On the Mysteries

...the increases and decreases of the Moon, or the path of the Sun, or the nocturnal hemisphere, or the river the Nile; and, in general, interpreting everything as physical phenomena and nothing as incorporeal and living essences. From these errors, and the belief that our own affairs depend upon the movement of the stars, they have bound everything in the insoluble chains of necessity, which they call Fate, and have attached everything to these Gods. Yet they honor these same Gods in temples and statues as the only ones who can release us from Fate.

Concerning one’s personal daemon guiding spirit, one must inquire: how does the lord of the house the astrological ruler of one's birth chart bestow it? And what, or what kind of emanation, or life, or power descends upon us from it? And whether it subsists or not; whether it is possible or impossible to find the lord of the house; and how, regarding the daemon, one who has learned the configuration of his own birth might dissolve the fated events and know his own daemon.

But the canons of birth-chart astrology are numberless and incomprehensible. Also, they are impossible. As mathematical science knows, there is much disagreement about them, and Chæremon and many others have disputed against it.

As for the obtaining of the lord of the birth chart, or the lords, if there is no error in one, it is almost admitted by them to be incomprehensible, from which they say it is possible to learn one's own personal daemon.

And whether a personal daemon is set over each of our parts? For it seems that daemons are set over parts of the body, those who preserve health, and beauty, and the condition in them, and that another stands over all of these commonly.

And whether one daemon is for the soul, another for the body, another for the mind. And whether some among them are good, and others evil.
I dispute that a daemon is individual.

...partly into the variety of the Moon, waxing and waning, partly into the course of the Sun, or the nocturnal or diurnal hemisphere, or the river itself; and finally, interpreting everything as natural things, and nothing as lacking a corporeal mass, and as living natures. And many of the Egyptians have willed that what is in our own will and power be suspended from the movement of the stars, thus binding everything in the chains of necessity, which they call fate, as if with some inexplicable bonds. But they also attach fate to the very Gods, whom they meanwhile venerate in temples, in statues, and in other such things as the only vindicators of fate.

I ask about the personal daemon; namely, how the lord of the house grants it, near to whom and what kind of influx, or life, or power descends to us from him? I ask also whether he subsists or not, and whether it is possible or impossible to find the lord of the house. For if it is possible, he will indeed be happy who, knowing the scheme of his own birth, may find his own daemon and through it escape the force of fate.

Indeed, the canons of birth-chart astrology seem to be numberless and incomprehensible, and the mathematical science itself is clearly impossible to know; quarrels about it have always arisen, but Chæremon himself and many others have argued against it.

Now, the discovery of the lord of the house (or lords, if perhaps there are many in a birth chart) is almost conceded by the mathematicians themselves to be impossible, and yet our entire knowledge of our own daemon depends on this.

I ask further whether a personal daemon is set over each individual part in us? For it seems that one daemon preserves health, another beauty, another a certain condition in these, and finally, that another presides over all these things in common.

Whether perhaps there is another daemon for the soul, another for the body, another for the mind; finally, whether among them one is beneficial and another malevolent.
I suspect, however, that the personal daemon is...