>>11860932It's based on the Neo-Platonic idea that forms inhere in different parts of material nature, and if you gather them together the power of their forms combine to help you as a type of sympathetic magic or manipulation of demi-gods (theurgy).
As a made up example, say the form of majesty inheres in the Sun, lions, diamonds, and marble. If you were to go the zoo at midday, pull out marble and diamonds from your pocket, and sing a hymn to Sol Invictus in front of the lion enclosure, then all the power of the forms of majesty inhering in those material things would combine and come to inhere in you, and you would become more majestic by a manipulated bequest or transfer of qualities. The demi-god of majesties would be manipulated by the potency of his symbols being gathered together and become present in and around you, transferring to you.
Iamblichus' On the Mysteries is the primary source for the philosophy of Platonic magic and theurgy. It was revived in the West by Marsilio Ficino during the Renaissance in his work Platonic Theology, available in translation from the I Tatti Renaissance Library by Loeb. Almost all New Age stuff we see today is a continuation of the ideas of magic in Renaissance Platonism that got left behind by modernity but remained bubbling under the respectable surface. In turn they were a revival of the Neo-Platonism in Late Antiquity of Egypt and Syria.
