Theophany — the self-disclosure of the divine in perceptible form — occupies a decisive position in the depth-psychology corpus, though the term is claimed most systematically by Henry Corbin in his exposition of Ibn ʿArabī's Sufi metaphysics. For Corbin, theophany (tajallī) is not a marginal religious phenomenon but the very structure of creation itself: the cosmos arises as the divine imaginative power revealing itself to itself through particular forms, and every act of the Active Imagination in the gnostic recapitulates this theophanic movement. The highest instance is prayer, which Corbin calls 'theophanic prayer' precisely because it does not petition an exterior deity but enacts a creative encounter between the worshiper's divine Alter Ego and the God who knows Himself only through that encounter. Crucially, every theophany is for Corbin also an angelophany — the divine does not appear naked but in the 'Form of God,' which is simultaneously the form of His Angels. Jane Harrison deploys the term in a wholly different register, mapping it as the ritual climax of Greek tragedy and Eniautos-drama, where the epiphany of a god or the resurrection of a Year-Daimon closes the dramatic sequence. These two orientations — mystical-ontological and ritual-structural — define the principal tension within the corpus, while Eliade's adjacent work on hierophany and sacred time provides a third horizon rarely fused with theophany proper.
every theophany is as such an 'angelophany.' One does not encounter, one does not see the Divine Essence; for it is itself the Temple, the Mystery of the heart… the theophany constitutive of his being.
Corbin argues that theophany is structurally identical with angelophany: the divine Essence is never encountered directly but only through the personal angelic form that constitutes each mystic's being.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the initial idea of Ibn ʿArabī's mystic theosophy and of all related theosophies is that the Creation is essentially a theophany (tajallī). As such, creation is an act of the divine imaginative power: this divine creative imagination is essentially a theophanic Imagination.
Corbin identifies creation itself as theophany — the divine self-disclosure through imaginative power — making the theophanic act coextensive with cosmogony.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the Creation is essentially a theophany (tajallī). As such, creation is an act of the divine imaginative power… The God whom it 'creates,' far from being an unreal product of our fantasy, is also a theophany, for man's Active Imagination is merely the organ of the absolute theophanic Imagination.
The passage establishes the Active Imagination as the human instrument of a cosmic theophanic process, collapsing the distinction between divine self-disclosure and human creative vision.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
Each theophany is a new creation; theophanies are discontinuous; their history is that of psychological individuality and has nothing to do with the sequence or causality of outward facts.
Corbin contrasts theophany with historical facticity, asserting that theophanies constitute an inner, discontinuous temporality wholly distinct from the linear time of external events.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
This vision is the degree of theophany that is given to him personally, in proportion to his capacity. As such, it is part of the Creation which is itself theophany, that is, the theophanic Imagination of the Creator, imagining to himself the world and the forms that reveal Him to Himself.
Individual visionary experience is situated within a graduated order of theophany proportional to the mystic's receptive capacity, linking personal revelation to the universal theophanic structure of creation.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the shahid denotes the being whose beauty bears witness to the divine beauty, by being the divine revelation itself, the theophany par excellence. As the place and form of the theophany, he bears witness to this beauty to the divine Subject Himself.
Corbin identifies the theophanic witness (shahid) as the locus where God contemplates Himself, making the beloved figure in Sufi vision the supreme instance of theophany.
, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971thesis
Prayer as theophanic, that is, creative, Prayer. It alone surmounts in actual practice the paradox of a theosophy which, though thoroughly imbued with the sentiment that God is hidden… nevertheless summons us to a concrete vision of 'the Form of God.'
Theophanic prayer is presented as the practical resolution of the paradox between divine hiddenness and the imperative of concrete divine vision.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
it is this sharing, this mutual guarantee, which is the work of theophanic prayer, itself 'creative' in the same way as the theophanic Imagination because in every instance it brings about a recurrence of Creation.
Theophanic prayer is described as re-enacting creation by sharing the divine Names between Lord and vassal, each prayer being a renewed instance of the cosmogonic theophanic act.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
what is Other than the Divine Being is not absolutely other… but is the very form of the theophany (maẓhar), the reflection or shadow of the being who is revealed in it, and because this form is Imagination, it announces something other, which is more than itself; it is more than appearance, it is apparition.
Corbin argues that the theophanic form (maẓhar) is neither illusion nor absolute otherness but a symbolic apparition that points beyond itself and requires hermeneutical penetration through ta'wīl.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
The whole play is really the Theophany of the Oresteia trilogy. Sophocles: It is especially interesting to see how Sophocles has broken down the stiff lines of the ritual Theophany into scenes of vague supernatural grandeur.
Harrison reads the Oresteia's conclusion as a complete ritual theophany, and observes how Sophocles aesthetically dissolves the rigid structural form into a diffuse atmosphere of the numinous.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
It is interesting to note that the Theophany, omitted here, comes by its rights at the beginning of the play… the Theophany in the heart of the Temple is the answer to the Prayer addressed by Suhra-
Harrison traces the displacement of theophany within dramatic structure, noting how the ritual epiphany migrates from conclusion to prologue when the conventional tragic sequence is inverted.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
This gives us the sequence: Messenger combined with Threnos: Agon between Orestes and Menelaus: Theophany of Apollo.
Harrison reconstructs the canonical ritual sequence underlying Euripides' Orestes, in which theophany functions as the necessary terminal element resolving the dramatic agon.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
If we could, the final Theophanies would probably be still more numerous. There remain outside the above plays some 23 of which our knowledge is so scanty that no prima facie conclusions can, as far as I can see, be drawn.
Harrison argues that theophany — as divine epiphany or hero-resurrection — was a far more pervasive structural element in Aeschylean drama than surviving texts allow us to demonstrate.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
let him put the method of theophanic prayer into practice… If he does not apprehend the divine 'responses' in the course of prayer, it means that he is not really present with his Lord.
The passage articulates the phenomenological criterion of theophanic prayer — the reception of divine responses — as the index of genuine mystical presence.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
The Temple which contains Me is your heart… 'Accomplish the circumambulations and follow my footsteps,' the Youth now commands him. Then we hear an amazing dialogue… between two beings who are each other.
The narrative of the mystic's encounter with his divine Alter Ego in the 'world of Imaginative Presence' exemplifies the interpersonal structure of theophany as encounter between self and transcendent Self.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969aside