The Guiding Spirits and the Elements

You have four parts to your being: the Fiery consciousness that infuses all, an Airy soul, a Watery imagination, and an Earthy body. I sometimes often almost exclusively like to talk about guardian angels, but the Neoplatonists didn't consider you to have just one of these: rather, each part of your being has a guide set over it, and the one you interact with is of the degree immediately higher than whatever part of your being consciousness reflects off of.

When you are focused on your body, your goal is to master the civic virtues, and in this you are aided by the natal daimon, a being of Water who is set over the body, tending it and keeping it whole. Since this being is set over your body, it only persists with the body for the length of a single life; this is the daimon which Socrates (quoting Er) talks about in the Republic as going with a person when they enter into life, and it's the being which astrological mechanisms relate to and identify.

When you are focused on your imagination, your goal is to master the cathartic virtues, and in this you are aided by the guardian angel, a being of Air who is set over the imagination. This being is immortal and persists with a soul through all its incarnations, shepherding it back up to the spiritual world. Few people, it seems, energize at the level of Water, and this is why the Egyptian priest found it remarkable that Plotinus's guiding spirit was a god and not a mere daimon.

When you are focused on your soul, only one being remains above you, and that is Fire itself: so heroes (those of us who no longer require bodies but live in the spiritual world) no longer have a guardian angel, but are guided by God (which is why Proclus says, "as souls we are dependent upon the Intellect alone, but as souls using a body we are in need of the guardian spirit").

What happens to those guiding spirits as we ascend the ranks? As beings of Water, natal daimons aren't immortal; they outlive the body they tend, but not indefinitely, and I presume it is they who meet us after death and help us to process our life's experiences. Guardian angels, on the other hand, are immortal and persist indefinitely: I presume that even if they aren't our guardians any more in the spiritual world, that they help us acclimate to that world when we first return there, and after that remain our good and close friends.

I have been wondering about this in the context of the Odyssey. As I have said, if Odusseus is the individual soul in the process of reascent, then Ogugia is the limit of the world of Earth, Skheria is the limit of the world of Water, and Ithake is "home," the world of Air. It is noteworthy that Hermes aids Odusseus on Aiaia (giving him moly to protect him from Kirke) and on Ogugia (conveying Zeus's will that Kalupso release Odusseus), but thereafter he is aided by Athenaie (advising him on Skheria, helping him to reclaim his house on Ithake). So in that sense, Hermes acts like Odusseus's natal daimon, while Athenaie acts like Odusseus's guardian angel.

(It is amusing to me that these two deities are the two Olumpians which are described as children. Athenaie in particular is not often depicted this way in modern times, but that is exactly what "Pallas" means: "pre-pubescent girl." Presumably their depiction as children reflects their minor status as compared to other daimons or angels (or gods, like Zeus and Demeter). Certainly, Athenaie's fiery outbursts at Zeus make more sense when she's seen in this way—"daddy, you don't even care about Odusseus!" as she stomps her feet—and I would love to see people draw Athenaie as swimming in an aigis much, much too big for her!)