Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

10Let those narrow philosophers at last come to their senses. Relying on the judgment of the senses, they cannot conceive that the soul is incorporeal and divine. Let them at last observe that long familiarity with the body has made them so corporeal that no wonder they know nothing except body or a thing born from body. Let them be purified, and they will perceive pure things. Let them make trial within themselves. If only they are willing, they can find there what they have long sought in the universe. They certainly perceive composites and many forms within composites; moreover, they desire forms separated from composites. They themselves are composed of soul and body. They possess a life imparted by the soul to the body, and also the life of the soul itself, vigorous within itself. Let them look down upon the former and turn their gaze to the latter. Let them lead the intellectual life apart from the body. Once separated, they will at once reach separated forms and confirm in experience the Socratic teaching: beyond the forms that lie in formed subjects, which are imperfect, there are forms existing in themselves and perfect, from which formless subjects are formed. They will also confirm that the one path not merely to touching but to possessing incorporeal realities is to render oneself incorporeal—that is, as far as possible to withdraw the mind from motion, sensation, affection, and bodily imagination. Experience itself will then show, first, what the pure soul is like: reason living with itself and eagerly turning about the very light of truth; second, what an angel is like: pure intellect rejoicing in the light of truth already poured into it; and third, when the soul itself rejoices like an angel in the full light of truth, it will perceive that God exists, and then behold truth itself shining and rejoicing through itself.

11Then it will behold light itself rejoicing in its own truth, and joy itself shining with its own truth.