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Ficino, Marsilio – Selected Letters

From a letter from Marsilio Ficino to Giovanni Cavalcanti, his unique friend - greetings.

The soul in this body has two principal impediments.  First, it is drawn into many activities and much agitation, and its different activities weaken and obstruct each other, for it is very hard to apply the mind to different things at the same time. Secondly, the soul is engaged in inferior activities much earlier, more attentively, and more often than in higher ones, not only because of the condition of its abysmal dwelling but also because of the corporeal service assigned to men for a time by God.

And so it is that when we wish to consider the incorporeal, we function for the most part feebly, and perceive it dimly as though through a cloud.

But whenever the actions of eating, accumulating, feeling, or imagining either entirely cease or are greatly reduced, then the vision of the mind will be correspondingly sharpened, so that whatever is observed by the mind is observed more clearly under the power of this Light.

Then indeed the soul will observe through itself , and it will see that Light of the intellect more clearly than it now sees the light of the senses through the glass windows of this bodily prison. Entirely at peace, it will perceive through its own perfect transparency the highest impressions in the Light of the divine Sun.

So bright is that light, that the Light of this Sun becomes a shadow in comparison and because it is so clear it is hidden from impure eyes but fully manifest to those that are pure.

Now will the mind then gaze as if at painted images, but rather at real objects, of which all other things are images.