Finding a name of guardian angel / daemon / genius

1
Greetings all,

I am trying to bend my head around one of Agrippa's methods of finding one's daemon. Has any of you tried that technique?

Here is the fragment describing the technique:
the degree of the ascendent of any ones, nativity being known, and the other corners of the heaven being Coequated, then let that which had the more dignities of Planets in those four corners which the Arabians call Almutez, be first observed amongst the rest: and according to that in the second place, that which shall be next to it in the number of dignities, and so by order the rest of them, which obtain any dignitie in the foresaid corners: this order being used, thou maist know the true place, & degree of them in the heaven, beginning from the degree of the ascendent through each degree according to the order of the signs to cast 22. of the letters of the Hebrews; Then what letters shall fall into the places of the aforesaid Stars, being marked, and disposed according to the order found out above in the Stars, & rightly joyned together according to the rules of the Hebrew tongue, make the name of a Genius: to which, according to the custome, some Monosyllable name of Divine omnipotency, viz. El, or Iah is subjoyned.
It seems easy - calculate the almutens for Asc, MC, Des & IC and use the degrees of the planets in the order of their best 'scores'. However what to do if almutens of two or more cusps have the same score - in what order should they be applied? And what if a cusp has more than one almuten - in what order do they go?

I have few ideas on my own, however what I am specifically interested in is whether there are any other texts describing that technique in details from the same period or prior to Agrippa?

I am aware that the methods of finding a name of one's daemon based on the ascendant have been mentioned in neoplatonic and hermetic literature, however I haven't come across any detail descriptions prior to Agrippa. I know that Ibn Ezra has described another technique in his Book of Nativities, but since I haven't read it yet, I don't know whether he described this one as well?

I'd be grateful for any further information and your thoughts.

Best wishes,
Christopher

2
Christopher wrote:
I am aware that the methods of finding a name of one's daemon based on the ascendant have been mentioned in neoplatonic and hermetic literature, however I haven't come across any detail descriptions prior to Agrippa.
Hello Christopher,

A warm welcome to Skyscript! You have raised this topic at a very apt time as I had been planning to open a thread on this subject myself.

The International authority on this subject in ancient astrology is undoubtably Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum.

Dorian Greebaum produced her PHD on the subject of the Daemon in Ancient astrology and is in the process of releasing a book on this subject quite soon.

I have a real treat for you in the link below. A 30 minute talk by Dorian Greenbaum on Porphyry, Astrology and The Personal Daemon. Its formal title was Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence. It was given on May 6th 2011, at the University of Kent, Canterbury, England.

Some irritating background noise but stick with it. This talk is brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyzK4d_JZpo


Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

3
Hi Mark,

Thank you for your warm welcome and for the link - it does look like a great treat indeed! Now I only need an uninterrupted 30 min to listen to it (hopefully tonight!).

Thanks again,
Christopher

4
Hi Christopher,

If you are short of time Dorian gets into the specific issue of natal delineation of the personal daemon by Porphyry in the 22.26 minute of the talk.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

5
The most important classical authors on this topic appear to be Antiochus and Porphyry.

Finding the daemon coincides with the technique of finding the natal predominator-this can be either the Sun, Moon or ASC depending on the chart.

Porphyry also discusses the oikodespotes and kurios which were part of the process of revealing the dameon in the nativity

We have had a lot of discussion of the more technical aspect of this subject in this thread:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3334

However, that thread is deficient in omitting the spiritual and philosophical dimension of the topic which Greenbaum's talk addresses.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

6
I'm working on a new translation of Agrippa actually. Should be out by the Summer if all goes well.

I don't know Agrippa's exact source in this case.

One notable thing though, is in his first private edition, this passage was very different:

?Some Hebrews think that the nature and name of the genius for each man can be found in this way: recognize the degree of the ascendant of anyone?s nativity and similarly the degree of the tenth, seventh, and fourth examining the almutez planet according to the five essential dignities over the four angles, thus that which has more dignities is the almutez and lord of the genius and placed first among the others and after that [the planet] which is next in the number of dignities and in that way the rest follow which have dignities in any of the previously [mentioned] angles; with this order used; you may know the true place and degree of those in the zodiac, then beginning from the degree of the ascendant by each degree place the 22 Hebrew letters, that is: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? one letter for each degree and reserve those degrees where the planets fall as said above; find these in the order disposed above and correctly combine the name of the genius that is established.?

7
My translation of the original passage is. Mind you, this is the 1st draft version before my final cleanup of the text:

"With that art several Hebrew and Chaldean teachers teach that the nature and name of each man?s genius can be found, that by knowing the degree of the ascendant of anyone?s nativity and weighing the other angles of heaven, then which planets in those four angles has more dignities (which the Arabs call almutez), be first noted among the rest and according to that second place which is next to it in the number of dignities, and thus the remaining by that order, which hold any dignity in the preceding angles; with this order used, you will know the true place and degree of them in heaven and beginning from the degree of the ascendant and place the 22 Hebrew letters on each degree according to the order of signs: then those letters that fall in the preceding place of the stars, note and dispose them according to the order [mentioned] above found in the stars and correctly combined according to the rationale of the Hebrew tongue, constitute the name of the genius, which according to custom some monosyllabic name of divine omnipotence, for example El or Iah, is joined to the end; which, if the letters are placed by the angle of the west and against the succession of signs and the letters which fall in the nadir, that is, the opposite point, the aforesaid stars are joined in order as we have said, constitute the name of the evil genius."

9
Hi Mark,

I managed to find some time yesterday after all to listen to it. It was a good lecture and I just finished reading Iamblichus recently so it was nice to review those passages regarding the personal daemon.
However the method itself (oikodespotes) aims to find the actual daemon (which in this case is one of the planetary gods) but not its name. Thanks for posting those links though, it was most interesting!

10
Hi EPurdue,

It's great to hear that you are working on a new translation! I'd be certainly interested in acquiring a copy once it's in print. And I didn't know that there was a private edition too.

After analysing those passages, I came to the conclusion that my previous approach was wrong. Rather than taking an almuten for each of the corners and then using them in order, it seems that we need to sum up the dignities for all planets for all corners. That would make this technique similar to hyleg. Am I reading this right?


Thanks again,
Christopher

Re: Finding a name of guardian angel / daemon / genius

11
Hello Chrisptopher,
christopher wrote:Greetings all,

I am trying to bend my head around one of Agrippa's methods of finding one's daemon. Has any of you tried that technique?

Here is the fragment describing the technique:
the degree of the ascendent of any ones, nativity being known, and the other corners of the heaven being Coequated, then let that which had the more dignities of Planets in those four corners which the Arabians call Almutez, be first observed amongst the rest: and according to that in the second place, that which shall be next to it in the number of dignities, and so by order the rest of them, which obtain any dignitie in the foresaid corners: this order being used, thou maist know the true place, & degree of them in the heaven, beginning from the degree of the ascendent through each degree according to the order of the signs to cast 22. of the letters of the Hebrews; Then what letters shall fall into the places of the aforesaid Stars, being marked, and disposed according to the order found out above in the Stars, & rightly joyned together according to the rules of the Hebrew tongue, make the name of a Genius: to which, according to the custome, some Monosyllable name of Divine omnipotency, viz. El, or Iah is subjoyned.
....

Could you please give the title and the chapter title of the work in which this description can be found?
Thanks

Iris