Daemon

“ Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee, And therefore art thou worthy of the boon Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, 590 And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life and rapture from thy smile. 595 The Daemon called its winged ministers. Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car, That rolled beside the crystal battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. ”

“ And the lustre and the grace To fascinate each youthful heart, Beaming from its counterpart, Translucent through the mortal covers, Is the Daemon's form and face. To and fro the Genius hies,— A gleam which plays and hovers Over the maiden's head, And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. ”

“ The mighty tide of thought had paused awhile, Which from the Daemon now like Ocean's stream Again began to pour.— To me is given The wonders of the human world to keep— 340 Space, matter, time and mind—let the sight Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope. ”

“ It is to meet and conquer the oppressor that I have vainly striven for aeons, held back by bodily encumbrances. Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing just and blazingly cataclysmic vengeance. Watch me in the sky close by the Daemon-Star. I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. ”

“ A reader of the Bacchae who looks back at the ritual sequence described above (p. 64) will be startled to find how close this drama, apparently so wild and imaginative, has kept to the ancient rite. The regular year-sequence is just clothed in sufficient myth to make it a story. The daemon must have his enemy who is like himself; then we must have the Contest, the Tearing Asunder, the Messenger, the Lamentation mixed with Joy-cries, the Discovery of the scattered members—and by a sort of doubling the Discovery of the true God—and the Epiphany of the Daemon in glory. ”

“ The good, unlearned books say that He who keeps the distant stars within His fold comes without intermediary, but Plutarch’s precepts and the experience of old women in Soho, ministering their witchcraft to servant girls at a shilling apiece, will have it that a strange living man may win for Daemon an illustrious dead man; but now I add another thought: the Daemon comes not as like to like but seeking its own opposite, for man and Daemon feed the hunger in one another’s hearts. ”

“ This, according to Epictetus, did not exclude the general inspection of mankind by God Himself: “To each He has assigned a Guardian, the Daemon of each mortal, to be his guard and keeper, sleepless and undeceivable. Therefore, whenever you shut your doors and make darkness in the house, remember never to say that you are alone. For you are not alone. God is in the house, and your Daemon is in the house. ”

“ Daemon and man are opposites; man passes from heterogeneous objects to the simplicity of fire, and the Daemon is drawn to objects because through them he obtains power, the extremity of choice. For only in men’s minds can he meet even those in the Condition of Fire who are not of his own kin. ”

“ CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried
Too sore beneath these blows
Neither on Helen turn thy wrath aside,
The Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed
Its thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide
Wound that no leech can close.
CHORUS.
—Daemon, whose heel is set
On the House and the twofold kin
Of the high Tantalidae,
A power, heavy as fate,
Thou wieldest through woman’s sin,
Piercing the heart of me! ”

“ Then come the daemons in their order, and with these man holds intercourse. Plutarch had adopted a tentative and incomplete form of this doctrine, e.g. he denied the visibility of Socrate's daemon, and spoke of the death of Pan. But Apuleius is much more thorough-going; he supposes all the daemons to be at once immortal and visible. Each great god has a daemon or double, who loves to use his name; and all the stories of the gods are in reality true of their daemons. In a moral point of view, daemons are of all characters—good and bad, cheerful and gloomy. ”

“ In an Anglo-Saxon poem a certain man is called, as though to call him something that summed up all heroism, “Doom eager.” I am persuaded that the Daemon delivers and deceives us, and that he wove that netting from the stars and threw the net from his shoulder. Then my imagination runs from Daemon to sweetheart, and I divine an analogy that evades the intellect. I remember that Greek antiquity has bid us look for the principal stars, that govern enemy and sweetheart alike, among those that are about to set, in the Seventh House as the astrologers say ”

“ It is of importance, therefore, to distinguish between the pretended character of this being as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and his real character as a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, paid the forfeit of his life to that overbearing tyranny which has since so long desolated the universe in his name. Whilst the one is a hypocritical Daemon, who announces Himself as the God of compassion and peace, even whilst He stretches forth His blood-red hand with the sword of discord to waste the earth, having confessedly devised this scheme of desolation from eternity ”

“ Daemon is the love that unites a soul to matter, iii. 5.4 (50-1130) .
Daemon may remain after death or be changed to Daemon superior to predominating power, iii. 4.6 (15-239) .
Daemon of souls is their love, iii. 5.4 (50-1130) .
Daemon's all, born of Need and Abundance, iii. 5.6 (50-1131) .
Daemons and deities, difference between, iii. 5.6 (50-1131) .
Daemons are individual, iii. 4 (15) .
Daemons both related and independent of us, iii. 4.5 (15-239) .
Daemons even in souls entering animal bodies, iii. 4.6 (15-240) .
Daemons follow Supreme, v. 8.10 (31-567) . ”

“ You must not, therefore, distribute one dæmon to the body, but another to the soul, and another to intellect: for it is absurd that the animal should be one, but the dæmon that presides over it multiform. For every where the natures that govern are more simple than the natures that are governed. ”

“ Hereupon, as I walked, I began to recall much that I had read in the old romances of the gratitude of rescued ladies.
"Truly," said I to myself, "in olden days a lady well knew how to reward her rescuer!"
"Woman is woman—the same to-day as then—try her, try her!" chuckled the Daemon. And now, as I looked more fully at this Daemon, he seemed no daemon at all, but rather, a jovial companion who nodded, and winked, and nudged me slyly with his elbow. "What are pretty faces for but to be admired?" said he in my ear; "what are slender waists for but to be pressed ”

“ Magic formulas are recited till the rod be- gins to shake and even dance on the stone, this activity being believed to be the result of the daemon having entered the wand. At this stage a talk takes place to test the accuracy of the divination of the daemon's name and nature, and of the cause of the affliction. The Pan-su manages the questions so dexterously that a simple yes is indicated by motion in the wand, while no is expressed by quiescence. At this stage the daemon is given the choice of quietly disappearing ; after which, if he is obstinate, the Pan-su proceeds to dislodge him. ”

“ He is like those phantom lovers in the Japanese play who, compelled to wander side by side and [Pg 45] never mingle, cry: “We neither wake nor sleep and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us?” If when we have found a mask we fancy that it will not match our mood till we have touched with gold the cheek, we do it furtively, and only where the oaks of Dodona cast their deepest shadow, for could he see our handiwork the Daemon would fling himself out, being our enemy. ”

“ The reason in man, his truly divine part, is also called his daemon, his good genius. It is the power whose kindred is with the world of the unseen, which is immortal, and capable of a lofty destiny.
Like his master Plato, Maximus of Tyre seems to know nothing of the evil daemons, who, as we shall presently see, were used by Plutarch to account for the immorality of myth. To Maximus the daemons are rather angelic ministers, sent forth to advise and succour weak mortal men.2242 They are the necessary mediators between the one Supreme and our frail mortal life. ”

“ A smile passed over the beautifully cut mouth, the noble, wrinkled face—like that of the marble Seneca—of the old humanist.
"Talk of devils to the barefoot friar who preaches in the midst of the market-place," he said, "not to Filarete. The whole world, air, fire, earth, water, the entire universe is governed by dæmons, and they inspire our noblest thoughts. Hast never heard of the familiar dæmon of Socrates, whispering to him superhuman wisdom? Yes, indeed, Venus, Apollo, Æsculapius, Jove, the stars and planets, the winds and tides are dæmons. ”

“ Thus Jupiter in Orpheus calls his father Saturn an illustrious dæmon; and Plato in the Timæus calls those Gods who proximately preside over, and orderly distribute the realms of generation, dæmons. “For,” says he, “to speak concerning other dæmons, and to know their generation, exceeds the ability of human nature.” But a dæmon according to analogy is that which proximately presides over any thing, though it should be a God, or though it should be some one of the natures posterior to the Gods. ”

“ They say in Dunvegan that somewhere in the heart of every man there dwells Tawiskara, the Daemon of Darkness. According to his own way and in his own time, he manifests his power. To one he suggests, to another he promises, and the third he compels—and he must needs go whom the Daemon drives. At the wrong moment, the psychological moment of weakness, he takes hold of a man and [635] a deed is done, a tiny indiscretion or a horrible crime, as the Daemon wills. ”

“ Whether the time be longer or shorter, determinate or not, in which the soul of a daemon shifts and the life of a demigod, the point will have been proved, before any judge he chooses, on the evidence of wise and ancient witnesses, that there are certain natures on the borderland between Gods and men, subject to mortal affections and enforced changes, who may rightly receive our worship according to the custom of our fathers, and be thought of as daemons and called so. ”

“ This dæmon, therefore, is established in the paradigm before the soul descends into generation; and when the soul has received him as its leader, the dæmon immediately presides over the soul, gives completion to its lives, and binds it to body when it descends. He likewise governs the common animal of the soul, directs its peculiar life, and imparts to us the principles of all our thoughts and reasonings. ”

“ The Year Daemon—Vegetation Spirit or Corn God or whatever we call him—waxes proud and is slain by his enemy, who becomes thereby a murderer and must in turn perish at the hands of the expected avenger, who is at the same time the Wronged One re-risen. The ritual of this Vegetation Spirit is extraordinarily widespread in all quarters of the globe, and may best be studied in Dr. Frazer's Golden Bough, especially in the part entitled, "The Dying God." Dionysus, the daemon of tragedy, is one of these Dying Gods, like Attis, Adonis, Osiris. ”

“ Among dæmons, therefore, one common leader of the cosmocrators about generation sends to each of us his peculiar dæmon. Hence, when the peculiar dæmon is present with each of us, he then unfolds the worship which is proper to be paid to him and his name, and likewise delivers the proper mode of invoking him. ”

“ What therefore hinders, but that the discovery of him may be difficult through prediction from the nativity, and yet through sacred divination, or theurgy, there may be a great abundance of scientific knowledge on this subject? In short, the dæmon is not alone imparted by the lord of the geniture, but there are many other principles of it more universal [147] than this. And farther still, a method of this kind introduces a certain artificial and human disquisition concerning the peculiar dæmon. Hence, in these doubts of yours there is nothing sane. ”

“ Those who permit themselves to be influenced by improper motives in the discharge of their appointed functions, are degraded to the condition of human beings. The bad and morose sort are propitiated by a gloomy and self-tormenting worship.392 By means of the imperfect character thus ascribed to the daemons, a way was found for reconciling the purified theology of Platonism with the old Greek religion. To each of the higher deities there is attached, we are told, a daemon who bears his name and is frequently confounded with him. ”

“ Paul calles it) "their Doctrines of Devils;" And by that meanes, the contagion was derived also to the Jewes, both of Judaea, and Alexandria, and other parts, whereinto they were dispersed. But the name of Daemon they did not (as the Graecians) attribute to Spirits both Good, and Evill; but to the Evill onely: And to the Good Daemons they gave the name of the Spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entred to be Prophets. In summe, all singularity if Good, they attributed to the Spirit of God; and if Evill, to some Daemon, but a kakodaimen, an Evill Daemon, that is, a Devill. ”