====== Daemons ======

RSS1

Daemons have pneumatic bodies and they can cause these to take shape by imprinting on them their own imaginings (phantasiai). But the bodies are not eternal. In bad daemons, they depend on the nourishment of libations and cooking smoke. This, as described by Porphyry Abstinence 2.39.1-3; to Gaurus 6.1, 42,5-12, has already been set out above, under 2(h) and 8(b), but Iamblichus disagrees, Myst. 5.10, quoted under 18(a) above, on the need for nutrition. For Porphyry see further Abstinence 2.42 below. Porphyry distinguishes good daemons and bad daemons. The good ones may look after animals and crops (see also Physics 4(a)). But bad daemons can only harm us, and sacrifices attract and sustain them, so can do harm, while in no way persuading them to do good. But Augustine reports Porphyry as being agnostic about bad daemons in the Letter to Anebo.

No daemons had been bad in Plato, but Plutarch reports bad daemons or other spirits in the third head of Plato’s Academy Xenocrates and in many others, e.g. On Isis and Osiris 360F-370C. The Chaldaean Oracles and the Hermetic tradition also postulated bad daemons.

Christians themselves treated all demons (I use a different spelling) as bad (so St Augustine City of God, 9.19) and reserved the word ‘angels’ for the good. Augustine and Porphyry agree that Platonist talk of lesser gods is equivalent to Christian talk of angels, Porphyry Against the Christians fr. 76 Harnack, Augustine City of God 9.23, both translated in Logic and Metaphysics 14. Proclus On the Existence of Evils defends daemons from the charge of being evil.

Despite his warnings, Porphyry expresses genuine doubts about how things work in his respectful questions about Egyptian practices in the Letter to Anebo, that was to be so savagely answered by the devout Iamblichus. Augustine preserves a relevant portion of the Letter.

For shooting stars as our personal daemons or intellects ascending or descending for reincarnation, see Plutarch On the Daimon of Socrates 591Dff.