Digesting the Daimōn

Reflections on the Cosmos and Theurgy

When I first met my daimōn, I didn’t know what he was. I had no words for our brief encounter. What lingered was the sense of being seen from the inside out, summoned by something both intimate and impersonal. So, so, so much Love...

I wandered with it for years, unnamed. Only much later, while studying Hellenistic astrology, did I come across the ancient Greek notion of the daimōn, and something clicked. It didn’t feel like a metaphor or just an intriguing technique or a metaphysical abstraction. It felt like a recognition. For me, the daimōn is an ontological reality. A presence. A being with its own rhythm and task, woven into the architecture of the Anima Mundi. And I believe that everyone has one, whether they know it or not.

It’s clear to me now that the ancients knew this truth intimately, so I want to share what I’ve found so far. Because this isn’t only about my daimōn. It’s about yours, too.

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It's odd how some of the ancient cosmological texts seemed completely alien to me at first, but now, more and more, I'm beginning to see how our ancestors were trying to describe something that is inherent to the deepest core of being human. Here’s the gist of it.

The Framework

In Timaeus, Plato explains that the cosmos is an eternal, living, rational, and divine being. This is the Anima Mundi or World Soul. Our individual souls are spun off from this World Soul by the Demiurge and assigned to the stars. Think of the Demiurge as an eternal craftsman, but more in the sense of Nous - the principle of divine intelligence - imposing order on the chaos of matter, giving shape to the cosmos.

Before incarnation, each soul contemplates divine Forms, and then descends into a body through the planetary spheres. Here’s where our astrological framework comes into the picture. The general idea is that, in its descent into our realm, the human soul becomes adorned with the planetary patterns as we recognize them in the horoscope. Superficially read, they look like imposed burdens, limitations, describing seemingly arbitrary traits. Yet our astrological nature expresses a deeper logic as it also reflects the logos of the entire cosmos, refracted and contained in a single human body moving through space and time.

In Republic X, Plato gives us the Myth of Er, where this becomes personal because he contends that souls choose their lives before birth, guided (or misled) by their prior habits and understanding.

“After all the souls had chosen their lives, they went forward to Lachesis […] and she assigned to each the daemon it had chosen as guardian of its life and fulfiller of its choice.” - Plato

My natural inclination is to resist the notion that people deliberately choose to spend their time here in this realm, but many people who have experienced near-death situations or remember some of their past lives, claim to have made a conscious choice about their next life.

Digesting the Daimon, by Michelle Corbesier (digital collage)

Thought of as the expression of the soul’s imminent earthly destiny, the daimōn - neither wholly divine nor wholly human - is the custodian of your lot, or in other words, your soul’s invisible twin, assigned to oversee your soul’s path.

“Just play your role.” – My daimōn to me, twenty years ago.

The daimōn is not the chooser. It witnesses and enforces the soul’s decision, holding the soul accountable to its chosen pattern.

In short, the way I’ve come to understand it is that each human life puts flesh and bones on a divine signature painted by the birth horoscope. At the threshold of the mystery of your human experience stands your personal daimōn, a key intermediary between the soul and the divine. We all have one, always devotedly present.

Astrology as Theurgy

Porphyry sought the daimōn through technical astrology by calculating the oikodespotēs geneseōs, or Master of the Nativity. Another candidate that might represent the daimōn is the kurios, conceived by Porphyry as the overseer of destiny.

In contrast, Iamblichus put forward the practice of astral theurgy which maintains a divine, symbolic, and mathematical integrity. His approach really resonates with me. Iamblichus sees the daimōn as an agent of our divine unfolding which is indicated by a synthesis of astrological symbolism rather than the result of astrological techniques.

Essentially, theurgy is about the soul’s ritual path back to the gods, which doesn’t mean that we need to escape the world or pretend that this realm is an illusion, or that we’re lost and we need to find our way back home. The idea is to transfigure your place within the world, and thereby changing the world as a caretaker of the cosmos. Theurgic ritual does not seek to manipulate the world as an object. The goal is to enter into communion with the cosmos as a living being.

“Theurgists could progressively ‘sense’ their astral destiny personified by the daimōn and, eventually, dissipate it by becoming their own daimonic double.” - Akindynos Kaniamos

I think the ultimate act of astrological theurgy is participation. It’s about living in harmony with what you have been given so deeply that it no longer feels like fate. One practice that opens the door to divine cooperation is astrology in its divinatory capacity.

While Iamblichus deliberately avoids revealing precise ritual formulas in his De Mysteriis, he points to some of the types of theurgic practices he endorses. All these practices form a coherent system rooted in the concept of sympathy, divine hierarchy, and symbolic action.

One type of theurgic practice involves calling upon the planetary deities, to become present in the ritual space or even within the soul of the theurgist through the use of sacred symbols (sunthēmata). Iamblichus insists this is not imagination or illusion, but an ontological presence of the deity.

“Observing this, and discovering in general, in accordance with the properties of each of the gods, the receptacles adapted to them, the theurgic art in many cases links together stones, plants, animals, aromatic substances, and other such things that are sacred, perfect and godlike and, then from all these composes an integrated and pure receptacle.” - Iamblichus (DM V.23)

We can use symbols and objects that are inherently linked to a specific deity. The modern mind has a hard time grasping this, but a symbol or an object that we say “corresponds” to a deity is not simply representational. It’s the real deal! A gemstone or herb associated with a certain deity, receives the deity. Better yet, I think it also is the deity.

The beginner’s guide to theurgy welcomes rituals that cleanse the soul of material impurities and attune it to its divine origin. These may include fasting or dietary regulations, offerings, and cleansing with consecrated water or aromatic substances. We can also mirror the divine order through symbolic gifts.

But for Iamblichus it’s never about “pleasing the gods.” Rituals that are attuned to the stars activate the connection between gods and humans.

Electional astrology can be a practice that helps us align with the stars by selecting the proper kairos (moment) or planetary configuration for ritual actions. For example, when a planet arises on the Ascendant or reaches the Midheaven in your location, the planetary deity’s resonance is temporarily strengthened.

“[…] we ascend through the practice of sacred theurgy to the regions that are higher, more universal and superior to fate, towards the god who is the creator, without calling in the aid of matter or bringing to bear anything other than the observation of the critical time for action.” - Iamblichus (DM VIII.4)

Rather than aiming for worldly success, the purpose behind all this is to prepare the soul to receive divine light, and ultimately to install a god as ruler of the soul, replacing the daimōn as intermediary.

In the most advanced forms of theurgy, Iamblichus refers to “unutterable acts,” which are rituals that cannot be reduced to words or intellectual understanding. These very enigmatic rituals are performed beyond any discursive reasoning. It’s when the divine works directly through the soul. Iamblichus insists that these rites allow the soul to participate directly in the gods by ontological affinity rather than by knowledge.

“For even when we are not engaged in intellection, the symbols themselves, by themselves, perform their appropriate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these symbols relate, itself recognizes the proper images of itself, not through being aroused by our thought.[…] the things which properly arouse the divine will are the actual divine symbols. And so the attention of the gods is awakened by themselves, receiving from no inferior being any principle for themselves of their characteristic activity.” – Iamblichus (DM II.11)

Digesting the Daimōn

Why is the title of this piece “Digesting the Daimōn?” I borrow the idea of digestion from Gregory Shaw, who poetically encapsulates a process that Iamblichus somewhat describes in more veiled, metaphysical terms. It’s the idea that theurgy can be a process whereby the personal daimōn is internalized so that the soul can act from the divine level rather than under its influence. It’s when the daimōn becomes flesh through us. In that sense, we can eliminate the need for any type of mediation by becoming the mediator itself between our fate-bound realm and that of the divine. Digesting the daimōn equals replacing the intermediary with direct divine agency.

When you digest your daimōn
And absorb it in reverence
You eat your portion of the cosmos
and remember your origin.
Your breath is a prayer,
your body is a hymn,
your thoughts are offerings
to the god who waits behind the daimōn.
Resonating like a lyre
struck by the divine fingers
of the One
who dreamed you into being,
you meet the god who waits behind the daimōn.

I hope I’ve shown you a glimpse at least of how timeless ancient philosophy truly is. As much as the world has changed, and despite the radical shifts in our collective mindset, our ancestors’ questions remain at the core of the human experience. Their philosophy was an articulation of their lived, mystical contact with the invisible. That, to me, is true philosophy.

Contemporary thinkers like Patrick Harpur (a personal favorite) and James Hillman (though very much tethered to psychology) have reimagined the daimōn as a mythopoetic figure, an image of inner genius, calling, and purpose. To me, this reflects a hopeful return to the Platonic and Neoplatonic view where the daimōn is a real presence, a being who walks beside us, just beyond the veil of visibility.

We may no longer live in a world that openly acknowledges spirits or speaks in the language of stars and divine messengers. But that doesn’t mean they’ve vanished. It only means we’ve stopped listening. Somewhere in your life, behind a coincidence, a synchronicity, a persistent fascination, a difficult lesson, a strange joy, there is someone watching. Not judging, not controlling, your daimōn is helping you do what you came here to do.

So pause. Listen. Ask.

Sources of Inspiration

Iamblichus. On the Mysteries. SBL, 2003.

Plato. Complete Works - Timaeus, Republic. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 1997.

Shaw, Gregory. Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. Penn State University Press, 2003.

Shaw, Gregory. Hellenic Tantra: The Theurgic Platonism of Iamblichus. Angelico Press, 2024.

Kaniamos, Akindynos. The Personal Daimon in Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis: Astral Origins, Ritual and Divinization. The Prometheus Trust, 2020.

Harpur, Patrick. Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld. Pine Winds Pr, 2003.

Regulus Astrology LLC. Astrology and the Soul: History and Sources. 2012

Hillman, James. The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling. Ballantine Books, 2017.

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Michelle Corbesier is an astrologer and artist residing in Belgium with her beloved husband and furry companions. Offering natal, horary, and synastry consultations to clients in every continent, Michelle is passionate about guiding others on their journeys of self-discovery and empowerment. Sharing her love for the starry craft, she also provides private tutoring and mentoring to aspiring stargazers. Get in touch with Michelle at her website Michelle’s Midheaven, and follow her on Substack, or Instagram.