 Daemons occupy transient forms, incarnating into plant life, animals, and humans. Empedocles relates that they wander in these for thirty thousand seasons. Their exile on earth is well-expressed by Empedocles in his affirmation that while the daemon transmigrates, it neither reaches the abode of Zeus nor the palace of Hades (B 142 = D 12). It is a period of suffering and loss, underscoring the importance of the escape that is the daemon’s return to godhood. Incarnation appears to form a “ladder”. The highest order of plants is the laurel, and of animals, the lion. Empedocles states of humans: