Daimon referred to a divinity-like entity that manifested itself through the human soul. On a number of occasions, Socrates states that he has an inner daimon. This is usually translated "sign" or "voice," or sometimes "oracle." This inner daimon warned him when he was in danger of doing the wrong thing. In the dialogue Apology, he tells the judges at his trial: 2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif 2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif O my judges... I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the divine faculty of which the internal oracle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error in any matter; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle op2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif 2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif "Plato; or, The Philosopher" (from Representative Men), in The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 488. --- title: page55 ---? xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> | Page 55 | | --- | 2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif 2821e757be33def7238163fe3269153e. gif posed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign daimonion would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good. The inner daimon is discussed in other dialogues in much the same way. This experience, of course, is completely familiar to a depth psychologist, mainly in terms of dreams. Often one will anticipate a certain action and will have a clearcut warning dream that says in so many words, ''Don't do that." But if one is in good enough relation to the unconscious, one does not have to wait for a dream. The Socratic daimon will speak from within. It is a trans-ego phenomenon that operates on the margin of consciousness, which can be understood, of course, as a function of the Self, the greater personality within. When the ego is in the right relation to it, it functions like a guardian angel.
— Edward F. Edinger
Socrates does not ask the daimon to guide him toward anything. He only notices when it falls silent. This is worth sitting with: the inner voice that depth psychology keeps reaching toward is, in Socrates' own account, primarily a voice of interruption — something that stops the action, corrects the course, opposes the trifle. When it goes quiet at the approach of his death, he reads the silence not as abandonment but as permission, even as confirmation. The daimon withholds its veto, and he takes that as the deepest word it has ever spoken.
Edinger translates this into the idiom of the Self and the guardian angel, which is the move worth watching. The daimon in Plato is already a departure from Homer's interior — the semi-autonomous *menos*, the *thūmos* that counsel and grieve and surge — and mapping it further onto a benevolent "trans-ego function" in good relation to consciousness smooths what the Apology actually shows. Socrates is condemned by the city and faces execution; his daimon's silence is not comfort exactly, it is the withdrawal of the one check that had reliably functioned. What depth psychology inherits from this is less a guardian than a limit-setter — and most instructively, a presence known by its refusals rather than its guidance.
Edward F. Edinger·The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus·1999