Theon of Smyrna, in Mathematica, also divides the mystic rites into five parts:
The first of which is the previous purification; for neither are the Mysteries communicated to all who are willing to receive them; but there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of the crier ... since it is necessary that such as are not expelled from the Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications: but after purification the reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is denominated epopteia or reception. And the fourth, which is the end and design of the revelation, is (the investiture) the binding of the head and fixing of the crowns[523] ... whether after this he [the initiated person] becomes a torchbearer, or an hierophant of the Mysteries, or sustains some other part of the sacerdotal office. But the fifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior communion with God. And this was the last and most awful of all the Mysteries.[524]
The chief objects of the Mysteries, represented as diabolical by the [pg 283] Christian Fathers and ridiculed by modern writers, were instituted with the highest and the most moral purpose in view. There is no need to repeat here that which has been already described in Isis Unveiled[525] that whether through temple Initiation or the private study of Theurgy, every student obtained the proof of the immortality of his Spirit, and the survival of his Soul. What the last epopteia was is alluded to by Plato in Phædrus:
Being initiated in those Mysteries, which it is lawful to call the most blessed of all mysteries ... we were freed from the molestations of evils, which otherwise await us in a future period of time. Likewise in consequence of this divine initiation, we became spectators of entire, simple, immoveable, and blessed visions, resident in a pure light.[526]
This veiled confession shows that the Initiates enjoyed Theophany—saw visions of Gods and of real immortal Spirits. As Taylor correctly infers:
The most sublime part of the epopteia or final revealing, consisted in beholding the Gods [the high Planetary Spirits] themselves, invested with a resplendent light.[527]
The statement of Proclus upon the subject is unequivocal:
In all the Initiations and Mysteries, the Gods exhibit many forms of themselves, and appear in a variety of shapes; and sometimes indeed a formless light of themselves is held forth to the view; sometimes this light is according to a human formand sometimes it proceeds into a different shape.[528]
Again we have
Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something that is in the sphere, while that resplendent thing [the prototype of the Soul-Spirit] remaineth in unchangeable condition, it is well also with its shadow. When that resplendent one removeth far from its shadow life removeth [from the latter] to a distance. Again that light is the shadow of something more resplendent than itself.[529]