The Golden-Winged Flame: Eros Ascending

Orphic Conceptions of Divine Desire in Neoplatonic Theurgic Practice: A Reconstructed Framework for Erotic Anagoge

The Erotes: Keys to Aphrodite's Sacred Garden

In the twilight of my devotional practice, I've come to understand the Erotes – those playful, winged sons of Aphrodite – as far more than the mischievous cupids of popular imagination. Most know them primarily through Eros himself, the arrow-wielding troublemaker causing mortals and gods alike to fall hopelessly in love. Yet beneath this surface understanding lies a profound mystery: these divine beings serve as the very keys to Aphrodite's sacred garden.

Often depicted as love-sick boys causing all manner of chaos across the ancient myths – shooting arrows at unsuspecting hearts, carrying love letters between illicit lovers, or stoking the flames of passion with their torches – the Erotes (Eros, Himeros, Pothos, Anteros, Hedylogos, Hymenaeus) embody love's multifaceted expressions in forms we can comprehend and engage with directly.

I call upon thee, Eros, primordial force,
Two-natured, golden-winged, whose arrows pierce
The very fabric of creation's source,
Igniting stars and souls with passion fierce.

What reveals itself through ritual theurgy is something altogether different from these playful mythic portrayals. These daimones, these Lords of Love, are radical medicine for the soul. For it is the longing that Aphrodite engenders in our hearts that leads us back to henotic unity – that mystical reunion with divine beauty. But love is ever the enigmatic mistress, revealing herself in fragments and facets.

Thus, the Erotes – Aphrodite's sacred sons – became my own path to finding the ladder of divine ascent. They, along with her many lovers, form the very rungs of the ladder to her Sacred Garden. Each embodies a different quality of love's transformative power: the generative desire of Eros, the immediate attraction of Himeros, the yearning of Pothos, the reciprocity of Anteros, the sweet persuasion of Hedylogos, and the sacred union of Hymenaeus.

In the coming weeks, I'll release excerpts from my manuscript here as paid offerings on Substack. Within these writings, I've embedded some of my daimonic voces magicae – divine names developed through Pythagorean isopsephy and various other techniques – as an added gift for those who wish to work directly with these powerful spirits.

The Erotes await, torch in hand, to guide us through the temple doors of the Foam-Born Goddess. Will you follow where they lead?

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EROS: Primordial Desire and Creative Impulse

"Now Eros was the most beautiful among the immortal gods, the limb-loosener, who overcomes the mind and counsel in the breasts of all gods and all men." — Hesiod, Theogony

Mythological Foundations

Divine Origins

In the beginning was Chaos, and from this primal void emerged the fundamental forces of existence. Among the first principles to arise was Eros, not yet the winged archer of later myths, but a primordial power that propelled creation itself. Hesiod places him at the very dawn of existence: "First, says Hesiod, there was Chaos, then came Ge, Tartarus, and Eros, the fairest among the gods, who rules over the minds and the council of gods and men" (Hesiod, Theogony 176).

This cosmogonic Eros, sometimes identified with Phanes ("the Revealer") in Orphic traditions, represents the generative impulse that drives all coming-into-being. As the Orphics maintained, Eros-Phanes emerged from the World Egg, born of Night, bursting forth as the illuminating principle that brings the hidden into manifestation. This primordial aspect reveals Eros not merely as a deity of romantic attraction but as a fundamental cosmic principle; the attractive force that draws complementary elements together, enabling creation's unfolding.

Yet the mythological corpus presents another Eros as well, the more familiar son of Aphrodite, who executes her will in the domain of desire. Multiple genealogies compete: some name Ares as his father, creating a lineage that unites love and war; others, like Sappho, suggest he emerged from the union of Aphrodite and Ouranos; still others, including Alkaios, claim him as the offspring of Zephyros and Iris, embodying the union of gentle winds and rainbow radiance.

Plato offers yet another genealogy in his Symposium, where Diotima describes Eros as the child of Poros (Expediency) and Penia (Poverty), conceived on Aphrodite's birthday, a philosophical allegory positioning Eros as the intermediary between lack and fulfillment, constantly striving yet never fully sated.

The Eros-Psyche Mythos

The most profound mythological exploration of Eros's nature unfolds in the tale of his love for Psyche. As Apuleius relates in "The Golden Ass," Aphrodite grows jealous of the mortal Psyche's beauty and commands her son to make the girl fall in love with the most wretched of creatures. Instead, Eros himself falls victim to his own power, accidentally pricking himself with his arrow and becoming enamored with Psyche.

Their union proceeds under strict conditions, Psyche must never look upon her divine lover's face. When curiosity overcomes her and she illuminates his sleeping form, Eros flees. Psyche undergoes a series of trials imposed by the vengeful Aphrodite before the couple is ultimately reunited, with Psyche granted immortality and their union producing a daughter, Hedone (Pleasure).

This narrative illuminates the transformative journey of the soul (Psyche) through the trials of passionate love (Eros), ultimately achieving apotheosis through the purifying power of desire properly channeled. The myth serves as an archetypal template for the soul's ascent through erotic energy, a central principle in Venusian theurgy.

Divine Attributes and Iconography

Manifestation and Form

In classical iconography, Eros appears most commonly as a beautiful youth with wings, bearing his characteristic bow and quiver of arrows. Apollonius Rhodius describes him as "the greedy boy... standing there with a whole handful of [knucklebones] clutched to his breast and a happy flush mantling his cheeks" (Argonautica 3.82). These arrows represent the unexpected, seemingly random nature of passionate attraction, striking without warning and overwhelming rational faculty.

As the Greek poet Ibycus declares:

"Once more Love [Eros], looking at me meltingly from under his dark eyelids, drives me with enchantments of all kinds into the boundless nets of the Kuprian [Aphrodite]. Truly I tremble at his onset as a prize-winning horse in old age goes unwillingly with swift chariot to the race."

His sacred animals include the hare (for fertility), the rooster (for virility), and the dolphin (for playfulness). Among plants, the red rose stands as his preeminent symbol, while myrtle and apple blossoms also maintain sacred associations. His planetary correspondence aligns him with Venus in its morning aspect as Phosphorus, the light-bringer.

The Daimonic Intermediary

Eros embodies the Platonic conception of the daimon as intermediary, the entity that spans the otherwise unbridgeable chasm between mortal and divine. As Diotima explains in the Symposium, Eros is "neither mortal nor immortal" but exists in the metaxy (in-between), conveying prayers and sacrifices from humans to gods and divine gifts and commands from gods to humans.

This liminal positioning reveals Eros's essential function: to facilitate communion between realms that would otherwise remain separate. In the Orphic understanding, this intermediary nature connects Eros-Phanes with the world-creating demiurge, the divine craftsman who shapes formless potential into manifest reality. The connection between desire and creative manifestation thus forms an essential theological principle, genuine creation requires the erotic impulse, the yearning for what is not yet but might become.

Theurgical Function and Operation

Transformative Agency

Within theurgic operation, Eros serves as the primary activating force—the divine catalyst that initiates alchemical transmutation. His influence is particularly potent during:

1. Calcination: Where Eros functions as the igniting flame that begins the alchemical process, burning away the dross of material attachment to reveal the essential nature beneath.

2. Conjunction: Where Eros acts as the binding agent that unites purified elements, facilitating the sacred marriage of opposites.

3. Fermentation: Where Eros quickens spiritual awakening, transforming potential into actualized divine consciousness.

The theurgist invokes Eros not merely for amatory purposes but to activate the generative current that propels spiritual awakening. As Proclus observes in his commentary on Plato's Alcibiades:

"Love [Eros] is the cause of divine providence coming to be in all things; it fills all things with the power that perfects and converts them to the Good, and governs the communion of all things, and brings the imperfect to perfection."

What follows now is the Theurgical Element and a little rite to get more acquainted with wiley Eros and begin your ascent into Aphrodite’s mysteries.