For they do shape our souls like to themselves, and set them moving with them,—obsessing nerves, and marrow, veins and arteries, the brain itself, down to the very heart.
15. For on each one of us being born and made alive, the daimons take hold on us—those [daimones] who are in service at that moment [of the wheel] of Genesis, who are ranged under each one of the Stars.
For that these change at every moment; they do not stay the same, but circle back again.
These, then, descending through the body to the two parts of the soul, set it awhirling, each one towards its own activity.
But the soul’s rational part is set above the lordship of the daimons—designed to be receptacle of God.
16. Who then doth have a Ray shining upon him through the Sun within his rational part—and these in all are few on them the daimons do not act; for no one of the daimons or of Gods has any power against one Ray of God.
As for the rest, they are all led and driven, soul and body, by the daimons—loving and hating the activities of these.
The reason (logos), [then,] is not the love that is deceived and that deceives.
The daimons, therefore, exercise the whole of this terrene economy, using our bodies as [their] instruments.
And this economy Hermes has called Heimarmenē.
17. The World Intelligible, then, depends from God; the Sensible from the Intelligible [World].
The Sun, through the Intelligible and the Sensible Cosmos, pours forth abundantly the stream from God of Good,—that is, the demiurgic operation.
And round the Sun are the Eight Spheres, dependent from Him—the [Sphere] of the
Non-wandering Ones, the Six [Spheres] of the Wanderers, and one Circumterrene.
And from the Spheres depend the daimones; and from these, men.
And thus all things and all [of them] depend from God.
18. Wherefore God is the Sire of all; the Sun’s [their] Demiurge; the Cosmos is the instrument of demiurgic operation.
Intelligible Essence regulateth Heaven; and Heaven, the Gods; the daimones, ranked underneath the Gods, regulate men.
This is the host of Gods and daimones.
Through these God makes all things for His own self.
And all [of them] are parts of God; and if they all [are] parts—then, God is all.
Thus, making all, He makes Himself; nor ever can He cease [His making], for He Himself is ceaseless.
Just, then, as God doth have no end and no beginning, so doth His making have no end and no beginning.
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