Agathos Daimon

Daemon

Daemonic Astrology

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Daimon

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon 

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Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: δαίμων, "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The word is derived from Proto-Indo-European daimon "provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)," from the root *da- "to divide". Daimons were possibly seen as the souls of men of the golden age acting as tutelary deities, according to entry δαίμων at Liddell & Scott.

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Daimons are lesser divinities or spirits, often personifications of abstract concepts, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature, or the deities themselves (see Plato's Symposium). According to Hesiod's myth, "great and powerful figures were to be honoured after death as a daimon…" A daimon is not so much a type of quasi-divine being, according to Burkert, but rather a non-personified "peculiar mode" of their activity.

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In Hesiod's Theogony, Phaëton becomes an incorporeal daimon or a divine spirit, but, for example, the ills released by Pandora are deadly deities, keres, not daimones. From Hesiod also, the people of the Golden Age were transformed into daimones by the will of Zeus, to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; "good beings who dispense riches…[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their acts". The daimones of venerated heroes were localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to wander restlessly, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects.

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One tradition of Greek thought, which found agreement in the mind of Plato, was of a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birth by way of lot.

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In the Old Testament, evil spirits appear in the book of Judges and in Kings. In the Septuagint, made for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, the Greek ángelos (ἄγγελος, "messenger") translates the Hebrew word mal'akh, while daimónion (δαιμόνιον; pl. daimónia (δαιμόνια)), which carries the meaning of a natural spirit that is less than divine, translates the Hebrew word shedim as well as the word se'irim in some verses and words for idols (foreign deities), and describes the being Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit. The use of daimōn in the New Testament's original Greek text caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century AD.

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Mythology and Philosophy

Homer's use of the words theoí (θεοί, "gods") and daímones (δαίμονες) suggests that, while distinct, they are similar in kind. Later writers developed the distinction between the two. Plato in Cratylus speculates that the word daimōn (δαίμων, "deity") is synonymous to daēmōn (δαήμων, "knowing or wise"), however, it is more probably daiō (δαίω, "to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot").

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Socrates

In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daemon" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e).

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In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do. The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn; it was always referred to as an impersonal "something" or "sign". By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the human soul, his newfound self-consciousness. Paul Shorey sees the daimonion not as an inspiration but as "a kind of spiritual tact checking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests."

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Your Own Personal Daemon

Source: https://www.jaimepaullamb.com/blog/your-own-personal-daemon 

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“[The soul is drawn to] the star which is in harmony with the character and power which lived and worked in them; and each will have a god of this kind as its daimon.”

Plotinus, Enneads, III, 4.6.27-29

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In the philosophy, mythology, theurgy and astrology of the civilizations of the ancient world, the concept of the daemon (Greek: daimon, English: demon) was accepted as a given. We can trace its presence all the way back to its first emergence in the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures, through the Homeric epics, through Plato and Aristotle, through the various sects of the Alexandrian milieu (Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, etc.) and all the way into the Florentine Academy in the early Renaissance and beyond.

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The Demonization of the Daemon

While the concept of the daemon informed the largely Abrahamic idea of the (guardian) angel, overtime, the word ‘demon’ has been, well, demonized. Anciently, a distinction was drawn between a good daemon (agathodaemon) and a bad daemon (kakodaimon) but, over time, the difference seems to have blurred, leaving the angel with the majority of the positive significations and the negative relegated to the daemon.

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This tide may gradually change as we learn more of the practices of the ancient world through modern translations of ancient texts. Those studying ancient philosophy, theurgy and astrology, particularly, would benefit from becoming more familiar with the history of these entities, as well as by testing the efficacy of some of theoretical and technical methods by which the personal daemon may be astrologically determined and theurgically utilized to liberate the native (the subject of a natal chart) from their fate.

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According to Plato’s ‘Myth of Er’ (a legend concluding his Republic), the nature of the daemon is said to be formed as the soul of the native passes through the planetary spheres, taking on a certain quality from each, on its way to incarnation in the terrestrial sphere.

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Porphyry and the Daemon

There is a method, outlined in Porphyry’s Introduction to Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblios (four books of astrological theory), by which one may discern the planetary identity of their personal daemon. According to Porphyry, the natal chart was integral to this process.

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“Concerning the peculiar daemon, it must be inquired how he is imparted by the lord of the geniture, and according to what kind of efflux, or life, or power, he descends from him to us? And also, whether he exists, or does not exist? And whether the invention of the lord of the geniture is impossible, or possible? For if it is possible he is happy, who having learned the scheme of his nativity, and knowing his proper daemon, becomes liberated from fate.”

Porphyry, Letter to Anebo

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Daemonic Astrology

It is not the purpose of this blog post to outline the process of determining one’s daemon in any significant detail, as it is quite involved, but the main points are as follows:

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First, the predominator (Arabic: haylāj, or “hyleg”) is determined. This is usually the luminary of the sect in favor – the Sun in a diurnal chart, the Moon in a nocturnal – providing the sect light is angular (in an “aphetic” place) and in aspect to the lord of its domicile. If neither light meets these requirements, the Lot of Fortune or the lord of the ascendant may be used.

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Second, the bound lord (the planet ruling the bound/term) of the predominator is used as the oikodespotes (“house master”, Arabic: kadhkhudāh, or “alcocoden”) and, according to Porphyry, this is the planetary ‘familiar’ corresponding to the daemon of the native. The condition and dignity of the oikodespotes are also considered – sometimes ruling the planet out. Later, Porphyry also considers the Kyrios (“lord”, or “lord of the geniture”, later the almuten figuris) as a planetary contender for the daemon. The Kyrios is also determined by essential and accidental dignities.

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The Theurgical Application of the Daemon

It certainly gets confusing – and ancient accounts vary widely – but the contenders may be narrowed down on a case-by-case (or nativity-by-nativity) basis. Similar to the process of temporal chart rectification (which is usually employed when the exact birth time is unknown and involves a sort of reverse delineation by which significations are considered as to when/how they have manifested in the biography and chronology of the native), a species of rectification may be employed in the discovery of the personal daemon.

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In summary, the discovery of one’s personal daemon – though an arduous and intricate process – is integral to the construction of personally efficacious, theurgic rituals involving the sympathetic “chains of being” linking the native with their personal daemon and, ultimately, freeing the native from the bonds of fate.

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For more information on this fascinating process, see:

Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology, Brill, 2016

Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, Amor Fati, 2017

www.sevenstarsastrology.com

As well as source works, such as Plato’s Republic & Timaeus, Plotinus’ Enneads, Vettius Valens’ Anthology, Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo and elsewhere in ancient Hermetic & Neoplatonic texts.

Jaime Paul Lamb