daimonian

plural daimonians · alternative daimonion

1. A daimon, especially that which inspired or warned Socrates.

   Draw nigh them daimonian! Why so fearest the Argives?

   1906, George Robert Stow Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Ghosis Being a Translation of the Extant Sermons and Fragments of the Trismegistic Literature, with Prolegomena, Commentaries and Notes, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   It is because Plato describes the role of the daimonian as being only that of warning that Kierkegaard prefers Plato's representation of Socrates to that of Xenophon, who through lack of thought, “in his wisdom thought that if the daimonian warned, then it surely must prompt as well".

   2009, Robert L. Perkins, The Moment and Late Writings, →ISBN, page 92

   On this point Socrates had no doubt, for he says, “When I was about to cross the stream, the daimonian sign that usually comes to me was given—it always holds me back from what I want to do—and I thought I heard a voice from it which forbade..." (Phaedrus, 242b).

   2013, Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy, →ISBN, page 159