Encyclopedia entry for Jim Lewis The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino Angela Voss The Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) is chiefly remembered for his revival of Platonic philosophy into the Christian West, but has been generally less recognised for his radical revisioning of the very premises of traditional astrology. This revisioning, far from being on the periphery of his philosophical project, partook of its very essence. 1477 Ficino wrote, but did not publish, a vehement attack on the practices of astrologers - his Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum. Anyone reading this text would assume that the author found the foundations of traditional astrology fit for demolition by the power of Reason and the authority of God's Providence. 'All this is poetic metaphor' exclaims Ficino, surveying the absurdity of astrological terminology, 'not reason or knowledge'. Astrologers, he asserts, use 'silly similitudes', they fabricate rules - often inconsistently - attribute imaginary powers to the stars and claim to predict concrete events. But how, asks Ficino, can they know what will happen in ten years' time, when they do not know what they themselves will be doing today? (Supp.Fic. 34,37,43,68) Yet in the following year Ficino himself wrote to Pope Sixtus IV, as one 'equally devoted to both prophecy and astrology', predicting various misfortunes over the coming two years from specific astrological configurations (Letters 5, 15-19). Indeed there is hardly a single letter amongst his vast correspondence in which he does not refer to the influence of planets on his own and his friends' natal charts, on past, present and future events. His deep familiarity with the traditional language of astrology springs from every page, yet in 1494 Ficino wrote to his friend Poliziano in firm support of Pico della Mirandola's attack on astrology, emphasising that 'on no occasion' does he affirm astrological portents, and that, like Pico, he despises the 'superstitious vanity' of the astrologers (Opera omnia 958). To begin to understand this apparent anomaly, we must look briefly at the tradition of classical astrology as a rational system of apprehending the workings of the cosmos which by the 15th century was fully established in the West, based on the Aristotelian model of celestial 1 causation. Greek and Arabic textbooks on astrology were passed down via Latin translations, definitively illustrated in the Tetrabiblos of Claudius Ptolemy, a late Hellenistic work which provides us with an exposition of the conceptual framework of astrology. This model implies the correlation of effects from the heavens in an 'objective time' with those on earth, unfolding in a predetermined way like the cogs in a great machine of destiny. Ptolemaic astrology firmly upholds a natural process of causation, and introduces the concept of ether, an airy allpervading substance suffused throughout creation whose quality depends on the heavenly bodies. Ptolemy promised man the ability to understand human temperament and predict events through examination of the ether, and established the primacy of the 'seed' moment or moment of origin, such as birth itself, at which time the heavens stamped an impression which would indelibly mark the individual. Such a conception of direct, quantifiable astral influence presupposes an omniscient astrologer who observes objectively a fixed pattern; it appears to allow him to give an irrevocable judgement on the 'fate' sealed by the birth moment. It also implies a linear unfolding of time and paves the way for modern 'scientific' astrological research, based on statistical analysis, quantitative measurement and empirical observation. In the medieval period orthodox Christianity found no problem with a natural astrology which understood the correspondences between the heavens and the material world, and used this knowledge in such fields as agriculture and medicine. But for denying human freewill, and for attributing to the astrologer the omnipotence of God, judicial astrology was roundly condemned by theologians such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, for whom the only legitimate means of foreknowledge must be through Divine Revelation (Aquinas Summa theologiae II.2). From this position, there can never be the possibility that divine knowledge may arise through human effort or activity. The stars cannot be signs in any other way than they are effects of causes; all true insight into the workings of Providence must depend on an act of grace, on the prayerful submission of the individual's will to God's. In his Disputatio Ficino clearly sets out to fully endorse this view, condemning the type of astrology which depends solely on human ingenuity and judgement. He urges the philosophers to gather forces against the 'petty ogres' who deny the sovereignty of God, the justice of the angels and the freewill of men, 'that we may triumph over the diviners, albeit not divine but mightily profane, who have for so long been shackling us to their illusions' (Letters 3, 75-6). 2 This would appear to be a definitive statement of allegiance to the orthodox position. Yet on a closer reading we find something new. Although Ficino rejects certain claims of astrologers, he does not deny the possibility that divinatory techniques in themselves may work. He suggests that there are three kinds of foreseeing; through the infusion of divine knowledge, which may be received through magical means and the 'divining of the spheres'; through natural means, such as a melancholic temperament which more easily allows the soul contact with its own divine nature; and through what he calls the 'observation of heavenly patterns' (Supp.Fic. 49). In all these, he says, judgement is very difficult. But it is not illicit. Just as the physician may form a prognosis through the observation of an illness, so the augurs, says Ficino, 'are led to penetrate all appearances of things to be apprehended here and there in single moments.' Perhaps, he speculates, these things are grasped 'more completely out of a certain quality of the soul than through judgement' (Opera omnia 1626). This crucial observation leads us to question whether the problem is not the astrology, but the astrologers' lack of insight. Ficino is clearly talking about an understanding more akin to Revelation than human reason, yet this is not a Revelation directly from God to a passive recipient - it demands the active participation of the individual through the particular way he perceives patterns and signs in nature. The earliest astrologers of Mesopotamia were omen-readers, looking to the heavens for indications of the gods' will, in the same spirit as they looked at entrails and made sacrifices. The omen appeared, either bidden or unbidden, and its significance depended on the ability of the individual to interpret the will of the god in respect to his current concerns. In other words, it was only significant if it was recognised as such, not through a theory or technique, but through the intuitive perception of a sign. As man grew more distant from his gods, so divination lost its sacred dimension and became the domain of earthly prediction of events. In astrology it survived into the early centuries AD, particularly in horary and inceptional techniques, but was losing hold to the influence of Stoic and Aristotelian philosophy, which demanded a reformulation of what had been a participatory experience into a theoretical structure. The great science of astrology was born. But did the 'divinatory attitude' survive, and if so, how? With the condemnation of the Christian Church it could hardly flourish overtly. We have to look elsewhere, to a tradition which would both hold and protect its vulnerable core in an overmantle of philosophical enquiry. Here it was not only preserved; it 3 was reflected upon and articulated in the language of myth, poetry, revelation and metaphysics. This was the tradition revered by Ficino as the Ancient Theology. The very first of the Ancient Theologians, of whom Plato was the 'divine' culmination, was the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of the Corpus Hermeticum, Ficino's first translation from Greek. The Hermetic corpus is about spiritual initiation, through the individual's realisation of his own immortality. In Book One, Hermes' teacher Poimandres tells a creation myth of the Fall of Man as he unites with the powers of Nature (Corpus Hermeticum I.13). Using the metaphor of a symbolic cosmos, we learn how Man is created by the supreme Mind or nous, and receives the qualities of the seven planets, which govern his destiny on earth. But Man, who shares the essence of Mind, also partakes of its absolute freedom, and he wills to 'break through the circumference of the spheres' and come to know his Maker. In other words, as soon as he desires to overcome fate, he can, by realising and acting from the immortal part of his soul. All men are governed by Destiny, says Poimandres, but those who are led by Nous (the divine Mind), do not suffer as others do (C.H. I.22-3). Man is a god, he only has to recognise it, and this very recognition can change his relationship with fate. This dangerous but exhilarating message was to be the key to Ficino's transformation of astrology. When Ficino talks of divinatory knowledge as 'a gift of the soul' we can see a similarity in Hermes' suggestion that divination itself is a means of participating in nous, the divine Mind who knows all. Through 'dreams and signs' such as 'birds, entrails, inspiration and the sacred oak' divinatory practices would seem to facilitate a mode of knowing which is at once temporal, in that man is observing an event in time, and eternal, in that his faculty of perception transcends time and space (C.H. XII.19) In the divinatory moment, these two orders would seem to be aligned as the 'objective' physical event coincides with a 'subjective' insight which is of another order. With specific reference to astrology, this mode of perception will not regard the stars as causal agents, but as symbols which reflect back to the human soul its intrinsic connection with the cosmos. The signification of the astrological insight will in no way be determined by the physical configuration, but will depend on the ability, and desire, of the individual to 'tune in'. Ficino says, 'if one pays attention to this signification, it is the thought of God who speaks that one comprehends' (Opera omnia 234-5). 4 In 1484, under a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, the great significators of reason and faith, Ficino published his translations of Plato. The same day, Ficino tells us, Pico della Mirandola came to Florence, and persuaded him to translate Plotinus. Ficino attributes great importance to the astrological symbolism at play between himself and Pico; 'It would seem to be divinely brought about' he says, 'that whilst Plato was, so to speak, being re-born, Pico was born under Saturn in Aquarius. In fact I too was born thirty years earlier under the same sign. And so, arriving in Florence on the day our Plato was produced, that old wish of the hero Cosimo [to translate Plotinus] which had previously been hidden from me, was divinely inspired in Pico, and through Pico in me' (Opera omnia 1537). In the writings of the neoplatonists Ficino found a philosophical justification for both symbolic astrology and practical magic. Ficino included much of his Disputatio in his Commentaries on Plotinus' Enneads, and it is easy to see why, for Plotinus' analysis of astrological effect is a clear refutation of causal thinking. Here, Ficino found confirmation of astrology as divination. In divining from the heavens, says Plotinus, people can know the nature of the All, because the stars are signs: 'We may think of the stars as letters perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once and for all' he says, and 'those who know how to read this sort of writing …can read the future from their patterns, discovering what is signified by the systematic use of analogy' and 'All teems with symbol: the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another' (Enneads II.3.7). What we see conveys the unseen - this is the mystery at the heart of Platonism. For Plotinus the wise man is the self-directed man, who, aligned with the higher part of his soul, has developed 'another way of seeing, that all have but few use' (Enn. I.6.8). The Plotinian cosmos is a ballet, all parts interdependent, the hierarchies of being corresponding and mirroring each other in a cosmic energy-field. It is soul, as the intermediary between intellect and body, which connects all things, sowing itself as 'bait' in material forms which will naturally attract, by affinity, the soul of the human being. As it emanates from the supreme One, soul disposes the configurations of the stars, so that life experiences are announced, not caused, by their patterns. The whole process is ruled by Providence, but those who are identified with their lower, material soul will not experience its law as a liberation. Rather, they will remain fate-bound. This is re-iterated by another, often neglected, spokesman for the practice of divination - the neoplatonist Iamblichus. Iamblichus' treatise De mysteriis on the nature of Egyptian, Chaldaean and Assyrian religion seeks to penetrate to the essence of divination. 'There is one 5 correct definition and principle for all forms of divination', says Iamblichus, 'and it has nothing to do with irresponsibly divining the future with things that lack foreknowledge. Rather, it is to view from the perspective of the gods - who contain in themselves the limits of the entire knowledge of reality …' (Iamblichus De mysteriis 101, 15-21). All aspects of the material and immaterial cosmos could be used ritually and symbolically to enable the human soul to 'lift' itself back to the all-knowing, divine condition it once enjoyed, but unlike Plotinus, for whom the soul was already at one with the gods, Iamblichus recognised the need for the embodied soul to use its very conditions of embodiment to begin a re-ascent. For this, it needed the help of the gods, which would only become available once the magus began to actively engage in a process of stripping off his habitual ways of conceptual thinking to come into contact with 'an innate knowledge of the gods co-existent with our very essence' (D.m. 7, 13-14). This 'divine' work is theurgy, and Ficino dwells at length on its implications in his epitome of De mysteriis (Opera omnia 1873-1908). He sees it as a pre-eminent, intuitive, experiential contact with the profoundest level of being, quite distinct from any conceptual mental activity. Conjecture, opinion and logical reasoning will never lead to a realisation of one's own divinity, rather, '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' (D.m. 96, 15-18). Thus images, prayers, invocations, talismans may all contribute to the process of re-aligning the soul. It is important to understand that divination does not originate from the energies used in everyday life, or from human fabrications or ingenuity. Rather, the devotion, intent and desire of the operator will allow a superior power to 'perfect' the ritual and impart its authority to it. In other words, human beings may partake of Divine Revelation through their own efforts, and astrology, for Iamblichus, becomes an act of creative participation, an act of becoming conscious of the cosmic forces at work on the lower, 'fate-bound' levels of being. In the third part of his Book of Life of 1489, entited 'How to fit your life to the heavens', Ficino presents us with the first steps in theurgy - implicit in a fully elaborated system of 'natural' magic. Using Plotinus' ensouled cosmos as a philosophical framework, and drawing on Hermetic, Pythagorean, Platonic, Arabic and Christian sources, Ficino affirms that there is a way of achieving physical and psychological equilibrium through recognising and contacting the hidden, but natural, powers of the universe, primarily through music and image. Ficino as a Christian treads carefully - Iamblichean divination has now become natural magic, the gods are planetary spirits; but their gifts are 'captured' by the same process of sympathetic resonance 6 with the refined human spirit. The magician, says Ficino, is one who uses his knowledge of astrological correspondence to fashion a remedy, image or sing an invocation at a particular time when the cosmos is aligned with the activity; indeed, he says 'a material action, motion, or event does not obtain full or perfect efficacy except when the celestial harmony conduces to it from all sides' (Liber de vita III.22). Through appropriate ritual, the human spirit becomes aligned with the planetary spirit and will then automatically and naturally receive the gifts of that planet as it vibrates in sympathy, like two strings of a lute which are 'similarly tuned'. As in all divinatory acts, the ritual container must be perfected before the alignment occurs, and mastery of traditional astrological procedures is essential. But for psychological transformation to happen in an active sense, something else is required, and Ficino emphasises the focussing of intent, desire and the opening of the imagination. The very word desire, from the latin de-sidere ('from the star') evokes an inextricable connection between human longing and the cosmos. It is from this ground that Ficino looked anew at his own horoscope. The malefic planet Saturn, on his Ascendant, would, he tells us normally indicate a 'brutish' life, bowed down with the extreme of misery' (Liber de vita III.2). But the god Saturn, reaching to the intelligible realm of divine knowledge, would promise something quite different. He has 'taken over the things which transcend the physical' and is propitious to those who have laid aside an ordinary, worldly life in preference for a contemplative recollection of divine matters (Ldev III.22). In other words, the experience of Saturn - or any other planet - would depend on the ability of the individual to be freed from the literal or material levels of perception. Paradoxically, Ficino discovered that through entering into the depths of his melancholy, it began to transform into something else. It had to, because human freedom of will and initiative, for the Platonist, meant following one's destiny willingly. As Ficino wrote to Giovanni Cavalcanti, 'what shall I do? I shall seek a shift; either I shall say that a nature of this kind does not issue from Saturn; or, if it should be necessary that it does issue from Saturn, I shall … say that this nature itself is a unique and divine gift' (Letters 2, 34). Astrology for Ficino could only be justified if it was used in this way, if its framework of techniques and the physical reality of its symbols provided the ritual 'container' for the human soul to free itself from the limitations of a material consciousness, and begin to know itself as an image of God. Astrology is then in service to philosophy, and becomes for Ficino the primary activity of his Platonic Academy. In the innermost sanctum, 'philosophers will come to know their Saturn, contemplating the secrets of the heavens' (Op.om. 1130). Astrology is 7 now indeed a poetic metaphor - but it has been transformed from the ignorant 'wordmongering' of the 'petty ogres' to a vehicle for the deepening of human consciousness. In one of his last works, the Book of the Sun, Ficino's astrological vision culminates in a triumphant conjunction of astronomy and astrology, philosophy and poetry, the divine and the human, the literal and symbolic, to produce a truly anagogic apprehension of unity. Selected Bibliography Primar;y sources Ficino Opera omnia, 2 vols. (Basle 1576, facsimile Turin 1959) Ficino Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum in ed. P.O. Kristeller Supplementum Ficinianum vol.2, (Florence 1937) 11-76 Ficino, The Book of the Sun trans. G. Cornelius, D. Costello, G. Tobyn, A. Voss and V. Wells in Sphinx, A Journal for Archetypal Psychology and the Arts vol. 6, 1994, 124-48 Ficino, Three Books on Life eds. C. Kaske and J. Clark (Binghamton 1989) Plato on Love; Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium trans. Sears Jayne (Dallas 1985) The Letters of Marsilio Ficino ed. Language Department of the School of Economic Science, 6 vols. (London 1975, 1978,1981,1988, 1994,1999) J. Clark (Binghamton 1989) Corpus Hermeticum trans. C. Salaman, D. van Oyen, W. Wharton as The Way of Hermes (London 1999) Iamblichus On the mysteries trans. Thomas Taylor (repr.Frome, Somerset 1999) Plato Timaeus Plotinus Enneads II.3 'Are the Stars Causes?' Secondary sources M.J.B. Allen 'Homo ad Zodiacum' in Plato's Third Eye, XIII 205-221 (Aldershot 1995) M.J.B.Allen Nuptial Arithmetic (California 1994) M.J.B.Allen 'Summoning Plotinus; Ficino, Smoke and the Strangled Chickens' in Plato's Third Eye, XIV 63-88 M.J.B.Allen Synoptic Art (Florence 1998) M.J.B.Allen The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (Berkeley 1984) M. Bullard 'The Inward Zodiac: A Development in Ficino's Thought on Astrology' Renaissance Quarterly no.42, 1990, 687-708 E. Garin Astrology in the Renaissance (London 1983) Thomas Moore The Planets Within (London & Toronto 1982) G. Pearce 'Ficino and Astrology' in Friend to Mankind ed. M. Shepherd (London 1999) 80100 G. Tomlinson Music in Renaissance Magic (Chicago & London 1993) Voss 'Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus' in ed. P. Horden Music as Medicine (Aldershot 2000) 154-17 A. Voss 'On the Knowledge of Divine Things: Ficino's concept of Notio' in Sphinx, A Journal for Archetypal Psychology and the Arts vol. 6 (1994) 149-72 A.Voss 'Orpheus Redivivus: the Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino' in Marsilio Ficino, his Times, his Theology, his Philosophy, his Legacy (Leiden 2002) 227-241 A.Voss 'The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino: Divination or Science?' in Culture and Cosmos vol.4 no.2 (Autumn/Winter 2000) 29-46 8 A. Voss 'The Music of the Spheres; Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance harmonia' in Culture and Cosmos vol.2 no.2 (Autumn/Winter 1998) 16-38 D.P.Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (Stroud 2000) Frances Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London 1964) 9