Metaphysics of The Oracles
The metaphysical schema of the Chaldaean Oracles begins with an absolutely transcendent deity called Father, with whom resides Power, a productive principle from which it appears Intellect proceeds. This Intellect has a twofold function, to contemplate the Forms of the purely intellectual realm of the Father, and to craft and govern the material realm. In this latter capacity the Intellect is Demiurge.
The Oracles further posit a barrier between the intellectual and the material realm, personified as Hecate. In the capacity of barrier, or more properly "membrane", Hecate separates the two 'fires,' i.e., the purely intellectual fire of the Father, and the material fire from which the cosmos is created, and mediates all divine influence upon the lower realm.
From Hecate is derived the World-Soul, which in turn emanates Nature, the governor of the sub-lunar realm. From Nature is derived Fate, which is capable of enslaving the lower part of the human soul. The goal of existence then is to purify the lower soul of all contact with Nature and Fate by living a life of austerity and contemplation. Salvation is achieved by an ascent through the planetary spheres, during which the soul casts off the various aspects of its lower soul, and becomes pure intellect.
Beneath the world of the Intelligible Triad of Father, the Magna Mater or Hecate and Intellect, lie the three successive descending Empyrean, Ethereal and Elemental Worlds. A Second Demiurgic Intellect represents the divine power in the Empyrean World, a Third Intellect represents the divine power in the Ethereal World. An Elemental World is ruled by Hyperzokos or Flower of Fire.
The Chaldean Oracles were taken up in the 19th-century Occult tradition and translated by William Wynn Westcott in 1895.
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