn
empowers his soul to leave his body and rise to the realm of the divine. During
the Chaldaean anagōgē, the initiate ascends by riding on solar ‘rays’ with the
help of the Teletarchs and the theurgist.40 Hans Lewy’s comment below may
help us understand further the difference between the Plotinian, Chaldaean
and Iamblichean systems. Distinguishing the Chaldaean notion of ‘elevation’
from Plotinus’s concept of the soul’s ascent, he writes: ‘Plotinus interprets the
Platonic metaphor of ascent as a metonymous reference to an introversive
process, whereas the Chaldaeans regard the stations of the real journey of the
soul at the same time as phases of mystical transformation.’41 Thus Iamblichus
and the Chaldaeans would view the soul’s ascent as a kind of physical elevation,
‘real elevation in mundane space’,42 and not merely as a contemplative act.
However, theurgical ascent appears to be much more complex. As Ruth
Majercik notes, the presence of a Plotinian introspective mode can be found
in Fragment 1 of the Oracles, where the initiate is asked to extend an empty
mind and perceive the intelligible by the flower of mind.43 The ‘flower of mind’
(νόου ἄνθει) refers to a fiery organ that is most similar to the fiery essence of
the Father/First God and it is this similarity which enables union to be realized,
exemplifying the Neoplatonic principle of ‘like attracting like’.44 The practi-
tioner is asked to direct his mind away from the mundane objects of perception
and empty his mind of all thoughts: ‘You must not perceive it intently, but
keeping the pure eye of your soul turned away, you should extend an empty
mind toward the Intelligible in order to comprehend it, since it exists outside
of (your) mind.’45 For Majercik, this fragment clearly indicates that there is
a contemplative element at play in the Chaldaean and Iamblichean ascent.
She challenges Lewy’s reading of the Chaldaean anagōgē and refers to Pierre
Hadot and Andrew Smith, who have both suggested the possibility of different
versions of theurgy, a more contemplative variant as well as one which involves
anagogic rituals, with Smith proposing the existence of a higher and lower form
of theurgy in the Oracles.46
Let us recall Book VII of the Republic, in which Socrates tells us that the
prisoner who escapes from the darkness of the cave to the exterior world is
ultimately able to face the sun, ‘in and by itself in its own place’ (516b). Theurgy
is an attempt to re-enact this ascent through its rituals. As we have seen earlier,
for the Chaldaeans and Iamblichus, man’s ability to behold noetic light comes
not from himself but from his being illuminated by the light from without.47
Here, true understanding and knowledge is obtained through revelation, or
theoria gnosis (θεωρία γνῶσις).48
It is theurgy and not philosophy that provides the path to salvation.

The emphasis on practice as opposed to intellectualization is exemplified in
Iamblichus’s argument that theurgic work exceeds the limits of human under-
standing.49 As he explains, ‘[I]t is the accomplishment of acts not to be divulged
and beyond all conception, and the power of unutterable symbols, understood
solely by the gods, which establishes theurgic union’ (DM II.11, 96.13–97.2).
This is a radical departure from Porphyry’s belief that divine truth can be
revealed through human reason. In the ‘Letter to Anebo’, also known as ‘The
Epistle of Porphyry to the Egyptian Anebo’, Porphyry praises the ‘scientific
knowledge of the gods’ as ‘holy and beneficial’ and ‘the cause [to men] of every
good’.50 In response, Iamblichus emphasizes that it is the non-intellectual aspect
of theurgy that leads to divine knowledge:
Hence, we do not bring about these things by intellection alone; for thus their
efficacy would be intellectual, and dependent upon us … For even when we are
not engaged in intellection, the symbols themselves, by themselves, perform
their appropriate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these
symbols relate, itself recognises the proper images of itself, not through being
aroused by our thought. (DM II.11, 97.2–9)
Iamblichus is careful to point out that humans do not manipulate the gods;
the theurgist can prepare his soul through a series of rituals to receive the
epiphanies of the gods but it is only through divine will that the gods manifest
themselves in front of the theurgist, for ‘the things which properly arouse the
divine will are the actual divine symbols. And so the attention of the gods is
awakened by themselves of their characteristic activity’ (DM II.11, 97.10–14).
Humans should not display such arrogance as to think that they are the ones
who are controlling the divine manifestations. This kind of hubristic attitude
would only lead to spurious daemons and false epiphanies. In answer to
Porphyry’s query on the boastful nature of gods, daemons and other higher
beings, Iamblichus points out that these are manifestations of lower beings, an
outcome of improperly conducted theurgic rites. Iamblichus, known to have
successfully unmasked a deceased gladiator who pretended to be Apollo,51
further argues that gods, daemons and spirits of such high order would not fall
into the ignominy of self-aggrandizement.
The primacy given to theurgic work rather than philosophy as a means to
access divine knowledge does not imply that the Iamblichean theurgist rejects
rational discourse. Iamblichus acknowledges the important role that thought
plays in the quest for divine knowledge: ‘Effective union certainly never takes
place without knowledge’ (DM II.11, 98.6–7). But he also explicitly states that
human knowledge cannot bring about divine union, for ‘Nothing, then, of any
such qualities in us, such as are humans contributes in any way towards the
accomplishments of divine transactions’ (DM II.11, 98.10–11). Since true gnosis
lies beyond human understanding, how can rational thinking be sufficient?52
Porphyry’s mistake consists of his failure to recognize that the two are not the
same, conflating both under the category of knowledge. Addressing his teacher
directly, Iamblichus/Anebo declares:
You, however, seem to think that knowledge of divinity is of the same nature as
a knowledge of anything else, and that it is by the balancing of contrary propo-
sitions that a conclusion is reached, as in dialectical discussions. But the cases
are in no way similar. The knowledge of the gods is of a quite different nature
… but from all eternity it coexisted in the soul in complete uniformity. (DM I.3,
10.1–6)
Since our connection with the divine is innate, our understanding of divine
matters relies on ‘knowledge on the same terms, not employing conjecture
or opinion or some form of syllogistic reasoning’ (DM I.3, 9.10–11), whereas
human knowledge operates at a ‘secondary level of reality’ (DM I.3, 9.6) and is
‘separated (from its object) by some degree of otherness’ (DM I.3, 8.2–3).
The ascent
Although Iamblichus does not provide us with a step-by-step guide to theurgic

ascent, he does allow us glimpses into the process through descriptions of the
importance of prayers in theurgic rituals and categorizations of the various
forms of divine manifestations. Perhaps this opacity to the actual procedures of
anagōgē can again be attributed to the transcendental nature that governs the
operation. As he explains: ‘[D]ivine union and purification actually go beyond
knowledge.’ (DM II.11, 98.9–10).
In the concluding section of the text, Iamblichus states that there are three
stages involved in divine union – purification of the soul, participation in the
vision of the Good, and finally, union with the divine (DM X.5, 291.8–292.3). All
three stages require different modes of light collection or photagogia. I want to
draw attention in particular to the second stage of anagōgē, in which I will argue
that a potentiality of the photographic is staged. It is this second level, or rather
the absence of it, which separates Plotinus and Porphyry from Iamblichus. As
we have seen earlier, both Plotinus and Porphyry believe that contemplation can
lead directly to divine union, thus bypassing the photographic.
In order for the theurgist to embark upon the activity of anagōgē, purification
must take place before his soul container can draw down divine light. Details
of the purification methods involved can be found in Iamblichus’s discussion of
divination (DM III.11), in relation to the priest of Colophon and the prophetess
of Brandichai; these included fasting, bathing and withdrawing into solitude.
The chanting of inarticulate magical names (voces mysticae)53 also features as
part of the ritual. What Porphyry refers to as ‘meaningless names’, Iamblichus
replies: ‘And indeed, if it is unknowable to us, this very fact is its most sacred
aspect: for it is too excellent to be divided into knowledge’ (DM VII.4, 255.9–13).
It is frustrating to the modern reader of De Mysteriis that Iamblichus does
not offer any detailed descriptions of the methods involved in anagōgē. What
happens during the theurgic ritual? After the initial process of mind and
body purification, how does the theurgist proceed to the next step? To better
apprehend Iamblichus’s silence on such matters, one can perhaps refer to the
secrets surrounding esoteric teachings of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, which are
transmitted solely from the mouth of the master to the ears of the pupil.54
Iamblichus does tell us that ‘the goal of all foreknowledge and of every
theurgic operation’ is the ‘ascent to the intelligible fire’ (DM III.31, 179.6–8).
Once the theurgist has embarked upon the ascent, what takes place during
his encounter with the divine? A prayer-invocation from The Gospel of the
Egyptians, a Gnostic work discovered at Nag Hammadi, may provide us with a
glimpse into the transformation that occurs within the theurgist’s body at the
moment of henōsis. In his comparative study on the role of ritual in Gnosticism
and Neoplatonism, Birger A. Pearson cites the following prayer-invocation: ‘I
have become light … Thou art my place of rest … the formless one who exists in
the formless ones, who exists, raising up the man in whom thou wilt purify me
into thy life, according to thine imperishable name …’ (III 67, 4.16–22).55 What
we encounter here is an extreme form of photagogia, where the boundaries of
the self dissolve in the abundance of light as the soul of the theurgist merges and
rests within the bosom of the divine.
An earlier passage in Book V of De Mysteriis, in which Iamblichus identifies
the different levels of praying, may provide us with a clearer understanding
of the procedures involved in theurgic ritual. The three levels of prayers are
identical to the three stages of divine union found in the concluding section
of De Mysteriis. In Emma C. Clarke’s reading of Iamblichean theurgy, she
refers to this section as a means to understanding ekstasis.56 In many ways, this
passage also reflects the influence of the Chaldaean Oracles on Iamblichus’s

work. According to Lewy, the Chaldaeans used the following terms to describe
the process of anagōgē: ‘approaching’ (ἐµπελάσας), ‘touching’ (ἁψάµενος) and
‘resting in’ (κεῖντα) – all of which can be found in the writings of Plotinus,
Porphyry and Iamblichus.57 For Iamblichus, the first degree is the introductory
prayer, which establishes contact with the divinities; illumination (ἐπίλαµφιν)
takes place at this stage. The second involves a ‘union of sympathetic minds’
in which the theurgist receives blessings from the gods even before he makes
specific requests. Actions are completed at this stage. And the highest level,
which is described as ‘the most perfect’, involves ‘ineffable unification’ (ἄρρητος
ἕνωσις) in which a ‘perfect fulfilment (of the soul) through fire’ (DM V.26,
238.9) takes place. At this stage, the soul is described as ‘resting in’ (κεῖσθαι)
the divine (DM V.26, 238.5).58 Although it is not clear whether illumination
continues throughout the three stages, one could assume that in a successful
conjuration, the theurgist would probably be immersed in light, since the initial
arrival of the gods would have already been accompanied by flashes of lightning.
Here again, one senses the tension between the constant illumination of light
and the sudden surges of light. Photography can be considered as the moment
when these two different intensities of light collide.
The Chaldaeans used the word sustasis (σύστασις) to describe the initial
encounter between the theurgist – the invoker – and the deities – the invoked.
Defined as an introduction or a standing together, sustasis also refers to the
communication between human and god. As we have seen earlier, the authority
of the Chaldaean Oracles arises from its direct link to the voice of Plato and the
gods.59 This can be attributed to the sustasis performed by Julian the Chaldaean
to ‘conjoin’ his newborn son with Plato’s soul and the deities.60 Although the
term does not appear in De Mysteriis, for Iamblichus, sustasis would have been
synonymous with illumination, for he tells us that whenever a god is invoked,
ellampsis takes place.61
Technologies of Light
Light radiating from the gods is so bright that it is unbearable to its beholder.
The difficulty in contemplating divine truth finds resonance in the blinding
sun of Plato’s Republic and the lone figure of Philotheos, who stood in the
burning sands of the Sinai deserts, his tear-drenched eyes staring into the
sun.62 Iamblichus uses a specific term, epilampsis (ἐπίλαµψις), to designate
the light that shines on the theurgist. In fact throughout the De Mysteriis one
finds a variety of words which describes divine illumination, such as ellampsis,
eklampsis and ellampein (ἐλλἀµπειν). Iamblichus’s influence on the fourth-
century philosopher Sallustius can be seen in the latter’s treatise Concerning the
Gods and the Universe. Commenting on the frequent appearance of Iamblichean
terms such as ellampein, chorein, henōsis and sunaphê in Sallustius’s work,
Arthur Darby Nock remarks that Iamblichus employs ellampein (to illuminate,
to shine upon) almost as a technical term, treating divine light ‘as an objective
illumination vouchsafed in visions’.63
Photagogia is propelled by an excess of energy (periousia dunameos). The
divine light directed towards the theurgist during theurgic ritual is boundless
and inexpendable. As Iamblichus explains: ‘In the highest level of beings, the
abundance of power (periousia tes dunameos) has this additional advantage over
all others, in being present to all equally in the same manner without hindrance;
according to this principle, then, the primary beings illuminate even the lowest
levels, and the immaterial are present immaterially to the material’ (DM V.23,
232.9–10). Like the sun’s infinite energy, the power generated by photagogia
is such that divine light reaches even the lowest of forms. The word dunamis
appears frequently in De Mysteriis – a total of 186 times.64 Dunamis is used in
conjunction with photagogia when Iamblichus describes the latter as the driving
force behind divination (DM III.14, 132.8–9). As Polymnia Athanassiadi points
out, the abundance of light shining on the theurgist allows Iamblichus to
emphasize the unchanging nature of the divine; it also enables him to separate
theurgic practice from magic (goētia).65
The conflation of theurgy with magic can be seen in writings by philoso-
phers and scholars since Iamblichus’s days. Georg Luck in his essay ‘Theurgy
and Forms of Worship in Neoplatonism’ overlooked an important aspect of
Iamblichus’s theurgy, that which distinguishes him from the Chaldaeans or
other followers of the Magical Papyri: the notion of ‘compulsion’ (anagkē).
Throughout De Mysteriis, Iamblichus repeatedly emphasizes that human inter-
ference in theurgic practices should be kept at as minimal a level as possible, for
it is not the human who controls the divine: ‘[T]his light is from without and
alone achieves all its effects serving the will and intelligence of the gods’ (DM
III.14, 134.10–12). This is contrary to Luck’s generalized view on theurgy: ‘[I]t
seems to me that in as much as theurgy is a kind of higher magic and all magic
recruits demons and gods, presses them into service, as it were, sometimes
against their will, it is reasonable to suppose that even theurgy is a form of
pressure.’66
Iamblichus does not make a distinction between the continuous exposure to

light and the flashes of light. As we have seen earlier, illumination takes place
during the stage of sustasis, or the initial encounter with the gods. What is
unclear in Iamblichus’s writing is whether the flashes occur while the theurgist
is already immersed in light or whether there is a period of hiatus after the
initial ellampsis, which is then followed by an intensifying build-up before the
discharge of divine energy. Iamblichus presents the advent of the gods as a
spectacular event, describing the god’s manifestation (epiphaneiai, ἐπιφάνειαι)
as a flash of light. For Iamblichus writes: ‘[D]ivine appearances flash forth
(apastraptei, ἀπαστϱάπτει) a beauty almost irresistible, seizing those beholding
it with wonder … and transcending in comeliness all other forms’ (DM II.3,
73.5–8). Again, one notes the ineffable quality of the divine apparition: ‘But the
presence of the god is different from and prior to this, and flashes (enastraptousa
ἐναστϱάπτουσα) like lightning from above’ (DM III.11, 125.6–8). It seems that
the intensity of the illumination marks the rank of the deities: the higher the
position of the god, the stronger the burst of light. As Iamblichus explains:
‘[T]he greatest light has a sacred brightness which, either shining from above
in the aether, or from the air, or moon or sun, or any other heavenly sphere,
appears apart from all these things to be such a mode of divination that is
autonomous, primordial, and worthy of the gods’ (DM III.14, 12–15).
Fulguration as a sign of divine manifestation does not originate from
Iamblichus’s theurgical writings; it is already mentioned in the Chaldaean
Oracles. Fragment 147 contains the following message from the Goddess
Hekate: ‘If you speak to me often, you will perceive everything in lion-form.
For neither does the curved mass of heaven appear then nor do the stars shine.
The light of the moon is hidden, and the earth is not firmly secured, but every-
thing is seen by flashes of lightning.’67 The power of illumination has a blinding
effect; such is its magnitude that the moon and the stars pale in comparison.
In a paraphrase of the above fragment, Iamblichus, referring to the intensity
of the light manifestations, declares that ‘the magnitude of the epiphanies in
the case of the gods manifests itself to the extent that they sometimes hide the
entire heaven, both sun and moon, and the earth is no longer able to stand
firm as they make their descent’ (DM II.4, 75.8–11).68 The blinding light and
earthquake are not the only external factors that the theurgist has to endure. For
accompanying such luminosity is an extreme rise in temperature. As Iamblichus
tells us, humans would find such conditions intolerable and would suffocate like
fish out of water. The dangers of overheating, loss of breath and sight would all
subside with the advent of the angels, who would enable the theurgist to breathe
comfortably again (DM II.8).69 These changes in the atmosphere are indicative
of the types of deities appearing in front of the theurgist. We are told that the
arrival of daemons and heroes differ from the manifestations of the gods. They
are not preceded by radiating light nor thinning air, although heroes do provoke
earth tremors and noises.
As we have seen so far, light, fire and heat are recurring tropes in the theurgic
ascent. Whereas heat can create an uncomfortable situation for the Iamblichean
theurgist, it is at the same time a propelling force for the rising of his soul, as figured
in the Chaldaean ascent. A passage from Proclus’s commentary on the Chaldaean
Oracles may further elucidate the role of the angel in theurgic ascent, highlighting
how photagogia is integral to anagōgē. Note that in the passage below, there are
different orders of light at play. The role of the angel here is to lead the theurgist’s
soul to the celestial region by illuminating it thoroughly. At the initiatory stage,
the angels shine their light upon the soul, causing it to be ‘full of undefiled fire,
which imparts to it an immutable and tranquil order and power’. The soul thus
heated, enters into the second stage, where it is separated from the material realm
and united with the ‘light of divine things’. This stage of illumination then further
propels the soul upwards through heat, and as Proclus explains:
But it is wholly elevated by hastening into the celestial region, just as by gravi-
tating downward it is carried into matter or the region of generation. But the
end of ascents is the participation in divine fruits and the filling [of] the soul
with divine fire, which is the contemplation of God, the soul being placed in the
presence of the Father.70
The unbounded energy of light manifested by the gods is also mentioned in

the Greek Magical Papyri. In the divine alliance spell below, light appears to
be measured in terms of depth and dimensions.71 The ‘Charm that produces a
direct vision’ (PGM IV 930– 1114) includes two spells which refer to the dimen-
sions of light. The ‘light-bringing charm’ contains the following utterances:
I call upon you, the living god, / fiery, invisible begetter of light … enter into this
fire, fill it with a divine spirit, and show me your might. Let there be opened for
me the house of the all-powerful god ALBALAL, who is in this light. / Let there
be light, breadth, depth, length, height, brightness, and let him who is inside
shine through, the lord BOUĒL PHTHA PHTHA PHTHAĒL PHTHA ABAI
BAINCHŌŌŌCH, now, now; immediately; immediately; quickly, quickly.
(PGM IV, 960–74)
The god-conjuring spell may sometimes produce darkness. To protect the

magician from this negative outcome, he is asked to appeal directly to the
proportion of light, as seen in this light-retaining spell: ‘I conjure you, holy light,
holy brightness, breadth, depth, length, height, brightness, by the holy names …’
(PGM IV, 979–80). Light is seen here as synonymous with the divine and is no
longer merely an indication of the latter.
What are some of the light-collecting techniques employed by theurgists
to invoke the presence of the gods? The incorporation of artificial light as an
invocatory method is frequently mentioned in the Greek Magical Papyri. One
such example is the ‘Lamp Divination’ spell (PGM VII. 540–78). After lighting
a lamp and placing it in the eastern part of a clean house or room, the magician
utters the following words: ‘Come to me, spirit that flies in the air, / called with
secret codes and unutterable names, at this lamp divination which I perform,
and enter into the boy’s soul, that he may receive the immortal form in mighty
and incorruptible light.’72 The Greek Magical Papyri records many different
ways of preparing the lamp. Some rituals require the wick to be made of linen
soaked in sesame oil and cinnabar as seen in the ‘Request for a dream oracle
of Besa’ (PGM VIII. 64–110); others ask for the lamp to be lit with cedar oil,
and in the ‘Apollonian invocation’ (PGM I. 262–347), the lamp is lit with rose
oil or spikenard and placed on a wolf ’s head. Among all these diverse spells
and invocations, there is one thing in common: the magician is forbidden to
use a red lamp.73 Clay lamps in the second century ce are often coated with
the pigment miltos or red ochre. These lamps, which give off red light, are
considered unsuitable for magical rituals since the colour red is associated
with Seth-Typhon,74 the god with the serpent’s body and the head of a donkey,
symbolizing chaos. Dodds notes that in the lamp rituals depicted in the Greek
Magical Papyri, the ordinary light of the lamp gives place to a ‘strong immortal
light’.75 To illustrate the shift from the mortal to the divine that takes place in
these magical operations, he cites the ‘Charm that produces a direct vision’
(PGM IV.930–1114), in which a lamp originally placed in the centre of a room is
transformed into a vault. After performing the light-binding spell, the magician
opens his eyes to a vision of bright light, the lamp vanishes and in its place, a
god is sitting on a lotus.76
Although Iamblichus states that water is a suitable conduit for the divine
(DM III.14), at the same time he regards apparitions that appear in oil,
water and mirrors as examples of false divinations (DM II.10).77 How can
one explain Iamblichus’s seemingly contradictory viewpoints on the use of
water in divinatory practices? In a passage that echoes the discussion in the
Sophist on the differences between originals and copies – images belong to the
lowest realm of being since they are merely imitations and not the real thing
– these phantasmata (φαντάσµατα) appearing on reflective surfaces are not true

manifestations of the gods, for ‘In no way, surely, does a god either change itself
into phantasms or project these from itself into other beings, but it radiates its
true forms in the true ways of souls’ (DM II.10, 93.11–13). These false appari-
tions are described as weak and faint (DM III.29). Unstable, they are not ‘fixed’
by the action of photographein.
When Iamblichus mentions water as a suitable medium for theurgic rituals,
he probably has the priest of Colophon in mind, who is known to prophesy after
drinking the water from the underground cave. He rejects the popular belief
that the spring, infused with divine spirit, is the sole cause of divination and
argues instead that divine inspiration occurs on a much larger scale. He explains
that the radiance emanating from the presence of the gods illuminates not only
the water but also the luminous vehicle (augeiodēs pneumatos) of the theurgist
(DM III.10, 125.1–5).
It is the luminous vehicle (αύγοειδοῦς πνεύµατος) inside us that receives
(chorein ton theon) the gods. Divine light is projected on to the theurgist
(epilampousin) and causes his soul to ascend.78 Referring to the theory of
correspondences or sympatheia, Johnston suggests that in order for anagōgē to
take place, the theurgist must ensure that he becomes as similar to the gods as
possible, in this case his ‘vehicle’ (ochēma) would have to resemble the intense
light of the gods and become augeiodēs, ‘like light’.79 The luminous vehicle of the
theurgist is powered by the continuous collection of light, thus sharing the same
substance as the gods. Theurgic rites enable the theurgist to regain temporarily
the soul’s immortality before his embodiment. Yet he remains mortal.80
The theurgist’s imaginative faculties (phantaskitē dunamis) are fired up as
a result of his vehicle being illuminated by photagogia. For Iamblichus states,
photagogia ‘illuminates the aether-like and luminous vehicle surrounding the
soul with divine light, from which vehicle the divine appearances, set in motion
by the gods’ will, take possession of the imaginative power in us’ (DM III.14,
132.9–12). Upon illumination of the soul vehicle, other sensory impressions
are suppressed and replaced by images of the gods; this allows the theurgist
to operate at a higher noeric level, removing all of the irrational elements that
weigh the soul down.81 We can see this stage as photographia, the writing of
divine light on to the theurgist’s soul. The divine visions (phantasiai theiai) that
the theurgist receives demonstrate what Shaw describes as ‘“the eyes of the body”
awaken[ing] “the eyes of the soul”’.82 The theurgist is only able to perceive the
manifestations of the deities if the ‘imaginative faculties’ (phantaskitē dunamis)
of his vehicle are triggered by divine illumination.83 As Johnston points out,
phantaskitē dunamis literally means ‘the ability of the vehicle to receive or

process images’.84 Thus the flashing of light accompanying the autophanes of the
gods serves a dual purpose: at the same time that it announces the arrival of
the gods, it also brings out their visibility by shining on the theurgist’s vehicle.
Triggered by divine light, the theurgist acts as a camera and captures divine
images during his ekstasis, bringing out that which is elusive to the human eye.
As Proclus writes in his Commentary on the Republic:
Tout dieu donc est sans forme, bien qu’il soit vu face à face avec une forme: la
forme n’est pas en lui, mais projetée à partir de lui, parce que le spectateur de
l’apparition ne peut voir sans forme le dieu sans forme, mais le voit, en vertu de sa
propre nature, avec une forme (40.1–4).85
Every god therefore has no form, although he is seen face to face with a form.
The form is not in him, but projected from him, for the viewer of the apparition
cannot see without a form a formless god, but will see him, in accordance to his
own nature, with a form.
Thus the theurgist-camera sees and captures the light exposure of the gods.
One type of photagogia which Iamblichus refers to in De Mysteriis can be
compared to a photographic slide projection or even a studio lighting session:
‘At other times they [theurgists] cause it to shine on a wall, having expertly
prepared in advance a place on the wall for the light with sacred inscriptions of
magical symbols, and at the same time fixing the light on a solid place so that
it will not be too diffused’ (DM III.14, 134.4–7).86 Imagine the theurgist in the
photographic studio exercising a similar kind of control, fixing a honeycomb
grid on to the flash strobe so that the burst of light triggered by the camera’s
shutter release will produce direct instead of diffused lighting.
One can draw parallels between the light-captivating strategy performed in
theurgic rituals and photography, in particular, the camera’s action of letting
in light through the aperture of the lens or the shutter opening. On the one
hand, the theurgist acts as an operator who collects light through specific
manoeuvres that fall under the category of photagogia. On the other hand, he
is more than the photographer; he is transformed into the equivalent of the
photographic emulsion which absorbs light, under epilampsis. We will see how
this transmutation of the human body is taken further in the writings of the
Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino. In Chapter 5, I shall demonstrate
how Ficino proposes an entire solar regime to enhance one’s photosensitivity,
thus promoting the development of a photographic emulsion that is even more
sensitive to light.
A Fit Receptacle
For divine union to take place, the theurgist must act as a ‘container’ for light.
Iamblichus frequently uses terms such as hupodochê (ὑποδοχή) and dechomenon
(δεχοµένην) to describe the vessel-like property of the theurgist. These words
also appear in the Timaeus when Plato alludes to the movement of the chora.
Although each soul has the capacity for theurgic union, it must be purified
properly in order for the gods to descend. Since the gods are the ones who make
the decision to descend, humans can only prepare their soul-vessel to ensure
that it is as pure as possible for divine reception.
Theurgic union cannot be triggered through human reason alone, since this
would be indicative of human control. Instead, it requires a combination of ‘all
the best conditions of the soul and our ritual purity to pre-exist as auxiliary
causes … the things which properly arouse the divine will are the actual divine
symbols. And so the attention of the gods is awakened by themselves, receiving
from no inferior being any principle for themselves of their characteristic
activity’ (DM II.11, 97.12–14).
This ‘fitness’ of the soul to contain the gods is what Iamblichus calls
epitēdeiotēs (ἐπιτηδειότης).87 The purer the vessel the more powerful the deity
who will descend. Shaw highlights the function of the theurgist as container:
‘Theurgists must present the gods with a receptacle both subtle and strong
enough to contain their light, for only with a properly prepared receptacle does
the soul have the capacity (ἐπιτηδειότης) to experience the divine efflux without
distortion.’88 In order to invoke the gods successfully, the theurgist-receptacle
must bear as close a resemblance to the divine as possible, exemplifying the
Neoplatonic principle of sympatheia. Thus right at the core of Neoplatonism
resides the practice of capturing light. The work of the theurgist involves the
preparation of the soul-vessel or hupodochê through the continuous absorption
of light or by opening up a difference in charges, which would lead to sparks
and flashes of light. Before light can be collected, the theurgist-vessel must be
emptied, as instructed by the gods in Fragment 1 of the Oracles:
For there exists a certain Intelligible which you must perceive by the flower
of mind. For if you should incline your mind toward it and perceive it as
perceiving a specific thing, you would not perceive it. For it is the power of
strength, visible all around, flashing with intellectual divisions … You must
not perceive it intently, but keeping the pure eye of your soul turned away, you
should extend an empty mind toward the Intelligible in order to comprehend it,
since it exists outside of (your) mind.89
To be fit requires ‘triple-barbed strength’ in both mind and soul, as explained

in the Oracles.90 Concentration and focus is demanded of the theurgist, who is
‘arrayed from head to toe with a clamorous light’.91 As the theurgist continues to
draw down light, he becomes closer to the divine.
Iamblichus tells us that the priest at the Colophon prepares himself by fasting
for one day and one night and retires to a solitary place before he is capable of
receiving the divine oracles. It is through an act of isolation – ‘he withdraws by
himself to sacred, inaccessible places, and by this withdrawal and separation
from human affairs’ – that the theurgist ‘purifies himself for receiving the god’
(DM III.11, 125.11–126). In addition to the cultivation of solitude, prayers serve
as a means of strengthening one’s epitēdeiotēs. As Iamblichus writes:
Extended practice of prayer nurtures our intellect, enlarges very greatly our
soul’s receptivity to the gods, reveals to men the life of the gods, accustoms
their eyes to the brightness of divine light, and gradually brings to perfection
the capacity of our faculties for contact with the gods, until it leads us up to
the highest level of consciousness (of which we are capable); also, it elevates
gently the dispositions of our minds, and communicates to us those of the gods.
(DMV.26, 238.12–239.5)
I want to draw attention to Iamblichus’s use of two words in the passage above,
hupodochê (ὑποδοχή) which refers to the theurgist’s capacity to receive the gods
and marmarugas (µαϱµαϱυγάς) which describes the flashing of divine light.
The theurgist’s soul functions as a container (ὑποδοχή) to hold the divine, just
like any of the other vessels used in theurgic rites.92 The word marmarugês also
appears in Book VII of Plato’s Republic (518a) in reference to the difficulties that
the soul encounters when moving from the accustomed darkness of ignorance
to face the dazzling light of truth. In Iamblichus’s use of the word, there is the
same notion of the need for adjustment, for orienting oneself to gaze at that
which is outside of human understanding.
As we have already seen in the previous chapter, chora is described by Plato
as a container (ὑποδοχή) in the Timaeus: ‘What nature are we to attribute to this
new kind of being? We reply that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse,
of all generation’ (49a–b). There is a movement of erasure that takes place within
the chora. The third kind (triton genos) having no form of its own (amorphos),
gives being to those things that belong to the sensible world. Plato tells us that
things enter the chora and impress themselves upon the ὑποδοχή without leaving
any trace. In theurgy, we find a similar movement of withdrawal and erasure –
the soul of the theurgist withdraws (chorein) himself and gives place to the other
during anagōgē. An exchange must take place between the theurgist’s soul and
the divine: ‘it detaches itself from the worse, and changes (allattetai) one life
for another, and gives itself to another order of things, completely abandoning
its previous one’ (DM VIII.7, 270.13–14).93 Shaw highlights this process of
becoming alien to oneself, noting Iamblichus’s use of the verb ἀλλάσσω in the
middle voice, which can be defined as ‘to be made other’, ‘altered’, or ‘take in
exchange’.94 The middle voice would indicate that a change takes place within
the subject as the action is being completed. It is through the emptying (kenosis)
of the theurgist-vessel that divine light can be collected.
By withdrawing (chorein) and giving place to the other, through this act of
hospitality, one becomes the other. During anagōgē, the theurgist’s soul provides
an abode (ἕδρα) for the gods; he is transformed into an ‘altar’ or ‘seat of the gods’
to the gods. Thus we see how the verb form of chorein and its association with
receptivity possesses similar characteristics to the triton genos in the Timaeus.
Chorein is the condition of theurgy.
This is reflected in Shaw’s statement when he writes: ‘The soul’s role in this
theurgic union requires a receptive capacity to contain the divine power …
Exchanging “one identity for another” (ἀλλάττεται) – human for divine – the
soul then becomes a vehicle for the will and the activity of the gods. Without
this receptivity and the ekstasis of habitual self-consciousness no theurgy was
possible.’95
The salvific potential of theurgy lies in the theurgist’s transformation into
the other and renders the human, who is ‘subject to passions by reason of
birth, pure and immutable’, similar to the gods. For Iamblichus writes: ‘[I]n the
contemplation of the “blessed visions” the soul exchanges one life for another
and exerts a different activity, and considers itself then to be no longer human
– and quite rightly so: for often, having abandoned its own life, it has gained in
exchange the most blessed activity of the gods’ (DM I.12, 41.9–13).
Imaging
In Book II, Iamblichus provides the reader with a list of different types of
deities and spirits – the gods who occupy the highest rank, followed by the
archangels, angels, daemons, heroes, archons and souls. This echelon of
beings are characterized by the quality of their self-revelatory manifestations
(autophanes) in terms of luminosity, image clarity and stability; the degree of
clarity seems to be dependent upon the rank of the deities. It is striking how
Iamblichus’s description of the autophanes of the higher deities can easily be

applied to the tonal qualities of a photograph taken with a good camera lens.
As Iamblichus explains: ‘[L]et us also define the degrees of vividness of self-
revelatory images. So then, in the case of the supernatural manifestations of
the gods, their visions are seen more clearly than the truth itself, and they
shine forth sharply and are revealed in brilliant differentiation’ (DM II.4,
76.11–77.1).
Images that are of the highest resolution, brilliance and clarity belong to the
gods. As one moves down the scale, the apparitions gradually become blurred
and unclear, as if they are underexposed at the moment of shooting. Iamblichus
writes:
Obscure are the images of daemons, and inferior in turn to these appear those
of heroes. Of the archons, the images of the cosmic class are clear, but those of
the material class are obscure, even though both are seen as powerful authority.
The images of souls in turn appear shadowy. (DM II.4, 77.4–7)
Not only are these badly photographed, it is as if the resulting negatives have
also been underdeveloped in the darkroom, for the images of heroes, daemons
and souls are ‘not fixed’, and are ‘permeated by alien natures’ in contrast to the
vision of the gods which Iamblichus attributes to be ‘exceedingly brilliant and
remains fixed in itself ’ (DM II.5, 79.12–80.3).
Clarke underlines the distinction that Iamblichus makes between eidola
(εἰδώλα), eidolopoietike techne (εἰδωλοποιητικὴ τέχνη) and eidos (εἴδος).96 For
Iamblichus, false apparitions fall into the category of eidola whereas the self-
revelatory images of the gods (autophanes) are often described as eidos. False
appearances are trickeries created by image-makers whose art is unstable for
it belongs to the material realm.97 These images resemble reflections that one
finds in water and mirrors. They ‘have neither the energy (energeian), nor the
essence of things seen, nor truth, but present mere images, reaching only as far
as appearance’ (DM III.25, 161.1–2). Here we can see how divine energy serves
as an indicator for the authenticity of the vision experienced by the theurgist.
Iamblichus describes εἰδωλοποιητικὴ as skiagraphia (shadow painting).98 Once
again, this brings us back to the underlying argument in Iamblichus’s response
to Porphyry – that the divine cannot be manipulated by human intention.
Self-revelatory images refute the notion that the gods are drawn down by
human force. Since their appearances are governed by divine will, they are
luminous and fixed. The manipulation of the gods to achieve specific ends
belong to the domain of magic (goētia) and not theurgy. Whereas the magician
relies upon active manipulations to achieve specific goals, the theurgist always
assumes a passive role and is propelled by a belief in the salvatory purposes of
his activity.99
As we have seen earlier, Iamblichus mentions heat, blinding light and flashes,
which occur during autophanes, but he never discusses the manifestations in details.
It may be worthwhile to draw upon the visions described in the Chaldaean Oracles
to gain a better understanding of the autophanes experienced by Iamblichus’s
theurgist. Fragment 146 of the Oracles contains the following instructions:
… after this invocation, (it says) you will either see a fire, similar to a child,
extended by bounds over the billow of air, or you will see a formless fire, from
which a voice is sent forth, or you will see a sumptuous light, rushing like a
spiral around the field. But you may even see a horse, more dazzling than light,
or even a child mounted on the nimble back of a horse, (a child) of fire or
covered with gold or, again, a naked (child) or even (a child) shooting a bow
and standing on the back (of a horse).100
In the vision above Luck identifies nine different images ranging from abstract
shapes of light to luminous figures such as the child or the horse.101 Not only do
these diverse manifestations signal the imminent arrival of the goddess Hekate,
who is associated with fire and light, they also serve as an indicator to the
theurgist that he is on the right path of conducting the ritual.102 In his interpre-
tation of fragment 146, Lewy suggests that the apparitions are part of Hekate’s
entourage – the figure of the child belongs to the category of wandering spirits
who have been denied a proper burial. The child shooting a bow is the spirit of
someone who had died in combat and been deprived of a proper internment.
These souls of the deceased accompany the goddess during her nocturnal
roamings.103 However, in her study on Hekate, Johnston refutes Lewy’s inter-
pretation of the various epiphanies in fragment 146, arguing that due to their
light-emanating properties, these apparitions who escort the goddess cannot be
souls of the unburied but must be higher entities instead – daemons, iynges and
angels. Referring to Iamblichus’s discussion of the various types of manifesta-
tions and their scale of luminosity (DM II), she suggests that these apparitions
are capable of projecting different intensities of light and fire on their own, not
because of their association with Hekate, as Lewy has maintained, but due to
their ranks – the incorporeal or formless belonging to a higher level whereas
the daemons, such as the naked boy, would be closer to our material world.104 If
these were indeed apparitions of the unburied dead, they would have presented
a dreadful and macabre spectacle instead of the vision of splendour and
brightness as described by the fragment.105
In the previous chapter, I have attempted to uncover the photographic in

Plato’s chora and explored how the triton genos can be productive in rethinking
photographic theory and history. In this chapter, I suggest that Iamblichean
theurgy is the site where one sees a re-emergence of chora as photography. In
the theurgist’s encounter with the divine, his soul is transformed into a camera
which captures the light emanating from the deities. In Chapter 5, I will show
how Iamblichean theourgia is transformed into therapeia in the work of Marsilio
Ficino. In Ficino’s writings on life and light, photagogia does not involve instan-
taneous flashes of light but a continuous drawing down of light. I will argue that
Ficino’s project is characterized by a search for the enhancement of photosensi-
tivity – to sensitize the human soul for the reception of divine light. Therefore
the theurgist-magus does not only receive light during ekstasis as we have seen
in the theurgic rituals described by Iamblichus, but he does so continuously –
through the adoption of a solar regime, by embracing a lifestyle that is solar by
nature, and by surrounding himself with solar things. As I have proposed at
the start of this chapter, for Iamblichus, theourgia is photagogia. Similarly, for
Ficino, therapeia is photagogia. The project of photosensitivity encompasses
the entire human physiological and cognitive systems, from the humours to
the different layers of veils enveloping the aetherial vehicle of the soul, to the
imagination and finally to the soul itself.
82
4
Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos
He who has tasted this light understands of what I am speaking.

Philotheos of Sinai
The monk Philotheos lived in Mount Sinai around the ninth or tenth century.1
The only trace left by this elusive figure was a work that he composed entitled
‘Forty Texts On Watchfulness’, which was later incorporated into The Philokalia,
a collection of writings by various saints belonging to the Hesychast school
of the Orthodox tradition. Philotheos was the first person ever to have used
the word ‘photography’.2 The term that he coined was photeinographeisthai
(φwteinograjeἱsqai) or ‘writing with light’. What is the significance of this
word? And what are its implications for the history of photography, if we
consider that the word we would later come to know as ‘photography’ was in
fact invented by a mystic?
As we have seen in the previous chapters, henōsis (ἕνωσις) or divine union
generates such luminous intensity that the plenitude of light may bring about
an obliteration of the self. In the Republic, Socrates tells Glaucon of the impos-
sibility to see the Platonic Good (533) and in the Phaedo, he warns of the
ensuing blindness that results from a direct view of the solar eclipse (99e). With
the figure of Philotheos, who exemplifies the notion of photagogia taken to the
extreme, we find ourselves returning once again to the strange image of the
escaped prisoner who can finally see the sun, not in its reflections but ‘in and
by itself in its own place (auton kath’auton en tèi autou chorai)’ (Republic 516b).
Where is the χώρα οf the sun? If the sun is the representation of the Good in this
world, what does it imply to see the sun in its own place? Is this the site where
the face-to-face encounter with the Divine takes place?
In his essay ‘Celui qui inventa le verbe “photographier”’, Georges
Didi-Huberman tells the story of St Philotheos of Batos who coined the verb
‘to photograph’ (φwteinograjeἱsqai). Philotheos is called ‘of Batos’ because
of the batos shrubs growing near the monastery where he lived; ‘batos’ in Greek
meaning bramble or thorn. Philotheos is also known as ‘the Sinaite’, for he

belonged to the Sinaite school of monks. Didi-Huberman ingeniously weaves
fiction with the sparse facts that we know of the monk from Mount Sinai. He
presents to us a romantic portrait of the ascete living in the desert a thousand
years ago, under the blinding light of the sun. Didi-Huberman conjectures that
in the stifling heat, Philotheos ate nothing but dried resin from the trees. Called
gutta in Latin because they resemble the tears of the Virgin, the monk slowly
chews the amber droplets. Once in a while, an Egyptian traveller passing by
would give Philotheos an onion to eat, watching the saintly man unfold layers
and layers of the onion’s translucent skin, his face turned towards the burning
slope, drenched in tears.3
The metaphor of heat pervades the text. After all, Mount Sinai, also known as
Mount Horeb, was the site where God first spoke to Moses through the burning
bush. Remarking that gutta is burnt as incense in synagogues and basilicas,
Didi-Huberman goes on to ask, ‘Philothée avait-il fait voeu de ne manger que ce
qui se brûle?’4 (‘Philotheos has he vowed only to eat that which is flammable?’).5
Little is known of Philotheos of Batos except for ‘Forty Texts on Watchfulness’,
sometimes translated as ‘Forty Texts on Sobriety’, which were later collected in
The Philokalia alongside works by other saints and monks from the Greek
Orthodox Christian tradition. The word ‘philokalia’ (φιλοκαλια) signifies the
love of all things good and beautiful. The Philokalia was first published in Venice
in 1782 by two Greek monks, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos and
St Makarios of Corinth. Spanning hundreds of years, the diverse collection of
writings is united by a single theme: the importance of contemplation and the
cultivation of stillness in spiritual practice.
In his introduction, St Nikodimos writes that The Philokalia constitutes ‘a
mystical school of inward prayer’.6 This ‘mystical school’ is known as Hesychasm,
the term deriving from hesychia or stillness. Hesychasm is the cultivation of
internal silence and peace through nepsis, the keeping of a watchful heart, along
with constant prayer following the rhythm of one’s breathing. The repetitive
invocation of the Jesus prayer serves as an aid in concentration, purifying the
mind of the dangers of the imagination and bringing one closer to God.7 The
spiritual practice flourished during the Byzantine era; it was practised widely
from Mount Athos to Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia. Its popularity can be attributed
to St Gregory of Palamas (1296–1359), whose work Triads for the Defence of
the Holy Hesychasts, written between 1337 and 1339, stands as a milestone in
Ηesychast thought, for it is a set of doctrines which successfully synthesized
the mysticism of the Desert Fathers with the teachings of the Church in the
Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos 85
fourteenth century. It was written as a response to the philosopher Barlaam

the Calabrian, who challenged Palamas on certain issues concerning Ηesychast
spiritualism, which he considered to be sacrilegious, such as the possibility of
seeing God directly.8 In Triads, Palamas quotes Barlaam’s criticisms:
If they agree to say, that the intelligible and immaterial light of which they
speak is the superessential God himself and if they continue at the same time
to acknowledge that he is absolutely invisible and inaccessible to the sense,
they must face a choice: if they claim to see this light, they must consider it to
be either an angel or the essence of the mind itself, when, purified of passion
and of ignorance, the spirit sees itself and in itself sees God in his own image. If
the light of which they speak is identified with one of these two realities, then
their thought must be held to be perfectly correct and conformed to Christian
tradition. But if they say that this light is neither the superessential essence, nor
an angelic essence, nor the mind itself, but that the mind contemplates it as
another hypostasis, for my part, I do not know what that light is, but I do know
that it does not exist.9
The light that Barlaam refers to in the above passage represents the uncreated
light of God revealed to man only through deification or theosis. If God is
transcendent, how can a direct vision of the Divine be possible? Palamas distin-
guishes between the essence of God and His energies. Man cannot aspire to
the essence of God but can receive His energies. Palamas’s argument relies on
the idea of the incarnation of Christ; Christ was human, through Christ it is
possible for the body to receive grace; the vision of God does not come from
outside but from within us.10 As Palamas explains:
In his incomparable love for men, the Son of God did not merely unite his divine
Hypostasis to our nature, clothing himself with a living body and an intelligent
soul, ‘to appear on earth and live with men’ (Baruch 3:38), but, O incomparable
and magnificent miracle! He unites himself also to human hypostases, joining
himself to each of the faithful by communion in his holy Body. For he becomes
one body with us (Eph. 3:6) making us a temple of the whole Godhead – for in
the very Body of Christ ‘the whole fulness of the Godhead dwells corporeally’
(Col. 3:9). How then would he not illuminate those who share worthily in the
divine radiance of his Body within us, shining upon their soul as he once shone
on the bodies of the apostles of Tabor? For as this Body, the source of the light
of grace, was at that time not yet united to our body, it shone exteriorly on those
who came near it worthily, transmitting light to the soul through the eyes of the
sense. But today, since it is united to us and dwells within us, it illumines the
soul interiorly.11
This regard for the body as an active agent in spiritual cultivation is a

distinguishing aspect of Hesychasm and accounts for the important role that
breathing plays in prayer. It is clearly demonstrated by Nikiphoros the Monk
in ‘On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart’ written around the latter
part of the thirteenth century. Nikiphoros gives the following instructions to
his reader:
You know that what we breathe is air. When we exhale it, it is for the heart’s sake,
for the heart is the source of life and warmth for the body […] Seat yourself,
then, concentrate your intellect, and lead it into the respiratory passage through
which your breath passes into your heart. Put pressure on your intellect and
compel it to descend with your inhaled breath into your heart. Once it has
entered there, what follows will be neither dismal nor glum. Just as a man, after
being far away from home, on his return is overjoyed at being with his wife
and children again, so the intellect, once it is united with the soul, is filled with
indescribable delight […] Moreover, when your intellect is firmly established in
your heart, it must not remain there silent and idle; it should constantly repeat
and meditate on the prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,’
and should never stop doing this. For this prayer protects the intellect from
distraction, renders it impregnable to diabolic attacks, and every day increases
its love and desire for God.12
One of the distinctive features of the Hesychast prayer is the psychoso-

matic method of navel-gazing. Barlaam ridiculed the Hesychasts by calling
them ‘omphalopsychoi’ or ‘people-whose-soul-is-in-their-navel’.13 In the Triads,
Palamas defends the technique of curling oneself up into a ball and resting
one’s eyes upon the navel. This circular position that the body adopts facilitates
inward attentiveness and, like slow breathing, achieves ‘what St. Dionysios calls
a state of “unified concentration”’.14 This method, which combines corporeal
awareness with mental focus, aims to facilitate the guarding of the heart. The
Hesychast regards the heart not only as the site of emotions but also as the
spiritual centre of man.15 The heart must be guarded against the onslaught of
desires and the corruption of the senses, so that it can devote itself completely
to the memory of God. In the following passage from ‘The Three Methods of
Prayer’, often attributed to St Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022), we find
clear instructions concerning the psychosomatic method:
Then sit down in a quiet cell, in a corner by yourself, and do what I tell
you. Close the door, and withdraw your intellect from everything worthless
and transient. Rest your beard on your chest, and focus your physical gaze,
together with the whole of your intellect, upon the centre of your belly or
your navel. Restrain the drawing-in of breath through your nostrils, so as not
to breathe easily, and search inside yourself with your intellect so as to find
the place of the heart, where all the powers of the soul reside. To start with
you will find there darkness and an impenetrable density. Later, when you
persist and practise this task day and night, you will find, as though miracu-
lously, an unceasing joy. For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the
heart, at once it sees things of which it previously knew nothing. It sees the
open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely luminous and full of
discrimination.16
In the above meditation method presented by Symeon, it is interesting to note

how the physical space of the practitioner appears to echo his mental and
psychical space. The withdrawal into a quiet corner is accompanied by curling
oneself into a ball while resting one’s gaze on the navel. The transition from
darkness to light seems to act as an indicator of the spiritual progress of the
practitioner.
St Symeon’s ‘Three Methods of Prayer’ and Nikiphoros’s ‘On Watchfulness
and the Guarding of the Heart’ may have been the first two written documenta-
tions of the psychosomatic method to appear in the thirteenth century, but as
the editors of The Philokalia indicate, the technique would have been practised
by the earlier monks and orally transmitted from master to disciple.17 In fact, if
we look at The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a seventh-century spiritual guide by St
John Climacus (580–650), abbot of the convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai,
the union of breath with prayer is already mentioned in the text. In Step 27,
St John Climacus writes:
Strange as it may seem, the hesychast is a man who fights to keep his incor-
poreal self shut up in the house of the body … Stillness is worshipping God
unceasingly and waiting on Him. Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with
your every breath. Then you will appreciate the value of stillness.18
Of particular significance here is the term hêsychia, which appeared in an

earlier context. The term was used in ancient Greece to describe the method
of incubation as practised by Parmenides and other Pholarchos or priests of
Apollo. Hêsychia refers to the stillness of the priests and patients while they
are lying inside the cave during incubation, waiting for messages from the
gods. Practised by philosopher-priests such as Parmenides and Pythagoras,
incubation is a way of healing which requires one to lie very still for days, resem-
bling an animal in hibernation.19 In the following passage, Strabo describes a
cave in Caria, the Charonium – often seen as the portal to Hades. The cave was
located directly next to the temple dedicated to Persephone and her husband
Pluto, the goddess and god of the underworld. The cave was used for healing:
‘But often they lead the sick into the cave instead and settle them down, then
leave them there in utter stillness (hêsychia) without any food for several days –
just like animals in a lair (phôleos).’20 St Symeon’s meditation method of curling
oneself into a ball can probably be seen as an offshoot of the incubation ritual
described above.
Mystic photography
It is in text 23 of the ‘Forty Texts on Watchfulness’ by St Philotheos that the verb

‘to photograph’ first appears, as indicated by J. Lemaître in the Dictionnaire de
Spiritualité:
Philothée, dont nous ignorons malheureusement les dates, mais qui ne doit pas
être de beaucoup postérieur à Jean Climaque, a inventé la photographie, du moins
est-il le premier à en parler. Il s’agit de photographie mystique.21 (Unfortunately
we do not know the dates of Philotheos’s life, but he would not have lived much
later than John Climacus. Philotheos invented photography, at least he is the
first one to have mentioned it. It is a matter of mystic photography.)
Philotheos uses the term phôteinographeisthai or ‘writing with light’ to describe

the practice of nepsis, or watchfulness of the heart. He writes: ‘Gardons de
toute notre attention à toute heure notre coeur des penseés qui ternissent le
miroir psychique dans lequel a coûtume de s’empreindre et de se photographier
Jesus-Christ, sagesse et puissance de Dieu.’22 The Greek word used here is
ϕωτεινογραϕεἱσθαι, which like its French counterpart ‘se photographier’ is a
pronominal or reflexive verb. Jesus Christ photographs Himself in one’s heart.
The reflexive nature of the verb is significant here, for it is not the human who
photographs God but God who photographs himself.
Unfortunately, the term is lost in the English translations of the text. I
consulted two English translations of the Philokalia, one directly from Greek,
translated as such: ‘At every hour and moment let us guard the heart with all
diligence from thoughts that obscure the soul’s mirror; for in that mirror Jesus
Christ, the wisdom and power of God the Father (cf. 1 Cor. 24), is typified and
luminously reflected.’23 In the above text, the marking with light is replaced by
the movement of reflection. The collection of light – imprinting (s’empreindre)
as well as writing oneself with light (se photographier) – is nowhere to be seen.

However, in another version of The Philokalia, translated from the Russian
text Dobrotolubiye – an eight-volume compilation from the ninth century by
Theophan the Recluse, we find the following: ‘And so every hour and every
moment let us zealously guard our heart from thoughts obscuring the mirror
of the soul, which should contain, drawn and imprinted on it, only the radiant
image of Jesus Christ, Who is the wisdom and the power of God the Father.’24
Although the meaning of phôteinographeisthai is also lost in this version, it at
least retains a sense of imprinting and drawing.
Philotheos’s writings are exemplary of the teachings of the early Fathers of
the Desert, who emphasized the importance of the guarding of the heart in
spiritual cultivation. To obtain deification (theosis) or the union with God, we
must aspire to and imitate the conduct of Christ (mimètikôs) through absti-
nence, respect of the commandments, faith and prayer. Philotheos teaches
us that contemplation is an extremely active exercise. In order to achieve
the state of stillness, we must dispel all thoughts and desires that arise in our
mind. The ‘Forty Texts’ begins with the metaphor of combat: ‘We have in us
a mental warfare more arduous than physical warfare. The aim of the doer
of righteousness, which he should pursue with his mind and towards which
he should strive, is to have the memory of God treasured in his heart like
a priceless pearl or some other precious stone.’25 The imagery of battle and
swordplay conjured by Philotheos is surprisingly violent: ‘through this mental
vigilance we should slay all the sinners of the earth. In other words, for the
sake of the Lord we must cut off the heads of the strong, and the first sign of
strife-provoking thoughts by the true intense memory of God, which raises
us on high.’26 The memory of God (mnimi Theou), which appears in both
passages, refers to a form of ‘single-mindedness’ in which one’s attention is
solely directed towards God.
For Philotheos it is important to guard our heart zealously against the
assaults of the imagination. Didi-Huberman uses the term ‘chasser des images’27
to describe Philotheos’s endeavour to destroy all images: ‘Aussi se rêvait-il
lui-même comme un “chasseur d’images” – non pas un chercheur de tropheés
imaginaires à ramener chez soi, mais bien un déstructeur, un dépeupleur d’images
[…].’28 (‘He also dreamed of being a “hunter of images” – not a seeker of
imaginary trophies to bring home but a destroyer, a de-populator of images
[…]’). As Didi-Huberman suggests, Philotheos is in fact chasing away images.
For it is only by banishing all pictures that one can turn away from the self
in order to focus one’s attention on God – the memory of God. One then
becomes the blank surface which can receive the unique ‘impression’ of God.
As Philotheos writes:
He who has tasted this light understands of what I am speaking. Once tasted,
this light tortures the soul all the more with hunger for it, for the soul feeds on
it but is never satiated, and the more it tastes it, the more it hungers. This light,
which draws the mind as the sun draws the eyes, this light, inexplicable in itself,
which however becomes explicable, only not in words but by the experience
of him who receives its influence, or rather who is wounded by it – this
light, commands me to be silent, although the mind would still have enjoyed
conversing on this subject.29
The ineffability of photagogia is brought to the forefront in the above passage.

The experience of light cannot be described by words nor should its secrets
be disclosed, as Philotheos tells us, despite his willingness to speak about the
subject. His account of photagogia reveals an intense longing for the divine.
After the initial exposure, the devotee is propelled by an insatiable hunger to
draw down divine light continuously. The intensity of light is such that exposure
to it can even wound its beholder. Roland Barthes’s punctum inevitably comes to
mind. In Camera Lucida, Barthes describes the punctum as:
this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow and
pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark
made by a pointed instrument … I shall therefore call [it] punctum; for punctum
is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also a cast of the dice. A photograph’s
punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to
me).30
Punctum transcends the immobility of the image and moves beyond the impris-
onment of the frame by opening up the ‘blind field’.31 It is a ‘stigmatum’32 that
pierces through the flatness of the photograph. Barthes concludes that there
are two punctums in a photograph. The first punctum only exists in certain
photographs; it is a detail capable of triggering our memories or emotions,
transforming the passive experience of viewing a photograph to an active,
almost violent one, ‘a tiny shock, a satori’.33 This punctum is personal and private
– what stands as a punctum for one person may be merely the studium for
another. It is the reason why the reader of Camera Lucida will never get to see
the photograph of Barthes’s mother as a little girl in the winter garden, the only
picture which succeeds in capturing the essence of her being, for Barthes argues
that the photograph would only stand as studium for the reader. The second
punctum exists in all photographs: ‘This new punctum, which is no longer of
form but of intensity, is Time, the lacerating emphasis of the noeme (“that-has-
been”), its pure representation.’34 It is the constant memory of death:
But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the same time: This will be and this
has been; I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By
giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in
the future. What pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence.35
The memory of death is an essential step in Philotheos’s search for spiritual

enlightenment. He writes:
The first door leading to the mental Jerusalem – attention of the mind – is a wise
silence of the lips, although the mind is not yet silent. The second is a precisely
measured abstinence in food and drink. The third is a constant memory of
death, which purifies both mind and body. Once I had seen the loveliness of
this latter not by eye but in spirit, I became pierced with delight in it and with a
longing to have it as my companion for my whole life, for I conceived a love for
its splendour and beauty.36
Along with the observance of silence and the controlled intake of food and
drink, the persistent awareness of our mortality is one of the principles for the
guarding of the heart: ‘It gives birth to mourning, gives guidance in all-round
abstinence, it reminds a man of hell, it is the mother of prayer and tears,
the guardian of the heart, the means of going deep into oneself and of good
judgement …’37
Light
Philotheos’s text is a guide to the cultivation of stillness and the purifi-

cation of one’s heart, teaching the devotee to become closer to divine truth.
As Didi-Huberman remarks, where ‘truth’ is mentioned in Philotheos’s text,
the ‘sun’ is always nearby.38 In his essay, ‘A Comparison of the Early Forms
of Buddhist and Christian Monastic Traditions’, Mathieu Boisvert examines
the ascete’s quest for single-mindedness or monotropos, and the connection
between sunlight and the Divine. Boisvert writes: ‘The ideal of monotropos can
be most accurately described by comparing it to a plant that constantly orients
its leaves toward the sun, “a process known as phototropism.” Like the plant, the
“monotrope” constantly directs his or her effort toward God.’39
Monotropos is governed by the love of god; the longing for divine light
reminds us of Proclus’s heliotrope, who moves accordingly with the sun in the
sky. It is also exemplified by the figure of Philotheos, who unwaveringly stares

into the sun in order to be imprinted by God: ‘Il cherchait désormais à noyer
ses yeux dans le flot solaire ardent. Imaginant devenir image à se soumettre à la
lumière. L’unique chemin, pensait-il, pour voir et être vu de quelque chose qu’il
nommait “Dieu”.’40 (‘From then on, he tried to drown his eyes in the cascade
of blazing sunlight. He imagined turning into image by submitting himself to
light. The only way, he thought, to see and to be seen by something he called
“God”.’)
Nikiphoros the Monk declares: ‘If you ardently long to attain the wondrous
divine illumination of our Saviour Jesus Christ … then I will impart to you the
science of eternal or heavenly life’.41 This science entails single-mindedness or
a ‘[s]obriety […] like a small window through which God enters and appears
to the mind’.42 The preparation for the light-appearance of Christ requires the
emptying of all thoughts and echoes the kenosis which takes place within the
theurgist’s soul. Iamblichus tells us that chorein is the prerequisite of anagōgē, as
the theurgist withdraws himself to give place to the gods. Similarly watchfulness
opens an aperture in the soul, allowing divine light to enter and for God to
photograph Himself in the heart of the devotee.
Didi-Huberman likens the instant of ‘mystic photography’ to molten wax:
‘Il (Philotheos) ressentait son corps et l’intérieur de son corps semblables à une
flaque de cire sanglante que vient frapper un sceau.’43 (‘His body and its interior
felt like a pool of molten wax that has just been struck by the seal.’) Immersed
in light, one becomes pure light. What is the photographic experience of divine
ecstasy? Although Philotheos does not describe the process of this extreme
form of photagogia, St Symeon’s encounter with the divine, as recounted by his
biographer Nikiphoros the Monk, may help us gain a better understanding of
what takes place during the imprinting of God’s image in the soul of the devotee:
‘Il vit la lumière elle-même s’unir d’une façon incroyable à sa chair et pénétrer peu
à peu ses membres … Il vit donc cette lumière finir par envahir peu à peu tout
entière son corps tout entier et son coeur et ses entrailles, et le rendre lui-même
tout feux et lumière.’44 (‘He saw the light unite with his flesh in an incredible way
and slowly penetrate his limbs … Thus he saw that the light finally invaded the
whole of his body, and his entire heart and his entrails and transformed him
into all fire and light.’) Philotheos collects light as he stands under the burning
sun, gradually transforming himself into an overexposed image – an ‘image
without form’.45
Let us conclude then on Philotheos’s coinage – phôteinographeisthai. As
Palamas has indicated, man alone does not have the capacity to see God directly
but God can choose to reveal Himself to man. Phôteinographeisthai is a reflexive

verb for God acts as the sole agent and photographs Himself into the devotee’s
heart. In theosis, God is pure light. Describing the ascete’s vision of God, which
is ‘seeing light through light’, Palamas writes in the Triads: ‘That is what union
means; all is so one, that he who sees can make no distinction either of the
means or the end or the object; he is conscious only of being light and seeing
light distinct from all that is created.’46
The mystical union with God is ‘photographic’ by nature; it is the ecstatic
moment when the boundaries of the self dissolve and become pure light.
94
5
Marsilio Ficino: Light and Photosensitivity
In light there is a certain daemonic power.

Commentaria in Platonis ‘Sophistam’
In this chapter, I will look at several texts by the Renaissance philosopher

Marsilio Ficino and examine the transfiguration of Iamblichean photagogia from
theourgia to therapeia. In Chapter 3 we saw how photagogia or the collection of
divine light is embedded in the theurgic practices of Iamblichus; in this chapter
I will suggest that photagogia in Ficino’s work is specifically the drawing down
of celestial light. What one sees in Ficino’s exploration of photagogia has less to
do with a theurgic ascent (theourgia) than with a descent, which will constitute
the basis of his therapeia of light. Unlike Iamblichus, whose main interest is
the soul’s ability to elevate itself through the various stages of anagōgē, I will
argue that Ficino’s writings exhibit instead a gravitation towards a downward
movement – the capturing and containment of divine light. For Ficino, then,
to enhance the soul’s fitness (epitēdeiotēs) to receive God requires an increase
in one’s sensitivity to light. What one sees developing in Ficino’s thinking is the
notion of photosensitivity,1 which underpins his diverse writings on life and on
light. In this chapter I will examine the various scenarios of photosensitivity
found in Ficino’s work, mainly in his medical writing and treatises on light. I
will also draw upon several passages from the Platonic Theologies on the Soul,
De amore and the Sophist commentary.
Ficino was a prolific writer; not only was he responsible for the revival
of interest in Platonism in the Renaissance, he also translated the works of
many Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Synesius into
Latin at the request of his patron Cosimo de’ Medici. Some of the translations
include Porphyry’s De Abstinentia, Iamblichus’s De Mysteriis and Synesius’s De
Insomniis. Ficino’s interest in magic probably stems from his translation work
on the Corpus Hermeticum and the Picatrix, as well as his familiarity with the
Orphic poems and the Chaldaean Oracles. Like his father, who was Cosimo
de Medici’s physician, Ficino was trained in medicine, although it is unclear

whether he had ever received a medical degree.2 Ordained a priest in 1473, he
was also the founder and director of the Platonic Academy in Florence. Thus
Ficino’s multiple roles in his life are reflected in his writings, which contain
diverse and intertwining elements (Platonic, Orphic, Hermetic, Christian,
theological, medical, astrological) but are always propelled by the worship of
God and the love of mankind.
Scholarship on Ficino’s work has been extensive. It is beyond the scope of
this book to provide a list of all the texts devoted to Ficinian study. Nevertheless
I would like to point out several pioneering works that have paved the way
to subsequent discussions of the role of magic in Ficino’s thinking and in the
Renaissance in general. Among the first to scrutinize his interest in magic
and the occult were D. P. Walker’s Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to
Campanella and Frances Yates’s Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.
Examining the notion of spiritus in Ficino’s thinking, D. P. Walker argues that
Ficino’s interest in music, both musical theory and practice, is integral to his
conception of natural magic; music, through its vibrations in the air, can be
seen as one way of understanding the theory of spiritus. Walker focuses mainly
on astrological music, as discussed by Ficino in the third book of De vita,
and its subsequent influences on other thinkers and musical theorists in the
Renaissance. He suggests that Ficino’s astrological music, which enables one to
capture the influences of the planets and the stars, is probably Orphic in origin,
and includes the Orphic Hymns, hymns to the sun and the eighteenth psalm of
David as some of the songs that Ficino probably would have sung while playing
his lyra orphica.3 He also argues that there are two types of magic present in
Ficino’s work: spiritual magic as seen in De vita and demonic magic. These
two facets of Neoplatonic magic would develop into two distinctive strands:
demonic magic as practised by Agrippa and Paracelsus, and spiritual magic
which would be eventually incorporated into music, poetry and Christianity.4
In Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Yates examines Ficino’s use of
talismans and attributes the Corpus Hermeticum as a major influence in Ficino’s
interest in natural magic.
Although he does not directly address magic, Paul Oskar Kristeller’s work
The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino provides a comprehensive and thorough
understanding of Ficino’s philosophical system, in particular the role of the
soul and Ficino’s conception of an internal consciousness. One of the major
difficulties in approaching Ficino’s work is the sheer volume of it; in addition
to the numerous translations commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici, Ficino’s
Marsilio Ficino: Light and Photosensitivity 97
oeuvre includes the Platonic commentaries, letters, pamphlets, De Christiana

religione, his writings on metaphysics – Theologia Platonica; his book on
health – De vita libri tres (Three Books on Life); as well as his treatises on light.
Whereas previous scholars have explored specific aspects of Ficino’s writings
by looking at individual texts or grouping particular works together, examining
for example Ficino’s doctrine on love and beauty (Allen, Festugière), musical
theory (Voss, Walker), interest in astrology (Moore, Voss), doctrine of the
soul (Allen) and influences in Renaissance art (Chastel, Panofsky, Warburg),
what I propose to do here is to uncover a thread that runs through his writing,
which I will argue is driven by a lifelong quest for photosensitivity.
In Ficino’s own writings one often senses an underlying tension, especially
in the texts that touch upon theurgic rituals or magical manipulations, where
he carefully negotiates the perilous task of combining pagan mysticism with
Christian theology. At the end of De vita libri tres (Three Books on Life),
published in 1489, Ficino had to include an Apologia refuting many of his
previous discussions on the magical manipulations of talismans (imagines) due
to accusations of heresy by the Church. In the Apologia Ficino claims that he
is not advocating the use of magic but merely presenting an interpretation of
Plotinus. Ficino often refers to the authority of the prisca theologia as well as the
Christian saints to counter possible accusations of blasphemy. He is operating
on dangerous grounds in his soteriological project, for how does one reconcile a
cosmology based upon Plato’s Timaeus – with its demiurge and sublunar gods –
with the Christian God? As a Christian priest, how does one justify the religious
worship of the sun?5 Would the use of astrology for medicinal purposes border
upon heresy?
The notion of light plays an important role in Ficino’s work. Light does not
only function as a metaphor in his writing.6 Since light is everywhere in this
world – the most manifest and the most accessible – it allows him to speak of
a subject that otherwise would escape the confines of language. Light enables
Ficino to find a common ground between his Platonism and his Christian faith
while at the same time, light serves as a guide, leading both writer and reader
into the celestial mysteries.
Light writings
Among Ficino’s large corpus of work, including numerous commentaries on

Plato’s dialogues, there are three texts that specifically focus on the subject
of light. A quick glance at their titles – Quid sit lumen, Liber de sole and De
lumine – already provides us with an indication of the importance that Ficino
attributes to the notion of light. De lumine, composed in 1492, is an inquiry
into the nature of light. In this work, Ficino attempts to lead his reader into the
divine mysteries through an exploration of the physical characteristics of light.
In the preface of this treatise, Ficino distinguishes his work from other scientific
studies of light. He is not interested in launching a mathematical investigation
into the properties of light but, instead, he proposes to examine light in order
to gain an understanding of moral laws, rules of contemplation and the divine
mysteries, light emblematic of such truths. De lumine comprises 17 chapters and
is in fact a revised edition of an earlier work entitled Quid sit lumen (1479). In
addition to the six new chapters, Ficino has also expanded his discussions on
heat and transparency and included an allusion to the aetherial vehicle, all of
which I will be discussing in more detail later. Another work which appeared
at the same time as De lumine is the Liber de sole. It is organized in a similar
structure, comprising 13 chapters, with headings which summarize the theme
of each chapter.
Over the next few pages, I will mainly focus on De lumine while drawing
upon Liber de sole to investigate the ways in which light is embedded within
Ficino’s thought. In the preface addressed to Piero de’ Medici, to whom the work
is dedicated, Ficino mentions a text on the sun which is also dedicated to the
merchant prince.
Although he does not name the work, he is referring to Liber de sole,
composed around the same time as De lumine. One can assume that the prince
would have already received Liber de sole before De lumine, for Ficino tells Piero
that it is only appropriate for light to follow its guide, the sun. He then makes
a distinction between the terrestrial and celestial orders; whereas on earth the
first glow of the aurora always precedes the rising of the sun, in the heavens,
it is the sun that claims precedence. Ficino declares that in the past, he would
always consider light before the sun; now he will follow the celestial order and
contemplate the father first before directing his attention towards the son. One
can thus regard the two texts – Liber de sole and De lumine – as companions to
each other, Liber de sole focusing mainly on the sun as a symbol of the Divine
and De lumine exploring the implications of light as a visible manifestation of
God.
Ficino tells Piero that the sun is the father of light from which all brightness
emanates. His words resonate with the analogy of the sun and the Good
presented to us by Plato in Book VI of the Republic. Whereas the sun is
considered to be an image of the Good – ‘the offspring of the good which the
good begot to stand in a proportion with itself ’ (508b–c)7 – in Ficino’s treatment
of the Platonic motif, light now has become the offspring of the sun. In the
Republic, light is described by Socrates as a third species (triton genos): ‘the bond
… that yokes together visibility and the faculty of sight’ (508). An observation
by Derrida may help us reflect upon the status of light. Referring to this passage,
Derrida writes:
A bit earlier, an allusion to a third species (triton genos) seems to disorient the
discourse, because this is neither the visible nor sight or vision; it is precisely
light (507e), itself produced by the sun, the son of the Good ‘ton tou agathou
ekgonon’) which the Good has engendered in its own likeness (‘on tagathon
agennesen analagon’).8
What Ficino explores in De lumine is in fact the triton genos of the Republic.
Although he does not use the term ‘third kind’, De lumine can be read as an
elaboration of this passage in Republic VI, incorporated with the presence
of Aristotle, Plotinus, Iamblichus and Pseudo-Dionysius. Ficino carefully
constructs light as an active agent which links together the sun, the Good
and God. He also positions both himself and his reader as the friend of light,
‘amico lucis’.9 The true object of Ficino’s enquiry is the divine mysteries and it is
through the study of light that one is able to gain access into such realities. An
understanding of light holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the celestial
spheres and man’s relation to God. In the preface, Ficino claims ardently that
light, as the most trustworthy indicator of divine presence, provides a straight-
forward means of seizing these truths. Sylvain Matton points out in his essay on
De lumine that Ficino’s interest in light derives from a soteriological and gnostic
perspective.10 As discussed at the opening of this chapter, there is a constant
tension between Ficino’s theurgic and medical writings of light and his writings
on life. His interest in natural magic is driven by a realization that the correct
and legitimate manipulation of ‘natural things’ can enable us, as he claims in
De vita, to ‘obtain the services of the celestials for the prosperous health of our
bodies’11 and of our soul. At the same time, in his devout worship of God, his
investigation into the mysteries of the human soul and his doctrine on love, he
is always animated by a Renaissance humanism which celebrates man’s place at
the centre of the universe.
It is important to understand the properties of light in order to capture it
successfully, both in its observable form (sunlight) and its celestial counterpart
(the hidden light of God). As mentioned earlier, Ficino’s strategy steers clear of
presenting his reader with an objective scientific analysis of light. Instead, he

examines the nature of light through that which is closest to us, our sensorial
experience. De lumine opens with Ficino declaring his love of light and his
extreme dislike of shadows and all that is accompanied by shadows: ‘Je hais
plus que tout les ténèbres … J’aime plus que tout la lumière.’12 (‘I hate above all
shadows … I love light more than anything else.’) One is struck by the playful
tone that Ficino assumes, for he begins his investigation of light by addressing
his senses directly as if they were old friends, each of his senses replying in turn
to his question on what is light. Ficino’s approach reminds one of Socrates’s
question to Glaucon: ‘With which of the parts of ourselves, with which of our
faculties, then, do we see visible things?’ (507c). The first three senses – hearing,
smell, taste – are unable to provide Ficino with an answer. Taste even retorts by
asking Ficino why he is posing such a strange and unfamiliar question. Since
taste is bathed in liqueur, he is only too happy to show Ficino what liqueurs are
all about. Touch reproaches Ficino for attempting to extort from him that which
he cannot provide.
Since touch is restricted to corporeal things, he advises Ficino to seek his
answer at a higher level. Ficino thus declares that he will make his ascension
from the lower parts to which he has fallen, towards the higher levels of his
body in order to see the light. Finally it is Ficino’s eyesight which offers to
help him, providing him with the explanation of light as a spiritual emanation,
instantaneous and extensive. These two opening chapters of De lumine demon-
strate Ficino’s ability to employ the ordinary and mundane as a strategic move
to approach that which is esoteric and transcendental; it is as though there are
two levels; by uncovering the first layer of reality, one can thus draw oneself
closer to the divine. By capturing visible light, which belongs to the sensible
world, one can then begin to discern the hidden light, which exists in the intel-
ligible realm.
First light
In his investigation into the nature of light, Ficino makes a distinction between
different types of light. The light perceived by our vision is only one kind of light
(lumen); it is not the first light (lux) since it is variable and dependent on things
other than itself. Ficino’s object of inquiry is a light which exists by itself and in
itself: ‘Celle-ci existe donc par soi et en soi.’13 (‘Thus this one exists by itself and
in itself.’)
Since it is the first form of the first body, ‘la première forme du premier
corps’,14 it is an autonomous light, thus independent of any external factors.
This is probably the same kind of light that appears in Iamblichus’s De mysteriis
when he describes the various methods of divination through the collection of
light. Iamblichus writes: ‘[T]his light is from without and alone achieves all its
effects serving the will and intelligence of the gods, the greatest light has a sacred
brightness which, either shining from above in the aether, or from the air, or
moon or sun, or any other heavenly sphere, appears apart from all these things
to be such a mode of divination that is autonomous, primordial, and worthy of
the gods’ (DM III.14, 134.10–15).15 Although Iamblichus does not refer to light
as a first light here, he does emphasize the transcendental aspect of light and
refers to the theurgic ritual as primordial (πρωτουργὸς, protourgos). It seems
that Iamblichus is acknowledging the presence of a superior light that is not
accessible to the untrained eye, its visibility dependent upon the fitness of the
theurgist. At the end of this chapter, I will show how Ficino aims to alter one’s
physiological make-up in order to become sensitive to this light.
For Ficino, the perfection of the first light (lux) lies in its nature as an active
agent: ‘Ainsi elle est si parfaite qu’elle existe non pas en tant que qualité inactive
distincte de l’acte, mais plutôt en tant qu’acte très vigoureux.’16 (‘In this manner it
is so perfect that it exists not as an inert quality separate from the act, but rather
as a very vigorous action.’) This dynamic characteristic of light is emphasized
throughout the text. For example, one finds the following heading for Chapter
11: ‘La lumière ne devient pas la qualité de ce qui est illuminé, mais constitue
l’acte de ce qui illumine.’17 (‘Light does not become the quality of that which is
illuminated, but constitutes the act of that which illuminates.’) Not only is this
light independent, it is the source of radiance and generates the conditions of
seeing. The dynamism of light is also mentioned in Liber de sole, with Ficino
invoking the authority of Iamblichus and proclaiming: ‘Iamblichus the Platonist
finally came to refer to light as a certain active vitality and clear image of divine
intelligence.’18 What is extraordinary about this statement is the reference to the
invigorating force of light. Ficino’s treatises on light can be considered as an
investigation into the physical manifestations of light, in particular its dynamic
vigour, and by understanding its visible properties such as heat, luminosity
and its effect on different types of materials (transparency/opacity), one can
devise methods to encapsulate its potency; this is what Ficino will endeavour to
accomplish through his medical writing, especially in De vita libri tres.
I will make a slight detour and examine an earlier text by Ficino, one of
his letters composed more than a decade prior to the publication of Quid sit
lumen. I hope to show that as early as 1479, he was already preoccupied with
the connection between a visible sunlight and a hidden primordial light. In the
‘Orphica comparatio solis ad Deum atque declaratio idearum’ (‘The Orphic
Comparison of the Sun to God and the setting forth of causal forms’), Ficino
is concerned with the affinity between these two kinds of light. The first light
(lux) is described as the light of consciousness that resides in the centre of the
sun. Ficino writes: ‘It is certainly in the Sun that visible light is created from the
light of consciousness, and there also sight is created from understanding.’19 This
would imply that there is a light of consciousness which precedes the creation
of sunlight, a clear image of divine intelligence. Ficino tells us that this single
pure light is the source of all colours and it ‘sees multiplicity through a single
power of seeing’.20 The letter ends with an allusion to the danger of blindness
from staring too long at the sun. He then contrasts the visible sun with the
hidden one, adding that the super-celestial sun will not harm one’s eyesight, for
‘the more it flashes in their [ardent lovers’ and contemplatives’] eyes, the more
it strengthens and invigorates their sight’.21 Ficino’s comments suggest a photo-
sensitivity that enables the ‘super-celestial One who has set His tabernacle in the
Sun’22 to come into view.
The more we prepare ourselves to the reception of this light, the clearer the
image of divine intelligence may be. And in the Phaedrus commentary, associ-
ating light with the Platonic Good, he writes of the intelligible world which is
light:
Certain facts are denied and affirmed about this intelligible place above heaven.
Touch is denied, that is, every condition and property proper to the corporeal
world; shape is denied, that is, the animate world’s quality, which the Timaeus
describes through figures and numbers; and color is denied, that is, a certain
participated light proper to the intellectual world. For this higher place is pure
[and not participated] light, and pure light is seen not in color but in a trans-
parent medium. Guided by Plato, finally, we usually use the innermost light of
the sun to describe the good itself, which is higher than the intelligible place.23
According to Ficino, the intelligible realm has no characteristics of the sensible

world except for light. Thus light serves as a common denominator which will
allow us to gain access into the divine truths. And it is Ficino’s goal through the
enhancement of one’s photosensitivity to increase our awareness of this light.
The Vitality of Light
When Ficino remarks, ‘Les astronomes et les mages démontrent qu’il existe dans
les rayons des forces merveilleuses, mais cachées’24 (‘Astronomers and magicians
demonstrate that there are marvellous but hidden forces in light rays’), he may
be referring to the occult properties of light and the art of catoptrics. Ficino
presents his reader with the example of heat produced by the convergence of
light on a concave mirror; again he is moving from an observable phenomenon
of light, in this case the effects of light rays striking on the surface of a mirror,
to a discussion of the esoteric properties of light. He continues: ‘Sans nul doute
la puissance de la lumière est très grande, au point qu’elle établit facilement et
instantanément de nombreux liens entre les êtres célestes et les êtres terrestres
qui autrement n’entretiendraient pas de relations en raison de leur distance.’25
(‘Without any doubt the power of light is so great that it instantaneously and
easily establishes numerous links between celestial and terrestrial beings, who
would otherwise not have fostered any relations due to the distance between
them.’) Light does not only transmit the virtues of the stars to the level immedi-
ately below, but it also acts as a transport, Ficino tells us, by bringing the sun
and the stars towards lower beings. In Ficino’s study of light, there is a constant
interplay between visibility and invisibility. Light is invisible yet it brings out the
visibility of objects. It is through this natural phenomenon that Ficino finds the
potential of acquiring esoteric knowledge.
As I have mentioned earlier, both heat and speed are indicators of the active
vitality of light. I will examine heat in the context of talismanic magic towards
the end of this chapter. Another sign of the dynamism of light can be found in
its speed. According to Ficino, the ability of light to overcome the constraints of
physical distance is indicative of its strength, for it is capable of travelling long
distances instantaneously without being separated from its source.26 In Chapter
11 of De lumine, one finds the following observation on the expansive power of
light. I would like to underline the dominance of reflections and phantasmatic
appearances in Ficino’s discourse as well as the hall of mirror effect that he
creates, with light bouncing off from one surface to the other. One can almost
imagine this to be the scene of the prisoner’s first glimpse of the sensible world
when he emerges out of the Platonic cave. Note also the indexical quality of the
reflection. Ficino writes:
Elle [la lumière] semble en effet devoir toujours se propager au-delà d’elle-même
et elle se réfléchit instantanément de multiples manières, renvoyée de miroirs en
miroirs, de l’eau sur un miroir et de là, de nouveau, sur un mur, et ainsi de suite.
Et en sa réflexion, elle n’abandonne jamais le corps qui la réfléchit.27
It [light] appears indeed to always spread beyond itself, creating instantaneous

reflections of itself in multiple ways. It returns from mirror to mirror, water to
mirror, and from there, once again, it is projected on to a wall and so forth. And
in its reflection, it never abandons the body that it reflects.
In the above scenario set up by Ficino, one senses a polarity of forces at play:
speed and slowness, absorption and projection, impediment and dissemination.
Light resists capture, leaping from one surface to the next instantaneously and
in a multiplicity of ways. Only when it is projected on to a wall, does it appear
to slow down its pace.
However, contrary to light, which evades confinement and is considered
incorporeal, objects are captured inside their reflections, thus intangibly
carrying the corporeal within them. Yet there appears to be no danger of the
depletion of light in spite of its vigour and vivacity, for the very movement of
reflection seems to guarantee its propagation.
It may be helpful to understand what is happening within this scintillating
world, full of fast-moving images and flashing lights, through the analogy of
abundance. The plenitude of light reminds one of the surplus of light that is
constantly present in Iamblichus’s discussion of photagogia. It is once again an
indicator of the potency of light. Iamblichus uses the term periousia dunameos,
an excess of force, to describe the power exhibited by the higher gods during
theurgic ascension. Similarly, Ficino in the Theologia Platonica draws an
analogy between the abundance of divine light that never seems to exhaust itself
and the omnipresence of the divine soul (divinus animus). He writes:
Doesn’t even a light trapped inside a heavy lantern blaze out afar in a brief
moment when the lantern is opened, and illuminate most distant objects? Yet
it does not quit the lantern; and when the lantern is shut again, it is confined in
a narrow space without its being harmed. This is because, when initially it was
flooding the greatest space, it was being poured forth without its being dissi-
pated. Wonderful is the power of light! It remains quietly in the narrowest place
and it fills up the amplest; and it does this because light in a way is incorporeal.
The soul does the same because it is divine light.28
Ficino’s lantern recalls the lamps mentioned in many of the divination spells
found in the Greek Magical Papyri in particular the ‘Charm that produces a
direct vision’ (PGM IV.930–1114), which I have discussed in Chapter 3. Again
one sees an instance where the abundance of light and its transformative
power are the determining factors that enable the divine to be revealed, for the
magician opens his eyes and sees not the lantern but a vault brimming with
light, where he comes face to face with a deity.
Incorporeal light
So far we have looked at the dynamic vitality of light through its visible
characteristics. Now I would like to examine the incorporeal nature of light,
which is a constant theme in De lumine. Ficino is certainly less interested
in the physical properties of light than in its metaphysical implications; a
discussion of the visible characteristics of light is a means for him to approach
the ineffable. As mentioned earlier, speed is a sign of the potency of light.
Ficino takes this point further by connecting it with the celestial realm. The
efficiency of light and its speed when it traverses unhindered by both long and
short distances29 serves as an indicator of its ability to cross the boundaries
between heaven and earth, hence its role as ‘the bond of the Universe’. Ficino
argues:
Sans nul doute la puissance de la lumière est très grande, au point qu’elle établit
facilement et instantanément de nombreux liens entre les êtres célestes et les êtres
terrestres qui autrement n’entretiendraient pas de relations en raison de leur
distance. Et elle ne transmet pas seulement toutes les vertus des étoiles à ce qui
est en dessous d’elles, mais elle transporte le Soleil lui-même et les astres vers les
choses inférieures, tout comme notre esprit véhicule les forces de notre âme et
l’âme elle-même vers les humeurs et les membres. Et de même qu’en nous l’esprit
constitue le noeud de l’âme et du corps, la lumière est le lien de l’Univers.30
So strong is the power of light that it connects celestial things easily and in one
moment with earthly things from which they are otherwise far removed beyond
all proportion. Not only does it transport the forces of the stars to the following
things, but it brings the sun and the stars themselves to the lower beings, just
as our spirit brings the forces of the Soul and the Soul itself to the humors and
members. And as in us the spirit is the bond [connecting link] of Soul and body,
so the light is the bond of the universe (vinculum universi).31
In the above passage, Ficino draws a parallel between the mediating role of
light and that of spiritus, the aerial essence that links Soul to the body.32 In De
amore, his commentary on Plato’s Symposium, Ficino explains that spirit is ‘a
certain very thin and clear vapour produced by the heat of the heart from the
thinnest part of the blood’ (De amore VI, vi).33 Since soul is conceived to be of a
very different essence to the body, spirit provides the bond which links the two
together. Spirit functions as a mirror, furnishing images to the soul. Since soul is
incorporeal and of a superior nature to the body, it cannot receive images directly
from the latter. However, soul can apprehend these images by looking at spirit,
which contains these ‘images of bodies shining in it, as if in a mirror’ (De amore
VI, vi).34 These images provided by spirit are known as ‘sensations’. Soul would
then, through the process of ‘imagination’, conceive of its own purer images from
these sensations. Considering the analogy which Ficino sets up between light’s
role as a mediator between the divine and the terrestrial and spirit’s function
as an intermediary linking soul to the body, I would like to suggest that soul
is in fact ‘photographing’ (writing with light) images provided by spirit – these
shining images in the mirror – which Ficino tells us would then be preserved
by memory. Thus the eye of the soul, otherwise known as mens,35 would be
able to refer to these images and compare them with the Ideas which it already
holds within itself. Ficino gives an example: ‘[A]t the same time that the soul is
perceiving a certain man in sensation, and conceiving him in the imagination,
it can contemplate, by means of the intellect, the reason and definition common
to all men through its innate Idea of humanity; and what it has contemplated,
it preserves.’36 He then contrasts this contemplative ability of the soul with both
the spirit and the eye, for the latter two, he argues, resemble mirrors. Since the
mirror is unable to fix the images reflected in it, thus the eye and the spirit ‘can
receive images of a body only in its presence, and lose them when it is absent’.37
I would like to return to the passage above from De lumine, where Ficino
presents spiritus as analogous to light. Considered alongside the discussions
of spirit in De amore, I would suggest that he implies that the humours are
photosensitive. Light has a certain active vitality towards which the humours
are responding. Thus consciousness is one way of capturing light. What we have
underlying here then is a discussion on the photographic and its implications on
human cognitive ability as well as on the physiological system.
A further connection can be drawn between spiritus and light.38 D. P. Walker
notes that what Ficino refers to as the spiritus in De vita coelitùs comparanda
may be the astral body or the vehicle of the soul (ochēma) mentioned by the
Neoplatonists in theurgic rites.39 If one follows through the implications of this,
it would not be surprising to find further indication of the connection between
spiritus and light by tracing back to Iamblichus’s use of the term augeiodēs
pneumatos or luminous vehicle for the ochēma in the De mysteriis.40
According to Ficino, the vehicle is enveloped in three layers, one made of
fire, another consisting of air, and the outermost cover, which he calls ‘spirit’,
vaporous and composed of the four elements. A description of the soul vehicle
and the important role it plays in human imagination can be found in Ficino’s
unfinished commentary on the Sophist, published in 1496. In this remarkable
passage, Ficino describes the human soul as a triple demon! Ficino writes:
Whenever you look within at our soul clothed as it were in spirit, perhaps you
will suppose that you see a demon, a triple demon. For you will see too the
celestial vehicle covered entirely with a fiery and an airy veil, and such a veil
surrounded with spirit – with spirit, I say, compounded from the vapors of the
four elements. You will know that the soul primarily and effectively exercises
the imagination in the celestial vehicle and prepares all the sense through the
whole vehicle; and through this vehicle as through a seal frequently it impresses
images on the second veil; and through the second similarly it fashions the
third. Finally, you will conclude that the images that are innermost in you, since
they are made by this spiritual and demonic animal, proceed from a certain
demonic contrivance.41
Referring to the passage above, Michael J. B. Allen observes: ‘Like a series of

mirrors, the three envelopes thus serve to reflect the soul’s images; and in the
triple process, the images become more and more distorted and indistinct.’42 I
disagree with Allen’s reading of the veils as similar to the mirrors, for there is
no activity of reflection involved in Ficino’s explanation of the soul’s interaction
with the aetherial vehicle. The veils do not operate like mirrors. A mirror would
deflect an image, but Ficino here is clearly implying a process of penetration.
Instead of bouncing back when it encounters the veil, light enters and infiltrates
each layer, just as it passes through the glass panes mentioned in De lumine. This
distinction is of crucial importance for understanding how Ficino may in fact
be intimating the advent of photography. A mirror would only reflect back the
light, whereas the imprinting process described above is dependent upon the
conditions of translucency. The notion of diaphanis is pivotal here. Ficino tells
us that ‘the soul exercises the imagination in the celestial vehicle’. Light appears
to be creating a camera out of the soul’s vehicle, piercing through the veils as
if through an aperture. The three layers of veils obstructing the passage of light
only do so partially due to their diaphanous nature.
And with each percolation of light emerge shadows which are then marked
on to the next veil. If we consider the first veil as a negative, light forces its way
through this layer, and, as a consequence, makes an imprint on the second veil.
After making its mark on the second layer, it continues to pierce through the
veil and makes another exposure on the third veil. What the soul is confronted
with, then, is a triple photographic process, a writing with light which is
characterized by the transition from negative to positive to negative, culmi-

nating in a negative image. Thus one can argue that what Ficino calls the ‘images
that are innermost in you’ are in some manner photographs. The direction
of the movement appears to be unclear. Allen suggests that it is concentric –
imagination projects images from the centre towards the outside: ‘[T]he vehicle
projects the images onto the airy veil and the airy veil in turn projects them onto
the vaporous spirit.’43
It is through light that God manifests Himself to the mortal’s sight.44 Despite
its incorporeal nature, light is able to give form to that which is ineffable. While
Ficino emphasizes the familial bond between light and the Platonic Good in
De lumine, he makes a further move by conflating the Good with God. Thus
he writes: ‘Enfin la lumière, telle une puissance divine dans le temple du monde,
possède une ressemblance avec Dieu. A tel point que notre cher Platon dans
La République la nomme la Fille du Bien lui-même.’45 (‘Finally light, such a
divine power in the temple of the world, resembles God. To such a point that
our dear Plato himself in the Republic calls her the Daughter of the Good.’)
Ficino is alluding to a passage in Book VI of the Republic, where Socrates tells
Glaucon: ‘This, then, you must understand that I meant by the offspring of the
good which the good begot to stand in a proportion with itself. As the good
is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this in
the visible world to vision and the objects of vision’ (508c). The incorporeal
nature of light frequently emphasized by Ficino provides him with a strategy to
address the transcendence of God in his discourse. There is a constant interplay
throughout the De lumine between translucency and opacity, permeation and
occlusion. The dichotomy of darkness and light is brought to the forefront in
the heading of Chapter 3: ‘Rien n’est plus clair que la lumière ni que Dieu; rien
n’est plus obscure.’46 (‘Nothing is brighter than light nor God; nothing is darker.’)
In a leap from describing light as the brightest and the most obscure, Ficino
speaks of God in the same terms. He addresses his intellect: ‘Ô intelligence, toi
qui mesures correctement toutes choses, dis-moi si la lumière ne serait pas Dieu
lui-même qui, lui aussi, est plus clair et plus obscur que tout.’47 (‘Oh intelligence,
you who measure all things correctly, tell me if light would not be God Himself,
who also is the brightest and the darkest of all.’) A similar tension between
polarities operates in Liber de sole: ‘For not one of the Philosophers until now
has explained the following: that nothing anywhere is clearer than light; but that
on the other hand nothing appears more obscure, just as goodness is both the
most recognised of all things, and equally the least recognised.’48 As Paul Oskar
Kristeller points out:
Ficino’s whole epistemology therefore converges, as we see, into the knowledge

of God. All thought is a steady ascent of the Soul toward God, in whom even
particular and empirical knowledge unconsciously has a part and whom, in
the supreme act of contemplation, the Soul finally perceives by intuition in His
fullness of essence, face to face.49
I would argue that, unlike Iamblichus whose theurgy consists mainly of an

ascent of the soul, Ficino is more interested in capturing the descent of divine
light. Many commentators, by directing their attention towards the upward
movement which characterizes theurgy, have overlooked a difference between
theourgia and Ficinian therapeia. The latter consists of the absorption of
descending light in view of triggering a chemical reaction that would change the
nature of the human soul, thus photosensitizing oneself to the presence of God.
In Ficino’s conception of photosensitivity, sunlight serves as the medium for
divine knowledge to be transmitted and filtered down through the various ranks
of angels to humans, and conversely, by the reception and collection of this light
(photagogia), thus acclimatizing the soul to light, divine union may take place.
As I have mentioned earlier, not only can we find an oscillation between
the plenitude of light and the absence of light, there are also two dominating
movements of vision that permeate the text: to look at and to look through.
To look through something requires the object to possess a certain degree of
sheerness or translucency. Thus transparency operates as a recurring motif
in De lumine, with the frequent appearance of the word diaphanis as well as
several allusions to glass. Whereas in the earlier version of the text Quid sit
lumen, dating from 1476, diaphanis appears only once, in De lumine, diaphanis
recurs more than ten times along with other words which are associated with
the notion of transparency, such as perspicuitas.50
Why would Ficino place such emphasis on the diaphanous nature of light?
It seems that the notion of diaphanis assumes several guises throughout the
treatise. Occasionally the word is used interchangeably with light. Sometimes
diaphanis stands for the medium through which light travels (Chapter 9),
other times it is used to designate translucent bodies as opposed to solid
masses (chapters 2 and 12). This would coincide with Aristotle’s theory of the
diaphanis as a vehicle of visibility,51 a medium which enables light to actualize
itself.52 What distinguishes Ficino’s approach is his introduction of diaphanis
into Iamblichean photagogia. In Chapter 9 of De lumine, Ficino uses diaphanis
as a synonym for the aetherial vehicle of the soul. Invoking the authority of
Iamblichus, Ficino proclaims: ‘Jamblique assure à partir de la théologie des
Phéniciens, que le véhicule de cette lumière, c’est-à-dire le diaphane, est infusé en
toutes choses, même opaques, puisqu’il existe en chaque chose certaines couleurs
qui sont des portions de lumière.’53 (‘Iamblichus affirms the theology of the
Phoenicians, that the vehicle of this light, which is the diaphanous, is infused
with all kinds of things, including those that are opaque, since certain colours
which are portions of light can be found in each thing.’) Ficino is referring to
the passage in the De Mysteriis where Iamblichus describes the theurgic activity
of light collection (photagogia). For Iamblichus, photagogia ‘illuminates the
aether-like and luminous vehicle surrounding the soul with divine light, from
which vehicle the divine appearances, set in motion by the gods’ will, take
possession of the imaginative power in us’ (DM III.14, 132.9–12). According
to Ficino the luminous vehicle is characterized by its transparency. It is inter-
esting to note that the reference to Iamblichus and the vehicle of the soul is in
fact a later addition and does not exist in the first version of the text Quid sit
lumen.
A few pages later, diaphanis also appears in a chapter which is marked
by the strong presence of negative theology; it is used to define what light is
not. Light is not colour nor the diaphanous, nor is it an image, for an image
of celestial realities would absolutely be an image.54 Here we encounter a very
curious moment in the Ficinian discourse, an insistence for an image – even if
it is a celestial image – to be nothing more than an image; we are told that it is
not in the nature of the image to produce new images, imaginative knowledge
or substances. Is Ficino implying that images have no generative power? Does
Ficino regard the image as a totality enclosed within itself? What about the
imagines (talismans) mentioned in De vita coelitùs comparanda, the third book
of the De vita? I will return to this point later in this chapter, when I examine
the art of image-making in the Sophist commentary. In the meantime, it is
important to note that the image is not always assigned an inferior status in
Ficino; in a passage describing the various levels of light involved in anagōgē,
Ficino depicts the moment of apotheosis as a gradual collection of light until
it overflows with luminosity, bringing about a transformation of man into
the same image as God, ‘conduits par la face révélée, c’est-à-dire par l’esprit du
Seigneur, nous nous transformions graduellement, de clarté en clarté, en la même
image.’55 (‘[L]ed by the revealed face, that is, the spirit of the Lord, we gradually
transform ourselves from brightness to brightness into the same image.’) Would
this imply that a different kind of image exists? For in its status as the ultimate
image, the imago dei is an image that is saturated with so much light that it
dissolves into pure light and translucency – an image of both emptiness and
plenitude. We find ourselves back inside the realm of overexposure.
Now that we have a broad idea of the incorporeal nature of light, I would
like to draw attention to the motif of glass in De lumine. In addition to the
frequent appearance of the word diaphanis, Ficino also refers to glass on several
occasions, where light is active in a different kind of way. Celestial rays are
diffused down to us as if through layers and layers of glass panes. This is a world
consisting of an interplay of textured glass and reflective surfaces. In De lumine,
Ficino constructs a cosmology that is composed of various sheets of glass in
which the divine rays are filtered through or bounced around like mirrors. Thus,
accompanying the devout’s gaze upwards towards God is a projection of light
downwards. Following a discussion on the incorporeality of light in a previous
chapter, Ficino opens Chapter 7 with an image of joyful abundance:
Comme nous voyons que tout reçoit sa perfection, sa vie, son sens, sa certitude,
sa grâce et sa joie des rayons stellaires qui descendent vers nous depuis les êtres
supra-célestes à travers les astres comme à travers des vitres, il est nécessaire que
la lumière constitue pour les esprits supra-célestes la perfection de leur forme, la
fecondité de leur vie, la pénétration de leur sens, la très claire certitude de leur très
juste entendement, l’abondance de leur grâce, la richesse de leur joie.56
Seeing that all receives its perfection, its life, its meaning, its certainty, its grace
and its joy of the stellar rays that descend towards us from the supra-celestial
beings across the stars just like the way it travels through the glass panes, light
must constitute for the supra-celestial spirits the perfection of their form, the
fecundity of their lives, the penetration of their senses, the certitude of their
very sound understanding, the abundance of their grace and the richness of
their joy.
The perfection of the super-celestial beings would gradually filter down to us

through the rays of the stars and the planets. This chain of beings is essential for
our understanding of Ficino’s project of photagogia for he will attempt to employ
various strategies in De vita to direct and capture this light for the benefit of
both our physical and our spiritual well-being.
As I have mentioned earlier, the first light is not a light that can be perceived
by human eyes – it is completely incorporeal and produces similarly incorporeal
images. Since it is not subordinate to any dimension, division or mixture, it is
clear that this light cannot derive from any matter, form or corporeal virtue.57
The heading of Chapter 6 is presented as a question: ‘De quelle manière pouvons-
nous monter de la lumière visible jusqu’à l’invisible?’58 (‘In what manner can we
rise from visible light to the invisible?’) In this chapter, Ficino presents to the
reader an incredible scale of luminosities, starting from the sublunary light of
shadows, which I assume would be the visible light of this world, to the celestial
light of matter, then to the supra-celestial light, before proceeding to the light of
reason. Henceforth, from the light of reason, one can then move on to the light
of the intellect before reaching the penultimate level: intelligible light.59 Ficino
then tells us that depending on our powers, ‘dans la mesure de nos forces’, we
may ultimately be able to reach divine light. Here he is probably referring to the
‘fitness’ of the theurgist, which Iamblichus calls epitēdeiotēs (ἐπιτηδειότης) in
the De Mysteriis. As I have mentioned earlier, it is at this final stage of henōsis
(ἕνωσις) that human can achieve the status of homoiōsis theō, man becoming
similar to his Creator.
As in the section on Iamblichus and the vehicle of the soul (Chapter 9),
Ficino did not include this remarkable echelon of lights in the first version of
the text Quid sit lumen. He must have later felt the importance of establishing
a detailed hierarchy of lights. Whereas in De Mysteriis, Iamblichus provides
his reader with a list of daemons and divine beings that might appear during
photophanes, he does not establish a compendium of the different lights involved
in photagogia. Thus it is Ficino in his triple role as magus, priest and physician
who provides us with ways to sensitize the human soul in order to acquire the
ability to recognize and receive this scale of luminosities.
In a curious passage in Chapter 13 of De lumine, comparisons are drawn
between the soul’s relation to the body and certain effects of light. Ficino’s
observation on the traversal of light through an aperture perhaps hints at a
rudimentary model of the camera obscura. One should bear in mind that Ficino
would have been familiar with the various writings on light such as Euclid’s
De Speculis, al-Kindi’s De aspectibus and Roger Bacon’s experimentations on
the transmission of light through apertures and the effect of different mirror
surfaces on sunlight.60
However, as he has stated in his preface, he is not aiming to produce a scien-
tific study of light. Thus, accompanying his observation on the passage of light
through an aperture is a reflection on the movement of the soul. The discussion
also recalls the various techniques of photagogia found in De Mysteriis, such as
the projection of light on to a wall with sacred inscriptions. Ficino writes:
La lumière répandue dans un vaste espace peut se concentrer pour passer à travers
un trou et s’étendre de l’autre côté en rayons obliques, recouvrant alors progres-
sivement sa figure première et ensuite son ampleur jusqu’à ce qu’elle redevienne
la même; semblablement, l’âme qui est passée ici-bas de l’ampleur du divin à
l’étroitesse du corps et de la passion peut, encore intacte, émigrer de nouveau pour
reprendre sa forme et son ampleur primitives.61
Light spread across an expansive space can be condensed through an aperture

and will emerge out of the other side as oblique rays, thus recovering progres-
sively its original form and amplitude until it becomes the same again. In a
similar way, the soul which comes down here below from divine abundance to
the narrowness of the body and the passions, can migrate once again, still intact,
to recover its original form and amplitude.
One must note, however, that for the above effect of light to be perceivable,
one would presumably require darkened surroundings, such as the inside of a
camera chamber.
As seen in many instances throughout the text, Ficino once again employs
the observable phenomena of light to explain a metaphysical concept – in this
case, the consequences of the soul’s embodiment and the process of theurgic
ascent. The manner in which light recovers its original luminosity and breadth
despite the intervention of the aperture is used to illustrate the soul’s ability
to reunite with the divine even after the hindrances of embodiment. One can
consider this passage as an allegorical figure marking the difference between
photosensitivity and photo-insensitivity. The wall blocking the light presents
an obstacle to light while at the same time provides a frame which facilitates
photosensitivity to take place, via the aperture.
A solar regime
In Liber de sole, Ficino mentions the secret to the maintenance of youthfulness

and longevity. He writes:
[T]he ancients always represented Phoebus and Bacchus – who reign more
gloriously in the Sun than the others – as youths, and if anyone were to
experience the light and heat of the Sun with the sincerity and appropriateness
by which they exist there, to take it up for their own use and to accommodate
its properties, he would achieve eternal youth, or at least would live to be one
hundred and twenty.62
And it is in De vita that he provides the reader with the recipe to such a regime
– a solar diet that would enhance one’s photosensitivity. The De vita libri tres or
Three Books on Life is a manual that helps scholars to maintain a healthy living,
for Ficino believes that intellectuals are prone to the saturnine temperament of
melancholy. The work also provides the reader with instructions on the diverse
ways in which one can draw down the virtues from the celestial spheres, thus
fulfilling the following statement from Liber di sole: ‘and so the virtues of all
heavenly things are brought down to the limbs from the Sun via the Moon, to
be nurtured through medicines ritually prepared at that particular time’.63 I will
therefore suggest that Ficino’s aim in De vita is to provide the reader with a set
of instructions on various ways to sensitize oneself to light, thus increasing one’s
fitness to receive God. The prescribed medical regime and the use of talismans
discussed in the text are methods to intensify one’s photosensitivity in order to
obtain a clear image of the divine. As a consequence, there is a shift from the
primacy of an ascent to the emphasis of a downward movement – the capturing
of light.
As the title suggests, the De vita libri tres is composed of three books. Book
One, entitled De vita sana (On a Healthy Life), offers advice on everyday life for
intellectuals, with prescriptions for certain dietary routines and living habits
(best time to rise and sleep, importance of observing one’s bowel movements
and so forth). It also discusses common ailments which afflict scholars such as
black bile, phlegm and melancholia. However, Ficino also extols the positive
aspects of melancholia and white bile, referring to both as signs of intelligence.
Book Two, De vita longa (On a Long Life), provides the reader with remedies
which help prolong life as well as dietary and living regimes for the elderly.
Book Three, De vita coelitùs comparanda (On Obtaining Life from the Heavens),
examines the ways in which one can draw down and capture the celestial forces
from the heavens in order to benefit the well-being of the intellectual. What
Ficino proposes is a form of astrological medicine which seeks to infuse the
human soul with the spiritus mundi through the manipulation of matter in the
corporeal world. Since the world soul is intrinsically tied to the Divine Ideas,
by partaking of this matter in a timely manner, one can maximize its benefits.
For the purpose of this chapter, I will direct my attention mainly to the
third book of De vita. It is in Book Three that the notion of photosensitivity
is brought to its culmination. Book Three (De vita coelitùs comparanda)
comprises 26 chapters, out of which Ficino devotes eight chapters to the
discussion of imagines or talismans (chapters 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21).
Despite Ficino’s reluctance to promote the use of imagines for healing purposes,
he does spend eight chapters exploring these objects, which are more often
associated with daemonic magic than things used by a Christian priest, while
stressing in the Apologia that it is natural magic he is interested in.64 There is
a strong sense of anxiety bubbling under the surface of the discourse; it seems
that Ficino is carefully negotiating his way through the discussions on the uses
of talismans for therapeutic purposes. These eight chapters are characterized by
the frequent appearance of the word ‘they’, undoubtedly Ficino’s strategy as a

writer to distance himself from any possible accusations of idolatry and heresy.
To convey his thoughts on talismans he would constantly seek recourse upon
the authority of the others; ‘they’ including Plotinus, Iamblichus, Synesius,
the astrologers, the Arabs and the Ancients. This is made evident in the
heading of Chapter 15, which reads: ‘On the Power Which, according to the
Ancients, Both Images and Medicines Possess; and on the Factors Which Make
Medicines Far More Powerful Than Images’. After discussing the various types
of talismanic figures and their corresponding planetary conjunctions, Ficino
quickly refutes his own statement by asserting that medicine is more reliable
than imagines.
For Ficino, talismans demonstrate the ability of materials to draw down the
forces of the heavens. There have been numerous discussions on the sources of
Ficino’s talismanic magic; scholars have identified influences from works such
as the Picatrix (Ghâyat Al-Hakîm), Corpus Hermeticum, Speculum astronomiae,
De Sacrificiis et Magia, Vita Pythagorae and De Mysterii.65 Walker points out two
texts that have influenced Ficino’s conception of the symbiotic relation between
the spiritus and the celestial forces: the Asclepius and Plotinus’s Ennead IV.3.11.66
In his Apologia, Ficino even claims that Book Three is a reading of Plotinus’s
views on magic and images.
I would like to draw attention to a crucial difference between Ficino’s use of
magic and the kind of magic presented in the Picatrix. If one compares Ficino’s
talismans to those described in the Picatrix, one will find that they differ in
terms of their designatory effects. The Picatrix provides detailed descriptions
of various planetary figures that can be inscribed on to minerals or metals.
However, unlike the imagines that are presented in the De vita, many of the
talismans discussed in the text are not destined for medicinal purposes but
for the fulfilment of certain intentions such as procuring love, removing flies,
warding off snakes, stopping rain and arousing fear.
These talismans also differ from the ones that Ficino examines because
they do not need to be worn but are sometimes buried, as in the talisman for
obtaining the love of a woman described in Book III, 10.8. Both works are
similar in the sense that they are propelled by an understanding of the planetary
influences in the corporeal world; in the Picatrix, one even finds a discussion
on the importance of maintaining a vertical alignment between a planet and
the material when making a talisman, in order to best capture the stellar rays
emanating from the planet, since an oblique angle between the object and the
stars would result in a weak and diminished talisman.67
Brian P. Copenhaver notes the differences between Ficino and his prede-
cessors such as Galen, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus in his
conception of astral medicine and, specifically, in his use of talismanic magic.
Ficino’s originality lies in his regarding stones and minerals as ‘somehow alive,
in stressing the magic medium of spiritus in his account of their operations, and
in emphasizing the ideas of imitation and similitude in describing the activity
of images carved on stones’.68 I will take Copenhaver’s remark further and point
out that, most important of all, it is the presence of a chemical photosensitivity
that marks Ficino’s innovation and distinguishes him from his predecessors.
This is reflected in a passage which can be found in Chapter 18 of De vita
coelitùs comparanda. Throughout this chapter, there is a strong sense that Ficino
is proceeding with caution, as he discusses the various talismanic figures and
the corresponding cures that they provide. To deflect any possible accusations
of idolatry or heresy, he positions himself as merely recapitulating what ‘others’
have said, ‘others’ here implying the Ancients. Towards the end of the chapter,
having declared that medicines are more trustworthy than talismans, he adds:
For it is probably that, if images have any power, they do not so much acquire
it just at the moment of receiving a figure as possess it through a material
naturally so disposed; but if an image eventually acquired something when
it was engraved, it obtained it not so much through the figure as through the
heating produced by hammering. This hammering and heating, if it happens
under a harmony similar to that celestial harmony which had once infused
power into the material, activates this power and strengthens it as blowing
strengthens a flame and makes manifest what was latent before, as the heat
of a fire brings to visibility letters previously hidden which were written with
the juice of an onion; and as letters written with the fat of a goat on a stone,
absolutely unseen, if the stone is submerged in vinegar, emerge and stick out as
if they were sculptured.69
As we can see, the notion of a chemical photosensitivity is brought to the

forefront in this passage. It is not the picture itself which contains the active
power but the heat induced by friction from the carving of the image, unleashing
the celestial powers previously captured in the material. Timing appears to be
crucial as well, since the execution has to take place under the right conditions,
one of ‘celestial harmony’, presumably under the various planetary conjunc-
tions discussed earlier in the chapter. What is amazing in this passage is the
comparison that Ficino makes between the latent properties of the stone or
mineral and the practice of steganography – here one finds two different types
of invisible ink, one made from onion juice and the other from animal fat! The
hidden force contained in the stone awaits to be released by the strikes of the
hammer just as the letters written in onion juice and goat’s fat require to be
deciphered and developed through heat or acetic acid. This is another instance
in which one notes that the active vitality of the celestial powers is transmitted
through the medium of heat, the vehicle of photosensitivity.
Thus I would like to suggest that there are several forces in action with regard
to the talisman, the first being the active potency of the raw material which is
released through the carving of the figure. Hence the talisman is able to carry
out its effect ‘by reason of the material selected’ (electae ratione materiae),70
precipitated by the triggering of a chemical reaction, rather than through the
pictorial representation carved on to its surface. The material itself would have
already possessed certain celestial properties.71 Second, the talisman produces
certain desired effects upon its wearer. As Ficino remarks, although he questions
the talisman’s efficiency in overcoming distance, he does believe that the
talisman may possess some power when it is worn, in contact with the skin,
bringing about therapeutic cures upon its wearer.
The purpose, then, is to use the talisman as a means to activate the celestial
forces along with other ‘baits’ such as odours, fumigation, foods, music and
prayers, thus obtaining the benefits of divine power through the medium of
spiritus.72
Photosensitivity operates on several levels. The talisman is only one way of
conditioning the human body and soul towards an increase in photosensitivity;
it is not the only means to draw down the divine forces. The energy from light
can be collected through various methods – sunbathing being the most direct.
Ficino suggests exercising in the open air under the sunlight; thus the rays of the
sun are absorbed straight into the pores of the skin. Other proposed methods
rely on the principle of simili similibus: through the direct ingestion of light-
like substances, wearing gold ornamentation, being in the company of men of
solar nature and wearing talismans. In Book One of De vita, Ficino prescribes
a pill ‘which can be called golden or magical, composed partly in imitation of
the Magi’, which will ‘sharpen and illuminate the spirits’. Thus, internally as well
as externally, one is encouraged to increase one’s intake of sunlight. These pills
‘expand the spirits so that they may not, being contracted, engender sadness, but
may rejoice in their expansion and light’.73 All of these strategies aim to accli-
matize the body towards photosensitivity so that the humours can be infused
with light. The key is to recognize the importance of spiritus as a link between
the incorporeal and the corporeal, heaven and earth, soul and body. After all,
in the Liber de sole, Ficino refers to spiritus as light.74 The opening of Chapter
14 in De vita coelitùs comparanda summarizes Ficino’s conception of astral

medicine: ‘I have said elsewhere that down from every single star (to speak
Platonically) there hangs its own series of things down to the lowest.’75 This
chain of astral influences facilitates the drawing down of beneficial essences. As
Ficino explains:
If, therefore, as I said, you combine at the right time all the Solar things through
any level of that order, i.e., men of Solar nature or something belonging to such a
man, likewise animals, plants, metals, gems … you will drink in unconditionally
the power of the Sun and to some extent the natural power of the Solar daemons.76
Thus the intensification of one’s photosensitivity demands not only the use of
appropriate materials but also the observance of correct timing. What is curious
about this passage is the merging of the solar daemons with the sun; Ficino is
implying that the absorption of sunlight and the forces of the sun would also
include the capturing of daemonic powers. He then continues the chapter by
listing things that are considered solar – plants that are heliotropic, minerals
such as a luminescent stone called ‘eye of the sun’ due to its resemblance to the
eye, certain animals, gems, spices and metals. Under the appropriate conditions,
all of these things would, if concocted into ointments or syrup and ingested,
make the spirit solar. What Ficino suggests is, in fact, a complete immersion in
a solar environment: the consumption of pills and potions should be accom-
panied externally by the wearing of solar costumes, as well as internally, by the
devotion of one’s thoughts to solar things.
One of the scenarios of photosensitivity which appears twice in De vita coelitùs
is the figure of the burning mirror. The mirror can be seen as exemplifying an
extreme case of photosensitivity, even bordering upon photo-insensitivity since
light is not absorbed by the smooth surface of the mirror but bounces off it. The
mirror is presented favourably in an earlier instance; it is used as an example
to demonstrate the power of the heavenly rays which is capable of instantane-
ously creating a fire, burning any object that is placed opposite the mirror. The
mirror’s concave surface, which Ficino describes as ‘shaped like the heavens’,77
enables it to capture, gather the rays and henceforth propel the divine force
outwards, facilitating its propagation. As Ficino has shown, the mirror’s power
to attract celestial rays is due to its similarity to the heavens; thus, once again,
one sees sympathetic magic at work. However, in Chapter 20, Ficino offers
a sinister scenario to the reader by comparing the detrimental power of the
talisman to the harmful effects of light rays absorbed by a concave mirror and
projected outwards:
Moreover, they say that images fashioned and directed for the ruin of some
other person have the power of a bronze and concave mirror aimed directly
at him, so that by collecting rays and reflecting them back, at close range they
completely incinerate him, and even at long range they make him blind.78
Ficino proceeds to state that he does not understand how imagines could exert
such power over long distances; if a talisman has any effect on the wearer it
is due to the material and not the figure on it. What we have here, then, is an
example of how photosensitivity taken to the extreme can cause destruction –
in this case the risk of inflammability and blindness. Thus, for Ficino, medicine
is far more preferable than talismans. His astral medicine would offer a safer
approach to predisposing the human body to light.
In Chapter 16 of Book Three, one finds a passage which focuses on the power
of the celestial rays, slightly echoing the discussion of light passing through the
various materials (the movements of occlusion as opposed to infiltration) in De
lumine. Ficino elaborates on the actions of the celestial ray, telling his reader that
it is more powerful than a ray of fire. In addition to the following observable
characteristics of fire, which Ficino tells us are ‘well known to our senses’,
‘to illuminate, warm, dry, penetrate, rarefy, melt’, the celestial ray contains
‘much more and more wonderful powers and effects’.79 Ficino also stresses the
immediacy with which images are imprinted by the divine forces, after exposure
to the heavenly rays of light. The key, of course, is to understand how to draw
down the light:
Finally, diverse powers come into being in the combinations of rays with each
other of one sort or another, here and there … they arise right away much more
and faster than in such and such mixtures of elements and elemental qualities,
much faster even than in tones and rhythms in music combining in this way
or in that. If you would diligently consider these things, perhaps you will
not doubt, they will say, but that instantly with an emission of rays forces are
imprinted in images, and divers forces from a different emission.80
It is curious that this passage seems to foreshadow the arrival of photography.

In order to capture these instantaneous rays of light, one must increase one’s
photosensitivity to a maximum in order to be imprinted by the celestial force.
A fast camera may be necessary to seize these moving lights from all directions.
Perhaps the ultimate goal in Ficino’s project would be the transformation of the
human soul into a photographic camera.
Liber de sole ends with the image of Socrates standing transfixed by the daily
rising of the sun. According to Ficino, Socrates is gazing at two suns, the visible
one as well as the hidden super-celestial sun. Although he is contemplating

the visible sun, Socrates is in fact looking beyond the sensible world, at the
primordial light that resides in the intelligible realm. In Ficino’s words, Socrates
is ‘motionless, his eyes fixed like a statue, to greet the return of the heavenly
body’.81 It is almost a photograph.
Coda
Il faudrait donc méditer cette invasion de la photographie dans l’histoire de la

ville. Mutation absolue, mais preparée depuis le fond des âges (phusis, phôs,
phantasma, êlios, technê, epistêmê, philosophia).
We would thus have to meditate upon this invasion of photography into the
history of the city. An absolute mutation, though one prepared from time
immemorial (physis, phōs, phantasma hēlios, tekhnē, epistēmē, philosophia).
Derrida, ‘Demeure, Athènes’
This book begins and ends with the Greek word chalepos. As I have discussed in
the Introduction, the writing of the history of photography is chalepos – difficult,
troublesome and dangerous. The writing of this coda can equally be described
as chalepos. The nature of the project is such that to present the reader with a
straightforward and totalizing conclusion would not only be an impossible feat,
but would also overlook the mutabilities of a subject matter which touches upon
the transcendental and the divine, while neglecting the inadequacy of language
to address that which is ineffable (hyperousia).
In my attempts to uncover the presence of the photographic before the
event of photography, through the reconstruction of the photagogic in Western
thought, I have shown how photography can be found right at the roots of
Western metaphysics, in the writings of Plato and in Neoplatonic discourses
on magic and mysticism. These instances of the photographic should not be
considered metaphors but rather intimations of photography. I would therefore
like to evoke a triad of images – each image in its own way suggestive of the
traces (ἴχνη) of photography within the history of Western philosophy.1 By
‘traces’ I do not mean remnants or vestiges, but rather like the traces (ἴχνη) of
fire, air, earth and water inside the chora, not yet formed but hinted at, they are
‘faint traces of themselves’ (Timaeus 53b), as Timaeus tells us, before they come
into being. As I have mentioned above, to end this book with a single snapshot
which encompasses the ways in which photography is implicated in Platonic
and Neoplatonic discourses would not only be highly reductive; it would also
negate the project itself.
The first image that I would like to present draws from Derrida’s essay
‘Demeure Athènes’. Composed of a series of aphorisms, the essay accompanies
a collection of thirty-four black and white photographs of Athens taken by
Jean-François Bonhomme. The imminence of death, its inevitability and its
momentary suspensions are considered photographic by Derrida. These aspects
of death weave through ‘Demeure Athènes’, intertwined with his musings on
the history of Athens, its bright sunlight, Plato and Socrates. In Bonhomme’s
photographs, there are ruins and tombstones, people in cafés and shopfronts,
objects sold in markets, as well as the figure of a photographer who falls asleep
under the scorching Athenian sun.2
From the far horizon of the Aegean sea, a galley appears. The vessel, with its
stern adorned by the priest of Apollo, is returning from its annual pilgrimage to
Delos, a voyage that commemorates Theseus’s excursion to Crete with 14 young
men and women. At that precise moment, when the luminous sails of the ship
come into view from the shores of Athens, the shutter is released, the shot is
fired, and Socrates will die. Derrida writes:
Je pense à la mort de Socrate, au Phédon, au Criton. À l’incroyable sursis qui

en retarda l’échéance, tant de jours après le jugement. On attendait des voiles, et
leur apparition, au loin dans la lumière, à un instant précis, unique, inévitable,
fatal comme un déclic.’ (‘I am thinking of the death of Socrates, of the Phaedo
and the Crito. Of the incredible reprieve that delayed the date of execution for
so many days after the judgement. They awaited the sails, their appearance off
in the distance, in the light, at a precise, unique, and inevitable moment – fatal
like a click.’)3
For Derrida, the appearance of the sails on the ocean, which signals and
triggers the death of Socrates, is photography. Luminescent under the bright
Mediterranean light, the sails resemble giant reflectors, which shine and send
forth flashes in the billowing wind. Once in a while, when the white squares
catch the sunlight at the right angle, a burst of radiance almost sets the tranquil
surface of the sea ablaze.
Socrates is condemned to die. There is a period of ‘suspension’, a delaying
of his execution by poison. For nearly a month, Socrates awaits death in his
prison cell. In Athens, these few weeks of reprieve are unusual; Socrates’ trial
happened to coincide with the annual pilgrimage to Delos and as a tribute to
Apollo, the law decreed that ‘as soon as this mission begins the city must be kept
pure, and no public executions may take place until the ship has reached Delos
and returned again, which sometimes takes a long time, if the winds happen to
Coda 123
hold it back’. Phaedo explains, ‘That is why Socrates spent such a long time in
prison between his trial and execution’ (Phaedo 58b–c). The vision of sails on
the Aegean Sea is marked by an excess of light. This spectacle, dazzling in its
superabundance of reflective surfaces, functions as the harbinger of death.
I would like to evoke another spectacle which may serve as a counterpoint to
the above scenario. Contrary to the open horizon of the Aegean Sea, this second
scenario unfolds in a setting which is twice enshrouded in darkness. It is here
that the dream of photography lies awaiting to be uncovered, inside a subter-
ranean vault within the closed space of the underground chamber in Hermes’
dream. Hermes says:
When I wished to bring to light the science of the mystery and modality of
Creation, I came upon a subterranean vault filled with darkness and winds.
I saw nothing because of the darkness, nor could I keep alight because of the
violence of the winds. Lo and behold, a person then appeared to me in my sleep
in a form of the greatest beauty. He said to me, ‘Take a lamp and place it under
a glass to shield it from the winds; then it will give thee light in spite of them.
Then go into the underground chamber; dig in its center and from there bring
forth a certain God-made image, designed according to the rules of Art. As
soon as you have drawn out this image, the winds will cease to blow through the
underground chamber. Then dig in its four corners and you will bring to light
the knowledge of the mysteries of Creation, the causes of Nature, the origins
and modalities of things.’ At that I said, ‘Who then art thou?’ He answered, ‘I
am thy Perfect Nature. If thou wishest to see me, call me by my name.’4
What kind of image is uncovered by Hermes? What is a ‘certain God-made

image’? In another version of the text, which Henry Corbin notes is almost
identical to the above passage from the Ghâyat-al-Hakîm, it is not Hermes but
the man of light, otherwise known as Phōs, who is asked to unearth the image
by his Perfect Nature. In this text which Corbin attributes to Apollonius of
Tyana, Perfect Nature asks Phōs to dig up the buried Image, the ‘primordial
revelation of the Absconditum’, which will ‘bring light into this Night.’5 Is this a
photographic image of the absolute? Inundated with light, is this the vision of
overexposure, taken at the apotheosis of theurgical ascent? When Philotheos
use the word phôteinographeisthai (jwteinograjeἱsqai), could this be the
image which is photographed on to one’s soul when one comes face to face with
the Divine? Or is it the impossible image of the Good?
As in a dream, I conflate the two visions – the setting sail of the ship and the
image buried deep within the dark chamber of dreams. The subterranean space
where the figure of Perfect Nature appears to Hermes recalls the underground
caves of incubation, beneath the temples of Apollo and the shrines to Asclepius,
where the patient lies still, awaiting the arrival of the gods in his dream bearing
a cure or a remedy (pharmakon) for his affliction. Socrates too, dreamed.
In fact he had several dreams.6 He did not need to see the sails to know the
moment of his imminent death by pharmakon. He has already been informed
by a dream, a dream-vision (enupnion) of a beautiful woman dressed in white
who tells him that he will be arriving in the land of Phtia on the third day. A
dream of arrival and not of departure, notes Derrida, and a dream in black
and white.7 Based on a ‘savoir venu d’un voir, le voir d’une vision (ἐνύπνιον)
venue le visiter’ (‘knowledge based on a seeing, the seeing of a vision come to
visit him’),8 Socrates tells Crito that the galley will arrive not on ‘this day that is
just beginning, but on the day after’ (Crito 44a). And it is at this moment that
Derrida wishes to photograph the philosopher who is about to die, ‘C’est dans
le moment de cette présomption que je rêvais de le photographier, quand Socrate
parle et prétend avoir prévu l’instant de sa mort.’ (‘It is right at this moment of
presumption that I dreamed of photographing him, photographing Socrates as
he speaks and claims to have foreseen the instant of his death.’)9
On the day of his execution, Socrates tells Phaedo and the others about a
recurring dream that he has throughout his life. It may differ in appearance but
it always requests the same thing from him, asking him to ‘make music and
work at it’ (Phaedo 60e).10 Socrates says that he has already been putting this
into practice, since ‘philosophy was the greatest kind of music’ (Phaedo 61).
The dream of music is the dream of philosophy, and somewhere amid all of this
resides the dream of photography.
Standing on the promontory of Cape Sounion, under the scorching
summer sun, Derrida wishes to photograph Socrates. He writes: ‘J’aurais donc
photographié Socrates attendant la mort …’ (‘I would thus have photographed
Socrates awaiting death …’).11 Derrida is standing at the same site where the
sails first came into view, the sails which announced the death of Socrates. The
cape, its immutability and its silence, is compared to a photograph. He is aston-
ished by this observation, this photographic presence where the past collides
with the present under the brightness of the Athenian sun, for ‘[a]ll of this
belongs to the luminous memory of Athens, to its phenomenal archive …’(‘tout
cela appartient à la mémoire lumineuse d’Athènes, à son archive phénomenale
…’).12 This image that Derrida imagines, ‘j’imaginai une photographie, je la vis’
(‘I imagined a photograph, I saw it’),13 – the photograph of Socrates awaiting
his death – is delayed by a few thousand years. An image suspended in the
photagogic memory of Athens, it waits to be made manifest, to be released by
Coda 125
the trigger, by what Derrida calls the dispositif-retard or the déclenchement-

retard. In the word dispositif-retard, what lies between dispositif and retard?
Is it dispostif à retard, dispositif en retard, or dispositif de retard?14 For the
dispositif-retard, which appears so frequently throughout the text, is no ordinary
self-timing device, but one which is delayed; one would have to wait an eternity
(αἰών) for the shot to be fired. Perhaps it is only in the time of the dream that the
photograph of Socrates can be taken, for Derrida dreams of dreaming the same
dream as Socrates: ‘Mon rêve télésympathisait avec son propre rêve. Il s’entendait
avec ce qu’il en dit ici ou là.’ (‘My own dream telesympathized with his. It was in
accord with what he says about it.’)15 What is the nature of this dream? Is it the
dream of photography?
There is a millennial dream of photography which is parasitic on the dream
of philosophy. As in all dreams, the two dreams conflate and intertwine with
each other. Which one is the receptacle (hupodochē) that holds the other? Or
do both vessels merge into one? As we have seen, the wonderment of phota-
gogia and photographia, both inherent in Neoplatonic thought, survives and
continues in photography as practice. This ancient dream slipped into the
past and is displaced by another dream which emerged with the invention
of the daguerreotype, announcing the beginning of the technological epoch
of photography. With the invasion of digital technologies, are we witnessing
the emergence of yet another dream, which is striated and punctuated by the
dominating pulsations of exaiphnês, as the dream of photographia fades away?
The tension between constant illumination and instantaneous bursts of light
continues throughout the long history of photography. Light is the driving force
behind this book, as I examined the various transfigurations of photagogia,
from the continuous drawing down of light and the ways in which photog-
raphy is inscribed within this movement, to the abrupt, interrupted flashes
of light (εξαίφνης) reflected off the sails on the Aegean Sea, their appearance
announcing the imminent execution of Socrates. Εξαίφνης also exemplifies
the only way in which the Platonic Good can be perceived without leading to
blindness.16 The vision of the Good, revealed through an instantaneous glimpse,
is made possible during that brief interval (εξαίφνης) when the camera shutter
is left open. These instances in which one is granted a glimpse of the absolute
can be considered photographic, as Philotheos and Iamblichus have shown us
– yet at the same time, the encounter with the divine results in an impossible
image. An image of overexposure, inundated with so much light, it verges into
emptiness. Does it coincide with the notion of sūnyatā (emptiness) in Buddhist
thought? While researching this book, time and again I seem to return to the
manifestation of the divine as an excess of light – a photophania which veers

towards an effacement of the self in the moment of hēnosis.
Does ‘Demeure Athènes’ mark the end of analogue photography? Perhaps
we can view the two models of photagogia – the continual drawing down of
light and the sudden burst of light – as exemplifying the differences between
continuity and interruption, analogue and digital. With digital photography,
light does not make an impression on a photosensitive emulsion; instead it is
picked up by sensors which scan the space within the zone of capture of the
lens, received no longer into a chamber but into an interface determined by
algorithms.17
From the enclosed chamber of Hermes’s dream, I arrive at the land of
Potidaea, where I see Socrates drawing down the light of the sun in a kind of
heliotropic rapture. He stands (στήκει) immobile, one summer day – still, as
if photographed.18 As evening approaches, soldiers arrive and prepare their
mattresses and blankets. Since it is a hot summer’s night, these soldiers have
brought out their bedding to sleep outdoors after supper and to witness the
astonishing sight of a man who has been standing motionless since dawn and
who would remain stationary for the entire duration of the night until the next
sunrise. There are soldiers lying on the ground. Some are asleep, others are
watching the solitary figure who stands transfixed, deep in contemplation. They
have already heard of his bravery in previous battles and of his uncommon
fortitude in the harsh winter, walking on the snow barefoot, clad merely in
‘the same old coat he’d always worn’ (Symposium 220b). News spread quickly
among the troops. According to Alcibiades, who served alongside Socrates in
the military, ‘Time went on, and by about midday the troops noticed what was
happening, and naturally they were rather surprised and began telling each
other how Socrates had been standing there thinking ever since daybreak’
(Symposium 220c–d). When the sun again appears on the horizon, Socrates
makes a prayer to the sun and then walks away. During those 24 hours of
stillness, standing rooted to the ground, frozen as if in a picture, did Socrates
dream of photography? Did he contemplate upon the sun ‘in and by itself in its
own place’ (auton kath’auton en tèi autou chorai) (Republic 516b)?
Notes
Introduction
1 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard

Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 3.
2 See ‘The Art Seminar’, Photography Theory, ed. James Elkins (New York:
Routledge, 2007), 129–203.
3 Sabine T. Kriebel, ‘Theories of Photography: A Short History’, Photography
Theory, 4–5.
4 John Tagg, The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories
(London: The Macmillan Press, 1988), 63.
5 Mary Price, The Photograph: A Strange, Confined Space (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1994), 2.
6 As Krauss remarks: ‘Joel Snyder and I have been arguing about matters connected
to the index for at least ten years now; his resistance related to a form of
analysis that would deprive photography of its aesthetic possibilities of control
over composition and internalized meaning.’ Krauss, ‘Notes on the Obtuse’,
Photography Theory, 341. See also Rosalind Krauss, ‘Introductory Note’, 125–7,
and Snyder ‘Pointless’, 369–85, in the same volume. See Joel Snyder, ‘Picturing
Vision’, Critical Inquiry 6.3 (1980): 514.
7 Barthes, Camera Lucida, 88.
8 Tagg, The Burden of Representation, 3.
9 Batchen, Burning with Desire, 21.
10 The earliest two inventions that he notes both date from 1794 by Lord Henry
Brougham and Elizabeth Fulhame. The latter’s experiments included coating
cloth with silver and other metals under light. Batchen, Burning with Desire, 50.
11 Batchen draws frequently upon Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault in his
enquiry into the set of discourses which produced the desire for photography.
Derrida’s work enables him to establish a ‘photogrammatology’, using the
metaphor of writing (photography as light-writing) as a basis for his discussion
on photography. Derrida’s concept of différance lies in the centre of Batchen’s
project. Différance allows Batchen to question the assumption that there is a
singular, uniform and fixed origin that is located at the heart of the invention of
photography. See Batchen, Burning with Desire, Chapter 5.
12 Batchen, Burning with Desire, 183. His discussion of the 1800s as a crucial
128 Notes
moment in the history of photography finds resonance in Jonathan Crary’s

argument in the Techniques of the Observer that the 1800s marked the birth of a
different kind of observer who required new kinds of technologies.
14 See John Sallis, The Verge of Philosophy (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2008), 31. For the importance of χαλεπόν in the Timaeus, see Sallis,
Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1999). Ιn the Timaeus, the word ‘χαλεπόν’ is used to describe the chora and
can be defined as dangerous, difficult, cruel, harsh and troublesome.
15 The exception is a recently published monograph by Kathrin Yacavone
on Barthes and Benjamin. Yacavone discusses magic in relation to the
photograph’s ability to serve as a conduit between the present and the past.
She describes Barthes’s Winter Garden picture as ‘the magical photographic
encounter with the irreducible singularity of the other’. See Kathrin Yacavone,
Benjamin, Barthes and the Singularity of Photography (New York: Continuum,
2012), 181.
17 Walter Benjamin, ‘Little History of Photography’, Walter Benjamin: Selected
Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone and others, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Howard
Eiland and Gary Smith, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005),
510.
18 The passage from the Corpus Hermeticum I (Poimandres) and Fragment 9 of
Parmenides’s poem are mentioned by Bogoljub Sijakovic in his essay, ‘Le faisceau
de problèmes de la métaphysique de la lumière’, in relation to what he describes
as an ‘onto-photo-phania’, the knowledge of being through light. See B. Sijakovic,
‘Le faisceau de problèmes de la métaphysique de la lumière’, Amicus Hermes
(Podgorica: Oktoih, 1996), 66–7. In his essay, Sijakovic examines light as a vehicle
for the transmission of that which is ineffable and proposes a nomenclature
of light, providing the reader with a list of terminology related to light and
the divine, alluding to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, St
Augustine, Heraclitus, Plato, Plotinus and others.
19 I borrow the terms photophania and agathophania from Sijakovic. See B.
Sijakovic, ‘Le faisceau de problèmes’, 67 and 86.
20 Jacques Derrida, ‘Demeure, Athènes’, Athènes à l’Ombre de l’Acropole (Athens:
Edition Olkos, 1996), 63 (Derrida, Athens, Still Remains: The Photographs of Jean
François Bonhomme), trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2010), 65.
21 For a discussion of the significance of beginnings in Plato’s dialogues, see John
Sallis, The Verge of Philosophy, Chapter 1.
22 Sallis, Double Truth (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), 2.
Notes 129
23 I am indebted to Gregory Shaw’s discussion of chorein in footnote 31 of his essay,

‘Containing Ecstasy: The Strategies of Iamblichean Theurgy’, Dionysius 21 (2003): 59.
Chapter 1: Plato’s Allegorical Camera-cave
1 Plato’s allegory of the cave is often described as an early version of cinema. In his
translation of The Republic of Plato, Francis Macdonald Cornford suggests that
‘A modern Plato would compare his Cave to an underground cinema, where the
audience watch the play of shadows thrown by the film passing before a light at
their backs.’ See Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Francis Macdonald Cornford
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941), 223, n. 1.
In Picture Theory, W. J. T. Mitchell writes: ‘Discursive hypericons such as the
camera obscura, the tabula rasa, and the Platonic cave epitomize the tendency
of the technologies of visual representation to acquire a figurative centrality
in theories of the self and its knowledges – of objects, of others, and of itself.
They are not merely epistemological models, but ethical, political, and aesthetic
“assemblages” that allow us to observe observers. In their strongest forms, they
don’t merely serve as illustrations to theory; they picture theory.’ See W. J. T.
Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 49.
2 The Republic of Plato, 222.
3 Plato, Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993),
240.
4 Plato, The Plato Reader, ed. and trans. T. D. J. Chappell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1996), 230.
5 Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 317.
7 The Plato Reader, 231.
9 Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols 5 and 6, trans. Paul Shorey (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1969) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (last accessed 25
June 2016).
10 ‘L’allégorie de la caverne’, trans. Bernard Suzanne, http:// plato-dialogues.org/fr/
tetra_4/republic/caverne.htm (last accessed 20 December 2011) See footnote 5. As
Bernard Suzanne points out, what Socrates wants us to picture, when he asks us to
imagine the cave, is already an image. Suzanne suggests that Plato is deliberately
leaving a lot of details out of the picture because the transition from image to
reality can only be achieved by the efforts of the pupil, for the words of the teacher
are also an image. Representation is integral to the acquirement of knowledge.
11 Sallis, Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues, 3rd edn (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1996), 319.
130 Notes
12 The Republic of Plato, 223. Waterfield’s translation reads: ‘This is a strange picture
you’re painting, he said, with strange prisoners.’ H. D. P. Lee translates the phrase
as ‘An odd picture and an odd sort of prisoner.’ Chapell translates it as: ‘What
a bizarre picture! said Glaucon. And what bizarre prisoners!’ And in Shorey’s
translation, we find the following: ‘A strange image you speak of, he said, and
strange prisoners.’
13 The Plato Reader, 233.
15 Plato, Sophist, trans. Francis Macdonald Cornford, in The Collected Dialogues:
Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982), Bollingen Series LXXI, lines 234b–d, 977.
16 Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa le verbe “photographier”’, Phasmes:
Essais sur l’Apparition (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1998), 56. The French text is
as follows: ‘[C]omme celle d’une jouissance infinie de l’image sans forme: cette pure
intensité tactile qu’est la lumière en flots sur notre visage offert – notre visage vu par
elle comme par une mère qui nous enfante.’ ([L]ike that of an infinite ecstasy of
the formless image; the pure tactile intensity of the flooding light on our exposed
face – our face seen by the light as by a mother who nurses her infant.) See
Chapter 5, ‘Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos’.
17 Henry Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, trans. Nancy Pearson (New
York: Omega Publications, 1994), 6.
18 Corbin, The Man of Light, 116.
19 Corbin, The Man of Light, 112.
20 Corbin, The Man of Light, 2, 44–5.
21 Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.
Ltd, 2001), 78–9.
22 Kingsley, In the Dark Places, 111.
23 Kingsley, In the Dark Places, 78–9.
24 Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds
– A Collection of Ancient Texts (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2006), 185–6, 287.
25 Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, 186–8.
26 Kingsley, In the Dark Places, 68. On the sun god Apollo and his link with the
underworld, see the chapter entitled ‘Apollo’, in Kingsley, In the Dark Places,
87–92.
27 For a detailed explanation of the Line simile and noesis as philosophical thinking,
see R. C. Cross and D. Woozley, Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary
(London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1970), 203–30.
28 In the Sophist Plato writes: ‘There are, indeed these two products of divine
workmanship – the original and the image that in every case accompanies it’ (266c).
Notes 131
29 Sallis, Being, 439.

34 Sallis, Verge, 27.
42 Proclus was the head of Plato’s Academy and author of The Elements of Theology
and The Platonic Theology. Known for his works on theurgy, mathematics and
astronomy, he wrote commentaries on several of Plato’s works including the
Timaeus, Parmenides and the Republic. Although Proclus was a pagan thinker,
his teachings influenced subsequent generations of Christian and Islamic
philosophers.
43 Proclus, Commentaire sur la République, trans. J Festugière, vol. 2 (Paris: Libraire
Philosophique J. Vrin, 1970), 98. This is the French translation of the original text
in Greek. The translations from French into English are my own.
44 Proclus, 98.
45 Proclus, Commentaire, vol. II, 98. The passage is ambiguous: ‘car ce sont des copies
de corps et de figures, et elles ont très étroite affinité avec les objets à partir desquels
elles se projettent, comme le montrent tous les exploits que les arts des magiciens
se font fort de réaliser eu égard et aux fantômes et aux ombres’ (‘for these are the
copies of bodies and figures, and they have very close affinity to the objects from
which they are projected, as demonstrated by all the feats that magicians feel
capable of achieving through their arts, in view of ghosts and shadows’). The verb
‘réaliser’ can be translated as ‘to realize’, ‘to bring into being’ or ‘to achieve’, and
in this context, it is difficult to determine the exact activities of the magicians.
Are they recreating spectacles of phantoms and shadows using various materials
and devices, conjuring spirits from the dead using incantations and spells, or
practising the kind of natural magic used by Agrippa, Dee and Ficino?
46 We find a similar anecdote in The Golden Bough by James Frazer. In a chapter
entitled ‘The Perils of the Soul’, Frazer writes: ‘The ancients believed that in
Arabia, if a hyaena trod on a man’s shadow, it deprived him of the power of
speech and motion; and that if a dog, standing on a roof in the moonlight, cast
a shadow on the ground and a hyaena trod on it, the dog would fall down as if
132 Notes
dragged with a rope. Clearly in these cases the shadow, if not equivalent to the
soul, is at least regarded as a living part of the man or the animal, so that injury
done to the shadow is felt by the person or animal as if it were done to his body.’
See J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 2nd edn,
vol. 1 (London: Macmillan and Co.), 287.
47 Proclus, Commentaire, 98.
48 ‘Après cela, Platon dit que le prisonnier voit désormais, durant la nuit, le ciel
lui-même tout entier et les astres, qui sont des copies des Intelligibles, et les feux qui
brillent dans les astres, en tant qu’ils sont tous de la nature du soleil, pour que nous
prenions une idée aussi de leur être propre et de leur perfections divines. Car, de
même que ces astres sont de la nature du soleil à cause de la lumière issue du soleil,
de même les Intelligibles sont tous divins à cause de la lumière issue du Bien.’ (After
this, Plato says that from now on, the prisoner will see in the night, the sky itself
in its entirety and the stars, which are copies of the Forms, and the fire that burns
in the stars, as they are all solar in nature, so that we can have an idea of their
own being as well as their divine perfections. For just as those stars are solar in
nature because of the light arising from the sun, in the same way, the Forms are
all divine because of the light originating from the Good.) Proclus, Commentaire,
102–3.
49 Proclus, Commentaire, 84.
50 The word that Proclus uses here is ‘ύπερούσιου’. See Proclus, footnote 4,
Commentaire 86. It is translated as surexistentiel in French.
51 This text is also known as On the Hieratic Art or On the Sacred Art. Proclus’s
treatise was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino in 1489 as Proculi Opusculum
De Sacrificio Interprete Marsilio Ficino Florentino.
52 Brian Cophenhaver, ‘Hermes Trismegistus, Proclus, and the Question of a
Philosophy of Magic in the Renaissance’ in Hermeticism and the Renaissance:
Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, ed. A. Debus and I.
Mekel (Washington, DC: Folger Books, 1988), 103–4.
53 Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī, trans. Ralph Manheim
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 106.
54 Anne Sheppard, ‘Proclus’ Attitude to Theurgy’, The Classical Quarterly 32.1 (1982):
220. See also Sheppard, Studies on the 5th and 6th Essays of Proclus’ Commentary
on the Republic (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980), 152–3.
55 The head lifted towards the sun reminds us of Philotheos of Batos in his
worship of God. Philotheos, embraced by divine light in the deserts of Mount
Sinai, gradually transforms into a translucent sheet of photographic film. See
Chapter 4.
57 Sallis, Double Truth, 2.
Notes 133

61 Sallis writes: ‘Indeed it [the sun] not only withdraws, escaping our direct vision,
but also deflects that vision, temporarily injects blindness into it. As one turns
away from the sun, blind spots remain before one’s eyes. They are the most
immediate images that the sun makes of itself.’ Sallis, Verge, 51.
62 There are many types of camera shutters, ranging from the roller blind shutters
found in early cameras to the focal plane shutter, the leaf shutter and the
diaphragm. The roller blind shutter is now obsolete.
63 Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind, 55.
64 If we take care to use a faster shutter speed or a smaller aperture, maybe we
will not end up with a blank photograph after all. Perhaps we will be able to
catch a glimpse of the sun, even produce sun pictures. The first images of the
sun were taken in 1845 by Léon Foucault and Hippolyte Fizeau – these were
daguerreotypes of sunspots measuring 8cm and taken at 1/60 of a second, with a
lens at a focal length of 10m. Fifteen years later, solar eclipses were photographed
on 18 July both in Spain and in Algeria. For details about the first photos of the
sun, see Michel Frizot, ‘The All-Powerful Eye: The Forms of the Invisible’, A New
History of Photography, 277.
67 Sallis writes: ‘It is not insignificant that Socrates voices this description not as an
assertion but as a supposition … That Socrates expresses something supposed
or expected rather than known is indicative of the limitation under which the
discourse of the Republic proceeds, even where, as in Book 7, it reaches its
highest point.’ Sallis, Verge, 37.
68 Derrida, ‘Tense’, trans. D. F. Krell in The Path of Archaic Thinking: Unfolding the
Work of John Sallis, ed. Kenneth Maly (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1995), 73.
69 See Sallis, ‘… A Wonder that One Could Never Aspire to Surpass’, in The Path of
Archaic Thinking, 262.
70 Derrida writes: ‘The khora of the sun, in the Republic, is not, it seems to me, able
to be a metaphorical value for khora in the Timaeus. Nor, for that matter, the
inverse. Although the word clearly designates, in both cases, an “emplacement”
or a “locality,” there is no analogy, no commensurability possible, it seems
to me, between these two places. The word “place” [“lieu”] itself has such a
different semantic value in the two cases that their relation … seems to be one
of homonymy rather than figurality or synonymy.’ Derrida, ‘Comme si c’était
possible’, cit. Sallis, Verge, 105.
134 Notes

73 See Sallis, Verge, pp. 31, 41, 46 and Chorology, esp. pp. 98, 100 and 111. The
preface in Double Truth is entitled ‘Χαλεπόν’ (Chalepon).
74 The transcendent nature of the Good finds resonances in Christianity with
negative theology and in Buddhism. In the latter, the essence of Buddhahood
or the ‘self-arising wisdom’ is considered to be the primordial condition of
existence. Thus it is beyond language, being and non-being. As the Dzogchen
Master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu writes: ‘It [self-arising wisdom] cannot be
identified with a stable and eternal substance allowing the assertion “It is
thus!” and is utterly free of all the defects of dualistic thought, which is only
capable of referring to an object other than itself.’ If we return to the concept
of doubling in Plato’s metaphysics, then we can consider self-arising wisdom as
the primordial state before any doubling would take place. Norbu observes: ‘It
is given the name ineffable and inconceivable “base of primordial purity” (ye
thog ka dag gi gzhi) beyond the conceptual limits of being and non-being. As
its essence is the purity of original emptiness, it transcends the limits of being
an eternal substance: it has nothing concrete and no specific characteristics to
display. As its nature is self-perfection, it transcends the limit of nothingness
and non-being: the clarity of light is the pure nature of emptiness.’ Chögyal
Namkhai Norbu, Lhun grub rdzogs pa chen po’i ston pa dang bstan pa’i byung
tshul brjod pa’i gtam nor bu’i phreng ba, 11.7–17.1, cit. Norbu and Clemente,
The Supreme Source: The Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde Kunjed
Gyalpo, trans. Andrew Lukianowicz (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2000),
20–1.
Whereas one can draw many similarities between the Platonic good and
‘absolute reality’ considered to be the state of perfection in Buddhism, one
distinction which separates Buddhist thinking from the former must be observed
– this involves the immanent-transcendent characteristic of the essence of
Buddhahood – the possibility of finding ‘self-arising wisdom’ inside each one of
us. It is not within the scope of this book to engage in a comparative study of the
Platonic Good with what is called in Tibetan Buddhism, the natural condition of
primordial enlightenment.
75 gZhi lam ‘bras bu’i smom lam, by Jigs med gling pa (1730–98), cit. Adriano
Clemente in ‘Foreword’, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and Adriano Clemente, The
Supreme Source, 10.
76 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names, 4.3, Dionysius the Areopagite on
the Divine Names and The Mystical Theology, trans. C. E. Rolt (Berwick, ME: Ibis
Press, 2004), 89–90.
77 Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans.
Notes 135
Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press, 1993), 16.
78 Derrida writes: ‘Idein, eidos, idea: the whole history, the whole semantics of the
European idea, in its Greek genealogy, as we know – as we see – relates seeing to
knowing.’ Derrida, Memoirs, 12.
79 For a discussion on hyperekhon, see Derrida, How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,
102–3.
83 Sallis, Verge, 84–5.
86 Sallis, Being and Logos, 420.
87 Sallis, Being and Logos, 399 and 405.
91 Sallis, Being and Logos, 420.
95 See Sallis, Being, 419–20.
Chapter 2: Plato’s Chora and the Uneasy Place of Photography
1 Sallis, Chorology, 116.

2 See Sallis, Chorology, 116–17. Sallis presents a comprehensive list of the
instances in which the word chora is used by Plato. For an in-depth discussion
of the different meanings of chora in the Platonic dialogues and the issue of its
untranslatability in the Timaeus, see Sallis, Chorology, 115–17 and Verge, 105–6.
3 I will be using Benjamin Jowett’s translation of the Timaeus unless otherwise
indicated. Plato, Timaeus, trans. Benjamin Jowett, in Plato: The Collected
Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961).
4 In an essay entitled Khôra, Derrida describes the Timaeus as a mise-en-abyme
of receptacles. Comparing the narrative structure of the Timaeus to a series of
receptacles, Derrida writes: ‘In truth, each narrative content – fabulous, fictive,
136 Notes
legendary, or mythic, it doesn’t matter for the moment – becomes in its turn
the content of a different tale. Each tale is thus the receptacle of another. There
is nothing but receptacles of narrative receptacles, or narrative receptacles
of receptacles.’ Derrida, Khôra, trans. Ian Mcleod, On the Name, ed. Thomas
Dutoit (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 116–17. The following
is the original text in French: ‘En vérité chaque contenu narratif – fabuleux,
fictif, légendaire ou mythique, peu importe pour l’instant – devient à son tour le
contenant d’un autre réçit. Chaque réçit est donc le réceptacle d’un autre. Il n’y
a que des réceptacles de réceptacles narratifs.’ Derrida, Khôra (Paris: Galilée,
1993), 75.
So on the one hand, the receptacle does not only feature in the narrative
structure of the Timaeus or as a metaphor for describing chora, moreover it is
even figured by the text as a mixing bowl (kratêr). It is the vessel into which the
Demiurge pours the soul of the universe and the other elements to create the
stars, planets and humans. See Timaeus, 41d.
5 In Khôra, Derrida underlines the paradox that figures in this narrative of
embedded memories. The memory of a city is written in the words of the other;
it resides in the archives of the other’s political space, appropriated by another
culture, that of the Egyptian priest who expresses his people’s admiration and
subservience towards the ancient Athenians. This memory, once lost to the
Greeks, is now restored to the Greeks through the words of the Egyptian priest,
as Critias, who is Greek, tells us. Noting the instability of ownership, Derrida
asks: ‘Will we ever know who is holding this discourse on the dialectic of the
master and the slave and on the two memories?’ Derrida, Khôra 115. ‘Saura-t-on
jamais qui tient le discours sur la dialectique du maître et de l’esclave et sur les deux
mémoires?’ Derrida, Khôra, 71.
6 Francis Macdonald Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato Translated
with a Running Commentary (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), 19.
7 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, vol. 9 (London: William
Heinemann Ltd, 1961), 371.
8 See Note C in Pliny, Natural History, 369.
9 George Ebers, ‘Introduction’, Catalogue of the Theodor Graf Collection of Unique
Ancient Greek Portraits, 2000 Years Old (Paris: E. Morin, 1900), 3.
11 Sallis translates the phrase as ‘intellection with discourse’. Jowett translates
it as ‘intelligence and reason’. Cornford’s translation reads: ‘That which is
apprehensible by thought with a rational account […].’ See Sallis, Chorology, 47.
Jowett’s translation of the Timaeus is in Plato: The Collected Dialogues. See also
Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 22.
12 In Chorology, Sallis points out that the common translation of doxa as ‘opinion’
Notes 137
or ‘judgement’ fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek word. The ancient
Greeks would have also associated δόξα with appearance, for the verb ‘δοκέω’
can be defined as ‘to seem to be’. See Sallis, Chorology, 48.
13 Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 31. Cornford explains that the Demiurge is a purely
mythical symbol. He is not described as an object of worship; the reader of the
Timaeus cannot distinguish between his work and the tasks that he gives to
his children (the demi-gods). Cornford writes: ‘The evidences of design in the
human frame are there attributed sometimes to “the god”, sometimes to the
celestial gods, who are the stars, planets and Earth. On the other hand, there is
no doubt that he stands for a divine Reason working for ends that are good. The
whole purpose of the Timaeus is to teach men to regard the universe as revealing
the operation of such a Reason, not as the fortuitous outcome of blind and
aimless bodily motions.’ Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 38.
14 Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 37.
17 We can think of this nebulosity in many ways. The obscure beginnings of
photography may refer to the many inventors of photography, including Niépce,
Daguerre, Bayard and Talbot. These multiple discoveries show that there is no
neat and tidy singular ‘origin’ of photography. Benjamin describes photography’s
beginning as covered in fog, although he notes that the fog is ‘not quite as thick
as that which shrouds the early days of printing’, observing that ‘the time was
ripe for the invention, and was sensed by more than one – by men who strove
independently for the same objective: to capture the images in the camera obscura,
which had been known at least since Leonardo’s time.’ Walter Benjamin, ‘Little
History of Photography’, 507.
Benjamin’s fog is a useful metaphor for us to reflect on the ways in which
photographic history has been constructed and propagated. To complicate matters
even more, what is considered to be the ‘first photograph’ and reproduced in many
history of photography books under the title ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’,
the heliograph taken by Niépce in 1827 and discovered by the art historian Helmut
Gernsheim in a trunk in 1952, is in fact a retouched copy made by Gernsheim!
Since the photographic technology in the 1950s had failed to reproduce faithfully
the effects of the heliograph, Gernsheim decided to ‘enhance’ the photographed
version of the image. It is astonishing to consider that what is in fact a drawing
(watercolour on gelatin silver print) has been ‘disguised’ and circulated as the real
thing – the origin of all photographs. For a compelling account of Gernsheim’s
discovery, see Batchen, Burning with Desire, 125–7. See also the website of the
Harry Ransom Center – www.hrc.utexas.edu – where the heliograph is on
permanent display. It was only in 2002 that the photographers working at the Getty
138 Notes
Conservation Institute in Los Angeles were able successfully to photograph the first
photograph.
The fog can also refer to the fuzziness of the first images, the long exposure time
required due to the limitations of early camera technology, making it difficult for
the photographer to capture and fix movement. It is also interesting to note that
the word ‘fog’ is commonly used by analogue photographers to describe a technical
error when the photographic paper or film is accidentally exposed to light.
18 Pliny, Natural History, 47–9.
19 The comparison of chora to perfume is not without its significance here,
because perfume or pharmakon is another Greek word which is wrought with
ambiguities. In some ways it is similar to chora in its resistance to categorization.
20 See Jeffrey Kipnis and Thomas Leeser, eds, Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and
Peter Eisenman (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1997), 108. See also Derrida,
‘How to Avoid Speaking: Denials’, trans. Ken Frieden, Derrida and Negative
Theology, ed. Harold Coward and Toby Foshay (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992), 107.
21 Derrida, Khōra, trans. Ian Mcleod, On the Name, ed. Thomas Dutoit (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1995), 103. In the preface to On the Name, Thomas
Dutoit explains that Derrida chose to use the recent French method of
transliteration – χ as ‘ch’ is replaced by ‘kh’, therefore khōra instead of chora. See
Thomas Dutoit, ‘Translating the Name?’, On the Name, xii.
‘Et pourtant, à mi-parcours du cycle, le discours sur khôra n’aura-t-il pas
ouvert, entre le sensible et l’intelligible, n’appartenant ni à l’un ni à l’autre, donc
ni au cosmos comme dieu sensible ni au dieu intelligible, un espace apparemment
vide-bien qu’il ne soit sans doute pas le vide? N’a-t-il pas nommé une ouverture
béante, un abîme ou un chasme? N’est-ce pas depuis ce chasme “en” lui que le
clivage entre le sensible et l’intelligible, voire entre le corps et l’âme peut avoir lieu et
prendre place?’ Derrida, Khôra, 44–5.
22 ‘Nurse of generation’ is translated as ‘nurse of Becoming’ by Burnett in Plato’s
Cosmology.
23 See Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 178–85.
26 Derrida, Khōra, 116–17. ‘Or que représente une cire vierge, toujours vierge,
précédant absolument toute impression possible, toujours plus vieille, parce que
intemporelle, que tout ce qui semble l’affecter pour prendre forme en elle qui reçoit,
néanmoins, et pour la même raison toujours plus jeune, infante même, achronique
et anachronique, si indeterminée qu’elle ne supporte même pas le nom et la forme
de la cire?’ Derrida, Khôra, 74–5.
27 See ‘Transcript One’, Chora L Works, 10.
Notes 139
28 See ‘Transcript Two’, Chora L Works, 36.

29 See Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 193.
30 See Sallis, Chorology, 120.
31 ‘Transcript One’, Chora L Works, 11.
32 Sallis, Chorology 120–1. See also Sallis, Being and Logos, 299–301 and ‘Daydream’,
35.
33 Sallis, ‘Daydream’, 35.
34 See Coda.
37 Platon, Oeuvres complètes, 1495. The English translation is mine.
38 ‘Transcript One’, Chora L Works, 10.
39 ‘Transcript Seven’, Chora L Works, 108.
40 Derrida, Khōra, 92. For a discussion on the various commentators of the Timaeus
and the limits of the metaphor, see note 1 in Khôra. See also Chora L Works, 10.
‘Nous ne parlerons pas de métaphore, mais non pas pour entendre, par exemple,
que la khôra est proprement une mère, une nourrice, un réceptacle, un porte-
empreinte ou de l’or. C’est peut-être parce qu’elle porte au-delà ou en deçà de la
polarité sens métaphorique/sens propre que la pensée de la khôra excède la polarité,
sans doute analogue, du mythos et du logos.’ Derrida, Khôra, 22.
41 Roger Scruton, ‘Photography and Representation’, The Aesthetic Understanding:
Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture (Manchester: Carcanet Press,
1983), 114. For a critique of Scruton’s view on photography, see Robert Wicks,
‘Photography as a Representational Art’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 29.1
(1989), 1–9. Wicks points out that Scruton’s interpretation of photography as
non-art is based solely upon other media’s capacities (such as painting, literature
and sculpture) for fictive representation. Wicks argues that the photographer,
like the painter, can interpret his subject matter through techniques such as the
choice of lens, focus and depth of field. He suggests that photography’s capacity
for artistic representation resembles that of masking or cosmetics: the causal link
with the photographed object is present but reinterpreted through the techniques
of the photographer.
42 See John Tagg, The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and
Histories (London: The Macmillan Press, 1988), and Mary Price, The Photograph:
A Strange Confined Space (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994).
43 Derrida, Khōra, 99. ‘Khôra reçoit, pour leur donner lieu, toutes les déterminations
mais elle n’en possède aucune en propre. Elle les possède, elle les a, puisqu’elle les
reçoit, mais elle ne les possède pas comme des propriétés, elle ne possède rien en
propre. Elle n’“est” rien d’autre que la somme ou le procès de ce qui vient s’inscrire
“sur” elle, à son sujet, à même son sujet, mais elle n’est pas le sujet ou le support
140 Notes
présent de toutes ces interprétations, quoique, néanmoins, elle ne se réduise pas à

elles.’ Derrida, Khôra, 36–7.
44 Tagg, Burden of Representation, 63.
45 Elkins, ed., Photography Theory, 171.
50 This would include writings by Tagg, Sekula, Solomon Godeau, Price and Burgin.
51 Price, The Photograph, 1.
53 Platon, Oeuvres complètes, 469.
55 Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, vol. 9 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1925), 28 April 2007; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
cgibin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:text=Tim.:section=50c (last accessed
25 June 2016).
56 In an essay entitled ‘Receptacle/Chôra: Figuring the Errant Feminine in Plato’s
Timaeus’, Emanuela Bianchi examines the reading of Plato’s chora as a feminist
critique of Western philosophy in the works of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva.
Bianchi offers us a similar etymological analysis of words that appear in the
Timaeus; these include chora, ekmageoin and hupodochê. See Emanuela Bianchi,
‘Receptacle/Chôra: Figuring the Errant Feminine in Plato’s Timaeus’, Hypatia,
21.4 (2006): 124–46.
57 Ewa Kuryluk, Veronica and Her Cloth: History, Symbolism, and Structure of a
‘True’ Image (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 4.
58 Veronica’s Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography is the title of a
collection of essays on conceptual photography edited by Elizabeth Janus and
Marion Lambert. In the opening essay entitled ‘On Revenge, Art, Artists and
Collecting’, Baroness Lambert, a collector of photography, writes: ‘The story of
Veronica, whose real name was Berenice, is well-known: She was the woman
who wiped Christ’s brow on the way to Calvary with a cloth that miraculously
retained the image of His face and illustrated His suffering. A photograph.
The first. An image of compassion. A document of suffering and a permanent
testimony to sacrifice for faith.’ See Elizabeth Janus and Marion Lambert, eds,
Veronica’s Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography (Zurich: Scalo,
1998). It is of course the argument of this book that photography existed before
the legend of Veronica’s veil.
59 Kuryluk, Veronica and Her Cloth, 214.
60 ‘No. 548, Liste: Recherche étymologique du mot propre à désigner le procédé
Notes 141
photographique Niépce-Daguerre’, Niépce: correspondance et papiers, ed. Manuel

Bonnet and Jean-Lous Marignier, vol. 2 (Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France:
Maison Nicéphore Niépce, 2003), 1014–15. As Bonnet and Marignier point
out, although the handwriting on this document is unknown, the list of words
is consistent with Niépce’s interest in etymology. Niépce had wanted to find a
more suitable name for his process other than heliograph. See note 1, Niépce:
correspondance et papiers, 1014.
It seems that physautotype was the chosen term, as indicated in Daguerre’s
letter to Nicéphore, dated 3 October 1832. In the document, Daguerre uses the
second person plural verb form of physautotype: physototypez. See ‘No. 549,
Lettre: Paris 3 octobre 1832. Daguerre à Nicéphore’, Niépce: correspondance et
papiers, 1016.
61 In English, this is translated as ‘mark; sign; imprint; trace; image; effigy; model’.
62 Plato, Theaetetus, trans. F. M. Cornford, Plato: The Collected Dialogues.
63 Geoffrey Batchen, Burning with Desire, 9.
64 ‘Transcript Two’, Chora L Works, 34.
65 See Khōra, 111 (Khôra, 63). Derrida writes: ‘Socrates is not khōra, but he would
look a lot like it/her if it/she were someone or something.’ (‘Socrates n’est pas
khôra mais il lui ressemblerait beaucoup si elle était quelqu’un ou quelque chose.’)
66 Derrida, Khōra, 110. ‘Socrate s’efface, il efface en lui tous les types, tous les genres,
aussi bien ceux des hommes d’image et de simulacre auxquels il feint de ressembler
un moment que celui des hommes d’action et des hommes de parole, philosophes et
politiques auxquels il s’adresse en s’effaçant devant eux. Mais en s’effaçant ainsi, il
se situe ou s’institue en destinataire réceptif, disons en réceptacle de tout ce qui va
désormais s’inscrire.’ Derrida, Khōra, 60–1.
67 Gregory Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy: The Strategies of Iamblichean Theurgy’,
Dionysius XXI (December 2003): 68–9.
68 Gregory Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 59.
69 See Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 59, footnote 31.
70 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 271.
71 Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans.
Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1993), 51.
72 ‘(I)t is as if seeing were forbidden in order to draw, as if one drew only on the
condition of not seeing, as if the drawing were a declaration of love destined for
or suited to the invisibility of the other – unless it were in fact born from seeing
the other withdrawn from sight.’ Derrida, Memoirs, 49.
73 The great American street photographer Garry Winogrand once declared, ‘I
photograph to see what the world looks like photographed.’
74 See Frances Mueke’s essay ‘“Taught by Love”: The Origin of Painting Again’, The
142 Notes
Art Bulletin, 81.2 (June 1999): 297–302. Mueke examines the possible sources of
the figure of Cupid as teacher in Simon Gribelin’s 1716 frontispiece to Charles-
Alphonse Dyfresnoy’s poem, De arte graphica (1668).
75 Photography News, 29 October 1875, cit. Edgar Yoxall Jones, Father of Art
Photography: O.G. Rejlander 1813–1875 (Newton Abbot, Devon: David and
Charles, 1973), 53.
76 The different names for the practice of silhouette portraiture are explained
in ‘Shades and Shadow-Pictures: The Materials and Techniques of American
Portrait Silhouettes’. Penley Knipe presents an in-depth study of the popularity
of the silhouette in America and the various ways of making shadow drawing;
http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v18/bp18-07.html (last accessed 4 August
2011).
77 See The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present Day by Beaumont
Newhall (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1964), and Seizing the
Light: A History of Photography by Robert Hirsch (Boston, MA, and London:
McGraw-Hill, 2000).
78 Newhall, The History of Photography, 12.
79 John Caspar Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy, trans. Thomas Holcroft (London:
Ward, Locke and Bowden, Ltd), 11.
80 Lavater, Essays, 187.
81 There exists a whole set of problematics concerning photography’s indexical
nature and its status with truth which is always subject to re-presentation and
re-configuration.
Chapter 3: Iamblichus’s Receptacle of Light
1 Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, Philostratus and Eunapius: Lives
of the Sophists, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright (1921; London: William Heinemann;
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 365.
2 Eunapius, Lives, 369.
3 For a description of this episode, see Eunapius, Lives, 371.
4 Referring to Iamblichus, Wright remarks, ‘his final appeal was to divination, and
in his practice of theurgy he represents the decadence of Neo-Platonism’. See
Wright, ‘Introduction’, Lives, 325.
5 Eunapius, Lives, 371.
6 In Clarke, Dillon and Herschel’s translation, φωταγωγία is translated as ‘evoking
the light’.
7 In her essay, ‘Fiat Lux, Fiat Ritus’, Sarah Iles Johnston translates φωταγωγία
as ‘the leading on of light’. See Johnston, ‘Fiat Lux, Fiat Ritus’, The Presence of
Notes 143
Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience, ed. Matthew Kapstein (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 2004), 17.
8 Georg Luck identifies photagogia as a synonym of theurgy along with other words
such as ieratike techne or ‘priestly art’, theagogia or ‘evocation of a god’, theosophy,
and erga eusebeias or ‘religious duty’. See Georg Luck, Ancient Pathways and
Hidden Pursuits: Religion, Morals and Magic in the Ancient World (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2000), 112.
9 John Sallis highlights the importance of the dual action of withdrawal and
reception contained within the verbal cognate of chora: ‘The relevant allusion
is to the sense of withdrawing yet receiving, drawing something into itself in its
very withdrawing.’ See Sallis, Chorology, 118.
10 Gregory Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy: The Strategies of Iamblichean Theurgy’,
Dionysius XXI (December 2003), 59. In footnote 31, Shaw refers to the chora in
the Timaeus and its verbal cognate chorein (χωρεîν).
11 For the connection between chora and ἕδρα see Sallis, Chorology, 119.
12 DM I.1, 4.10–12. Iamblichus includes the ‘traditions of the sages of Chaldaea’ and
the ‘teachings of the prophets of Egypt’ as some of the ‘branches of knowledge’
from which he will address Porphyry’s challenges. Further on he mentions
the ‘ancestral doctrines of the Assyrians’, and the philosophies of Plato and
Pythagoras (DM I.2, 5.6–6.4). See also note 9 in De Mysteriis, 7.
13 See Introduction to Iamblichus: De mysteriis, trans. Clarke, Dillon and Hershbell,
xxvii–xxviii.
14 See Introduction, Iamblichus: De mysteriis, xxix.
15 Anne D. R. Sheppard, Studies on the 5th and 6th Essays of Proclus’ Commentary
on the Republic (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980), 150.
16 E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1951), 286.
17 Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 287. The perception of Iamblichus as the
corrupting force of Neoplatonism is shared by Wilmer Cave Wright, translator
of The Works of Emperor Julian, who associates Iamblichus with the beginning
of ‘the decadence of Neo-Platonism as a philosophy’. According to Wright,
‘Oriental superstition took the place of the severe spiritualism of Plotinus and his
followers, and a philosophy that had been from the first markedly religious, is
now expounded by theurgists and the devotees of strange oriental cults.’ Wilmer
Cave Wright, ‘Introduction to Oration IV’, The Works of the Emperor Julian,
trans. Wilmer Cave Wright, vol. 1 (London: William Heinemann, 1913), 348.
18 Emma C. Clarke, Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis: A Manifesto of the Miraculous
(Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2001), 2.
19 Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 5.
20 See Shaw, ‘Living Light: Divine Embodiment in Western Philosophy’, Seeing with
144 Notes
Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination, ed. Patrick Curry and Angela
Voss (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 62.
21 Shaw, ‘Living Light’, 62.
22 Shaw, ‘Living Light’, 59–60.
24 ‘Introduction’, Iamblichus: De mysteriis, trans. Clarke, Dillon and Hershbell, xx.
25 Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 5. For the distinction of the words in relation to the
Chaldaean Oracles, see Dodds, The Greeks, 283–4.
26 Shaw, Theurgy, 5.
27 Polymnia Athanassiadi, ‘Dreams, Theurgy and Freelance Divination: The
Testimony of Iamblichus’, The Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993): 116.
28 See Clarke, note 112, ‘Introduction’, Iamblichus: De mysteriis, xlix.
29 The similarity to Zen Buddhism is striking in terms of the notion of satori or a
flash of sudden enlightenment.
30 Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 3–4. The noun (θεουργοί) first appears in fragment
153 of the Chaldaean Oracles. See Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 21.
Georg Luck differentiates between theourgos and theologos; the latter would
talk about the gods without performing miraculous deeds, whereas the
theourgos ‘claimed to have certain powers over the gods’ and ‘had to prove his
supernatural abilities now and then’. See Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and
the Occult, 4.
31 Psellus, De aurea catena, cit. Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 312. Lewy writes:
‘Consequently the Platonism of the Chaldaeans claimed for itself the authority of
an authentic self-interpretation of Plato, who speaks again, to a certain extent, in
the Oracles of the Chaldaeans. On the ground of this “pre-established identity”
between the Chaldaean and the Platonic teaching, the later Neoplatonists made
the far-reaching undertaking to harmonize the two systems, and exalted theurgy
to the position of the mystery-cult of the inner circle of their philosophic school.’
Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 312–13.
32 Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 4.
34 For Iamblichus’s theory of embodiment, see Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasies’ and
Theurgy and the Soul, Part II.
35 Shaw sums up the difference: ‘[W]hat Plotinus came to identify with as his own
undescended soul, Iamblichus left as the property of the gods to be received – in
ecstatic exchange – in theurgic ritual.’ See Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 66.
36 Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 58.
37 As Shaw explains: ‘This divine presence is connected with the soul’s “innate
knowledge” (ἐμφυτος γνωσις) of the gods and exists prior to self-consciousness.
For Iamblichus, this divine element reveals itself in our “essential desire” (ἐφέσις)
Notes 145
for the Good, a desire which the Chaldean Oracles say is implanted in us by the
Demiurge prior to our embodiment.’ See Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 61.
38 The importance that Plotinus attributes to self-inspection and intellectual
contemplation is in many ways similar to Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism’s emphasis on
inner contemplation and meditative concentration as a means to cultivate the
mind’s ability to see one’s Buddha nature. Through meditation practices such as
sitting still and observing thoughts arising to one’s mind, the Ch’an practitioner
seeks to remove layers of delusions and self-attachment, similar to Plotinus’s
sculptor who chisels away the excess material to reveal the beautiful face of the
statue.
39 Plotinus, Ennead I.6.9, trans. A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), 259.
40 Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 30–1. On the role of the Connectors (συνοχεῖς)
and the Teletarchs (τελετάρχαι) see Majercik, 10–12. It is important to bear
in mind that although Iamblichus drew upon the Chaldaean Oracles as one of
the sources for his theurgic system, there are differences between Chaldaean
and Iamblichean theurgy. In the De Mysteriis, Iamblichus provides us with a
list of epiphanies, ranging from the gods in the highest order, followed by the
archangels, angels, daemons, heroes, archons and finally the souls. This is where
he departs from the Oracles in his cosmogony – there are no references to the
Connectors or Teletarchs.
41 Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 375. Lewy attributes the Chaldaean use of the term
anagōgē to Platonic sources, including the Republic (521c), Phaedrus and Phaedo.
43 Majercik describes this experience as a ‘supra-rational state of unified intuition at
the very highest levels of ascent.’ See Majercik, Chaldean Oracles, 33.
44 Sustasis refers to the conjunction of the theurgist with the god, the initial
encounter between invoker and the invoked deity. See Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles,
228–38.
45 Majercik, Chaldean Oracles, 49.
46 See Majercik, Chaldean Oracles, 35–6. Andrew Smith suggests the presence of
a vertical and horizontal theurgy in Iamblichus – horizontal or lower theurgy
involves operations in the material world, including interactions with daemons,
whereas vertical or higher theurgy brings about the union between the theurgist
and the gods. See Andrew Smith, Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition:
A Study in Post-Plotinian Neoplatonism (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), in
particular Chapter 6.
47 See Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 368.
146 Notes
50 Porphyry, ‘The Epistle of Porphyry to the Egyptian Anebo’, Iamblichus, On the

Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians and Life of Pythagoras, trans.
Thomas Taylor, vol. 7, The Thomas Taylor Series (Dorset: The Prometheus Trust,
2004), 13.
51 Eunapius writes: ‘Likewise the famous Iamblichus, as I have handed down in
my account of his life, when a certain Egyptian invoked Apollo, and to the great
amazement of those who saw the vision, Apollo came: “My friends,” said he,
“cease to wonder; this is only the ghost of a gladiator.” So great a difference does
it make whether one beholds a thing with the intelligence or the deceitful eyes of
the flesh.’ Eunapius, Lives, 425.
52 For a discussion on Iamblichus’s use of the term gnosis, see Clarke, Iamblichus’ De
Mysteriis, 28–9.
54 In Vajrayana Buddhism, the disciple is required to go through an initiation ritual,
known as the abhisheka, which may take years of preparation, before she can
receive the teachings from the master. Vajrayana practice cannot be disclosed
to non-initiates. The transmissions from master to pupil are kept secretive. The
secrecy serves to protect the power of the teachings, the practitioner as well as
the non-initiate. For a more detailed explanation of Vajrayana practice, and the
importance of secrecy, see Reginald A. Ray, Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric
Buddhism of Tibet (Boston: Shambhala, 2001), 113–16.
55 Birger A. Pearson, ‘Theurgic Tendencies in Gnosticism and Iamblichus’s
Conception of Theurgy’, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. Richard T. Wallis
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 259–60.
56 See Gregory Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 60, and Emma C. Clarke, Iamblichus’ De
Mysteriis, 93, n. 76.
58 Whereas Iamblichus proposes three levels of prayers, Proclus identifies five.
These are ‘knowledge’ (γνῶσις), ‘attraction’ (οἰχείωσις), ‘contact’ (συναφή),
‘approaching’ (ἐμπελάσας) and ‘union’ (ἕνωσις).
Proclus writes: ‘To a perfect and true prayer however, there is required in
the first place, a knowledge of all the divine orders to which he who prays
approaches. For no one will accede to the Gods in a proper manner, unless he
has a knowledge of their peculiarities. Hence also the oracle admonishes, that a
fire-heated conception has the first order in sacred worship. But in the second place,
there is required a conformation of our life with that which is divine; and this
accompanied with all purity, chastity, discipline, and order, through which our
concerns being introduced to the Gods, we shall attract their beneficence, and
our souls will become subject to them. In the third place, contact is necessary,
according to which we touch the divine essence with the summit of our soul,
Notes 147
and verge to a union with it. But there is yet farther required, an approximating
adhesion: for thus the oracle calls it, when he says, the mortal approximating to fire
will possess a light from the Gods. For this imparts to us a greater communion with,
and a more manifest participation of the light of the Gods. In the last place, union
succeeds [in] establishing the one of the soul in The One of the Gods, and causing
our energy to become one with divine energy; according to which we are no
longer ourselves, but are absorbed as it were in the Gods, abiding in divine light,
and circularly comprehended by it. And this is the best end of true prayer, in order
that the conversion of the soul may be conjoined with its permanency, and that
every thing which proceeds from The One of the Gods, may again be established
in The One, and the light which is in us may be comprehended in the light of
the Gods’ (1.211B–1.212). Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, trans.
Thomas Taylor, vol. 1 (Frome, Somerset: The Prometheus Trust, 1998), 198.
59 See Dodds, The Greeks, 284, and Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 229.
61 Johnston, ‘Fiat Lux, Fiat Ritus’, 11.
62 See Chapter 4.
63 Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe, ed. (with Prolegomena) and
trans. Arthur Darby Nock (London: Cambridge University Press, 1926), xcviii.
64 Francesco Romano, ‘L’uso di dunamis nel De Mysteriis di Giamblico’, in Dunamis
nel Neoplatonismo, ed. Francesco Romano and R. Loredana Cardullo (Firenze: La
nouva Italia, 1996), 83.
65 Athanassiadi, ‘Dreams, Theurgy and Freelance Divination’, 120.
66 Luck, Ancient Pathways and Hidden Pursuits, 118.
67 Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 105.
68 Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 243, n. 57. See also Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 196.
69 As Emma C. Clarke points out, it is unclear whether Iamblichus is referring to
the help offered by the angels to the theurgist in alleviating the unbearable heat
or whether he is merely describing their appearance as less aggravating than the
manifestations of the gods and archangels. See Clarke, Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis,
107.
70 Proclus, ‘Excerpts from the Commentary of Proclus on the Chaldaean Oracles’,
Iamblichus: The Exhortation to Philosophy, trans. Thomas Moore Johnson (Grand
Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 123.
71 See Iamblichus: De Mysteriis, 91, n. 125.
72 Such rituals often required the presence of a young boy who would act as the
medium.
73 Lamps are not only used for divinatory purposes, they are also used for spell-
casting, as in the ‘Fetching charm for an unmanageable woman’ (PGM VII.
593–619), which requires a lamp with seven wicks to be lit with olive oil.
148 Notes
74 See the glossary entry for ‘Lamps, not painted red’, in The Greek Magical Papyri in
Translation, 336.
75 Dodds, The Greeks, 299.
76 Dodds, The Greeks, 299.
77 In ‘Fiat Lux, Fiat Ritus’, Johnston notes that Iamblichus disapproves of the
divinatory method involving the use of artificial light projected into a bowl of
water. The conjurer would then speak to the daemons or gods who have entered
the water. One must note that in De Mysteriis, there is no explicit reference to the
above practice; Iamblichus merely denounces apparitions in water and mirrors as
false (DM II.10). Johnston’s interpretation probably took into account the lamp
divination practices common in Iamblichus’s time. However, she does highlight
an important point, Iamblichus’s main objection to these practices stems from
the differences in the use of light. For Iamblichus, artificial light brings about
false prophecies whereas natural light or sunlight leads to true divination. See
Johnston, ‘Fiat Lux’, 17.
78 Johnston, ‘Fiat Lux’, 11.
79 Johnston, ‘Fiat Lux’, 11–12.
80 Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 53. Herein lies the difference between Iamblichean
theurgy and the doctrines of the Chaldaeans, who sought after immortality
through anagōgē.
81 John Finamore, Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul (Chico, CA:
Scholars Press, 1985), 146. Finamore writes: ‘When the vehicle is illuminated by
the light from the soul’s leader-god, all external and internal stimuli to the vehicle
cease; only images of the god are impressed upon it.’
85 Proclus, Commentaire sur la République, Tome 1, IV.40.1–4. The English
translation is mine. Proclus’s comments also echo fragment 142 of The Chaldaean
Oracles: ‘And the gods say these things to the theurgists, for they say that
although we are incorporeal, “… bodies have been attached to our self-revealed
apparitions for your sakes …’” Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 103.
86 The projection of light on to a wall inscription also foreshadows the practice of
catoptrical cryptography, the use of mirrors to reveal secret writings. See Wayne
Shumaker’s discussion of the seventeenth-century Jesuit priest Gaspar Schott
and his work Magia universalis. In one of the illustrations by Schott, words are
projected on to a mirror. The secret message reflected on the mirror is then
reversed with the aid of a lens and projected on to a wall. Shumaker, Natural
Magic and Modern Science: Four Treatises 1590–1657 (Binghamton, NY: Medieval
and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1989), 132.
Notes 149
87 Shaw translates epitēdeiotēs as ‘fitness’ or ‘aptitude’. See Shaw, Theurgy, 86. See
also note 1 in Jamblique, Les Mystères d’Egypte, 114. Des Places refers to both
epitēdeia and chorein as technical terms.
89 Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 49.
90 Majercik, Fragment 2, The Chaldean Oracles, 49.
91 Majercik, Fragment 2, The Chaldean Oracles, 49.
92 Shaw, Theurgy, 84.
93 See Shaw, ‘Containing Ecstasy’, 61.
96 Clarke, Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis, 103.
97 Finamore, ‘Iamblichus on Light and the Transparent’, The Divine Iamblichus, 60.
98 Clarke, Iamblichus, 104.
99 Ruth Majercik, ed., ‘Introduction’, The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation and
Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 23. See also Clarke, Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis,
22, and Dodds, The Greeks, 291. Thomas McEvilley sees similarities between
theurgy and tantric Buddhism, notably in the integration of the practitioner
with a deity, thus the mortal practitioner is transformed into the divine. Thomas
McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and
Indian Philosophies (New York: Allworth Press, 2002), 591.
100 Majercik, Chaldean Oracles, 105.
101 Luck, Ancient Pathways, 124.
103 Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles, 240–2. See also Majercik, Chaldean Oracles, 196.
104 Johnston, Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Roles in the Chaldaean Oracles and
Related Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 122–4.
105 Johnston, Hekate Soteira, 122–3.
Chapter 4: Photographing the Divine: Philotheos of Batos
1 St Nikodimos, who compiled the Philokalia in the eighteenth century, writes:

‘It is not clear at what date our holy father Philotheos flourished and died.’ The
Philokalia: The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain
and St. Makarios of Corinth, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and
Kallistos Ware, vol. 3 (London: Faber & Faber, 1984), 15.
2 Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa le verbe “photographier”’, Phasmes:
Essais sur l’Apparition (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1998), 50.
3 See Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa’, 52.
150 Notes
4 Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa’, 52.

5 In this chapter, all of the translations from French into English are my own.
6 The Philokalia, vol. 1,14.
7 The Jesus prayer consists of the following words: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of God,
have mercy on me!’
8 For a detailed discussion of the Barlaam-Palamas debate, see the chapter entitled
‘Gregory Palamas, Theologian of Hesychasm’ in John Meyendorff, St. Gregory
Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality, trans. Adele Fisk (New York: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1974), 75–119.
9 St Gregory of Palamas, Triads II, 3 §7, quoted in Meyendorff, St. Gregory
Palamas, 91.
10 See Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas, 113.
11 St Gregory of Palamas, Triads I, 3 §38, quoted in Meyendorff, St. Gregory
Palamas, 112.
12 Nikiphoros the Monk, ‘On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart’, The
Philokalia, vol. 4, 205–6.
13 Meyendorff, John, ‘Introduction,’ Gregory Palamas: The Triads, ed. John
Meyendorff, trans. Nicholas Gendle (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 8. See also
Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa’, 52.
14 St Gregory of Palamas, ‘Those Who Practise a Life of Stillness’, The Philokalia, vol.
IV, 337.
15 The Philokalia, vol. 4, 65.
16 St Symeon the New Theologian, ‘The Three Methods of Prayer’, The Philokalia,
vol. 4, 72–3.
17 The Philokalia, vol. 4, 193.
18 John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Colin Luibheid and Norman
Russell (London: SPCK, 1982), 262–70. See also Palamas, The Triads, 45.
19 See Chapter 1 for a discussion on Parmenides and his descent into the
underworld.
20 Strabo, quoted in Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (London: Gerald
Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 2001), 82.
21 J. Lemâitre, ‘La contemplation chez les Orientaux chrétiens’, Dictionnaire de
Spiritualité, vol. 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1953), col. 1854.
22 La Philocalie, quoted in J. Lemâitre, ‘La contemplation’, col. 1854.
23 St Philotheos of Sinai, ‘Forty Texts on Watchfulness’, The Philokalia, vol. 3, 25.
24 Philotheus of Sinai, ‘Forty Texts on Sobriety’, Writings from the Philokalia on
Prayer of the Heart, trans. E. Kadlarbovsky and G. E. H. Palmer (London: Faber
& Faber, 1951), 333.
25 Philotheus of Sinai, Writings from the Philokalia, 323.
Notes 151
27 Note that the French verb ‘chasser’ has two meanings, ‘to hunt’ and ‘to chase’.
28 Didi-Huberman, ‘Celui qui inventa’, 53. ‘Chasser’ in French means ‘to shoot’, ‘to
hunt’ and to ‘chase away’. ‘Chasseur d’images’ is a common term which refers
to the photographer who hunts after images. In particular, the figure of Henri
Cartier-Bresson springs to mind, the epitome of the photographer-hunter.
Cartier-Bresson coined the term ‘the decisive moment’ to describe the process
of picture-taking, the instant when form and content become one. He introduced
the notion in his book Images à la Sauvette, translated into English as The Decisive
Moment. However, the French title places a stronger emphasis on the analogy
between photography and hunting; the title literally means ‘images on the run’.
Armed with his Leica camera, Cartier-Bresson personified the photographer as
hunter, always on the lookout for the best photographic moment.
30 Barthes, Camera Lucida, 26–7. The counterpart to the punctum is the studium,
which Barthes explains is the general knowledge obtained when viewing a
photograph, the cultural information that is present in the image, the costume
that the sitter wears, the street where the photograph is taken, and so forth.
31 The ‘blind field’ is that which exists outside of the frame of the photograph.
39 Matthieu Boisvert, ‘A Comparison of the Early Forms of Buddhist and Christian
Monastic Traditions’, Buddhist-Christian Studies 12 (1992): 127.
41 Nikiphoros the Monk, ‘On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart’, The
Philokalia, 4: 194. It is interesting to note that in the French translation, we find
the term photophanie instead of ‘illumination’: ‘Vous tous qui brûlez d’obtenir la
grandiose et divine photophanie de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ … Je vais vous
exposer une science de vie éternelle.’ See Nikiphoros the Monk, quoted in Irénée
Hauscherr, Noms du Christ et Voies d’Oraison, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 157
(1960): 274.
44 Nicethas Stethatos, Un grand mystique byzantin: Syméon le Nouveau Théologien,
trans. Gabriel Horn, Orientalia Christiana, 12.45 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum
Orientalium Studiorum, 1928), 95.
152 Notes

46 St Gregory of Palamas, Triads II, 3 §36, quoted in Meyendorff, St. Gregory
Palamas, 120.
Chapter 5: Marsilio Ficino: Light and Photosensitivity
1 I am indebted to Howard Caygill for his suggestion of photosensitivity.

2 See ‘Introduction’, Three Books on Life, ed. and trans. C. V. Kaske and J. R. Clark
(Tempe: Arizona State University, 1998), 18–19.
3 D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella (London:
Sutton Publishing, 2000), 23–4. According to Walker, Ficino liked to sing while
playing his lyra, which is probably a lira da braccio. See Walker, Spiritual and
Demonic Magic, 19.
4 Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 73.
5 Ficino differs from his predecessors such as Proclus and the Emperor Julian,
who both participated in the cult of the sun, for Ficino takes a step further and
combines solar worship with the maintenance of health and well-being, including
the scholar’s diet and living habits.
6 See Anca Vasiliu, ‘Les limites du diaphane chez Marsile Ficin’, Marsile Ficin: Les
platonismes à la Renaissance, ed. Pierre Magnard (Paris: Librairie Philosophique
J. Vrin, 2001), 105, and Paul Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, trans.
Virginia Conant (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 94–5.
7 See Sallis’s discussion on the imaging properties of the Good in Being and Logos,
405. See also Chapter 1 of this book.
8 Derrida, ‘How to Avoid Speaking: Denials’, Derrida and Negative Theology, 102.
9 See Andrea Rabassini, ‘“Amicus lucio.” Considerazioni sul tema della luce in
Marsilio Ficino’, Marsilio Ficino: Fonti, Testi, Fortuna, ed. Sebastiano Gentile and
Stéphane Toussaint (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2006), 258.
10 Sylvain Matton, ‘En marge du De lumine: Splendeur et mélancolie chez Marsile
Ficin’, Lumière et Cosmos: Courants occultes de la philosophie de la Nature, ed.
Antoine Faivre, Geneviève Javary et al. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981), 35. Matton
writes: ‘En fait, la problématique ficinienne consiste essentiellement à définir la
relation qu’entretient la lumière avec l’expérience intérieure de la vie spirituelle et
contemplative, à analyser cette lumière en tant que voie et agent de la connaissance
et, par suite, de la béatitude.’ (‘In fact the Ficinian problematic consists essentially
of defining the relationship between light and the interior experience of one’s
spiritual and contemplative life, to analyse this light as the path and agent leading
to knowledge and thus to happiness.’) See Matton ‘En marge’, 34. All translation
from French into English is mine.
Notes 153
11 Ficino, ‘An Apologia Dealing with Medicine, Astrology, the Life of the World, and
the Magi Who Greeted the Christ Child at His Birth’, Three Books on Life, 399.
12 All translation in De lumine from French into English is mine. Ficino, De lumine,
trans. Sylvain Matton, Lumière et Cosmos, 58.
13 Ficino, De lumine, 61.
15 See Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, 157.
18 Ficino, Liber de sole, trans. G. Cornelius, D. Costello, G. Tobyn, A. Voss and
V. Wells, Marsilio Ficino, ed. Angela Voss (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books,
2006), 191.
19 Ficino, ‘Orphica Comparatio solis ad Deum. Atque declaratio idearum’, The
Letters of Marsilio Ficino, vol. V (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1994), 44.
20 Ficino, ‘Orphica Comparatio’, 46.
23 Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer; Commentarium in Phedrum, trans.
Michael J. B. Allen, Chapter 11, 124.
28 Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book XIII, Chapter V.
31 Ficino, De lumine, cit. and trans. by Kristeller, Philosophy, 116.
32 See Kristeller, Philosophy, 116.
33 Ficino, De amore, Speech VI, Chapter VI, 115.
34 Ficino, De amore, Speech VI, Chapter VI, 115.
35 See note 45. De amore, 148.
36 De amore, Speech VI, Chapter VI, 115.
37 De amore, Speech VI, Chapter VI, 115.
38 As Walker points out, Ficino regards spirit to be composed of a combination
of light, fire and the quinta essentia of the heavens. See Walker, Spiritual and
Demonic Magic, 8.
39 Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 38–9.
40 In her essay ‘Marsile Ficin et le Commentaire de Pléthon sur les Oracles
Chaldaïques’, Brigitte Tambrun argues that the Ficinian spiritus or vehiculum
does not derive from Porphyry or Proclus but from Iamblichus in De Mysteriis
154 Notes
III.14. See Brigitte Tambrun, ‘Marsile Ficin et le Commentaire de Pléthon sur les
Oracles Chaldaïques’, Accademia: Revue de la Societé Marsile Ficin 1 (1999).
41 Ficino, Commentaria in Platonis Sophistam, Chapter 46 in Michael J. B. Allen,
Icastes: Marsilio Ficino’s Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist: Five Studies and a Critical
Edition with Translation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 270–2.
42 Allen, Icastes, 180.
43 Allen, Icastes, 180.
44 Rabassini, ‘“Amicus lucio”’, 262.
46 De lumine, 59.
47 De lumine, 59.
48 Liber de sole, 191.
49 Kristeller, Philosophy, 255.
50 Anca Vasiliu, ‘Les limites du diaphane chez Marsile Ficin’, Marsile Ficin: Les
Platonismes à la Renaissance (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2001), 108–9.
51 Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘Éloge du diaphane’, Phasmes: Essais sur l’Apparition
(Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1998), 108.
52 David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1976), 7. See also Vasiliu, ‘Les limites’, 111.
53 De lumine, 63.
54 Ficino writes: ‘Ajoute à tout cela que personne ne définit positivement la lumière,
mais que nous disputons toujours de ce qu’elle n’est pas: elle n’est pas la couleur, ni
le diaphane, ni une image des réalités célestes qui serait absolumment une image
car il n’appartient pas à l’image de produire de nouvelles images non plus que la
connaissance imaginative ni encore des substances. Ainsi donc, nous ne connaissons
la lumière, tout comme Dieu, que par des négations et des similitudes.’ (‘What’s
more, no one can concretely define light, but we always fight over what it is not;
it is not colour, nor the diaphanous, nor an image of celestial realities that would
absolutely be an image, for it is not up to the image to produce new images, no
more than imaginative knowledge nor even substances. Thus, we can only know
light, just as the way we can only know God, through negations and similarities.’)
Ficino, De lumine, 67.
57 ‘[E]lle [la lumière] est complètement incorporelle et la cause d’images
semblablement incorporelles; elle n’est enfin soumise à aucune dimension, aucune
division ni aucun mélange. C’est pourquoi il est clair qu’elle ne peut tirer son origine
première d’une masse, d’une forme ou d’une vertu corporelles.’ (‘[I]t [light] is
completely incorporeal and the cause of similarly incorporeal images; it is by no
means subject to any dimension, division or mixture. This is the reason why it is
Notes 155
clear that light cannot derive its primary origin from a corporeal mass, form, or
virtue.’) Ficino, De lumine, 61.
59 ‘C’est la raison pour laquelle il est utile de séparer cette lumière sublunaire
des ténèbres, et cette lumière céleste de la matière, puis de s’élever jusqu’à la
lumière supra-céleste, et de nouveau de la lumière rationnelle jusqu’à la lumière
intellectuelle, de celle-ci jusqu’à la lumière intelligible, de celle-ci, dans la mesure de
nos forces, jusqu’à la lumière divine, de telle sorte que, conduits par la face révélée,
c’est-à-dire par l’esprit du Seigneur, nous nous transformions graduellement, de
clarté en clarté, en la même image.’ (‘For this reason, it is useful to separate that
sublunary light of shadows from that celestial light of matter, then rise to the
supra-celestial light and once again, move from the light of reason to the light
of the intellect. From there onwards, ascend towards the intelligible light, and
from there, to the best of one’s ability, rise all the way to the divine light, in such a
manner that, led by the revealed face, that is, the spirit of the Lord, we gradually
transform ourselves from brightness to brightness, into the same image.’) Ficino,
De lumine, 61.
60 See David C. Lindberg, ‘Laying the Foundations of Geometrical Optics:
Maurolico, Kepler and the Medieval Tradition’, The Discourse of Light from the
Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, David C. Lindbergh and Geoffrey Cantor
(Papers read at Clark Library Seminar, 24 April 1982) (Los Angeles: William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1985), 13–16.
62 Ficino, Liber de sole, 210.
64 See Apologia at the end of De vita. Ficino asserts that he ‘is not approving magic
and images but recounting them in the course of an interpretation of Plotinus’.
He continues: ‘Nor do I affirm here a single word about profane magic which
depends upon the worship of daemons, but I mention natural magic, which, by
natural things, seeks to obtain the services of the celestials for the prosperous
health of our bodies. This power, it seems, must be granted to minds which use it
legitimately, as medicine and agriculture are justly granted, and all the more so as
that activity which joins heavenly things to earthly is more perfect.’ Ficino, Three
Books on Life, 397.
65 See Yates, Giordano Bruno, Walker, Spiritual Magic, Copenhaver, ‘Scholastic
Philosophy’ and Weill-Parot, ‘Pénombre Ficinienne’. The last in particular
discusses the debate between Paola Zambelli and Brian Copenhaver on the
origins of Ficino’s magic. Walker attributes the sections on talismanic magic to
the influence of Plotinus’s Ennead IV and the Asclepius.
66 Walker, Spiritual Magic, 41. Plotinus: ‘I think, therefore, that those ancient sages,
156 Notes
who sought to secure the presence of divine beings by the erection of shrines and
statues, showed insight into the nature of the All; they perceived that, though this
Soul is everywhere tractable, its presence will be secured all the more readily when
an appropriate receptacle is elaborated, a place especially capable of receiving
some portion or phase of it, something reproducing it, or representing it and
serving like a mirror to catch an image of it.’ Plotinus, Ennead IV.3.11, 270 (trans.
Stephen MacKenna, 4th edn, revised by S. Page, London: Faber & Faber, 1969).
67 See Picatrix, Book II, 7.2 (131).
68 Copenhaver, ‘Scholastic Philosophy’, 78 (550).
69 Ficino, De vita, III.18, Three Books on Life, 343.
70 The phrase ‘electae ratione materiae’ which appears in De vita. III is highlighted
by Copenhaver in ‘Scholastic Philosophy’ as well as by Nicolas Weill-Parot in
‘Pénombre Ficinienne’. See Copenhaver ‘Scholastic Philosophy’, 63, and Weill-
Parot ‘Pénombre Ficinienne’, 80–1.
71 Ficino writes: ‘When saffron seeks the heart, dilates the spirit, and provokes
laughter, it is not only the occult power of the Sun, which is doing this in a
wondrous way; but the very nature of saffron – subtle, diffusible, aromatic, and
clear – also conduces to the same end.’ Ficino, De vita III.12, Three Books, 303.
72 Angela Voss, ‘Introduction’, Marsilio Ficino, 42.
73 Ficino, De vita I.20, Three Books, 149.
74 Ficino writes: ‘At least we are used to speaking of light as a trace of universal
light, offering itself to our eyes in a certain proportion; or indeed, as a vital spirit
between the soul of the world and the body – but we have already said enough
about this in the Theologia.’ Ficino, Liber de sole, 191.
75 Ficino, De vita III.14, Three Books, 309.
80 Ficino, De vita. III.16, Three Books, 325.
Coda
1 Here I use the word ‘ἴχνος’ as it appears in the Timaeus (53b). In the Platonic
text, the word is used to describe the elements inside the chora – fire, earth, air
and water. It is interesting to note that the plural form – ‘ἴχνη’ also refers to votive
offerings bearing images of footprints which signify the arrival of the gods. Thus
the notion of divine imprint and impression is contained within this word.
Notes 157
2 These photographed ‘things’ which belong to the sensible realm are enumerated
by Derrida in the essay, recalling the discussion in the Sophist on the
classification of the different types of productions.
3 Derrida, ‘Demeure, Athènes’, 49. Derrida, Athens, Still Remains, 29.
4 Pseudo-Magrîtî, Das Ziel des Weisen, I, Arabischer Text, hrsgb. V. Hellmut Ritter,
Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, XII (Leipzig, 1933), 188, cit. Henry Corbin, Man
of Light, 18. Here is the passage as it appears in Corbin’s text, L’homme de lumière
dans le soufisme iranien (Chambery: Editions Présence, 1971), 36: ‘Lorsque je
voulus mettre au jour la science du mystère et de la modalité de la Création, je
rencontrai une voûte souterraine remplie de ténèbres et de vents. Je n’y voyais rien
à cause de l’obscurité, et ne pouvais y maintenir de lampe à cause de l’impétuosité
des vents. Alors voici que pendant mon sommeil une personne se montra à moi
sous une forme de la plus grande beauté. Elle me dit : Prends une lampe et place-la
dans un verre qui la protège des vents; alors elle t’éclairera malgré eux. Entre ensuite
dans la chambre souterraine; creuse en son centre et extrais de là certaine image
théurgique modelée selon les règles de l’Art. Lorsque tu auras extrait cette Image, les
vents cesseront de parcourir cette chambre souterraine. Creuse alors au quatre coins
de celle-ci: tu mettras au jour la science des mystères de la Création, des causes de la
Nature, des origines et des modalités des choses. Alors je lui dis: Qui donc es-tu? Elle
me répondit: Je suis ta Nature Parfaite. Si tu veux me voir, appelle-moi par mon
nom.’
5 Corbin, Man of Light, 18.
6 ‘Il rêve, il rêve beaucoup, Socrate, il déchiffre ses rêves.’ Derrida, ‘Demeure,
Athènes’, 58.
7 Derrida, ‘Demeure, Athènes’, 51 and 59.
10 Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. Harold North Fowler, vol. 1 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1966).
11 Derrida, ‘Demeure, Athènes’ 50. Derrida, Athens, Still Remains 29.
14 Although the differences suggested by each of the prepositions are minute, it can
be argued that, nonetheless, these variations do create subtle changes in terms
of the meaning of the word dispositif-retard. (This term is translated as ‘delay
mechanism’ in Athens, Still Remains.) Dispositif à retard implies an intention, that
the delaying mechanism is designed as a function of the trigger or shutter-release;
dispositif en retard suggests a trigger which is late and dispositif de retard, a trigger
which falls behind and is delayed.
158 Notes
16 See Sallis, The Verge of Philosophy, 85.

17 Fred Ritchin notes the difference between analogue, which he defines as ‘an
initial static recording of continuous tones to be viewed as a whole’, and digital,
made up of ‘discrete and malleable records of the visible that can and will be
linked, transmitted, recontextualized, and fabricated’. He describes the latter as
‘a meta-image, a map of squares, each capable of being individually modified
and on the screen, able to serve as a pathway elsewhere’. See Fred Ritchen, After
Photography (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2009), 141.
18 This stillness reminds one of the practice of hêsychia during incubation, when
one is required to lie still and silent in the cave. See Kingsley, In the Dark Places
of Wisdom, 181–6. For the significance of the verb hestanai (to stand still) in the
Platonic dialogues, see Michael Allen Williams, The Immovable Race: A Gnostic
Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985),
Chapter 2. Williams refers to Festugière’s reading of the passage in the Symposium
(220c–d), the latter noting the frequent appearance of the word hestanai,
describing it as a technical term. See Williams, The Immovable Race, 92–3 and
Festugière, Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon (Paris: Librairie
Philosophique J. Vrin, 1936), 69–70, note 5.
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Index
abode (ἕδρα) 27, 33, 49, 59, 78 Batchen, Geoffrey 2, 4–5, 48–9, 51, 127
acheiropoietoi 50 n.11, 127–8 n.12, 137 n.17
aetherial vehicle 81, 98, 106–8, 109, 112 Bayard, Hippolyte 2, 137 n.17
see also luminous vehicle beginnings
Allen, Michael J. B. 97, 107, 108 ἀρχή 19–20, 39, 128 n.21
anagōgē of philosophy 18
Chaldaean 69, 72, 145 n.41 of photography 4, 41, 125, 137 n.17
different systems of 64–5, 148 n.80 in Timaeus 8, 11–2, 13, 34–7, 41
lamblichean 8, 59, 67–8 Benjamin, Walter 6, 128 n.15, 137 n.17
light collection 8, 72, 74, 110 see also black light 14–15
photagogia blindness
preparation for 77–8, 92, 95 see also in allegory of the cave 13, 14, 23, 28
under soul, purification of and the Good 28, 83, 125
see also ascent; soul, ascension of; healing of 15
withdrawal, as condition for in Phaedo 24, 25, 83
anagōgē and photography 53
angels risk of 9, 24, 25, 28, 71–2, 80, 102,
manifestations of 78, 80, 85, 145 n.40 118–19
role in theurgic ascent 71–2, 147 n.69 and the sun 3, 23, 24, 31, 69, 84, 102,
solar properties of 22, 109 133 n.61
aperture 14, 25–6, 75, 92, 107, 112–13, see also Good
133 n.64 see also camera brightness
Apollo 15–16, 66, 73, 87, 122, 124, 130 as divine manifestation 14, 72, 77, 80,
n.26, 146 n.51 101, 110
Aristotle 20–1, 99, 109 of first light 101
ascent of the philosopher 14, 33, 42
in Ficino’s work 109, 114 in spells 72, 73
in Platonic cave 11, 17, 21, 23, 27, of sun 3, 14, 23, 31, 69, 83, 98, 124,
30–1 133 n.61
Plotinian 63, 64–5, 67–8 see also light; luminosity
Proclus on 57, 72 Buddhism 28, 68, 134 n.74, 144 n.29, 145
theurgic see anagōgē n.38, 146 n.54, 149 n.99
astral medicine 114, 116, 118–19 see also
talismanic magic camera
Athens 9, 35, 122, 124 as cave 8, 14, 17
atopos (ατοπος) 13, 41 see also chora; Good chamber 16, 51, 113
augeiodēs pneumatos (αύγοειδοῦς and human soul 107, 119
πνεύματος) see luminous vehicle origin of 2
autophanes see image in Rejlander’s work 53–4
technologies of 1, 4, 137–8 n.17
Barthes, Roland 2, 3, 4, 6, 29, 32, 48, 90–1, theurgist as 59, 75, 81
128 n.15, 151 n.30 types of 53, 151 n.28
170 Index
see also aperture; shutter speed; cave, Claude glass 18

allegory of concealment 18–19, 24, 31
camera lens 75, 79, 126, 133 n.64, 139 contemplation 42, 57, 60, 63–4, 68, 72, 78,
n.41 84, 85, 89, 98, 106, 109, 126, 145
camera obscura 2, 5, 112, 129 n.1, 137 n.38
n.17 Copenhaver, Brian P. 115 n.65, 116
camera shutter 75, 125, 133 n.62, 157 n.14 Corbin, Henry 14–15, 123, 157 n.4
see also shutter speed Corinthian maiden, story of the 52–4
Cartier-Bresson, Henri 151 n.28 Cornford, F. M. 12, 13, 39–40, 43, 45, 129
catoptrics 103 n.1, 136 n.11, 137 n.13
cave Corpus Hermeticum 7, 60, 95, 96, 115, 128
allegory of 7, 11–32, 33, 34, 65, 103, n.18
129 n.1, 10
as camera 8, 14, 16, 17 daemons 60, 66, 72, 78–80, 112, 118, 145
divided line and 17–18, 30–1 n.40, 46, 148 n.77, 155 n.64
in divination 74 Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé 2, 5, 50,
in Ghâyat-al-Hakîm 123–4, 157 n.4 54, 137 n.17, 140–1 n.60
in Proclus’s commentary 20–4 daguerreotype 2, 3, 18, 31, 54, 125, 133
as site of incubation 15, 87–8, 123–4, n.64
158 n.18 darkness 33, 72, 123
celestial forces 105, 114, 115, 117 in cave allegory 12–13, 14, 17, 23, 30,
Chaldaean Oracles 60, 62–3, 68–9, 71, 72, 31, 65, 77
80, 95, 144 n.30, 144 n.31, 37, 145 incubation 15
n.40, 148 n.85 light and 8, 16, 87, 108
chalepon (χαλεπόν) 1, 6, 8, 11–12, 27–8, in Sufi mysticism 14
34, 40–1, 43, 48, 128 n.14, 134 n.73 darkroom, photographic 8, 31, 79
chora (χώρα) death
as abode 27, 33, 59, 143 n.11 memory of 91
action of withdrawal and reception in of Socrates 122–3, 124
49, 59, 76, 77, 143 n.9 see also encaustic painting
dreamlike state of 26, 42, 44–5 Demiurge 39–40, 43, 44, 45, 97, 135–6
formlessness of 27, 42, 43, 46, 49, 52, n.4, 137 n.13, 144 n.37
77 Derrida, Jacques 7, 9, 25–6, 27, 28, 33, 43,
movement of impression and erasure 44, 45, 46, 51–2, 53, 99, 121, 122,
in 37, 38, 44, 51, 77 124–5, 127 n.11, 133–4 n.70, 135
photography and 7–8, 9, 27, 46, 47–8, n.78, 135–6 n.4, 136 n.5, 138 n.21,
49, 51, 52, 81 26, 139 n.40, 139–40 n.43, 141 n.65,
as receptacle see receptacle, chora as 66, 72, 157 n.2
in Republic 11, 27, 33, 83 development, film 8, 16, 50, 79
terminology of 33–4, 42, 59, 135 n.2, dianoia 17, 18, 19, 30
140 n.56, 143 n.10 diaphanis 107, 109–11, 154 n.54
as triton genos 26, 33–4, 40, 41–3, 51, Didi-Huberman, Georges 14, 83–4, 89,
77, 81 91, 92, 130 n.16
see also chalepon; chorein; Plato, divination
Timaeus; third kind in Greek Magical Papyri 73, 104–5,
chorein (χωρεîν) 8, 52, 59, 70, 74, 77–8, 147 n.73
92, 129 n.23, 143 n.10, 149 n.87 role of liver in 44
Clarke, Emma C. 60–1, 68–9, 79–80, 147 in theurgy 60, 62, 68, 70, 71, 74, 101,
n.69 142 n.4, 148 n.77
Index 171
divine union in talismanic magic 119

Ficino on 109 see also overexposure
Proclus on 146–7 n.58
as theosis 9, 85, 89, 93 Festugière, A. J. 97, 158 n.18
in theurgy 60–1, 62, 63–5, 66–7, 68, Ficino, Marsilio 9, 11, 60, 75, 81, 95,
69, 76, 78, 83 see also henōsis 105–6, 131 n.45, 132 n.51, 152 n.3,
Dobrotolubiye 89 see also Philokalia 5, 10, 153 n.38, 153–4 n.40, 154
Dodds, E. R. 60–1, 73 n.54, 155 n.64, 65, 156 n.71, 74
doubling 8, 11, 24–5, 27–8, 40, 134 n.74 De amore 11, 95, 105–6
doxa (δόξα) 17, 19, 39, 137 n.12 De lumine 98–101, 103–4, 105,
dream 7, 9, 23–4, 26, 125 107–13, 119, 154 n.54, 155 n.59
of the chora 34, 42, 44–5 Liber de sole 98, 101, 108, 113–14, 117,
daydream 11 119–20, 156 n.74
dream-vision (enupnion) 124 Phaedrus commentary 102
in Greek Magical Papyri 73 Quid sit lumen 98, 101–2, 109, 110,
images 16–17 112
in incubation ritual 15, 123–4 Sophist commentary 95, 107–8, 110
of photography 6, 123–4, 126 Theologia Platonica 95, 97, 104, 156
dunamis 70 see also light, dynamic n.74
properties of; photagogia De vita libri tres 96, 97, 99, 101, 106,
110, 111, 113–19, 155 n.64, 156
eidos (είδος) 18, 26, 28, 29, 39, 44, 45, 79, n.70, 71
135 n.78 Frizot, Michel 1, 133 n.64
eikasia 17, 19, 24–5, 30, 31–2 film (photographic) 1, 16, 50, 55, 137–8
ekmageion (ἐκμαγεῖον) 27, 37, 49–50 n.17
ekstasis 59, 61, 68–9, 75, 78, 81 fire 72, 92, 106–7, 153 n.38
Elkins, James 2, 48 in allegory of the cave 12–13, 21, 26,
emptiness 43, 110, 125, 134 n.74 see also 30
sūnyatā chora and 43, 48, 121
encaustic painting 36–8 intelligible 57, 62, 68, 69, 72
epiphanies 64, 66, 71, 80, 145 n.40 see also Pliny on 37, 42
anagōgē; angels, manifestations of; in stars 21, 132 n.48
image, in autophanes talismanic magic and 116, 118, 119
episteme 17, 18, 24–5, 30, 121 in theurgic ascent 57, 72, 80, 146–7
epitēdeiotēs (ἐπιτηδειότης) 76–7, 95, 101, n.58
112, 149 n.87 see also soul, fitness in Timaeus 40, 43, 48, 121, 156 n.1
of fulguration 71 see also light, flashing of
erasure
and chora 44, 77 generosity 1, 27, 29, 38–9, 49, 64
in divine union 14, 125–6 Gernsheim, Helmut 1, 2, 137–8 n.17
and inscription (dual movement of) Ghâyat Al-Hakîm see Picatrix
49–50 glass 107, 109, 111, 123 see also diaphanis
and Socrates 51–2, 141 n.66 gold 27, 37, 42, 46, 80, 117
Eunapius 57–8, 146 n.51 Good, the 7, 8, 18–20, 24–8, 83, 123, 125,
exposure (of light) 134 n.74
and aetherial vehicle 107–8 chora and 26, 33–4
and the divine 90 doubling of 11–12
in photographic process 8, 16, 53, Ficino on 98–9, 102, 108
137–8 n.17 generosity of 29, 38–9
172 Index
image-making properties of 8, 28–9, miraculous 50, 140 n.58 see also

152 n.7 acheiropoietoi
place of 13, 34 in negative theology 28
Proclus on 21–3, 132 n.48 in Phaedo 31–2
sun and 21–2, 26, 29, 83 photographic 1, 2, 3, 4, 14, 16, 18, 31,
in theurgy 62, 67, 144 n.37 32, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 90, 124,
Greek Magical Papyri 70, 72–3, 104–5, 133 n.64, 137–8 n.17, 141 n.61, 151
148 n.74 n.28, 30, 158 n.17
Gregory of Palamas, Saint 84–5, 86, 92–3, in portraiture 32, 37, 54–5 see also
150 n.8 Corinthian maiden, story of the
solar 133 n.61, 64
heat 9, 71–2, 80, 84, 98, 101, 103, 105, spirit and 106, 107–8
113, 147 n.69 talismans (imagines) 115, 116, 119,
Hekate 71, 80 155–6 n.66 see also talismanic
heliograph 2, 137–8 n.17, 140–1 n.60 magic
heliotrope 22, 91–2, 118, 126 see also phantasmata
henōsis (ἕνωσις) 62, 64, 68, 83, 112, 126 incubation 15, 87–8, 123–4, 158 n.18
see also divine union, theurgy ineffable, the 28, 62, 66, 69, 71, 105, 108,
Hesychasm 83, 84, 86 121, 128 n.18, 134 n.74
hêsychia 15, 84, 87–8, 158 n.18 intelligible, the 17, 19, 25–6, 30, 40
homoiōsis theō 7, 61, 62, 112 in Chaldaean Oracles 65, 76
humours 81, 106, 117 distinct from the sensible 18, 39, 42,
hupodochê (ὑποδοχή) see receptacle 43, 100
chora and 27, 43, 46, 138 n.21
Iamblichus 7, 8–9, 57–81, 92, 95, 99, 101, fire of 62, 68
104, 106, 109–10, 112, 115, 125, first principle of 64
142 n.4, 143 n.12, 17, 144 n.34, 35, Good and 21–2, 28, 29, 108
144 n.37, 145 n.40, 46, 146 n.51, human soul and 63, 64 see also soul,
52, 146–7 n.58, 147 n.69, 148 n.77, embodiment of
153–4 n.40 light of 85, 100, 102, 112, 120, 155 n.59
image 20–1, 121, 124, 130 n.28, 141 n.66, stars as copies of 21, 132 n.48
156 n.1
in autophanes 73–5, 78–80, 148 n.81 John Climacus, Saint 87, 88
in cave allegory 8, 11, 12, 13–14, Johnston, Sarah L. 74–5, 80, 142 n.7, 148
16–17, 18, 26, 30–1, 83, 129 n.10, n.77
130 n.12 Julian, Emperor 60, 152 n.5
of the chora 8, 43, 45, 51–2
of the divine 9, 50, 85, 89, 92, 110, kenosis 59, 78, 92 see also chorein
114, 123, 125, 140 n.58, 148 n.81, Kingsley, Peter 15–16, 130 n.26, 158 n.18
157 n.4 Kristeller, Paul Oskar 96, 108–9
dream 16–17, 45, 123–4
of the Good 8, 18, 20, 24–6, 28–9, lamp ritual 73, 104–5, 123, 147–8 n.73,
98–9, 123 148 n.74, 77, 157 n.4
Hesychasm and 89–90, 92, 130 n.16 Lavater, John Caspar 55
the ineffable and 14, 28, 125 Lewy, Hans 65, 69, 80, 144 n.31, 145 n.41
light and 98–9, 101, 102, 104, 110, 111, light
154 n.54, 154–5 n.57, 155 n.59 in cave allegory 7, 8, 12–13, 14, 16, 20,
in line simile 17–20, 30–1 21, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 129 n.1, 132
magic and 58, 155 n.64 n.48
Index 173
collection of 8, 74, 88–9, 92, 95, 101, corrupting influence of 60

109, 110, 114 see also photagogia in Ficino’s work 95, 96–7, 99, 103, 155
divine 7, 9, 52, 58–9, 61, 64–5, 68, n.64 see also talismanic magic
69–70, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 85, 90, as goētia 65, 70, 79–80
91–2, 93, 95, 98, 99–100, 101, 104, photography and 4, 5, 6, 53, 128 n.15
108, 109, 110, 112, 132 n.55, 146–7 Proclus on 20–1, 131 n.45
n.58, 155 n.59 see also Greek Magical Papyri; spells
downward movement of 9, 59, 68, 77, Majercik, Ruth 65, 145 n.40, 43
81, 90, 95, 109, 111, 114, 119, 125, Mandylion of Edyssa see acheiropoietoi
126 Matton, Sylvain 99, 152 n.10
dynamic characteristics of 72, 101, memory 35, 36–7, 38–40, 50–1, 106,
103–5, 106, 111 124–5, 136 n.5
first light see lux of death 91
flashes of 8, 59, 69, 71, 75, 76, 77, of God 86, 89
80, 81, 104, 122, 125 see also ‘mirror of memory’ 53
fulguration punctum and 90–1
friend of (amico lucis) 99 mirror 11, 22, 79, 88–9, 112, 148 n.86,
of the Good 7, 21, 22, 25, 102, 108, 156 n.66
132 n.48, chora as 43
hidden and visible 99, 100, 102, concave 54, 103, 118–19
111–12 in divination ritual 44, 73, 148 n.77
incorporeal nature of 105, 108, 111, indicator of light dynamism 103–4,
154 n.54 111
in invocation and spells 68, 72–3, 80, inside camera 53
104–5, 123 see also Greek Magical as metaphor of photography 53, 55
Papyri; lamp ritual; spells in Republic 17–18, 20–1
as mediator 99, 102, 105–6, 128 n.18 spiritus and 106–7
occult properties of 103 in Timaeus 43–4, 49
physical properties of 98, 99–100, 101, Mount Sinai 9, 83, 84, 87, 132 n.55
103–4, 105, 113 mysticism 5, 6, 7, 84–5, 97, 121
primordial 7, 99, 100, 101–2, 120
speed of 103–4, 105 napkin 43–4, 49–50 see also ekmageion
stars and 21, 22, 103, 105 negative (film) 8, 14, 16, 31, 55, 79
as third kind 7, 33–4, 52, 99 First Negative, The 53–4
see also anagōgē; black light; diaphanis; negative theology 28, 110, 134 n.74
exposure (of light); Good; Neoplatonism 5, 7, 8, 58, 59–60, 61, 62,
overexposure; photagogia; spiritus; 65, 68, 76, 95, 96, 106, 121, 125,
sun 143 n.17
line, divided 8, 11, 17–20, 30–2, 39, 130 nepsis 84, 88
n.27 Niépce, Nicéphore 2, 5, 50, 137–8 n.17,
Luck, Georg 70, 80, 143 n.8, 144 n.30 140–1 n.60
luminosity 23, 71, 78, 80, 101, 110, 113 Nikiphoros the Monk, Saint 86, 87, 92,
luminous vehicle 74–5, 78, 87, 106–7, 110, 151 n.41
112, 148 n.81 noesis 18, 28, 30, 130 n.27
lux 101–2
as distinct from lumen 100–1 occult 44, 60
see also light, primordial Ficino on 96, 103, 156 n.71
ochēma 74, 106 see also aetherial vehicle;
magic 7, 15, 58, 59–60, 68, 72–3, 75 luminous vehicle
174 Index
overexposure Pliny the Elder 37, 42, 52

in divine union 9, 92, 110, 123, 125–6 Plotinus 60, 63, 64, 65, 67–8, 69, 95, 97,
in photographic process 14, 25 99, 115, 128 n.18, 143 n.17, 144
n.35, 145 n.38, 155 n.64, 65, 155–6
Parmenides 7, 15, 87–8, 128 n.18 n.66
phantasmata (φαντάσματα) 8, 73–4, 103, Porphyry 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67–8,
121 69, 79, 95, 143 n.12, 153–4 n.40
Philokalia, The 83, 84, 87, 88–9, 149 n.1 prayer 126
Philotheos of Batos, Saint 9, 69, 83–4, defined by Proclus 22, 146–7 n.58
88–92, 123, 125, 132 n.55, 149 n.1 in Gnosticism 68
Phôlarchos 15, 87 in Hesychasm 84, 86–7, 89, 91, 150 n.7
phôs 13, 121, 123 Iamblichean feat 57
photagogia (φωταγωγία) 6–9, 83, 90, 92, in incubation 15
95, 111, 125, levels of 68–9, 146–7 n.58
definition of 58, 142 n.7 spiritus and 117
energy in 70, 104 in theurgy 61, 67, 68–9, 77
luminous vehicle and 74, 109–10 Price, Mary 3, 6, 47, 48
modes of light collection 67, 75, 112 Proclus 58, 91–2, 131 n.42, 152 n.5, 153–4
role in anagōgē 62, 64, 74, 68, 72 n.40
in theurgy 58–9, 67, 72, 81, 143 n.8 on the Chaldaean Oracles 57, 72
transfigurations of 125 On the Priestly Art According to the
photosensitivity 9, 75, 81, 95, 97, 102, 106, Greeks 22–3, 132 n.51
109, 113–14, 116–19 on the Republic 20–4, 75, 131 n.45, 132
physiognomy 55 n.48, 50
physionotrace 54–5 on the Timaeus 23, 60, 146–7 n.58
Picatrix 95, 115, 123 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 99, 128
pistis 17, 18–20, 31 n.18
Plato 6, 7, 62, 63, 69, 76, 77, 81, 97, 98–9, Pythagoras 15, 87, 143 n.12
102, 108, 121, 122, 128 n.18, 21,
129 n.1, 10, 130 n.28, 131 n.42, 48, receptacle (hupodochê) 49, 51–2, 125,
134 n.74, 135 n.2, 143 n.12, 144 135–6 n.4, 141 n.66, 155–6 n.66
n.31 chora as 41–2, 43–4, 46, 48, 51, 52, 76,
Phaedo 24–5, 31–2, 31–2, 83, 122–3, 77, 139 n.40, 140 n.56
124, 145 n.41 theurgist as 52, 63–4, 76–8
Republic 7, 8, 11–32, 33–4, 39, 45, 52, Rejlander, Oscar Gustave 53–4
65, 69, 75, 77, 83, 98–9, 103, 108,
126, 129 n.1, 10, 130 n.12, 131 n.42, Sallis, John 6, 8, 11, 18–20, 24–5, 27–9,
133 n.67, 133–4 n.70, 145 n.41 30, 39, 40–1, 45, 48, 128 n.14, 21,
Seventh Letter 62 133 n.61, 67, 135 n.2, 136 n.11, 137
Sophist 13–14, 16–17, 33, 73–4, 107, n.12, 143 n.9, 11, 152 n.7
130 n.28, 157 n.2 Scruton, Roger 46–7, 139 n.41
Symposium 105, 126, 158 n.18 sensible, the see intelligible, distinct from
Timaeus 8, 11–12, 13, 23, 26, 27–8, sensible
33–52, 59, 60, 76, 77, 78, 97, 102, shadows 8, 16, 131–2 n.46
121, 128 n.14, 131 n.42, 133–4 in autophanes 79
n.70, 135 n.2, 135–6 n.4, 136 n.5, Ficino on 11, 100, 107–8, 111–12, 155
11, 137 n.13, 139 n.40, 140 n.56, n.59
143 n.10, 146–7 n.58, 156 n.1 in Platonic cave 12–13, 14, 23–4, 30–1,
Platonism 27, 61, 95, 97, 144 n.31 129 n.1
Index 175
in portraiture 54–5, 142 n.76 steganography 116–17

Proclus on 20–1, 131 n.45 stillness 84, 87–8, 89, 91, 126, 158 n.18 see
simile of the line and 17, 31–2 also hêsychia
tracing of 52–4 see also Corinthian Sufi mysticism 14–15
maiden, story of the; skiagraphy sun 37, 122, 124, 126, 133 n.61
Shaw, Gregory 52, 59, 61, 74, 76, 77–8, in cave allegory 7, 12, 13, 14, 16–17,
129 n.23, 143 n.10, 144 n.35, 37, 23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 65, 69, 83, 98,
149 n.87 132 n.48, 133–4 n.70
shutter speed 25, 28, 133 n.64, 157 n.14 chora and 33, 42
see also camera shutter; time, in Ficino on 9, 11, 96, 97, 98–100, 102,
photography 103, 105, 109, 112, 113–20, 152
simulacra 8, 21, 37, 51–2, 55 n.5, 156 n.71 see also Ficino, De
skiagraphy 54, 79 see also under shadows, lumine, Liber de sole, Phaedrus
tracing of commentary; talismanic magic
soul 14, 22, 24, 43, 62, 69, 88, 89, 123, Good and 7, 8, 21–2, 26, 28–9, 33,
131–2 n.46, 135–6 n.4 98–9
aetherial vehicle and interaction with midnight 15 see also Apollo;
107–8 Parmenides; Sufi mysticism
appearing in epiphanies 78–9, 80, 145 photography and 3, 7, 9, 16, 133 n.64
n.40 place of 11, 13, 14, 24, 27, 31, 33, 42,
ascension of 8–9, 19, 26, 57, 59, 62, 65, 83, 126, 133–4 n.70
64–5, 69, 72, 74, 78, 92, 109, 113, Philotheos and 84, 90, 91, 92, 132 n.55
146–7 n.58 see also anagōgē Proclus on 21–3, 91–2, 132 n.48
of the deceased 80 solar daemons 118
divine 50, 104, 155–6 n.66 solar eclipse 24, 25, 28, 83, 133 n.64
divine illumination of 85, 90, 123 solar food 9, 113, 117, 156 n.71
embodiment of 61, 63, 74, 113, 144 solar objects 9, 22, 81, 118
n.35, 37 solar regime 75, 81, 113–19
eye of 74, 76, 106 in theurgy 65, 70, 71, 101, 148 n.77
in Ficino’s work 96, 97, 99 visible and hidden 102, 119–20
fitness of 76–7, 95 see also epitēdeiotēs see also blindness; brightness;
in Hesychast prayer 86–7 photosensitivity
photagogia and 62, 68, 73, 74, 81, 90, sūnyatā 125, 134 n.74
92, 110 sustasis (σύστασις) 71
photosensitivity and 109, 112, 113, definition of 69, 145 n.44
117, 119 Symeon the New Theologian, Saint 86–7,
purification of 52, 59, 66, 67, 68, 76, 92 88, 92
salvation for 63–7 sympatheia 22–3, 74, 76, 118
spiritus and 105–6 Synesius of Cyrene 95, 115
as triple demon 107
vehicle of see aetherial vehicle; Tagg, John 3–4, 6, 47–8, 140 n.50
luminous vehicle; ochēma Talbot, William Henry Fox 2, 5, 31, 54,
as vessel 76, 77, 81 see also receptacle 137–8 n.17
withdrawal of 77–8, 92 see also chorein talismanic magic 96, 97, 103, 110, 114–19,
of the world 40, 114, 156 n.74 155 n.65 see also Ficino, De vita
see also kenosis libri tres; image, talismans
spells 72–3, 104–5, 131 n.45, 147–8 n.73, technê 17, 121
148 n.74 see also Greek Magical theosis 85, 89, 93 see also homoiōsis theō
Papyri; lamp ritual therapeia 9, 81, 95, 109
176 Index
theurgist 8–9, 52, 59, 143 n.17, 148 n.85 as drawing 52–3 see also physionotrace
in anagōgē 65, 71–2, 74, 77–8, 145 ἴχνη in the chora 48, 77, 121, 156 n.1
n.46, 147 n.69 transparency
as camera 75 light and 101, 102, 109–10 see also
definition of the term theourgos 62–3 diaphanis
preparation for ekstasis 61, 62, 66, 68, of luminous vehicle 98, 110
74, 76–7, 92, 101, 112 of the photograph 47, 48
as receptacle 76–8 triton genos 7, 26, 27–8, 33–4, 40–5, 49,
transformation of body 61, 63–4, 68, 51–2, 77–8, 81, 99
74–5, 78, 81 truth 8, 11, 13–14, 18, 23, 24–6, 27–8, 29,
the two Julians 62–3 31, 58, 60, 62, 66, 69, 77, 79, 91, 98,
use of god-invoking techniques 72–4 99, 102, 142 n.81
see also chorein; epitēdeiotēs;
photagogia; sustasis Veronica’s veil, legend of 49–50, 140 n.58
theurgy 6, 8, 9, 52, 58, 59, 60, 64, 77–8, see also acheiropoietoi
81, 109, 131 n.42, 142 n.4, 143 n.8,
144 n.31, 145 n.46, 149 n.99 Walker, D. P. 96, 97, 106, 115, 152 n.3, 153
difference between Iamblichean and n.38, 155 n.65
Chaldaean 65, 74, 145 n.40, 148 watchfulness 88, 92 see also nepsis
n.80 water 11, 13, 16, 17, 20, 24, 37, 40, 43, 58,
as distinct from magic (goētia) 58, 70 71, 73–4, 79, 104, 121, 148 n.77,
influence of Chaldaean on 156 n.1
Iamblichean 68–9 wax 27, 36, 37, 44, 49, 50–1, 92 see also
salvific potential of 61–2, 63, 66, 78, encaustic painting
79–80 see also soul, salvation for withdrawal 24, 48, 141 n.72
see also anagōgē; theurgist of chora 8, 59, 143 n.9
third kind see triton genos as condition for anagōgē 59, 68, 77–8,
time 34, 40, 44, 45 92
in photography 90–1 see also shutter in Hesychast prayer 86–7
speed and the sun 11, 24, 25, 133 n.61
trace 25–6, 156 n.74 see also chorein
concept of (in photography) 4, 6, 121, wonderment 6–7, 125
141 n.61

A History of Light - The Idea of - Junko Theresa Mikuriya

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The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic, Monique Roelofs

Junko Theresa Mikuriya

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

First published 2017

© Junko Theresa Mikuriya, 2017

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: HB: 9781474254175

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Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Photography is difficult (chalepon). Elusive both theoretically and materially,

In those early years of photography, following François Arago’s decla-

Looking at photography uniquely through the perspective of technological

As we have seen so far, it seems that photographic theory is unable to divorce

the assumption of it being nothing more than a technological system of visual

Plato’s Allegorical Camera-cave

The light of the sun in water is a kind of shadow.

The writing of this chapter can be described as chalepon – difficult, troublesome

On the walls of the caves are shadows

In the nether regions, what we ‘rationally’ perceive as antithetical elements

belonging to something else on a bright and smooth surface and produces a

You will no longer be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my

beginning, which is not itself an image of something else’.41 At this ultimate

In his commentary on the Republic, Proclus, the fifth-century Neoplatonist

if a menstruating woman looks at herself in the mirror, her reflected image

In this ‘essential community between visible and invisible beings’,53 a bond

(σύµβολον) or sunthema (σύνϑηµα) of the higher one.54 As Proclus states in his

In Chapter 3, we will see how the philosopher-priest draws upon these

For Sallis, the Good operates as an image-maker. Writing of its self-propagatory

implications of this, we can see that there is something inherently photographic

Socrates the photographer

Plato’s Chora and the Uneasy

Used in portraiture, sculpture and architectural decorations such as ceilings and

in passports) to an individual’s tombstone following their death. The encaustic

jealousy of anything’ (29e). Linking Timaeus’s opening words, ‘Good he was

as difficult, dangerous and troublesome, appears frequently throughout the text.

alien mother and an Athenian father.30 ‘Νόθῳς’ also points to inauthenticity,

Epekeina tes ousias

The description of chora above can easily apply to photography. By considering

Tagg and Price’s respective views of photography are symptomatic of a wider

Theorizing photography is often reduced to identifying a set of relations

I want to suggest that photography shares the same tropes of ekmageoin

of both erasing and imprinting reminds us of the legend of Veronica’s veil, a

and politicians to whom he addresses himself while effacing himself before

be a pencil or a charcoal stick. It is surprising that the theme of drawing in this

Note the choice of words in the above statement, as if foreshadowing the

Iamblichus’s Receptacle of Light

Eunapius recounts several miraculous events that bear testimony to Iamblichus’s

The De Mysteriis is generally attributed to Iamblichus. In the text, Iamblichus

against the overzealous efforts in recent studies to reinstitute Iamblichus’s

prevails.’27 Recognizing the transformative power of theurgy, the enactment of

Salvation for the soul

Underlying Iamblichus’s advocacy of theurgy (θεουργία) is his concept of the

Contrary to Plotinus’s introspective mode, anagōgē for both the Chaldaeans

It is theurgy and not philosophy that provides the path to salvation.

Although Iamblichus does not provide us with a step-by-step guide to theurgic

passage also reflects the influence of the Chaldaean Oracles on Iamblichus’s

Iamblichus does not make a distinction between the continuous exposure to

The unbounded energy of light manifested by the gods is also mentioned in

The god-conjuring spell may sometimes produce darkness. To protect the

– these phantasmata (φαντάσµατα) appearing on reflective surfaces are not true