Proclus on Dæmons

Have I got a treat for you today!

The whole reason I got into studying philosophy in the first place is that I came across the phenomenon of Socrates' dæmon, the spiritual being (nowadays called a "guardian angel") which guided and protected him. This is because I experience the same phenomenon and I wanted to deepen my understanding of it.

My own angel directed me to Plotinus, who gives a very elegant metaphysical model and even wrote about his own dæmon. This was very helpful to me, but left a fairly big gap between the model and my own lived experience. This is because Plotinus' model is so simple and general, which is why, in fact, that it's so useful: the model is designed to make provable statements about the metaphysical world, and it does so very well, but it doesn't really work it's way down to specifics. (And, of course, my own experiences are necessarily specific!)

So I've been pondering and researching in order to bridge that gap, and last week I stumbled upon a solution—naturally, buried in a 10-page-long footnote in some book or other of Thomas Taylor's! Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, has a lengthy digression on dæmons generally and on Socrates' dæmon in particular, which is rooted in Plotinus' metaphysics, answers all of my questions, and does not conflict with my own lived experience.

I have transcribed it for anyone else who is interested. As always, it is in the public domain and you can find the PDF in US Letter and A4 paper sizes.