Iamblichus on the Mysteries; Psellus on Demons

therefore, they are neither changed along with these, nor are they distributed according to their distribution. For they are not habits of bodies, nor material forms, but are subsistent and separable—or rather, they are already separate, and they live before bodies. Separate and separable substances do not turn out to be such because they have chosen or been allotted such a lot and province; rather, in turn, such as the soul has brought forth into act in itself—before its entry into the body—its life and species, such an organic body it is allotted, and such a nature following upon itself, which indeed is subjected to the perfection of the life of the soul itself. The rational soul comes into a body that is already alive, but imperfectly alive. Divine beings progenerate in themselves naturally their entire work, distinct before they bring it forth. By these, which possess the reason of a universal principle, inferior things are produced in superior ones, corporeal in corporeal ones, and operations in operators, and are directed within them as they contain them circularly. Therefore, the celestial circuits are reduced to the circuit of celestial souls, while the souls of the worlds—that is, of the spheres and the stars—approaching their own intellect, are comprehended by it profoundly and are first progenerated within it. The particular intellect is similarly [contained] in the universal, and that [universal] in superior things. Since, therefore, the following things are always converted...