Iamblichus (c. 250-325 CE), an influential figure in the Neoplatonic school of Plotinus. Born at Chalcis in Syria, he traced his ancestry through an ancient line of priest-kings. A student of Porphyry, the chief disciple of Plotinus, his influential treatise Theurgia, or On the Mysteries of Egypt describes a higher magic through the agency of the gods. He sought to reconcile Plato and Aristotle, but held that Pythagoras was the supreme authority, reviving his teachings on Number as the basis of all things. He taught that the individual soul becomes lost in matter and cannot grasp the transcendent reality with intellect alone, because the transcendent is supra-rational. He recommends theurgy, a series of rituals and operations aimed at recovering the transcendent essence by retracing the divine signatures through the layers of being. Agrippa refers frequently to Iamblichus in his Occulta Philosophia. Iamblichus also had a strong influence on other Renaissance occultists like Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno.