Plotinus and the "Daimonion" of Socrates

IN THE tenth chapter of his Life of Plotinus Porphyry recounts the story of a seance held in the Isaeum at Rome. An Egyptian priest, he tells us, offered to evoke Plotinus' daimon, but when he had delivered his summons it was not a daimon that appeared, but a god. As a result of meditating on this experience, Porphyry continues, Plotinus wrote a treatise on spirit-guides (3.4) in which he attempted to explain why the guides of all men are not alike. Despite the assurances of the learned that Plotinus had no time for magic, even though he recognized it as a real power,1 this tale of the seance makes us wonder about the precise importance Plotinus attached to spirit-guides and the origins of his belief in their significance. In this paper, therefore, I wish to investigate the historical background of Ennead 3.4 and of Porphyry's account of the seance. Professor Dodds has reminded us that both the incident in the Isaeum and the composition of Ennead 3.4 took place before Porphyry's arrival in Rome and that the account of the seance is hearsay in which we cannot put much confidence.2 Nevertheless, the treatise 3.4 is certainly a genuine work of Plotinus and its conclusions must be considered. In that treatise we find that a few people have a (OE6s) as their daimon and that these are the sages (3.4.6). Since it is certain that Plotinus' pupils considered their master a sage, we can understand how they came to believe that his daimon was a god. Professor Armstrong3 has clearly explained why Plotinus himself could never have called the god conjured up in the Isaeum a at all. The God who is the philosopher's daimon in 3.4.6 is the One, and the One and NoDs are far beyond the realm where magic can have any effect. This realm is defined in Ennead 4.4.43. All we can say of the story in Porphyry is that it probably grew up partially under the influence of the doctrine of Ennead 3.4 where the sage's daimon is said to be a god. The story recounts the sort of practical demonstration that Plotinus' view is true which might have appealed to certain of his more superstitious followers

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