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Celestial Souls and Cosmic Daemons
187
In addition to the Celestial Daemon and personal daemons, Plotinus
adds hypothetical Essential-Celestials which are spirits existing in the
Intellectual Realm ‘if spirits exist there’.
108
He also mentions daemons
that have an administrative function, similar to that of the planets:
‘Other Spirit-Beings, equally born from the Soul of the All, but by other
faculties of that Soul, have other functions: they are for the direct ser-
vice of the All, and administer particular things to the purpose of the
universe entire’.
109
In Porphyry’s De abstinentia ab esu animalium (On Abstinence from
Killing Animals), translated by Ficino and published in 1497, we
encounter the established view of the daemons as intermediaries
between mankind and gods, guiding them and delivering their prayers.
He also distinguishes between good daemons – who issue from the
Universal Soul and care for the lives they watch over – and the bad
lower daemons who are deceptive. The good daemons are appealed to
in theurgy and they aid humans by revelations through dreams and ora-
cles and communicate with ‘tokens’ or signs in nature. Bad daemons on
the other hand aid in sorcery.
110
Another Neoplatonic exposition on the daemons is found in
Iamblichus’s De mysteriis aegyptiorum, chaldaeorum, assyriorum (On the
Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians), a paraphrase of
which was completed by Ficino in 1497. The Neoplatonic chain of
divine beings consists of God, daemons, heroes and souls. Daemons
are ‘the common bond that connects gods with souls, and causes their
linkage to be indissoluble. They bind together a single continuity from
top to bottom.’ The gods comprise the invisible ones and the visible
celestial ones. The latter are the heavenly bodies enveloped by the high-
est gods.
111
The bond between the daemons and the gods is generative
too as the former ‘receive from the gods on high the causal principles
of all these things’ and subjecting themselves to the goodness of the
gods, they cause ‘the formless to shine forth in forms’.
112
They are ‘the
generative and creative powers of the gods [
. . . ] finishing and complet-
ing encosmic natures’. Moreover, they unite souls with bodies.
113
Acting
as proximate causes of generation and uniting souls with bodies are
attributes given to the planets and stars by Abu Ma‘shar as we have seen
but in the Iamblichan context, the celestial bodies are themselves gods
and the daemons are their attendants.
Iamblichus also mentions personal daemons assigned to human souls
by the gods. ‘It is not from one part only of the heavenly regions nor
from any one element of the visible realm that this entity is imparted to
us, but from the whole cosmos and from the whole variety of life within
188
The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy
it and from every sort of body, through all of which the soul descends
into generation, there is apportioned to us an individual authorising
principle.’ A soul selects a guiding personal daemon as it descends into
a body. And it is this daemon that binds the soul to the body and ‘super-
vises the composite living being arising from it’. It also directs human
lives.
114
The notable difference between the Neoplatonic accounts and the
twelfth-century ones is the disappearance of the three daemonic middle
regions found in the earlier period. Instead of a distinction according
to place and function among the daemons, we have one according to
function only. All the Neoplatonic daemons are bound to the celestial
gods but the personal daemons are a specialized subgroup. Hermann
of Carinthia is an exception to the twelfth-century cosmologists we
encountered earlier as he considers all daemons celestial including the
personal one,
115
leading one to suspect that this is due to the Arabic
sources with which he was acquainted and the Neoplatonic elements
contained therein, particularly the Theology of Aristotle and the Picatrix
in which ruhaniyyat are described as higher celestial beings.
116
The Neoplatonic daemones and the Arabic ruhaniyyat are amalgamated
in Ficino’s works. In his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, the daemons
are ‘midway between heavenly things and earthly things’ and mediate
between God and humans.
117
To Ficino, they function as spirits that
carry the forces of the Universal Soul and the celestial souls that emerge
from it. The universe is no mere machine but it is ruled by a single
soul. The souls of all living things including the ‘heavenly creatures’
and the twelve souls of the spheres are constituents of the whole Uni-
versal Soul. Ficino declares that the souls of the twelve spheres are called
gods by the Platonists ‘because they are very close to the Angelic Mind
and the Supreme God’.
118
They are endowed with such great power by
Him that they control and move the spheres of the universe in abidance
to His will.
119
Ficino’s angel is a fluid concept in the Commentary. He
calls the celestial souls angels instead of gods. Indeed, as Allen argues,
the soul here assumes the function of a pseudo-Dionysian angel.
120
Else-
where, Ficino states that according to pseudo-Dionysius ‘good daemons’
are angels who rule the lower world. He adds that ‘this differs very
little from the opinion of Plato’ seeing the difference between Plato
and Dionysius as ‘only a matter of words rather than of opinion’.
121
It was Calcidius who noted that the Platonic calodaemons are angels
according to place, whereas pseudo-Dionysius divides them into nine
classes according to rank.
122
Aquinas considers them to be separate intel-
ligences. But Ficino appears to equate angels with a special class of
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