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   The Hekate discussed in the preceding section seems, at first glance, to share little with the Goddess of the same name who is ‘revealed’ in the Nine Coils of the Dragon. Indeed, if we did not have a few sketchy hints at Hekate’s cosmic status from the ancient world, we would have conclude that they were two entirly different gods altogether. In fact the recipients of the Nine Coils initially thought the same, since none of the circle was familiar with the Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster beyond the famous ‘stoop not down into that darkly splendid world’ quote used by the Golden Dawn. Along with the (previously noted) rather unfortunate tendency in neo-pagan witchcraft to carelessly lump all Goddesses together as ‘the Goddess’ and Hekate’s supposed association with the Roman Moon Goddess Diana (and our experience with Leland’s Aradia), the Hekate we got, so to speak, was very different from what we expected.
    Even the association with Babalon (formulaically and numerological related in the text) was troublesome, since the Nine Coils was certainly of a different slant than anything Crowley had written (that we were aware of at least) and treated certain themes from a perspective that seemed to have little to do with witchcraft at all. In fact, some of it sounded ‘suspiciously Christian’, as one of the circle put it.
    Two items came to light while the text was still largely unstudied, and with them a gate seemed to open. The full force of what came shining through has yet to be fully circumscribed.
    The first of these “keys” were the Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster.
    The Chaldean Oracles, a work attributed to Zoroaster, were said to have been revealed to Julian the Theurgist, also known as the Chaldean. This work, of which only fragments are preserved, is a theosophical text in verse composed in the second century AD, that combined Platonic elements with others that were Persian or Babylonian. The Chaldean Oracles were regarded by the later Neo-Platonist as a sacred text, sometimes, even above Plato himself.
The same source also quotes the Pagan Emperor Julian who attempted to revive the, for lack of a better term, “Philosophical Paganism” of the Sol-Mitra cultus that, though Julian was unsuccessful, eventually flowered as Hermetism and Alchemy in the European Renaissance.
"And if I should also touch on the secret teachings of the Mysteries in which the Chaldean, divinely frenzied, celebrated the God of the Seven Rays, that god through whom he lifts up the souls of men, I should be saying what is unintelligible, yea wholly unintelligible to the common herd, but familiar to the happy theurgists." - Julian - Hymn to the Magna Mater
    Before going into specifics of the text, it should be noted that Theurgy is “Divine magic, as opposed to mere thaumaturgy or sorcery. Its goal is apotheosis or, less ambitiously, the "knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" and the working of sublimation both of self and world.”
    Hekate in the Chaldean Oracles is the identified as the principal Goddess involved in magical and spiritual practices (that is, Theurgy), for She is the Anima Mundi, the World Soul or spirit. As in the Nine Coils, she is the mediator between the Empyrean Realm, where the Gods reside, and the manifest Universe; in the Nine Coils of the Dragon, the Pleroma of Light and the Worlds below the Abyss; She is also the psycho pomp or guide, the one who shows the way back to the Eternal Gods through Theurgy which we identify as the conquest of the Ladder of Lights, the Descent into the Underworld and subsequent binding of the Demon Choronzon and crossing of the Great Outer Abyss. It would be a mistake to think that the two systems (if the Nine Coils can be called a system) are interchangeable; however, once again we take encouragement in the fact that the Book is so internally consistent in its form and doctrine with historically (though obscure) valid precedent.
    There are of course points of divergence in the myth structures. The Demiurge (the Platonic concept, not the Gnostic SAKLAS) and Hekate together create the Aetherial Realm where the Celestials are. These bodies are or have a material form in the Chaldean Oracles, while the Nine Coils is a version of the Combat Myth and they are the imprisoned Archons formed out of the slain Dragon. Nevertheless, it is most important to see the points of agreement, as in both Hekate is the force (or a force) in the creation of the heavenly spheres and Hekate mediates between the Upper and Lower realms, however they are conceptualized. She stands at the lowest point of the Empyrean Realm and exists in both the Empyrean and Material simultaneously separating and connecting the realms, while in the Nine Coils of the Dragon, She is Present in both realms by means of her Hypostatic relationship with NYX who dwells in the Realm of the Pleroma and the Terrestrial Universe. In other terms, She Mediates between Zeus, the Transmundane Sun, who rules the Olympian Gods and the Mundane Sun (Helios, Sol), or between the Logos and the Fire of the Depth (Bythos) She is also the separator (preserver of the cosmic order),

for as a Girdling Mental Membrane She divides
the First and Other Fire, hastening to mix,
This Hymen enwraps the material world to which She gives birth.
In another Goddess Herself places Her fiery Girdle at the lower extremity of the Noetic Realm:
The Father's Thoughts are these, and then's My winding Fire.

... is a Worker, Giver of Life-Bringing Fire,
and fills the Womb Life-Giving of Hekate…

She is an emanation from the Father,
the Uncreated and the means to His further emanation (extension):
for from Him leap the Thunderbolts Implacable
and Lightning-Storm-receiving Wombs of Radiant Light
of Father-born Hekate, and Girdling Flower of Fire,
and mighty Spirit from beyond the Fiery Poles.

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