JUST as Transhumanism’s claim to improve or supplement human existence ultimately spells death for authentic individuality, so too does attempting to escape mortality help to forego our true path to immortality. We see this in Neoplatonism, for example, when Iamblichus of Syria (240-325) portrays the human soul as

“a mean (mese), not only between the divided and the undivided, the remaining and the proceeding, the noetic and the irrational, but also between the ungenerated and the generated. […] Thus, that which is immortal in the soul is filled completely with mortality and no longer remains only immortal.”

Iamblichus suggests that by using theurgy to co-operate with the Demiurge, which acts as the intermediary between the One and the natural world, it is possible for the Divine to flow into the human body and, by doing so, become mortal. This might sound like an exercise in spiritual self-destruction, but it opens up the path towards immortality in the way that Christians believe that kenosis allows the Saviour to empty Himself of divinity in order to take on the human form. Christ offers a way to eternal life for the Christian, whilst Iamblichus presents a similar paradox at the heart of Neoplatonism. As Gregory Shaw explains:

“The Iamblichean soul is a coincidentia oppositorum; becoming incarnate changes not merely its activities but its very essence: our unity becomes divided, our immortality mortal, and our identity a form of self-alienation.”

By helping to facilitate a correspondence between the unity of the Absolute and the multiplicity it assumes within the earthly sphere, even if it involves exposure to weakness and division, the individual is provided with an opportunity to gain access to the universal principle of immortality.

Striving to postpone or overcome one’s eventual demise through artificial means, therefore, is to actively reject the cosmogenesis that lurks within each human soul. The beauty of theurgical engagement, as Iamblichus explains, is that it allows us to remain human and divine at the same time:

“The whole of theurgy presents a double aspect. One is that it is conducted by men, which preserves our natural rank in the universe; the other is that, being empowered by divine symbols, it is raised up through them to be united with the gods and is led harmoniously into their order. This can rightly be called taking the shape of the gods.”