The Rescue of Souls

For dæmons do not assist all indifferently, but as when men swim at sea, those standing on the shore merely view in silence the swimmers who are still far out distant from land, whereas they help with hand and voice alike such as have come near, and running along and wading in beside them bring them safely in, such too, my friends, is the way of dæmons: as long as we are head over ears in the welter of worldly affairs and are changing body after body, like conveyances, they allow us to fight our way out and persevere unaided, as we endeavor by our own prowess to come through safe and reach a haven; but when in the course of countless births a soul has stoutly and resolutely sustained a long series of struggles, and as her cycle draws to a close, she approaches the upper world, bathed in sweat, in imminent peril and straining every nerve to reach the shore,​ God holds it no sin for her dæmon to go to the rescue, but lets whoever will lend aid. One dæmon is eager to deliver by his exhortations one soul, another another, and the soul on her part, having drawn close, can hear, and is thus saved; but if she pays no heed, she is forsaken by her dæmon and comes to no happy end.

(Plutarch on the Dæmon of Socrates 593F–594A, as translated by Phillip H. De Lacy and Benedict Einarson)