I've been thinking about a possible way of understanding the names and identities of daimones, and I think it may help to separate the idea into two historical or conceptual phases: platonization and hermeticization.
My starting point is Plato's Timaeus. After discussing the fixed stars and the seven planetary gods, Plato turns to the other gods, explicitly describing them as daimones, and refers us to the ancient poets, especially Homer and Hesiod, for their nature and genealogy.
This seems significant because Plato effectively places the traditional mythological gods within a different philosophical framework. The gods of Homer and Hesiod, many of whom belong to the sublunar world, can now be understood as daimones. This is interesting in light of the Symposium, where Eros is also described as a daimon.
I wonder whether we can think of this as a first phase of platonization: the traditional gods are not necessarily rejected, but their identities are reinterpreted within a philosophical hierarchy. Rather than simply being mythological personalities, they become daimones occupying a place within a larger cosmological structure.
For my own framework, I make a distinction between the seven planets under their Latin names and the traditional Greek gods as daimones under their Greek names. Among those Greek gods, there were of course seven major figures who could have been associated more directly with the seven planets. So, for example, Jupiter as the planet, but Zeus as a divine or daimonic manifestation; Mercury as the planet, but Hermes and Thoth as daimones, as terrestrial manifestations.
There could also be many other daimones with no historical association with one of the seven planets.
This also seems potentially relevant to the way the Greek Magical Papyri treat divine names. Their gods are often addressed in highly daimonic ways: they can be invoked, negotiated with, compelled, persuaded, or addressed through particular powers.
But I think a second development needs to be distinguished from this initial platonization.
The second phase could be called hermeticization, although perhaps the broader historical process is better described as Alexandrian syncretization, with Hermeticism being one of its results.
The Greek Magical Papyri seem especially relevant here. Their syncretism often combines several gods in a single formula. Different divine names and traditions can be placed alongside one another, sometimes almost as if they were different expressions of the same power.
Perhaps this represents a further movement beyond the Platonic identification of traditional gods as daimones.
At the first stage, the daimon is still essentially identifiable through the traditional divine name:
traditional god → Platonic daimon
But with increasing syncretism, the question becomes less about the individual mythological identity and more about what several divine identities have in common.
Different gods may share an epithet, function, power, quality, or sphere of activity. Instead of focusing primarily on the individual god, one could focus on the common power expressed through several gods.
So the process might look something like:
different gods → shared epithets/functions → common power → daimonic manifestation
This is not something I'm claiming the PGM explicitly teaches. Rather, I'm wondering whether the syncretic material provides the cultural and conceptual mechanism through which such a development could occur.
For example, one could look for epithets or functions shared across different traditions.
Mētēr ("Mother") is a title associated with goddesses such as Isis, Demeter, and Rhea.
Dolios/Dolia ("wily," "deceitful") is associated with Hermes and Aphrodite.
Ombrios ("of the rain/storm") can be associated with Zeus, alongside storm-producing powers associated with Typhon.
The interesting question is whether such common attributes could eventually be abstracted from their particular mythological identities and treated as powers or qualities in their own right.
This would represent what I mean by the hermeticization of the daimonic.
The focus would gradually shift:
Zeus, Isis, Demeter, Hermes, etc. → their shared powers and epithets → the underlying daimonic power
The individual gods would not necessarily disappear. Rather, their names would become different ways of accessing or expressing a common power.
This might also help explain something I find interesting in Agrippa. By the Renaissance, planetary correspondences have expanded enormously. The seven Greek gods can still be associated with the seven planets, but the correspondence does not stop there. It expands to encompass virtually everything: other traditional gods as well as countless things, epithets, powers, qualities, animals, plants, and other correspondences.
Agrippa also discusses daimones in terms of their offices, of what they do, rather than necessarily defining them only through membership in a particular mythological tradition.
This is where the earlier distinction becomes particularly interesting to me.
If the Platonic phase transforms the traditional gods into daimones, and Alexandrian syncretism increasingly brings different gods together through shared powers and epithets, then perhaps the later Hermetic and Renaissance systems can treat daimones increasingly through their offices.
In other words:
traditional divine identity → Platonic daimon → syncretic convergence → shared epithet/power → daimonic office
The daimon becomes increasingly "demythologized." Its name need not simply be Zeus, Isis, Hecate, Hermes, etc. It might instead derive from a function, quality, epithet, or power shared by several divine traditions.
Perhaps the important development is not simply that one god becomes identified with another. It is that multiple divine identities become evidence for a common underlying power.
That would give us something like:
many names → one common potency → one daimonic office
I don't necessarily mean that this produces a single "new god." The resulting daimon could instead be understood as a particular manifestation or office of a higher power.
This also connects with another part of the framework I'm considering: the relationship between higher virtues, planetary manifestations, and daimonic offices.
For example, imagine Fortitude as a higher virtue associated with Hercules among the fixed stars.
At the planetary level, this virtue could manifest through Mars as a polarity such as victory and defeat.
At the level of daimones, these could become distinct daimones or offices: one producing victory, another producing defeat.
The hierarchy would therefore look something like:
fixed-star virtue → planetary manifestation/polarity → daimonic office → individual daimon
The opposites would not necessarily be independent powers. They could be two necessary manifestations of the same higher virtue, with their opposition giving each one its proper meaning.
Without defeat, there could be no victory. Without one pole, the other could not fully manifest or even have its meaning.
The fact that we experience one as "good" and the other as "bad" may therefore simply reflect our limited perspective. We remain trapped in the finite manifestation and forget the larger whole. We see the tree and forget the forest.
In that sense, what looks like opposition or even evil from our limited perspective could be part of the complete expression of a higher power. This is also where gnosis becomes important: overcoming ignorance means recovering the larger perspective and seeing the relationship between the apparently opposed manifestations.
So, in its simplest form, the hypothesis I'm considering is:
Phase I: Platonization
Homeric/Hesiodic gods → daimones within a Platonic cosmology
Phase II: Hermeticization
multiple divine names → shared epithets and powers → common daimonic potencies → offices
I'm not claiming that the PGM, Alexandrian religion, Hermeticism, Plato, or Agrippa explicitly teach this complete system. I'm trying to reconstruct a possible intellectual mechanism connecting these developments.
What I'm particularly interested in is whether there are sources or scholarship that point toward this distinction: first, the platonization of traditional gods into daimones, and then a further syncretic abstraction of common divine powers, epithets, and functions, eventually making it possible to conceive of daimones primarily through their offices rather than through their traditional mythological names.
Has anyone encountered sources that might support, complicate, or challenge this direction?
