It's a Medici and co. bingo, baby, butter and beans birthday bash in Sandro Botticelli's "Adoration of the Magi" (1476)! Left in the foreground are (left to right) Lorenzo de' Medici, Angelo Poliziano and, who else, Pico! There's more of course, but I won't bother you with that. (That's cultivated tone for FIND IT OUT YOURSELF).
Ultimately, for Pico it is the entire human soul, posited at the centre of creation and partaking in every type of being, that is daimonic[1]. It is capable of informing itself regarding the numinous destiny of mankind, but it also needs to recognize its own uniqueness, which it does by a thorough understanding of the Christian revelation and Scripture. Pico thus both differs and agrees with traditional uses of the word “daimon”. On the one hand, ritual practices of meditation are aimed at the investigation of the celestial hierarchies, but on the other hand these hierarchies and spirits serve solely as models for the rational soul to emulate. The liberty of the human soul to move up and down the cosmic staircase of reality reflects Pico’s belief that man is not necessarily subjected to the wiles of fate but possesses the ability to take control of his own destiny. Essentially, Pico proposes that man can become part of God because human nature lacks the metaphysical principle of limitation that confines beings to one fixed mode of existence. Thus, we share in the same ontological freedom of God. That this freedom is inherent but still has to be attained, Pico makes clear in the necessity to take up his fourfold program of philosophy and by underlining the supernatural grace that we have received from Jesus.
If Pico’s beliefs come across as alien to us today, we would do well to remember that in the Renaissance the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical were decidedly more porous than they are today. The strict opposition in quality between mind and body that Descartes introduced, and that in some form still pervades to this day, was not something that was considered in the premodern world. Even though Pico believed that the soul should release itself from the body in order to become one with God, he would have also maintained, like all Christians, that the soul would be reunited with the body at the end of time. Pico’s aim at deification does not depend on a strict renunciation of the material reality, precisely because this dimension is as intrinsically important to human nature as its other components. The reality of material things had its origin the spiritual world and so the dualism that we adhere to in our own time was not even an issue in those days. Spiritual substances and occult virtues and qualities accounted not only for the way in which nature worked, but also served as an important starting point through which religious truths could be deduced. For most philosophers, and especially Pico, theological meaning was the be-all/end-all of their work. Descartes may not have intended it, but his mechanical philosophy, together with the rise of mathematical science, gave way to a new understanding of nature, its being and its operation. Pico, however, was blissfully unaware of all this, and though many scholars have tried to claim him as an inevitable forebode of the rise of natural science, his proper place in the tumultuous world of the Renaissance is secure.
And even though Pico was no religious reformer, he did want to promote a new kind of spirituality free from strife and conflict. His proposed program of study and contemplation would help calm and assuage the fears and doubts of people, while working towards a new kind of peace for the soul built on natural magic and the true felicity of God.
There! Don’t you feel intellectually mollified and mentally appeased! Now you can finally look in the mirror again and don’t feel the overwhelming urge to publically chastise yourself and humbly prostrate your inapt person before the grand altar of this Blog (capital B for “cosmic revelatory quality”, natch!), although you might want to continue doing that, because next time is going to be the start of something great and unbelievable! Be here as I will take this blog into new spheres of heavenly excellence and fresh, unexpected territories!
[1] Well, you know, this paper was written for a conference called “Daimonic Imagination, Uncanny Intelligence”. Did I even bother to explain what it exactly is? Anyway, in ancient days daimons were divine/semi-divine entities that were responsible for the intellectual and spiritual guidance of people. Of course today we don’t need that anymore, because my blog wholly provides for mankind in this immense and unfailing task. I used the word “daimonic” to signify Pico’s view of the human soul as capable of transcending the material bounds of nature and spiritually illuminating itself. But your soul cannot do this, otherwise you would not be here.....
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