Caustic Ramblings

I might note that there is a pretty big theological break between Plotinus and Porphyry (who saw the use of magic as an impediment to spiritual progress), and Iamblichus and basically everyone after him (who used theurgy as a matter of course). Indeed, some scholars consider the worldviews espoused by these two groups to be wholly different: I think it was Dodds that makes the point somewhere that Plato is the ultimate authority for the former two, while the Chaldean Oracles have taken that place for the later Neoplatonists.

So if one is themselves practicing banishing rituals and so on, one might reasonably favor a different model of the universe!