Diligentia et divina sorte1

Oracular Intelligence in Marsilio Ficinos Astral Magic

Angela Voss

(Canterbury Christ Church University)

Summary

In this chapter I want to demonstrate how the astral magic of the Florentine philosopher
Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) in his treatise De vita coelitus comparanda of 1489 (On aligning
your life with the heavens, henceforth Dvcc)2 can be understood as a method for attaining a
mode of insight he understood as oracular or prophetic.3 I suggest that this challenges the
supposedly natural remit of his magic, through confirming the noetic dimension of the
human soul as essentially divine, capable of accessing a kind of direct knowing of a radically
different order from conceptual or speculative thought. That Ficino himself was fully aware of
this possibility through his reading of the Neoplatonic theurgists is hinted at in this text, but
he was constrained by Christian doctrine on the dangers of attracting demonic powers.4 We

1
By diligence and the divine oracle. Marsilio Ficino, De vita coelitus comparanda, (henceforth Dvcc) in
Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, eds Carol Kaske and John Clark (Binghamton: Society of Renaissance
Studies), XXI, 356-357, 47. The Latin translations of excerpts from Dvcc in this chapter are from this edition,
which is based on the editio princeps of 1489 (Kaske and Clark, 8). All other references to and quotations from
Ficinos Latin texts are from Opera, Basle, 1576 [repr. Paris: Phnix Editions, 2000]). Dvcc was originally
written as part of Ficinos Commentaries on Plotinus, but by August 1489 he had revised it and made additions
to the text (Kaske and Clark, 7).
2
Dvcc constitutes Book III of Ficinos Three Books on Life. Vernon Wells has drawn attention to the ambiguity
of the title in Tempering Heaven: A Commentary on the first chapter of Marsilio Ficinos De vita coelitus
comparanda (unpublished MA thesis, University of Kent, 2010), 3-5. Comparare can be translated as prepare,
provide, compose, collect, get together/hold of; raise (force), unite, place together, match, couple, pair, set/pit
against, treat as equal, compare, set up/establish/institute, arrange, dispose, settle, buy, acquire, secure
(http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=comparanda [accessed 31/07/15]). I am grateful to
Georgiana Hedesan for suggesting the appropriate translation of aligning. The first two books of the treatise,
De vita sana and De vita longa are devoted to medical and regimen advice for over-intellectual scholars.
3
My approach will be more hermeneutic than historiographical, in that I am particularly interested in how Ficino
understood and worked with the powers of imagination and what the Neoplatonic metaphor may reveal about
dimensions of human consciousness. While I am aware of the arguments raised by Wouter Hanegraaff
concerning the contrasting approaches of methodological agnosticism and religionism within historical
studies of Western Esotericism (Western Esotericism and the Academy, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012, 237-8), I fully support the view of Jeffrey J. Kripal who calls for a gnostic scholar who is both
passionate and critical, personal and objective, religious and academic and committed to a methodological
approach which integrates criticality and empathy (Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom, Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 2001, 5). Further on this see Kripal, The Serpents Gift, Chicago; Chicago University Press,
2007, 4-14; Voss, A Methodology of the Imagination, Eye of the Heart Journal, vol. 3, LaTrobe University,
2009, 37-52.
4
See Brian Copenhaver, Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the De vita of Marsilio Ficino,
Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 4 (1984) 523-554; D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino
to Campanella, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000, 36-44; the main critic here is Augustine (De doctrina

1
find here an irresolvable conflict between Neoplatonic ritual, which upheld the potential of
the imagination as a purposeful agent in directing the soul to divine communion via cosmic
intelligence, and the assertions of Scholastic Christianity regarding the illegitimacy of
pagan practices. However, I conclude that Ficinos assured grasp of the power of
astrological invocation as divinatory enabled him to artfully lay the ground in Dvcc for a
process of spiritual illumination that he understood as partaking of a universal religious truth,
framed by Christianity, but transcending the arguments of abstract Scholastic debate.

Introduction

Marsilio Ficino was instrumental in the revival of Platonism in Renaissance Europe, devoting
his career to the integration of the ancient theology of the Persian, Egyptian and Greek
pagan sages into Christianity.5 His innovative vision was aimed at rekindling the flame of a
living engagement with the sacred which was both dynamic and transformative, in order to
deepen faith with philosophical understanding.6 Following the examples of Pythagoras,
Socrates and Christ, he combined action and contemplation in a life of service to both
physical and spiritual wellbeing,7 his ecclesiastic career enabling him to sanctify the
philosophy of the ancient pagan theologians whilst still confirming the supremacy of the
established faith.8 At the same time, Ficino was also a practising physician, astrologer,

Christiana, 2.23.36, 29.45). Copenhaver points out that Ficino would have found more sympathy towards his
talismanic magic in Thomas Aquinas Summa contra Gentiles and De occultis operibus naturae (Scholastic
Philosophy), but the crux of the problem lay in the question of the ontological status of any independent
spiritual agency involved. On Ficinos concern about daemonic invocation, see Michael J. B. Allen,
Summoning Plotinus: Ficino, Smoke and the Strangled Chickens in Platos Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio
Ficinos Metaphysics and its Sources, Aldershot: Variorum, 1995, XIV, 63-88.
5
See e.g. Hanegraaff, Esotericism, 41-52, James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, Leiden/New York:
Brill, 1991, 267-317. By ancient theology, Ficino meant a succession of pagan sages from Zoroaster (or
Hermes Trismegistus) to Plato who transmitted a perennial wisdom which Ficino understood himself as
reviving. For details of the lineage see Ficino, Preface to his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum in Opera
1386, trans. in Brian Copenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), xlviii; D.P.
Walker, The Ancient Theology (London: Duckworth, 1972).
6
In his treatise De Christiana religione Ficino laments the profanity of his age and states his mission to liberate
philosophy from impiety and to redeem holy religion: I therefore exhort and implore all philosophers to
reach out and embrace religion firmly, and all priests to devote themselves diligently to the study of legitimate
religion. (liberemus obsecro quandoque philosophiam, sacrum Dei munus, ab impietate, si possumus
possumus autem, si volumusreligionem sanctam pro vivus ab execrabili insitia redimamus, Hortor igitur
omnes atque precor philosophos quidem, ut religionem vel capessant penitus vel attingant, sacerdotes autem, ut
legitimate sapientiae studiis diligenter incumbant); Opera, 1, quoted in Hankins, Plato in the Italian
Renaissance, 289.
7
Ficino tells us in the Proem to his Three Books on Life (Kaske and Clark, 102-103, 19-22) that he had two
fathers, his natural father (a physician) and his patron Cosimo de Medici: The former commended me to Galen
as both a doctor and a Platonist; the latter consecrated me to the divine Plato. And both the one and the other
alike dedicated Marsilio to a doctorGalen, doctor of the body, Plato, doctor of the soul. (Ille quidem me
Galieno tum medico tum Platonico commendavit; hic autem divino consecravit me Platoni. et hic similiter atque
ille Marsilium medico destinavit: Galienus quidem corporum, Plato vero medicus animorum).
8
Ficino was ordained as a priest in 1473, and later became a Canon of Florence Cathedral.

2
musician and magician, and all of these activities contributed to his natural magic, a form of
healing which was firmly situated within Neoplatonic cosmology and ritual, and which drew
on the powers of the active imagination for its effects.9 One could say that Ficinos mission
was founded on his desire to infuse an exoteric framework of Christian spiritual values with
a deep understanding of the necessity for individual, visionary inner work in order to heal a
perceived dissociation between the rational and imaginative powers of mind.10

Diligentia et divina sorte

There has been considerable scholarly interest in Dvcc,11 but to my knowledge no one has
focussed on the hermeneutic implications of a specific phrase he uses in Chapter XXI where
he addresses the improvisation or composition of suitable music for attracting propitious
stellar influences. It is indeed very difficult to judge exactly what kinds of tones/modes
(toni)12 are suitable for what sorts of stars, says Ficino, or indeed what combination of
tones/modes especially accord with what sorts of constellations and aspects. But we can attain
this, partly through our own efforts (diligentia nostra), partly by some divine oracle (divina
quadam sorte).13 The word sors was used in classical sources chiefly for the practice of
divination by lot, as for example in the ancient Roman custom of drawing Homeric verses

9
On the Neoplatonic elements in Ficinos natural magic in Dvcc, see Brian Copenhaver, Renaissance Magic
and Neoplatonic Philosophy: Ennead 4.3-5 in Ficinos De vita coelitus comparanda, in G. Garfagnini (ed.)
Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, (Florence: Olschki, 1986) 351-369; Walker, Spiritual and Demonic
Magic; Frances Yates (in Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964, ch. IV)
emphasises Ficinos magical and Hermetic sources. On the power of the imagination in Renaissance magic and
its associations with eros, see Ioan Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987, ch. 2.
10
Further on this dissociation and its implications in the Renaissance period, see Iain McGilchrist, The Master
and his Emissary (Yale University Press, 2009), ch.9.
11
See for example, Copenhaver, Scholastic Philosophy; Renaissance Magic and Neoplatonic Philosophy,
351-369; Kaske and Clark, Three Books on Life; Thomas Moore, The Planets Within (repr. Hernden VA:
Steinerbooks, 1992); Gary Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989),
ch. 4; Angela Voss (ed.) Marsilio Ficino, Writings on Astrology (Western Esoteric Masters Series, Berkeley:
North Atlantic Books, 2006); Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 3-53; Yates, Giordano Bruno, 64-83.
12
Kaske and Clark translate toni as tones (XXI, 42), but tonus (from the Greek tonos meaning note, interval,
region of the voice or pitch) may also refer to a Church mode or plainsong recitation formula, i.e. a series of
tones arranged as a species of octave scale or as a melodic fragment. See Cleonides, Harmonic Introduction, in
Source Readings in Music History, trans. Oliver Strunk, vol. 1 (New York: Norton, 1965) 34-46; Andrew
Barker, Harmonic and Acoustic Theory, in Greek Musical Writings, vol. II, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989) 17-19. On Ficinos probable use of the modes in his planetary music, see Voss, The
Music of the Spheres: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Harmonia, Culture and Cosmos, vol.2, no. 2 (1998): 16-
38, Voss, Orpheus Redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino in Marsilio Ficino, his Philosophy, his
Theology, his Legacy, eds Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, Leiden and New York: Brill. 2002, 227-242.
13
Dvcc, XXI, 44-47: Difficillimum quidem est iudicatu, quales potissimum toni qualibus convenient stellis,
quales item tonotum compositiones qualibus praecipue sideribus aspectibusque consentient. Sed partim
diligentia nostra, partim divina quadam sorte id assequi possumus Kaske and Clark translate sors as
destiny, but the word has a range of other meanings, including lot, fate and oracular response
(http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=sors [accessed 31/07/15])).

3
from a pot to determine a course of actionimplying that what we call chance was in fact
an opportunity for the gods to give divine guidance.14 But sors could also refer to the verbal
response of an oracle,15 and this seems to be what Ficino has in mind in Dvcc, in which his
primary concern is to attract the gifts of higher (ostensibly cosmic) powers to the human soul.
Ficinos use of sors here suggests that he is thinking of his astral music as a divinatory
procedure, in which human diligentia prepares the ground for a numinous response. Indeed in
confirmation that the divine collaborates in the healing process, he defers to Late Antique
magi Apollonius of Tyana (c.15-c.100 CE) and Iamblichus (245-325 CE) who testify that all
medicine had its origin in inspired prophecy, because Apollo was father of both arts.16 This
statement has far-reaching implications in relation to the supposedly natural remit of
Ficinos magic, as we shall see.

Natural or Spiritual Magic?

But how do the higher powers17 reveal their oracular message? Ficino implies that the divine
direction is experienced as a spontaneous, intuitive inspiration that appears to be other than
human, yet finds a channel through the soul of the performeras he describes in his Letter
On Divine Frenzy to Peregrino Agli.18 According to Plato, both poetry and prophecy arise

14
See Cicero, On Divination, I.34; also M. Loewe and C. Blacker, eds, Divination and Oracles (Berkeley,
California: Shambhala, 1981), 116-122, on different ways of divining by lot. Generally speaking, chance is
envisioned as the working of some impartial power which makes dice fall in a specific way, or an odd or even
number of pebbles jumping out of a buffalo horn, or a specific individual drawing a certain lot. These may be
ways of revealing divine will, or simply of ensuring fairness.
15
See Cicero, On Divination, II.56.
16
Dvcc XXI, 51: totam medicinam exordium a vaticiniis habuisse; also Ficino, The Letters of Marsilio Ficino,
vol. 1, trans. members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, (London: Shepheard-
Walwyn, 1975), 127. See Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, trans. Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon and Jackson P.
Herschbell (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Studies, 2003), III.3, and the Epitome by Ficino in Opera, 1883; Also,
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii in Opera auctiora, ed. C.L. Kayser, (Liepzig, 1870-71), vol. 1, 3.44.
17
In Dvcc I, 23-25, Ficino insists that his natural magic only engages celestial or daemonic rather than super-
celestial powers: And so let no one think that any divinities wholly separate from matter are being attracted by
any given mundane materials, but that daemons rather are being attracted and gifts from the ensouled world and
from the living stars. (Nemo itaque putet certis mundi materiis trahi nmina quaedam a materiis penitus
segregate, sed daemones potius animatiue munid munera stellarumque viventium) although he is clearly
attracted by Iamblichus and Proclus appeal to forces which are not only celestial, but even daemonic and
divine (vires effectusque non solum coelestes, sed etiam daemonicos et divinos [Dvcc, XIII, 30-32]). He
attempts to subdue any scholastic concern about daemones as deceitful spiritual intelligences by stating that
some regard the spirits of the stars as wonderful celestial forces, while others regard them as daemons attendant
upon this or that star (Spiritus autem stellarum intelligent alii quidem mirabiles coelestium vires, alii vero
daemonas etiam stellae huius illiusve pedissequos. [Dvcc, XX, 23-24]).
18
Ficino, Letter on Divine Frenzy, in Letters, vol. 1, 42-48 (Opera 612-615). On poetic frenzy, see Plato, Ion,
533e-536d; Phaedrus, 245a; We know that Ficino himself was possessed by such frenzy on occasion, as we have
an eye witness account from Bishop Campano in 1471 ... And there is frenzy; when he sings, as a lover to the
singing of his beloved, he plucks his lyre in harmony with the melody and rhythm of the song. Then his eyes
burn, he leaps to his feet and he discovers music which he never learnt by rote (Et furor est, cum cantata amans
cantante puella /Ad flexum, ad nutum percutit illi lyram. /Tunc ardent oculi, tunc planta exsurgit utraque,/ Et

4
through this altered state of consciousness, where the soul is moved by divine rapture to
prophetic utterance.19 It thus appears to contact a creative intelligence, a matter which calls
into question the Scholastic distinction between natural and supernatural realms of
magical operation. This is a question that is never satisfactorily resolved in Dvcc.20 Indeed
perhaps it cannot be resolved, because of the fundamental ambiguity in Platonism concerning
the ontological status of this other voice, to which I will return. But firstly, we must situate
Ficinos oracle within the metaphysical context with which he opens Dvcc, the Plotinian
tripartite cosmos.

In chapter I of Dvcc Ficino sets the scene by evoking the power of the anima mundi, the world
soul, which mediates between the divine Ideas and matter, conveying qualities from the Ideas
to material forms by way of seminal reasons (rationes seminales) by which species are
fashioned.21 This poetic vision is typical of Ficino, its tone in stark contrast to the logical
reasoning of Scholastic theology.22 In the Neoplatonic scheme of creation, all things conform
through their ratio (which can be described as an occult property) to an Idea, and this
identification can be intensified by the natural magician working with a knowledge of

quos non didicit, comperit ille modos.) quoted in Arnaldo Della Torre, Storia dellAccademia Platonica
(Florence: G. Carnesecchi e figli, 1902), 791. Other references to Ficinos own performance include Letters,
vol.1, 144 (Opera, 651), 179 (Opera, 665), 198 (Opera, 673) Letters, vol. 2, (London: Shepheard-Walwyn,
1978), 14 (Opera, 725), 33 (Opera, 734-5); Letters, vol. 4 (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1988), 16-17 (Opera,
788).
19
Ficino, On Divine Frenzy, 47. On Ficinos understanding of prophecy, see Letters, vol. 7 (London:
Shepheard-Walwyn, 2003), 26-28, Prophets and their Interpreters (Opera 873-874). Ficino finds consistency
in both Platonic and Christian views that foreknowledge of the future is in the mind of God alone, and that the
prophet as Gods tongue may not know the import of what they utter. However, he adds an intriguing
comment (Letters vol. 7. 27, Opera 873) that men can perceive the future through divination, which is a
property of the senses and imagination rather than of the mind and reason (Quod si praesagi dicuntur, id est,
praesentientes, id ipsum praesagium non ad mentem et raionem, sed ad sensum imaginionatemque pertinere
videtur).
20
Natural in a theological sense would be understood to refer to the created order below the primum mobile of
Aristotelian cosmology, and to the powers of the created world and the human being as opposed to the
supernatural powers of God and the angels, who were located beyond any human intelligence and whose essence
constituted a mystery. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, 2.1.94, on natural law. We must also note that
divination through inspiration or dreams was regarded as natural in that it did not rely on artificial apparatus
or deliberate induction, such as in divination through entrails, birds or lots. This term in no way denied the
supernatural provenance of the revelation (see Plato, Phaedrus 244).
21
Dvcc I, 13-20. Plotinus describes the logoi spermatikoi (seminal reasons) as the productive powers or
essences of the world soul, produced by nous or divine intelligence (see Enneads V.9.6-7). For an overview of
medieval and Renaissance cosmology see Edward Grant, Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos 1200-
1687, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
22
See for example, Leo Elders, The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1990). This
topic is far too complex to address here, but I would just make the point that one essential difference between
Neoplatonic and Scholastic texts lies in their modes of discourse: the former valuing the power of poetic
metaphor and symbol to evoke direct noetic understanding, the latter relying on rational argument and logical
demonstration to appeal to the rational mind. On Ficinos critique of Scholasticism and the errors of his
contemporary Aristotelians, see Hankins, 272-276, 340.

5
sympathy and correspondence.23 Most importantly, the stars, planets and their various
configurations flourish in the world-soul, and on these well-ordered forms the forms of lower
things depend.24 Celestial forms (i.e. planetary and stellar patterns) in turn refer back to the
Ideas, being images, brought forth by the soul, of intellectual properties, and ultimately they
return to the unity of the One and Good (unum atque bonum), the ground of all being.25
Plotinus explains that the soul of the human being, made from the same stuff as the soul
of the world,26 resonates with or comprehends the Ideas as images through its corresponding
faculty of intellectual imagination (which is distinct from the phantasia in the lower part of
the soul).27 Just as these images point back to their source, so the human imagination can
follow through the act of symbolising, that is, engaging with the images mirrored in the lower
soul and bringing them into single focus with the intellectual properties of the higher. 28 In
Neoplatonic hermeneutics, this constitutes an active process which will lead the soul back to a
condition of unity with itself, the world-soul and ultimately with the One/God. This is why
Ficino found both astrology and musicas archetypal image-systemssuch powerful means
of re-alignment, but he found himself in a difficult position with regard to Scholastic
Christianity. The Neoplatonic understanding that the soul uses its own innate powers, powers
which are in fact divine, to achieve a level of consciousness that transcends human reason
(and thus may be seen to be prophetic) was not compatible with Christian doctrine on
revelation. Thomas Aquinas had distinguished between the direct impression on the mind by
God from without (true prophecy), and the kind of foreknowledge that derives from human
nature, which he would not regard as prophetic.29 James Hankins has pointed to Ficinos
refusal to make this distinction, for the Florentine philosopher clearly regards the engagement

23
For Plotinus understanding of magic as natural sympathy, see Enneads IV.4.
24
Dvcc I, 56-7: A quibus formis ordinatissimis dependent inferiorum formae.
25
Dvcc I, 57-62.
26
As in Plato, Timaeus, 41d-e.
27
On the higher and lower parts of the soul (the divisible and indivisible) and the necessity of bringing them
into single focus, see Plotinus, Ennead IV.3.19, 31. On the nature of the Plotinian soul, see Margaret Miles,
Plotinus on Body and Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 57-82. On Plotinus understanding of the
role of imagination as facilitating the mirroring of divine Ideas, see Enneads IV, 3-5; John Dillon, Plotinus and
the Transcendental Imagination, in The Religious Imagination, ed. John Mackey, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1986), 55-64. Gerard Watson in the same volume gives a clear overview of the development of
phantasia from its negative connotations in Plato to its elevation as an intermediary between sense-perception
and intellect by the early centuries CE (Imagination and Religion in Classical Thought in Mackey, The
Religious Imagination, 29-54).
28
Plotinus comments all teems with symbol, the wise man is he who in any one thing can see another (II.3.7);
in Are the Stars Causes? (Ennead II.3), his message is that the stars and planets signify, they do not cause,
events in the material world or human characteristics.
29
Aquinas, Summa theologica, 172.1, see also De veritate 12.1-2; ST, 2.2.173.

6
of the imagination in divinatory acts as facilitating revelation from the divine source.30 The
problem would seem to centre on the incompatibility of dual and non-dual conceptions of the
cosmos: Platonically speaking, divine revelation could be achieved through innate powers of
the soul which are themselves divine, yet as a Christian Ficino found himself required to
honour the distinction between natural and supernatural domains of influence. The crux lay in
the fact that the Neoplatonic natural continuum of psychic energy from the ensouled world
to the divine mind, mediated by benevolent intermediary spiritual agencies (the daemones),31
could not be translated into a Christian model where there was a strict divide between God
and nature. This had serious implications as far as magical operations were concerned,
because for Scholastic Christianity the natural world was the domain of demonic powers who
could be attracted by sympathy through talismanic invocation.32
Indeed this was a dangerous aspect of Ficinos ritual practice. He had translated (or rather
paraphrased) Iamblichus On the Mysteries (De mysteriis) shortly before writing the Liber de
vita,33 and there would have read of the theurgic practice of purifying the subtle or astral body
(pneuma or ochema) through ritual techniques to the extent that it became divinised whilst

30
See fn. 19. On Ficinos lack of distinction see James Hankins, Ficino, Avicenna and the Occult Properties of
the Rational Soul, in La Magia nellEuropa Moderna: tra antica sapienza e filosofia naturale, eds F. Meloi and
E. Scapparone (Florence: Olschki, 2003), vol. I, 35-52. Christian orthodoxy did not acknowledge a higher
imaginative faculty of the soul in the Neoplatonic/Avicennan sense of partaking of the divine mind, for it
understood the imagination as having a corporeal basis, not existing outside time. See Aquinas, ST 1.84, 7, 3 and
Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind, (London & New York: Psychology Press, 1994), 41-58. The question of the
theological compatibility of scholastic doctrine, heavily dependent on Aristotle, with Neoplatonic theories
regarding the nature of the soul and its faculties of perception was the central theme of Ficinos major original
work, the Theologia Platonica of 1469-74, in which he set out to achieve a synthesis of philosophy and theology
and demonstrate the immortality of the soul (Ficino, Theologia Platonica, eds Michael J. B. Allen and James
Hankins, 6 vols, [Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2001-2006]).
31
Ficinos understanding of the nature of the daemons is derived from Iamblichus and Proclus and explained in
Letters, vol.10 (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 2015), 56-57 (an excerpt from Ficinos summary of Proclus
Commentary on Platos Alcibiades, Opera 1908-1928). The cosmic deities rule over ranks of daemons who
share in their power, and human souls in turn participate in the daemons. The whole communion is presided over
by the creator God in as an uninterrupted flow of soul. When speaking Platonically in this way, Ficino does
not refer to contrasting Christian views.
32
Hence Ficinos attempt to justify his practice as harnessing life rather than world-soul (see Ficino,
Apology in Three Books on Life, 395-401, 102-108). On the theological argument see St Augustine, City of
God, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984), 344f., 324f; on Ficinos position
regarding demonic magic see Copenhaver, Scholastic Philosophy; Voss, God or the Daemon? Platonic
astrology in a Christian Cosmos, Temenos Academy Review 14 (London: The Temenos Academy, 2011), 96-
116; Walker, 45-53.
33
In Opera 1873-1907. Many of Ficinos letters in Liber IX reveal his preoccupation with Iamblichus at this
time; in his Preface to Iamblichus, Letters, vol. 8 (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2009), 14-15 (Opera 897), Ficino
writes to Cardinal Giovanni de Medici that Iamblichus is both a high priest and divine, and has much to
teach the Cardinal about religion and matters divine. In the light of this, one cannot overestimate the theurgic
implications of Ficinos natural magic.

7
the theurgist was still alive, thus constituting a vehicle for his or her return to the gods.34
Furthermore, this process would take place through the power of the intermediary daemones,
for mortal things obtain divine influences through these daemons.35 Indeed the imaginative
power of the operator is itself a daemon, and is impressed on the pneuma, accompanying it
when it leaves the body.36 Could we suggest that Ficinos ritual use of astral forces to purify
the spiritus of the individual in Dvcc points directly to this process, which ultimately
theurgicallywould lead to the souls realisation of its innate divinity? In this sense,
astrology, music, talismanic image-work and invocation become keys for opening the door, as
it were, to a transformation of the soul in which human consciousness shifts its locus from the
world of appearance to the intelligible reality of the Ideas, via the daemonic powers inherent
in stars, planets and audible sound.37 I would argue that in the phrase diligentia et divina sorte
there is then a subtle implication that Ficinos astrological music is essentially aiming to re-
align the soul not only with the cosmos, but with its divine supercosmic source, through
restoring the daemonic continuum between humans and the One/God. If so, then Dvcc is a
remarkable attempt at disguisecarefully cloaking the first steps of such a subversive
enterprise in the natural sympathies of the cosmic order.

Diligentia
Before considering the implications of the divina sors in relation to astrology, divination,
celestial and supercelestial intelligence, we should briefly discuss what Ficino means by
diligentia. In Dvcc chapter XXI, Ficino tells us that there are three key factors which promote
the efficacy of his astrological song: the inner, solar power or moral excellence (virtus) of the

34
See Gregory Shaw, Living Light; an exploration of Divine Embodiment, in A. Voss & P. Curry, eds, Seeing
with Different Eyes; Essays in Astrology and Divination (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 57-
81.
35
Ficino, Letters, vol. 10, 56, Opera, 1912 (Proinde mortalia per hos daemones divinos nanciscuntur influxus).
36
On the Platonic history of phantasia and its relationship with the pneuma or astral body, see Plotinus, Enneads
IV.3.31; Porphyry, Sententia 29, Ad Gaurum VI.1; Synesius, De insomniis 4-6; Iamblichus, De mysteriis III.2,
14, 24; also Anne Sheppard, Phantasia and Inspiration in Neoplatonism in Studies in Plato and the Platonic
Tradition: essays presented to John Whittacker, ed. J. Joyal, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 201-10; Gerard
Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought (Galway: Galway University Press, 1988), chs 5 and 6. It is Iamblichus
who develops the idea of symbolic images pointing to a divine source (De mysteriis I.7-8, 3.8). See also Leonard
George, Iamblichus on the Esoteric Perception of Nature, in Esotericism, Religion and Nature, eds Arthur
Versluis, Claire Fanger, Lee Irwin and Melanie Phillips, (West Lancing, Michigan: North American Academic
Press, 2010), 73-88; Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, (Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1995); Containing
Ecstacy; the Strategies of Iamblichean Theurgy, Dionysus vol. XXI (2003), 53-88; The Role of Aesthesis in
Theurgy, (unpublished paper, 2010).
37
See Iamblichus, De mysteriis 96, 15-18: the perfect efficacy of ineffable works, which are divinely performed
in a way surpassing all intelligence, and the power of inexplicable symbols, which are known only to the Gods,
impart theurgic union. The Platonic source for the religious function of astronomy and music in regulating the
soul and aligning it with the divine order is Timaeus 47b-d. See also Epinomis (attr. Philip of Opus). On music as
a living spirit, see Dvcc, XXI, 81-85.

8
singer, the election of an astrologically propitious time (opportunitas), and desire or focussed
intention (intentio). If these are all cultivated, the performer will in some way conceive a
music spirit which will have a healing effect on the listener through sympathetic resonance:

Now song which arises from this power, timeliness and intention is undoubtedly
nothing else but another spirit recently conceived in you in the power of your spirita
spirit made Solar and acting both in you and in the bystander by the power of the Sun. 38
We could see these three factors as contributing to the human part of the equation; Ficino
provides detailed instructions in Dvcc for the cultivation of solar power through a programme
of assimilation of solar substances and practising solar activities. We must remember that in
the Neoplatonic chain of correspondences, the Sun rules the vital energies of the heart, finding
its qualities reflected in both material and spiritual properties from white wine to the god of
music, Apollo.39 Exposure to these qualities will strengthen the spirit of the performer,
enabling it to become a channel for the celestial gifts to pass from the cosmic spirit40 to the
soul and body, like a bait or kindling (esca quaedam sive fomes).41 Secondly, timing is
everything. No musical ritual will attain perfect efficacy unless the celestial harmony
conduces to it from all sides,42 the moment having been elected for its unique planetary
correspondence with the horoscope under consideration. Planets have an objective, material
dimension and move in real time, their patterns read symbolically by the divinatory
astrologer.43 Indeed for Ficino, the imaginative engagement with these readings, as poetic
metaphors, was their primary function.44 But their visible movements also meant that they

38
Dvcc, XXI, 105-107: Cantus autem hac virtute, opportunitate, intentione, conceptus factusque Solaris et agens
tum in te, tum in proximum potestate Solari.
39
On the chains of being used in magical operations, see Proclus, Elements of Theology, trans. E. R. Dodds,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); De sacrificio et magia, trans. S. Ronan as On the Sacred Art at
http://www.esotericism.co.uk/proclus-sacred.htm (accessed 20/07/2015); Picatrix, ed. David Pingree (London:
The Warburg Institute, 1986). See also A.O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1964); Peter Struck, Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Writers at the Limits of their Texts,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press), 227-234.
40
The cosmic spirit has its origins in Stoic philosophy, which postulates a spiritus mundi flowing through the
universe, as a channel between the cosmos and material world. In Dvcc III, 30-32 Ficino calls it the quinta
essentia, or fifth element, i.e. aether, a very tenuous body: as if now it were soul and not body, and now body
and not soul (Ipse vero est corpus tenuissimum, quasi non corpus et quasi iam anima, item quasi non anima et
quasi iam corpus).
41
Dvcc XXVI, 9.
42
Dvcc XII, 109-113: sic et materialis actio, motus, eventus talis aut talis non alias efficaciam sortitur
effectumque perfectum quam quando coelestium harmonia ad idem undique consonat.
43
See Plotinus, Enneads III.1.6: the stars are like letters on which the augur, acquainted with that alphabet, may
look and read the future from their pattern- arriving at the thing signified by such analogies as that a soaring bird
tells of some lofty event.
44
See for example Ficinos letter Good Fortune is in Fate in Letters, vol. 4 (London: Shepheard-Walwyn,
1988), 61-63, where Ficino exhorts a young member of the Medici family to meditate on the symbolic meanings
of the planets within, stating that they are not outside, in some other place (Non enim sunt haec alicubi nobis
extra quaerenda, nempe totum in nobis est dowlum, quibus igneus vigor inest et coelestis origo) (Opera, 305).

9
could act as markers of time and location for human events, thus enabling the manifestation,
or expression, of their meaning on earth.45 Indeed Ficino would have read in Iamblichus that
the soul could ascend to divine realms without calling in the aid of matter or bringing to bear
anything other than the observation of the critical time for action,46 such was the power of
aligning human intention with cosmic symbolism.47

Finally, Ficino devotes a chapter in Dvcc to the power of human emotion and desire in astral
attraction, which he attributes to the Arabs:48

The Arabs say that when we fashion images rightly, our spirit, if it has been intent upon
the work and upon the stars with imagination and emotion, is joined together with the
very spirit of the world and with the rays of the stars through which the world-spirit
acts.49
We are here in the realm of Platonic eros, the desire aroused in the human soul at the glimpse
or perception of divine beauty.50 The last great Platonic theurgist Proclus (412-485 CE) wrote
that symbolic images move everything towards the desire of the good, and this wanting
produced in things is unquenchable,51 and it is significant that Ficino translated Proclus
treatise on theurgic magic De sacrificio et magia concurrently with his Dvcc.52 Indeed, this
short work explicitly describes the deification of the human soul that may arise through
sympathetic magic and the engagement of the daemones.53 In his Commentary on Platos

45
For example, see Hankins, 301-304. Ficino chose the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Scorpio in 1484 as the
date to publish his Plato translations, the symbolism of the great conjunction relating to the union of philosophy
and religion, or wisdom and power. In this way, he was aligning his action with cosmic principles in order to gain
divine authority for the renewal of Christianity.
46
Iamblichus, De mysteriis VIII.4.
47
The election of suitable astrological times for ritual action is a common theme in Dvcc. For example, Ficino
quotes Albertus Magnus (XII, 121-124): Freedom of will is not repressed by the election of an excellent hour;
rather, to scorn to elect an hour for the beginnings of great enterprises is not freedom but reckless choice. (Non
enim libertas arbitrii ex electione horae laudabilis coercetur, sed potius in magnarum rerum inceptionibus
electionem horae contemnere est arbitrii praecipitatio, non libertas).
48
Arabic treatises on astrology, magic and medicine, influenced by Neoplatonic and Hermetic ideas and
translated into Latin in the medieval period, provided another source for Ficinos natural magic. See Liana Saif,
The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy, London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
49
Dvcc, XX, 36-39: Tradunt Arabes spiritum nostrum quando rite fabricamus imagines, si per imaginationibus
mentibusque coelestium, vim quoque vehementissimam ex affectu illorum On the theory of rays, see Al-Kindi
(c.800-870 CE), De radiis, eds M.-T. DAlverny and F. Hudry, in Archives dhistoire doctrinale et littrature du
moyen ge, 41 (1974), 139-260. Ficino refers further to the ray theory in Dvcc XVI.
50
See Plato, Symposium, 210a-212a; Phaedrus, 246a-256e.
51
Proclus, In Cratylem, 30.19-32.3. See Michael J.B. Allen, Marsilio Ficino, in Interpreting Proclus from
Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 353-379. Allen states that it is not
known if Ficino was familiar with Proclus Commentary on Platos Cratylus (360).
52
In Opera 1928-1929.
53
Longing to go beyond [the powers inherent in physical objects], [the theurgists] came to know the Daemonic
Powers which are essentially linked to the activities of nature and physical bodies, and by this means they drew
down (epgagonto) these Powers in order to communicate (sunousian) with them. From the Daemonic Powers they
moved straight up towards the actual Doings of the Gods (autastas tn thenpoiseis), instructed in some

10
Symposium, Ficino too describes the work of magic as the stimulation of the erotic attractions
and affinities within the realm of soul.54 This intention of the imagination is then no
subjective fantasy, but a crucial energetic impulse that propels the arrow of desire to the very
centre of the target - the cosmic, or daemonic, intelligence.

Divina sors

Once these three factors of power, timeliness and intention are operative, then what is the
role and provenance of the oracular voice? Let us turn to an earlier text, Ficinos unpublished
Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum of 1477,55 in which he discusses how judgements
may be made from horoscopes:

... through whatever art future things are questioned, they are foretold more completely
from a certain gift of the soul (dos animae) than through judgement. Here those
unlearned in art often judge more truthfully than those who are learned. Ptolemy said
about this, knowledge of the stars comes both from you and from them, as if he were
saying that you are truthful in judgement not so much through inspecting the stars as
through a certain foreknowledge innate to you. For it is explained that you will follow
this knowledge at one time through your diligence, at another you may possess it
through the stars natural benevolent action.56
We note that Ficino here draws the same Platonic distinction between human judgement and
divine revelation as he does in Dvcc; but what does he mean by the stars benevolent
action?

matters by the Gods themselves, but in others moved by their own efforts to an accurate conception of the
appropriate symbols. And so, leaving nature and physical operations below, they came to directly experience
(echrsanto) the Primordial (prtourgois) and Divine Powers. (trans. S. Ronan, at
http://www.esotericism.co.uk/proclus-sacred.htm)
54
Ficino, Commentary on Platos Symposium, VI.10, trans. Sears Jayne, (Dallas, Texas: Spring Publications, 1985),
127, also Couliano, Eros and Magic.
55
Ficino, Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum, in Supplementum Ficinianum, vol. II, ed. Paul Oskar
Kristeller, (Florence: Olskchi, 1937), 11-76. Although this treatise was unpublished, Ficino included large
extracts in both the Theologia Platonica and his commentaries on Plotinus, as well as in a letter to the Duke of
Urbino, Divina lex fieri a caelo non potest, sed forte significari (Ficino, Letters vol. 6, [London: Shepheard-Walwyn,
1999], 23-31). It should be noted that Kaske and Clark mistranslate the title as Disputation against Judicial
Astrology (Kaske and Clark, Three Books on Life, 31). Ficino was not however condemning judicial astrology
as such, rather the deterministic stance of his contemporary practitioners.
56
Ficino, Disputatio, 50: Denique per quamcumque artem future querantur, plus admodum ex quadam anime
singulari dote quam iudiciis presagitur. Hinc sepe indoctiores in arte verius iudicant quam doctiores.
Quapropter Ptolemeus ait: Astrorum scientia et ex te est et ex illis, quasi dicat hoc ipsum quod sis in iudicando
verdicus non tam illorum inspection quam presagio quodam tibi naturali habes. Sive potius exponatur quod
hanc scientiam consequaris tum ex diligentia tua, tum naturali illorum possideas beneficio. This is reiterated in
In Plotinem, Opera, 1626, where Ficino says astrologers can approach the truth of things through a certain
strength of soul (vim animae).

11
Astrology as divination

As we have seen, for Ficino prophecy and divination were synonymous, being
foreknowledge inspired by the divine spirit.57 In this way, his understanding of astrology as
divination was a radical move for his time.58 In his epitome on Iamblichus, he confirms, I am
of the opinion that most certain truth in respect to the stars can be had through divine
prophecy.59 Again, in a letter to the Duke of Urbino in 1482, he emphasises that when
astrologers see truthfully, it is not through rational speculation, but through an intuitive grasp
of significance (the dos animae): then I may truly say they prophesy.60 In the key passage
that follows, Ficino, drawing on Plotinus, differentiates between the domains of
instrumentality and intimation in respect to the function of heavenly bodies:

Plotinus ... teaches that almost all phenomena beneath the moon are somehow indicated
by the heavens, yet they do not all depend on a heavenly body, for only physical
phenomena can arise from a heavenly body or, rather, from the powers that move the
heavens, through the instrumentality of a heavenly body. But those phenomena within
us which go completely beyond the physical level and come close to our mind and to
our divine nature proceed from the divine mind and from those minds in its train.
Indeed, he says that the plans and purposes of these minds can often be intimated by
celestial configurations and movements as though by glances and nods. But to read
clearly those intimations requires above all a wise man, a divine man.61

57
See Ficino, Letter On Divine Frenzy, 47 (Opera, 615): Plato considers the last kind of frenzy, in which he
includes prophecy, to be nothing other than foreknowledge inspired by the divine spirit, which we properly call
divination and prophecy. (Postremam vero furoris naturam, in qua vaiticinium point, nihil aliud esse putat, nisi
divino afflatu inspiratam praesensionem, eamque proprio vocabulo, divinationem ac vaticinium nominavimus).
58
Further on Ficinos astrology, see Melissa Bullard, The Inward Zodiac, A Development in Ficinos Thought
on Astrology, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 43 (1990), 687-708; Voss, The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino,
Divination or Science? Culture and Cosmos, vol. 4, no. 2 (2000), 29-45.
59
Ficino, Opera, 1905: Ergo vero censeo primum quidem haberi posse per divinum vaticiniu veritatem
certissimam circa stellas. For Iamblichus the goal of inspired divination was the union of the theurgist with the
gods, achieved through a transcendence of the subject-object divide characteristic of syllogistic knowing. See
Crystal Addey, Oracles of the Gods: the role of divination and theurgy in the philosophy of Porphyry and
Iamblichus, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Bristol, (2009), 263-267.
60
Ficino, Letters, vol. 6, (1999), 23-31, Opera, 850-853. See fn. 56; also Ficino, Theologia Platonica, XIII.II, 8,
where Ficino says the predictions of augurers, diviners, soothsayers, astrologers and mages ... testify to their
minds divinity (augures, haruspices, auspices, mathematicos, magos ... Mentes vero divinas illa prae ceteris
praesagia indicant). At TP II.10 Ficino describes the prediction of future events as possible because prophetic
power gathers the fleeting intervals of time into an eternal moment, is itself eternal. (praesaga virtus ... Est
autem substantia haec aeterna quae in aeternum momentum ...).
61
Ficino, Letters, vol. 6, 26, Opera, 851: Plotinus ... docet, effectus infra Lunam pene omnes a ceolo significari,
non tamen omnes a ceolesti corpora dependoere, sola eim corporea posse vel a corpora coelisti, vel potius per
coeleste corpus, quasi super instrumentum, ab ipsis coeli motoribus fueri. Si qua vero apud nos omnino
corporeum genus excedunt, atque ad mentem divinitatemque accedunt, solum a mente divina mentibusque eam
sequentibus proficisci. See also Plotinus, Enneads III.2.

12
 Indeed the human vantage point alone, Ficino says, would be quite inadequate.62 We
would seem to find confirmation here that astrology, when it is understood as divination, can
lead to realisations and revelations of an altogether higher order, and this is when the
astrologer speaks with an oracular authority, as opposed to merely being predictive.63 This is
because the realisation of a symbolic meaning is not a function of the rational mind alone,
but requires the activation of an innate capacity of the soul to wake another way of seeing.64
In Platonic terms, these are the eyes of the intellective soul, which has direct access to the
Divine Mind. This innate knowing is itself from the stars because they themselves are seen
as daemonic intelligences, mirroring their creator, and experienced as originating both
within and without the human psyche.65 At the level of oracular insight, human and
divine intelligence converge; all Ficino can say is that the daemon is both our intellect, and a
numinous being.66

Avicenna on Prophecy
James Hankins has drawn attention to the fact that Ficino would have found confirmation
that the powers of the imagination could be harnessed to achieve prophetic insight in his
reading of the Arabic Neoplatonists, particularly Avicenna, and he suggests that in Dvcc
Ficino conceals his debt to Avicenna through deliberately emphasising the less
controversial aspects of magic, those which rely on lower cosmic correspondence and the

62
Earlier in the letter to Federico (Letters, vol. 6, 25) Ficino puts forward the view of Plotinus and Avicenna that
events on earth are the result of a mixture of corporeal and incorporeal causes, adding But since no one is ever
able to understand all these things, it is not surprising that no one can hold a definite view about anything of this
kind. (Cum autem cuncta haec nullus unquam comprehendere valeat, nimirum neminem certam ulla de re
huiusmodi ferre posse sententiam) (Opera, 850). That Ficino readily prophesied using astrology is
demonstrated in his letter to Pope Sixtus IV (Letters, vol. 5, 16-19) where he predicts various misfortunes over
the coming two years.
63
See Ficino, Letter on Divine Frenzy, 47 where he calls prediction a false copy of prophecy. I also refer the
reader to the work of Geoffrey Cornelius, The Moment of Astrology (Bournemouth: Wessex Astrologer, 2003)
and Field of Omens: A Study of Inductive Divination, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Kent, (2010)
for thorough discussions on the oracular and divinatory dimension of astrology, and of the hermeneutics of
divinatory knowing in general.
64
Plotinus, Enneads I.6.8.
65
Geoffrey Cornelius has drawn attention to Giovanni Pontanos commentary on Ptolemys Centiloquy: In
centum Ptolomei aphorismes commentatio, (Basle, 1531), in which he discusses the phrase a te et a scientia
that knowledge of the stars derives both from you and from the discipline/art [of astrology]. Pontano interprets
the a te as the intuitive inspiration of the astrologer, yet which is also stimulated by the stars. Whether or not
Pontano derives this idea from Ficino, both men link prophetic vision with a cosmic intelligence that cannot be
defined as either inner or outer. See Cornelius, Moment of Astrology, 321-325.
66
Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus: remember our daemon and genius is not only, as is thought, our intellect,
but a numinous being (Ac memento nostrum daemonem geniumque non solum, ut quidam putant, nostrum
intellectum esse sed numen. (Opera, 515). On the Platonic and Neoplatonic sources for this idea see Allen,
Summoning Plotinus, 64, fn.2. Also, Plotinus, Enneads 3.4.3 3-8 and 3.4.5.19-24.

13
influence of the imagination on the spiritus, the intermediary of body and soul.67 However,
Ficinos letter to Federico demonstrates that he understood full well how the imagination
could engage with cosmic symbolism and be opened to noetic realms. In his On the Soul (De
anima), Avicenna discusses three kinds of prophecy, deriving from the imaginative faculty,
the motive faculties and the intellect.68 When the soul and its imaginative faculty are strong,
there may be direct access to the divine realm, and this access may also be achieved by
developing a certain kind of will power or through direct intellectual intuition. 69 Avicenna
suggests that powerful intuitive apprehension of spirit may find its expression through the
imagination,70 and that the act of imagining, which is concerned with the combination and
separation of sense data, is a cognitive faculty which can turn towards the active intellectthe
highest divine intelligenceand convey its properties through images. These images are then
necessarily subject to the rational part of the soul for stabilisation.71 This leads to a crucial
observation about the nature of symbolic imagination. As Dag Nikolaus Hasse comments,
the core idea about imaginative prophethood is that sense data are perceived as if they were
real, whereas in fact they are produced by the imaginative faculty,72 and this helps to explain
why the prophetic soul can see both literally and metaphorically simultaneously. Ficino,
centred in his imaginative faculty, could make seemingly factual or causal observations about
planetary influences whilst not taking them literally; these statements, often in response to
friends and associates, disguise a more subtle hermeneutic position, which the petty ogre
(nefarii gargantuli) astrologers who Ficino condemns in the Disputatio are not able to
attain.73

What of pure intellectual prophecy? Consider these two passages:

(Avicenna) Thus there might be a person whose soul has been rendered so powerful
through extreme purity and intense contact with intellectual principles that he blazes

67
James Hankins, Ficino, Avicenna and the Occult Powers of the Soul in Tra antica sapienza e filosofia
naturale: La magia nellEuropa moderna, eds F. Meroi and E. Scapparone (Florence: Olschki, 2007), 35-52.
68
See Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Avicenna's De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic
Philosophy of the Soul 1160-1300 (London: Warburg Institute, 2001), 154-174.
69
Hasse, Avicenna, 155.
70
Hasse, Avicenna, 157.
71
Hasse, Avicenna, 158.
72
Hasse, Avicenna, 160. Of relevance here is Henry Corbins essay Mundus imaginalis, (Ipswich: Golgonooza
Press, 1976), which delineates the ontological reality of the imaginal realm in the metaphysics of the Islamic
illuminist philosophers. On the theme of imaginal perception and its relationship with sense-perception, see also
William Chittick, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity (New York, 1994), chs 5
and 6.
73
See the Proemium to the Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum in Letters vol. 3 (London: Shepheard-
Walwyn1981), 75-77. For an example of Ficinos causal language, see Letters, vol. 2, 26-27 where he
complains about Saturns melancholic influence in his own horoscope.

14
 with intuition, i.e. with the ability to receive the inspiration in all matters from the active
intellect ... this is a kind of prophethoodindeed its highest facultyand the most
appropriate thing is to call this faculty sacred faculty.74
(Ficino) The soul [filled with the intelligence born of distilled black bile]... always seeks
the centre of all subjects and penetrates to their innermost core. It is congruent,
moreover, with Mercury and Saturn, of whom the second, the highest of planets, carries
the investigator to the highest subjects. From this come original philosophers, especially
when their soul, hereby called away from external movements and from its own body, is
made in the highest degree both a neighbour to the divine and an instrument of the
divine. As a result, it is filled from above with divine influences and oracles, and it
always predicts new and unaccustomed things and predicts the future. 75
Understood Platonically, occult planetary signatures are instances of archetypal qualities
which resonate at all levels in the hierarchy of being, thus contributing to a chain of
resemblance.76 In this way Saturn, as the furthest planet then known, signifies the realm of the
highest, contemplative mind, even if, on a worldly level, it may be associated with delays,
hardships and ill-health. So we could say that Ficino the melancholic, plagued by black bile,
plays music to incite an intelligence which will be received as an oracle, yet it is identical to
the highest part of his own soul, and analogous to Saturn.77 All the ingredients of human
diligence thenthe concoction of medicines, the technical language of astrology, the skill in
music theory and performance practice, the knowledge of sympathies and correspondences in
nature and the cosmos, the cultivation of a pure spiritus and focussed intentcame together
for one underlying purpose; to awake the eye that all have but few use 78 and engage with
the infused light of a higher order of being.79 This higher imaginative faculty, suggests

74
Hasse, Avicenna, 164, quoting Avicenna, De anima V.6.
75
Ficino, De vita sana, VI, 19- 28 (Three Books on Life, 121-123): animus instrumento sive incitamento
eiusmodi quod centro mundi quodammodo congruity, atque (ut ita dixerim) in suum centrum animum colligit,
simper rerum omnium et centra petit, et penetralia penetrat. Congruit insuper cum Mercurio atque Saturno,
quorum alter, altissimus omnium planetarum, investigantem evehit ad altissima. Hinc philosophi singulars
eadunt, praesertin cum animus sic ab externis motibus atque corpora proprio sevocaatus, et quam proximus
divinis et divinorum instrumentum efficiatur. Unde divinis influxibus oraculisque ex alto repletus, nova quaedam
inusitataque semper excogitat et futura praedicit.
76
On resemblance and similitude in Renaissance magic in general and Ficinos songs in particular, see Gary
Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993), 101-144.
77
For an astrological interpretation of Saturn, see Julius Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri VIII, trans. Jean
Rhys Bram, Ancient Astrology, Theory and Practice, (Abingdon MD: Astrology Classics, 2005), 89, 138-9, 184-
5; for examples of Ficinos own difficulties with Saturn, see Letters, vol. 3, 50-51; vol. 5, 59-60. Yet Our Plato
placed the higher part of the soul under the authority of Saturn in the realm of mind and divine providence, and
the lower part under Jupiter, in the realm of life and fate (Partem quidem illam aimae superiorem Plato noster
in regno Saturni, id est, in mentis et providentiae, inferiorem autem in regno Iovis, id est, vitae fatique locavit
[Opera, p. 658, Letters, vol. 1, 161]), referring to Plato, Timaeus 34b-36e. Key passages on Saturn in Dvcc
include II, 54-66, XXII, 59-90. The most important source for Renaissance interpretations of Saturn is Raymond
Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy (Michigan: University of Michigan, 1964).
78
Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.8.
79
See Ficino, The two lights of the soul in Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Platos Symposium on Love, IV.4,
trans. Sears Jayne, Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985, 75-76, Opera 1332.

15
Leonard George, adds a theophanic dimension to the lower facultys sense image,80 as
Ficino describes the very act of symbolic, contemplative connection as opening perception to
the living presences inand beyondthe cosmos:

But it is not only those who flee to Jupiter who escape the noxious influence of Saturn
and undergo his propitious influence; it is also those who give themselves over with
their whole mind to the divine contemplation signified by Saturn himself. The
Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Platonists think that by this method one can avoid the malice
of fate. For since they believe the celestials are not empty bodies, but bodies divinely
animated and ruled moreover by divine Intelligences, no wonder they believe that as
many good things as possible come forth from thence for men, goods pertaining not
only to our body and spirit but also overflowing somewhat into our soul, and not into
our soul from their bodies but from their souls. And they believe too that the same sort
of things and more of them flow out from those Intelligences which are above the
heavens.81

It is hardly surprising that Ficino leaves the question of stellar intelligence as ambiguous,
if not confused, in Dvcc. But, whether living stars, daemons or spirits, the seminal reasons
sown in the cosmos by the world soul are necessarily distinguished by Ficino from divinities
wholly separate from matter,82 or intelligences which are above the heavens (as in above
quotation) despite the fact that the seminal reasons can be receptacles for the Divine Ideas
themselves. This becomes even more problematic when he concludes Dvcc by referring again
to Plotinus, this time suggesting that the seminal reasons can be called gods since they are
never cut off from the Ideas of the Supreme Mind, and we are left uncertain as to the
distinction between gods and immaterial/separate divinities.83 Ficino is on dangerous territory
when he hints that through the Ideas, higher gifts too may descend into matter,84 but I
would suggest that this very lack of clarity is a result of the impossibility of accommodating
Neoplatonic ritual into a theological framework. As a Platonist, Ficino knew that his astral

80
Leonard George, Iamblichus on the Esoteric Perception of Nature. In Esotericism, Religion and Nature.
Edited by Arthur Versluis, Claire Fanger, Lee Irwin and Melanie Phillips. West Lancing, Michigan: North
American Academic Press, 2010, 81. See also Iamblichus, De mysteriis, III.2.
81
Dvcc XXII, 81-90: Noxium vero influxum Saturni effugiunt subeuntque propitium, non solum, qui ad Ioven
configuiunt, se etiam qui ad divinam contemplationem ab ipso Saturno significatam tota mente se conferunt. Hoc
enim pacto malignitatem fati devitari posse Chaldaei et Aegyptii atque Platonici putant. Cum enim coelestia
nolint esse corpora vana, sed divinitus animata atque insuper mentibus recta divinis, nimirum illinc ad homines
non solum quam plurima ad corpus et spiritum pertinentia, sed multa etiam bona quodammodo in animam
redundantia proficisci volunt, non a corporibus in animam se dab animis. Magis autem haec pluraque eiusmodi
a mentibus superioribus coelo profluere.
82
Dvcc I, 23-24, Nemo itaque putet certia mundi materiis trahi numina quaedam a materiis penitus segregata,
sed daemones potius animatique mundi munera stellarumque viventium.
83
Dvcc XXVI, 126-127: Quas quidem rationes appellat etiam deos, quoniam ab ideis supremae mentis unquam
destituuntur.
84
Dvcc XXVI, 132-134: Fieri vero posse quandoque, ut rationibus ad formas sic adhibitis sublimiora quoque
dona descendant ...

16
magic might ultimately unite him with the One through a continuum of sympatheia between
Divine Mind and world soul, but as a Christian, he had to maintain a necessary distance
between divine and human realms and never suggest that the soul might attain theosis through
pagan practices. A difficult task indeed.

Theologia Platonica

Let us take a step further. In Ficinos Theologia Platonica (1469-74), which is not concerned
with magical practice but with a theoretical defence of the immortality of the soul,85 he
invites yet another interpretation of the divina sors, in his analysis of the nature of the rational
soul. Its highest part, the intellect, which is the souls head and charioteer, he says by its
very nature imitates the angels, [and] attains what it desires not in temporal succession but in
an instant.86 When the lower part, the normally agitated and preoccupied reason, is quiet,
then he muses, what is stopping some angelic process of thought from stealing into our
rational powers, although we cannot see where it is subtly coming from?87 This intellectual
power is described as a ray, shining down into the soul. 88 So perhaps we can name the oracle
not only as a daemon, planetary spirit or celestial divinity, but also as an angelic intelligence,
which is both wholly other and a power of the soul.89

Where is all this leading? Ficino asks in the Theologia, answering that in the end, the
souls burning desire for God will lead it to it lay aside all its earthly activities and become
angelic: He who commits himself entirely to this inspiration ceases to be a soul and

85
On Ficinos theory of immortality, see Paul O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1943, ch. XV. Michael Allen has pointed to the extraordinary tension generated by
the attempt of the Christian Platonists to accommodate Neoplatonic metaphysics to the Hebraeo-Christian
notion of an omnipotent, ineffable God and states that although fruitful, it signalled ultimately the underlying
incomparability of the two systems. (Marsilio Ficino on Plato, the Neoplatonists and the Christian Doctrine of
the Trinity in Platos Third Eye, 561).
86
TP, XIII.II, 18: Mens autem illa, quae est animae caput et auriga, suapte natura angelos imitate, non
successione sed momento quod cupit assequitur ...
87
TP, XIII.II, 22: Ea vero vacante, quid prohibit angelicam aliquam rationalibus viribus cogniationem irrepere,
licet unde surrepat non videamus?
88
TP, III.IV, 3.
89
Angel in Ficinian metaphysics is equivalent to the Neoplatonic nous; on the relationship between the angel
and the soul, and the problematic of fitting the Christian angel into the Plotinian hypostases, see Allen, The
Absent Angel in Ficinos Philosophy, in Platos Third Eye, I. 219-240. Ficinos idea of the Angel was derived
from scriptural sources, pseudo-Dionysius On the Celestial Hierarchy, and medieval Scholasticism. Allen
discusses Aquinas absolute distinction between human and angelic intelligence, but asserts that the whole
thrust of [Ficinos] strictly systematic thought is directed against the fundamental postulate of Christianity, that
God is ineffably transcendent (224). Allen points to Ficinos essentially Neoplatonic definition of the angelic as
the sphere of pure intelligences and discusses how his revisioning of Christian metaphysics essentially
weakened the position of the Angel and seriously impaired its ontological validity (227-8). On Ficinos
apparent confusion regarding the identity of angels and planetary intelligences, see ibid. 231-2. On the angel as
mens, the highest part of the soul, see ibid. 235-235.

17
becomes, being reborn from God, a son of God, an angel.90 It will then be able to govern
the spheres of the elements with the power of the world-soul itself.91 James Hankins quotes a
remarkable passage from Avicenna which I believe provides an authentic context for Ficinos
natural magic of physical and psychic balancing, where imitating the heavens through
working with the images of astrology leads to a realisation of the heavens in the soul of its
own divine powers:

But when a person expends all his efforts to purify [his rational soul] through
knowledge, acquires the propensity for contact with the divine effluence, has a balanced
temperament, and lacks those opposites that hinder his reception of the divine effluence,
then there comes about in him a certain similarity to the celestial bodies and he
resembles in his purity the seven mighty ones, that is the seven celestial spheres. 92

Furthermore, by means of the intellect and will, its two Platonic wings says Ficino, the soul will fly
towards God, making progress every day through its desire to achieve union, until it is perfected.
Hence our soul will sometime be able to become in a sense all things, and even to become God.93

Conclusion

So finally, I would like to suggest that the strategies and techniques of Ficinos astral magic
were directed towards the opening of the soul to an inspirationhinted at by the divina sors
which derived from its own highest part, the angelic intelligence, in order to lead it to a
spiritual rebirth in God. But this mystical aim could never be stated as a final goal of natural
magic, situated in a Neoplatonic cosmology, concerned with talismans, sympathetic magic
and musical invocation to pagan deities, pace Proclus. Transmuting the physical cosmos into
symbols as a hermeneutic method of spiritual ascent could only go so far in the eyes of the
Church, and Ficinos frustrations in Dvcc are barely disguised.94 It is little wonder that Ficino
felt constrained, for, as Henry Corbin puts it, [orthodox] theology would combat all

90
TP, XIII, IV, 12, Qui hinc inspirationi totum se committit, cessat esse anima fitque, deo regenerante, dei filius,
angelus.
91
TP, XIII.IV, 13; Hankins, Ficino, Avicenna, 18.
92
In D. Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 76, quoted in Hankins, Ficino,
Avicenna, 28.
93
See Ficino, TP, XIV, 3, Opera, 311 (translation courtesy of J. L.Burroughs) animam nostrum per intellectum
et voluntatem tanquam geminas ilas Platonicas alas, idcirco volare ad Deum, quoniam per eas volat ad omnia.
Per primam omnia sibi applicat, per secundam se applicat omnibus. Itaque anima cupit, conatur, incipit Deus
fieri; proficitque quotidie. Motus autem omnis qui ad terminum aliquem directus, incipit quidem primo, pergit
deinde, intenditur paulatim, et proficit, profecto quadoque perficitur. Eadem namque facultate intenditur, qua
coepit. Eadem postea perficit, qua et intendebatur. Eadem tandem perficitur, qua proficit. Quamobrem animus
noster quandoque fieri poterit quodammodo omnia, ac Deus quidam evadere).
94
See e.g. Dvcc XXV, where Ficino puts a fictional severe ecclesiastical prelate in the position of devils
advocate.

18
emanationism,95 claim the creative act as a prerogative of God alone, [and] end the human
souls soliloquy with the Angel Active Intelligence.96

I end with my conviction that we cannot extricate Ficinos astral magic from the big
picture of his Christian Neoplatonism and his fundamental concerns about the ultimate
purpose and destiny of the soul, for to do so would be to distort the integrity of his lifes
mission to restore ancient wisdom (including the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic
lyre) to the world in the service of theology.97 In this context, Ficinos appeal to the divine
oracle is part of a process by which the soul may learn to purify the lens of imagination in
order to listen to its own higher voice, and begin its self-empowered journey towards divine
realisation, whatever this may mean in any ultimate sense. 98 As a final word, I would like to
leave readers with a problem which has been touched on at several points in this essay; and
that is the absolute distinction between theories of higher intelligencethe debates between
Platonic and Christian theologies regarding correct definitions of metaphysical terms and
how to reconcile themand the experienced other in ritual practice. Ficinos magical
music-making was inspired by a direct communication from somewhere which, in its
instance of apprehension, defied all categorisation or definitive naming. The important fact is
that it worked. Ficino is then required to grapple with impossible questions of provenance
based on conceptual, and incompatible, metaphysical structures, which can only ever serve as
metaphors for something beyond them all. In this respect, the words of Iamblichus faithfully
summarise Ficinos dilemma, even whilst pointing to yet another impossible question for
the historian:

Indeed, to tell the truth, the contact we have with the divinity is not to be taken as
knowledge. Knowledge, after all, is separated from its object by some degree of

95
Emanationism lies at the heart of Neoplatonic thought, being the never-ending overflowing of divine goodness
into creation, from the transcendent source, via the hypostatic layers of Divine Mind, World Soul and material
world, decreasing in potency of divine essence as it descends. This contrasts with Creationism, which posits a
divine creator separate from his creation.
96
Corbin, Avicenna, 101.
97 See Ficino, Letter to Paul of Middelburg of 1492 in Letters, vol. 10, 51 (Opera 944): This age, like a golden
age, has brought back to light those liberal disciplines that were practically extinguished: grammar, poetry,
oratory, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic Lyre, and all this
in Florence (Hoc enim seculum tanquam aureum, liberales disciplinas ferme iam extinctas reduxit in lucem,
grammaticam, poesim, oratoriam, picturam, sculpturam, architecturam, musicam, antiquum ad Orphicam
Lyram carminum cantum, idquae Florentiae).
98
Geoffrey Cornelius has pointed out in that astrology as a practice unites the two modes of vision: we
understand that Sun, Moon and planets are visible in two lights, and not one; the world of sense, where they may
be measured by the astronomer, and the world of imagination, where they reveal their hidden light to the
astrologer. (Astrologys Hidden Light: Reflections on Ficinos De sole, Sphinx, Journal of Archetypal
Psychology and the Arts, vol. 6 [1993], 121-122).

19
 otherness. But prior to that knowledge, which knows another as being itself other, there
is the unitary connection with the gods that is natural and indivisible. 99
Ficino knew not to take the metaphors literally, and herein, I suggest, lies his genius.

99
Iamblichus, De mysteriis, I.3.

20
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