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Socratis). When the creation of a human soul takes place, a daemon
is assigned to guard and watch over it. This daemon is a genius who
communicates through signs, inspiration and dreams, in order to guide,
by inclining or warning the human being.
60
Like the active intellect of
Avicenna, the personal daemon is man’s link to the celestial spheres.
The difference, however, is that the active intellect is a non-corporeal
substance that is apprehended through the rational faculties of the soul,
180
The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy
whereas the daemon is a being of aerial body and rational soul acting
directly on its assigned human. The active intellect gazes upwards and
the human soul moves towards it as a final cause; the personal daemon
is directed downwards to the channelling of astral influences and the
administration and guidance of individuals.
In De essentiis, Hermann of Carinthia mentions special ‘spirits’. He
writes: ‘it is read that very many people have had some kind of spirits
known to them through some awareness, or so familiar that they remain
with them and speak to them’. He describes their nature as astral, sen-
tient and animate.
61
To this class belongs Socrates’s famous daemon.
Betraying his interest in magic, Hermann points out that it is these
spirits that are enticed by talisman-makers (telesmatici) such as Iorma
Babilonius and Tuz Ionicus. The latter is Toz the Greek to whom several
hermetic texts were attributed and often associated with Thoth who was
believed to be Hermes himself. Iorma too was frequently referred to as a
powerful mage.
62
The sources of Hermann’s personal and celestial daemons are different
from those of Bernard and Conches. His seem to be Arabic. He mentions
three texts in which the spirits are mentioned: Hermes’s The Golden Rod,
Apollonius’s De secretis nature (The Secrets of Nature) – which is a Latin
translation by Hugo of Santalla of the Arabic Sirr al-khaliqa – and the
curious Data Neiringet in which an account is given of the spirit of
Venus who came to a man and requested a sacrifice to ensure he has
‘ministers’ who do his bidding.
63
As Burnett shows, Hermann’s quota-
tion from the Data Neiringet corresponds to the account of invoking the
spirit of Venus in three Arabic Hermetic works: Kitab ‘ilal ruhyaniyyat,
Kitab al-Istamatis, and the Liber antimaquis.
64
It is also found in the
Picatrix quoting Kitab al-Istamatis. The word used in these Arabic texts
to denote spirit is ruhaniyya. In the Picatrix, which Hermann could have
read in Arabic, the author explains that the knowledge of the correspon-
dences of things and their astral origins is essential in order to invite the
ruhaniyyat to bestow their powers into a talisman or ritual.
65
But he adds
that we must prepare our spirits by theurgic rituals in order to commu-
nicate our will to the stars and their ruhaniyyat.
66
It is notable that in
magic these ruhaniyyat tend to be endowed with more personality and a
level of tangibility, in contrast with the ruhaniyyat we encounter in the
context of natural philosophy and astrology. In the Picatrix we read:
The ruhaniyya may appear in the spiritual world [of the magus] as a
person that converses and teaches him what he desires, it may endear
him to kings and sultans, tie and unravel any matter he wills [
. . . ] and
answer the caller with what he wants [
. . . ] talismans are the most
Celestial Souls and Cosmic Daemons
181
powerful choice for attracting a ruhaniyya [
. . . ] and that is because
the natural properties, through the ruhaniyya, can perform wondrous
acts singlehandedly.
67
Elsewhere, the author claims that the wise man receives his power from
the ruhaniyya that ‘strengthens, inspires him and opens the gates of wis-
dom being connected to him by his high star [
. . . ] Wise men and kings
entered into covenants with this ruhaniyya by prayer and names.’ He
follows this with a series of invocations using the names of such spir-
its or ruhaniyyat, for example, Jupiter’s ruhaniyyat are called Dimahos,
Daris, Dirmas, Matis, Maghis, Tamis, Farus and Dahidas.
68
The powers of
the celestial ruhaniyyat are infused in terrestrial things; consequently,
incenses and other magical concoctions contain within them spiritual
or ruhaniyya powers.
69
Despite all this, the author of the Picatrix largely
remains faithful to the Neoplatonic ontology of these ruhaniyyat and
insists that they are astral volitional forces that work by means of astral
emanations. They constitute the first level of cosmic individuation of
the Universal Soul.
70
The Secret of Secrets provides a list of the names of
the celestial ruhaniyyat attached to each planet, a section excluded from
Bacon’s own edition.
71
Hermann’s spirits correspond with the Arabic ruhaniyyat. Further-
more, to demonstrate the operation of daemons in astral magic he
makes a reference to Hermes’s god-making statues found in the Asclepius,
Picatrix and The Theology of Aristotle, also discussed by Aquinas and
Ficino:
72
For Trismegistus again credits his ancestors with the discovery of an
art by which they made gods. ‘They added a power to this art’, he
says, ‘from the nature of the universe, and, in making its mixture,
since they were not able to make a soul, they called down the souls
of d[a]emons and angels, and put them into the sacred images and
divine mysteries, through which the idols could have the power of
doing good and evil’. Nor is it surprising that elemental powers yield
to human skill, if this is able to lead the elements themselves into
various sympathies.
73
So, the cosmos of the twelfth century received its vitality from the souls
of the spheres and their daemonic agents. The Arabic sources accepted
the animated universe of the Peripatetics and Platonists; in addition,
their astrological theories, rooted in natural philosophy, characterized
their function in terms that allowed their agency to be integrated in
astral causation. As their nature and power are ‘from the nature of the
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The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy
universe’, the spirits/daemons should be granted a natural/astral status,
however precariously. As we shall see, not all natural philosophers were
convinced that the power of the Hermetic statues is daemonic rather
than demonic.
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