Chapter 3 focuses on δαίμων and its significance in Empedocles’ concept of rebirth. I show that the demonological fragments and the term δαίμων, in particular, emphasize Empedocles’ divine nature in contrast to the rest of humankind and cannot represent, as is generally believed, the place where his personal vicissitude becomes exemplary of every soul’s destiny, thus grounding his doctrine of rebirth. To define what Empedocles intended when he called himself a reincarnated δαίμων, I analyze Plato’s myths of the soul’s otherworldly journeys and some fragments attesting to Pythagoras’ demonology. While Plato, in his concept of rebirth, conceptualized the δαίμονες as deities who guide souls during and beyond this life, Pythagoras articulated the idea that a god could exceptionally undergo rebirths, but these are usually reserved for ordinary souls. Following Pythagoras and anticipating Plato, Empedocles constructs his demonology which is linked, but does not overlap, with his doctrine of rebirth. Finally, addressing the issue of the ‘physical’ δαίμων in B 59 I argue that δαίμων is a predicative notion which, in all Empedoclean occurrences, is still intimately connected to the traditional sense of ‘god’.

Chapter 11 returns to the beginning by revising the arguments on negativity made by Adorno and Agamben, as well as George Spencer Brown’s language of distinctions and of the nothing to help formulate this sense of renewed strategic need for both in-forming and un-informing. It is not much that we offer by way of a way out, but that is the point; it must remain in an uneasy and slightly impoverished space if it is to survive, it is strategy from the shadow.

Chapter 1 treats Hesiod (early seventh century BCE), who envisioned the daimonification of the primal (golden) generation of humans. The golden generation was already close to the gods, the “model A” type of human. For Hesiod, it was important that the golden generation was righteous and good. After death, they became guardian daimones that granted gifts to humans. Hesiod also presented the daimonification of an individual, Phaethon. Phaethon represents a type of figure who obtained daimonic status owing to his beauty. Later, however, daimonification was linked with moral forms of excellence. Alcestis, a maiden from Thessaly, became a daimon by her supreme sacrifice, and Pythagoras was venerated as a daimon for his wisdom.

Chapter 7 turns to daimonification in the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (205–270 CE). Porphyry presented Plotinus as already a daimon while on earth. This presentation partially depends on Plotinus’s own teachings: the one who becomes a daimon in heaven already was one on earth. This presentist focus was shaped by a reading of Empedocles and Plato – the daimon is one’s higher consciousness into which one lives. In his theory of daimonification, Plotinus emphasized ethical and contemplative practices. Purifying virtues disengaged the higher consciousness from the “conglomerate” of the body and the lower mind. When one’s higher mind is free from bodily images, one can live at the level of the daimon.

Empedocles (about 492–430 BCE) promoted himself as a daimon in flesh. He told a cosmic story about how daimones fell from their blessed state and the mode of their return. The pure daimon is a spherical being made up of the energy of Love. Owing to a moral fault, the individual daimon falls into flesh and enters a drawn-out cycle of moral and physical purification. The fallen daimon purifies itself by living the lives of different animals and plants and by not eating substances that contain the daimonic essence. Empedocles is historically significant for his focus on individual and present daimonification, and for his cosmic story of daimonic fall and redemption, a story moralized by Plato and his intellectual heirs.

This introduction distinguishes angelification (becoming an angel) from angelomorphism (becoming like an angel), although it acknowledges ambiguity. After briefly discussing angelification in modern literature and film, it defines both angels and daimones in the ancient sense, discusses the analogous concept of a hero, and distinguishes angelification and daimonification from the broader concept of deification in the ancient world.