Patrick Dunn

“I will sing of Night, the mother of gods
and of humans. Nyx, the source of all things,
whom we may also call Kypris, hear me,
blessed goddess shining in the dark sky,
filled with bright stars, rejoicing in silent
nights of sleeping peace; mirthful and happy,
you love all-night vigils, mother of dreams.
You banish care, gently push away pains;
giver of sleep, friend to all, night shining
you lead your horses forth, and half the time,
you wander the earth; and then, the heavens, wheeling about in your air-haunting hunt.
You send forth light into the depths, then flee
to Hades; for dreadful necessity
governs all. Now I call on you, happy,
much beloved, hearing my supplicating voice,
kindly come, and drive back the fears of night.”
― Patrick Dunn, The Orphic Hymns

“The Renaissance, one of the high points of practical theurgy, had such a well-developed Neoplatonic view of the world that it was almost an assumption about reality, as obvious to the thinkers of that time as gravity is to us. Of course, there’s a danger in that, too: what is obvious is what goes unquestioned, and what goes unquestioned is what is often misunderstood. Hence when the scientific revolution started, many thinkers regarded the empirical method as a refutation of Platonism. It was not really such a refutation, not if one understands the philosophies behind those movements. But the cursory and unquestioned assumption of Platonism fell before the new vivid empiricism. Empiricism, in destroying Platonism, destroyed a straw man—but few realized that something beyond that straw man existed. Only a few thinkers, mostly poets like William Blake and (to the great discomfort of many contemporary historians of science) Isaac Newton, recognized that a real, vibrant, and living Platonism lived behind the unquestioned assumptions. Sadly, it was too little to preserve the tradition, and instead of the new empirical science offering its insights alongside the mystical and practical theurgy of Platonism, we abandoned one and embraced the other.”
― Patrick Dunn, The Practical Art of Divine Magic: Contemporary & Ancient Techniques of Theurgy