What if becoming wiser requires a relationship with a "divine double" within you? In episode three of the series, John and Harvard's Charles Stang move on from Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes to Apuleius' 2nd-century text On the God of Socrates, which imagines philosophy as a kind of daimonology that begins and ends with two daimons: the daimon that is your soul and the daimon that is your double. Apuleius presents daimons as intermediaries between dispassionate gods and passionate humans, translating the gods' care into the language of emotion, and then complicates his own taxonomy: human souls are themselves daimons, the air is populated by the formerly embodied dead, and some daimons were never embodied at all and attach themselves to our souls as guides. Along the way, John and Charles compare daimons with biblical angels, ask what "vehicle" could mediate between the abstract and the embodied, and connect the daimonic to internal family systems, grief-time encounters with the dead, dialogical rationality, the future self, and intuition as non-conscious pattern detection that needs dialectic and discernment as a check. They explore Apuleius' claim that daimons have subtle bodies of air and can choose to be seen. John then speaks openly about a waking vision and a dream of Hermes, a daimonic guide he says has been oriented only toward virtue and the love of wisdom, before Charles previews Porphyry's story of an Egyptian priest summoning Plotinus' daimon at the temple of Isis in Rome. Charles Stang is a professor of early Christian thought at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, and the author of Our Divine Double. In this episode, he guides John through Apuleius' On the God of Socrates, laying out its three kinds of daimons, the role of air and subtle bodies, and its vision of philosophy as knowing your own daimonic soul and cultivating a relationship with its divine double. John Vervaeke is the host of the Lectern series and a scholar whose work explores philosophy, cognition, meaning, wisdom, and the meaning crisis. In this conversation, he brings 4E (and his proposed 6E) cognitive science, the dialogical self, and research on intuition to bear on Apuleius' account, argues that the cultivation of wisdom must be daimonic in nature, and shares his own visual encounters with Hermes. Take the Daemons in Divinity course with Charles: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/daemons-in-divinity Charles Stang's Web: https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/charles-m-stang On the God of Socrates - Apuleius: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Apuleius+On+the+God+of+Socrates Our Divine Double - Charles M. Stang: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Charles+Stang+Our+Divine+Double Symposium - Plato: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Plato+Symposium Timaeus - Plato: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Plato+Timaeus Divination and Human Nature - Peter T. Struck: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Peter+Struck+Divination+and+Human+Nature Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism - Crystal Addey: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Crystal+Addey+Divination+and+Theurgy+in+Neoplatonism On the Life of Plotinus - Porphyry / The Enneads - Plotinus: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Porphyry+Life+of+Plotinus+Enneads The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission: https://vervaekefoundation.org/ Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships: https://awakentomeaning.com/ Follow John Vervaeke: Website - https://johnvervaeke.com/ Twitter - https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Thank you for watching!