{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.2",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/index.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "chaldean-oracles",
    "name": "Chaldean Oracles",
    "stream": "greco-christian",
    "epoch_reflected": "egypto-chaldean",
    "epoch_written": "greco-latin",
    "form": "mystical",
    "tradition": "Hermetic / Neoplatonic",
    "author": "Pseudonymously attributed to Zoroaster",
    "year_approx": 150,
    "note": "Surviving fragments of an early-2nd c. CE Greek mystical poem attributed pseudonymously to Zoroaster — scripture for the late-Neoplatonic theurgic school (Iamblichus, Proclus, Damascius). William Wynn Westcott's 1895 edition (*Collectanea Hermetica* vol. VI), drawing on Stanley (1661) and Cory (1828).",
    "books_slug": "westcott--chaldean-oracles",
    "books_slugs": null,
    "has_project_translation": false,
    "steiner_loci": [
      "GA 113: The East in the Light of the West — Persian-Chaldean wisdom-streams",
      "GA 121: The Mission of the Folk-Souls"
    ]
  },
  "parents": [],
  "translation": {
    "title": null,
    "author": null,
    "source": null
  },
  "chapters": [
    {
      "num": 1,
      "slug": "02-preface",
      "title": "Preface",
      "words": 894,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/02-preface/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/02-preface.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Preface — Westcott on the Oracles",
      "blurb": "W. Wynn Westcott's 1895 preface to his edition of the Chaldean Oracles. The Oracles' provenance (the second-century *Julian the Theurgist* and his son *Julian the Chaldean*), their later prominence in Iamblichean and Proclan Neoplatonism, and their survival only in fragments through citations in the Neoplatonist commentators."
    },
    {
      "num": 2,
      "slug": "03-introduction",
      "title": "Introduction",
      "words": 4172,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/03-introduction/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/03-introduction.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Introduction — sources and method",
      "blurb": "On the sources by which the Oracles have come to us — chiefly through Damascius, Proclus, Psellus, and Plethon. The principles of textual reconstruction; the rationale for grouping the fragments under thematic headings (rather than presenting them in the chronological order of their citations)."
    },
    {
      "num": 3,
      "slug": "04-the-oracles-of-zoroaster",
      "title": "The Oracles of Zoroaster",
      "words": 1339,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/04-the-oracles-of-zoroaster/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/04-the-oracles-of-zoroaster.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "The Oracles of Zoroaster",
      "blurb": "The largest section — the body of fragments traditionally grouped as the *Oracles of Zoroaster*. The doctrines of the Paternal Fountain, the Intelligible Triad, the empyrean and ethereal worlds, the iynges and the great chain of being. The cosmological core of the Chaldean tradition."
    },
    {
      "num": 4,
      "slug": "05-ideas",
      "title": "Ideas",
      "words": 1158,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/05-ideas/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/05-ideas.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Ideas — the Platonic forms in Chaldean dress",
      "blurb": "On the *Ideas* in Chaldean teaching. The Paternal Mind contains the eternal Ideas as the patterns of all existence; the Ideas proceed forth through the *iynges* (the connecting principles); the world of becoming is the manifestation of the Ideas at the lowest level."
    },
    {
      "num": 5,
      "slug": "06-particular-souls",
      "title": "Particular Souls",
      "words": 795,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/06-particular-souls/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/06-particular-souls.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Particular Souls",
      "blurb": "On the individual soul. Each soul has its origin in the divine source, descends through the seven planetary spheres acquiring its vehicles, and is enjoined to ascend again through theurgic practice. The Chaldean prescription of the soul's return."
    },
    {
      "num": 6,
      "slug": "07-matter",
      "title": "Matter",
      "words": 1167,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/07-matter/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/07-matter.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Matter",
      "blurb": "On matter (ὕλη) in Chaldean doctrine. Matter as the dark recipient at the lowest extreme of the procession from the One; not evil in itself but the place where the soul becomes most heavily bound; the realm from which the theurgist works upward."
    },
    {
      "num": 7,
      "slug": "08-magical-and-philosophical-precepts",
      "title": "Magical and Philosophical Precepts",
      "words": 1786,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/08-magical-and-philosophical-precepts/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/08-magical-and-philosophical-precepts.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Magical and Philosophical Precepts",
      "blurb": "The aphoristic-practical fragments: *Slope not downward!*, *Stretch not thy mind earthward!*, *Defile not the spirit, nor add a plane to a plane!* The injunctions by which the soul orients itself for the upward path. The proverbs of the Chaldean discipline."
    },
    {
      "num": 8,
      "slug": "09-oracles-from-porphyry",
      "title": "Oracles From Porphyry",
      "words": 264,
      "url": "/sources/chaldean-oracles/09-oracles-from-porphyry/",
      "api": "/api/sources/chaldean-oracles/09-oracles-from-porphyry.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "Oracles from Porphyry",
      "blurb": "The fragments that survive specifically in Porphyry's citations — chiefly from his *Philosophy from Oracles*. Porphyry's selection emphasises the soul's purification and the role of theurgic ritual; the section preserves the principal Porphyrian witness to the Chaldean tradition."
    }
  ]
}