5. The Divine and Magical Woman in the Artistic World.

The divine and magical woman in the artistic world

In the book of Job from the Bible, we can read how Yahweh creates his creation. Sophia as goddess of wisdom says of this:

When he laid the foundations of the earth

I was by his side as a darling

was sheer delight day in and day out.

Sofia is the image of the virgin Mary. Ancient documents suggest that Yahweh was substantially guided by Sofia in his creation. For Sofia and Mary are both mediators who lead us to God. Mary as God's bride and Queen of Heaven takes the place of the Old Testament Sophia.

In the apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon (100 to 50 BCE), the nature of Sophia, as well as her world-shaping nature as Maya, emerges clearly. (Maya is an ancient Hindu concept that means the veil of ignorance that stands between human beings and their own higher and eternal Self or as name God, Buddha, and so on).

Sophia is as the human spirit; the wisdom. Wisdom is the ‘work mistress of all things’. She deals confidentially with God, and the Lord of All loves her. In her dwells a reasoned holy spirit, ‘a breath of the power of God’, a reflection of eternal light, a flawless mirror of divine action, a fine material being that pervades all things. This Sophia, aligns with the Cochma from Hebrew wisdom literature, but also rises above this, so that she bears similarities to the Indian goddess Shakti, the consort of the dancing Shiva. Indeed, relationships and philosophical currents with India existed at the time through encounters with the Ptolomaeans.

The woman is the creator of the universe,

the universe is her form;

woman is the foundation of the world,

she is the true form of the body.

Whatever form she assumes,

that of a man or that of a woman,

that is the highest form.

In the woman is the form of all things,

of everything in the world that lives and moves.

There is no jewel rarer than the woman,

no state higher than that of the woman.

There is, there was and there will not be

a destiny that can match that of a woman;

no kingdom, no wealth

that can be compared to a woman.

There is, there was and there will not be

any holy place that is like a woman.

There is no prayer that can match a woman.

There is, there was and there will not be

any yoga comparable to a woman,

no mystical spell, no ascetic precept

that can stand up to a woman.

There are, there were and there will be no riches

more valuable than a woman.

Saktisangama Tantra

In the proverbs of Solomon, we see a Greek influence that reached the Jewish realm via Asia Minor or via Alexandria. It is the idea of the Sophia or Sapientia Dei (Wisdom of God), a divine being of feminine nature, experienced as a spiritual reality, existing even before creation.

The Lord created me, first fruits of His bestowal,

as the beginning of his works, long ago.

From eternity I was formed,

from the beginning, before the origin of the world.

Even before the seas existed, I was born,

Even before the springs, rich in water.

Sophia reveals to us a profound knowledge about the dark or dark sides of the goddess. In esoteric astrology, called the dark side of the moon. The goddess conceives her destructive energies, directed against the masculine and her own creation. She destroys, in order to create back. In her sun side, the archangel mother Sophia has heavenly radiant sunenergies, which she lovingly radiates. Again we see the similarities with the dark and simultaneously creative Indian goddess Kali and also with the goddess Shakti, the consort and feminine side of the god Shiva, Shiva is creator and destroyer at the same time.

In pre-historic and early historic times of human development and spirituality, we knew religions in which the Supreme God appeared female to us. The Great Goddess was worshipped all over the world, well before Neolithic times. Some scholars go about worshipping the great goddess even further back into the past, namely in the last period of Paleolithic times, about 25 000 years BC. Worship of the great cosmic goddess today has sunk into the collective unconscious. In those very earliest time scales, there was no development at work yet to build the I-consciousness of humans. Women, men and children lived in an enchanted magical union, is the realms of the Goddess, in the forms of a matriarchal society. Consider, for example, the excavated statue of the Venus of Willendorf from the Upper Palaeolithic from 20 000 to 10 000 BC.

Until around 3 000 BC, Mother Earth was revered and worshipped in Crete (high Minoan culture) and also in Greece. From Greek mythology, many goddesses still ‘speak’ to us.

Paul, as an envoy of the current Christian patriarchal religion, condemned the worship of the Great Goddess Artemis (with the many breasts symbolising her fertility) in Ephesus (west coast of Turkey). Ephesus was preserved since the Bronze Age. According to an ancient legend, the city was founded by female warriors called Amazons. In 2000 BC, the city's name was ‘Apasas’ meaning ‘the city of the mother goddess’. Today, a large copy of this goddess, the Artemis, still stands as All-Nurser, in the Islamic town of Selçuk near Ephesus.

An overwhelming mythological story that lucidly describes the transcendent energy of love is about the goddess Isis and her beloved God Osiris in ancient Egypt. Isis belongs to the ennead of Heliopolis. Within this group of gods, she is inseparably linked to Osiris. Isis the Ancient Egyptian goddess, was possibly the personification of the throne (her name is written with the hieroglyph for throne). She was revered as divine mother (archetype), faithful companion of Osiris and devoted mother of the god Horus.

The Osiris myths tell how Isis goes in search of the dead body of her consort Osiris, who was murdered by his brother Seth, and receives her son Horus from her dead husband.

We can see this as a very strong symbol of spiritual rebirth and cosmic justice. Isis magically finds the place where the phallus and creative power of her beloved Osiris are still alive and unites with it. She gives birth to her child in the swamps of Chemnis in the Nile Delta, where she raises him secretly to keep him away from the wiles of Seth. She manages to raise Osiris from the dead, which makes her the protector of the dead. She is thus attributed many magical powers, by which she fooled even the sun god. Isis is represented as a woman with on her head a sun disc encased between cow horns (in analogy with Hathor). Also known is the image of Isis with Harpokratès (the child Horus) on her lap. These images stood as the basis for the later Marian images with the Jesus child on the lap in the Christian religion. Isis was one of the most popular goddesses throughout Egypt, well into Roman times. Even there, she was still worshipped by many followers, priests and priestesses. Although ‘the nobility’ of the Roman classes resented the women or priestesses when they sometimes devoted themselves to purification and chastity rituals. Many magnificent temples were built to her and in the Hellenistic period, Isis was protector of sailors. Osiris, whose name means; ‘seat of the eye’ (or third eye), as an initiate, conquered many hearts through his human attributes. In Lower Egypt, the centre of his cult was the city of Boesiris, in the Nile Delta (today Aboesir). Here Osiris takes on certain traits from the local god Anezti, protector of goat herders. From this god he also derives some attributes such as the shepherd's staff and the whip. As a ‘good shepherd’, he is king god.

Similarly, we see his form and mask worn by the young pharaoh Tutankhamun.

In one of the Osiris myths, Osiris is murdered again by Seth. The latter cuts the corpse into 14 pieces and buries them in different places (the Osiris tombs). Near these graves grow sacred trees and forests. Hence Osiris is also worshipped as the god of vegetation, fertile earth, water, as well as the

waxing moon and the flooding of the Nile. But above all, he is the personification of divine life rising spontaneously from death. The divine child Horus will later avenge his father's death. Meanwhile, Osiris has become the ruler of the realm of the dead. Here he governs the face of the dead, weighing the heart of the deceased with the emblem of Maat as a counterweight. Osiris is often depicted as a mummy with erect phallus, indicating procreative power.

Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, was originally a sky god, ruler of the heavens and stars. He appears, even in some meditative experiences, in the guise of a falcon whose eyes symbolise sun and moon. We also see here the comparisons in the symbolic language of later alchemy (sun and moon and their figurative union) and the sun and moon energies in Hatha yoga. Horus actually means ‘he who is above’ or ‘he who is far away’. Early on, he is the god and protector of the Egyptian kings who incarnate Horus on earth and incorporate his name into their own. Horus is fused with Re in the ennead of Heliopolis to form Re-Harachte. He is also considered a son of Hathor. In one of the Egyptian myths, he fights Seth. This leads to the division of their spheres of power, with Horus getting Lower Egypt and Seth Upper Egypt. In a symbolic lawsuit before the gods, Horus will be recognised as his father's heir. Horus was worshipped in many guises: as Harachte, Harmerti, Haroëries, Harpokratès and Harsiasis. By the Greeks, he is equated with Apollonian. In the Egyptian city of Idfoe, between Luxor and Aswan, stands the still well-preserved Temple of Horus (begun 237 BC, completed 57 BC), with representations and inscriptions of the Osiris myths.

The four sons of the Egyptian god Horus, called the Horus children, accompany the deceased on their journey to the afterlife. They protect the canopes (urns in which the intestines of mummies are preserved). Their heads are depicted on the lids of the canopes: Imset as a human on the urn of the liver, Hapi as a monkey on that of the lungs, Duamutef as a jackal on that of the stomach and Kebechsenef as a falcon on that for the organs of the lower body. They represent the four celestial regions and are also depicted on the corners of the coffin. Extensive rituals were performed in the practice of mummification. Many of these we can read and study in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Apprentices were called neophytes and had to undergo many initiations before becoming adepts or initiates into the priesthood or other spiritual functions. Priestesses were initiated for many years and enjoyed the same rights and duties as their male relatives.

The divine or magical woman could also reveal herself as the Muse.

Muses or Miousai are daughters of Zeus and Mnémosyné (goddess of memory) in Greek mythology.

This memory, as inspiration from the collective unconscious, is for the male artist an entire experiential world of feminine energies and force fields. In depth psychology, these soul patterns are called the anima. For the woman, all the creative male subtle phenomena that occur to her are called the animus. The muses were originally goddesses of song, later also of art and science. Their number is usually nine. Homèros mentions that number, but not the names.

He usually invokes the Muses, so in the beginning of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Muses often stay on the Olympos, where they entertain the gods. They also dwell on the Helicon (now the Zagora mountain range in central Greece) where they still cooperate in the ethereal spheres, and at the Muses' well Hippokrene, and on Parnassos. Their leader is the god Apollo. Apollo is a son of Zeus and Lètoo. He was born with his twin sister Artemis on the island of Delos. Among the Greeks, Apollo is the god of goodness and beauty. He personifies harmonious peace, maintains law and order and brings catharsis (the cleansing of the conscience). Thus, we can see through the collaboration between Apollo and the Muses as daughters of the goddess of memory and how they permeate the deep soul structures of artistic people, all the more strongly as they rise and enter into the super-consciousness of the inspired man and thus emerge.

With his silver bow and arrows, Apollo strikes the overconfident and he can bring death and destruction. But he also brings healing (Asklèpios is his son). He is also god of wisdom, light, music and poetry and the lord of the Muses.

Before anything else, however, he is an oracle god, revealing the will of the gods. Especially in holy Delphi but also in numerous other places, he spoke to man through oracular priests and priestesses. His title Phoibos (the radiant one) is one of the most widespread and is said to indicate his function as a sun god.

The eros of the Muses is directed at themselves.

They seduce men not because they are in love with them, but because they strive to be worshipped by them, by enchanting their hearts and souls. Such Muses rob men of their souls, while they themselves remain as cold and indifferent as the darkness of the waning moon. The dark sides of the Muses are intertwined with the power of the goddess Hekaté; she was originally a small goddess whose cult later came to Greece. She is considered a Titan child (daughter of Zeus, Déméter or Perse). She is also goddess of the underworld and of the new moon (and as such identified with Artemis). Since the 5th century BC, she has been worshipped mainly as a goddess of witchcraft and magic. She helps witches prepare their poison herb and, with howling dogs, she roams graves in churchyards and elsewhere at night. Her altars stood in front of many a dwelling and especially on three-pronged houses, hence her Latin nickname Trivia (of the three-pronged house).

There, honey and dogs, among other things, were offered to her. Hekaté is depicted with three bodies or three heads.

In the 11th century, Diana, the classical moon goddess with whom the witch queen Hekaté bears many similarities, was identified with Holda, a Germanic fertility goddess.

One of the guises of Diana, called Artemis by the Greeks, was that of a many-breasted symbol of fertility. There is no doubt that the worship of Diana - the personification of the positive aspects of lunar forces, as Hekaté represents the negative dimensions - lived on long after the victory of Christianity over paganism.

We can imagine the lunar aspects of Hekaté, Queen of Hades, blood-drinker, ruler of the night and goddess of the witches of Thessaly.

Cerberus, the dog demon of Hades, the underworld of classical mythology, was the archetype of hellhounds, the companions of Hekaté, goddess of witchcraft. Yet with Hekaté, too, her dark sides are illuminated, when she is the only one to remain loyal to Zeus, at the Titans' rebellion. For this, Zeus rewards her with power over heaven, sea and earth. Fishermen, hunters and shepherds are under her protection.

The manifestations of the Muses are innumerable. The ‘being of the Muse’ can be both inspirational and demonic. It was in the realms of ancient European times that the Goddess became the inspiration and Muse of artists, poets and singers. Many myths and symbols in paintings, poetry and songs inspired by the Muse had developed in the Mesopotamian lands. The fundamental symbols that have survived deal with the Triple Goddess: ‘Diana among the green sequin, Luna shining so bright, Persephone in the underworld’, (Skelton, Garland of Laurel). About this William Blake wrote; ‘O! How I dreamed of impossible things'. The myth is the collective dream of impossible things, while the dream is the personal myth that tells of impossible things.

Persephoné is the Greek goddess of the underworld, daughter of Zeus and Déméter. She is cheated by the god of the underworld Hades while picking flowers as a young girl. He takes her to his kingdom of the dead without anyone noticing the robbery and marries her. Since then, she has been sought by Déméter and when the latter learns from the sun god Hélios that Persephoné is in the realm of the dead, she strikes the earth with infertility. Thereupon Zeus sends his messenger Hermés to Hades, who is to send Persephoné to earth. Hades lets her go on condition that she will spend a third of the year in the kingdom of the dead, with her husband Pluto. Persephoné, also called Koré (girl), was worshipped with her mother in particular in the Eleusinian mysteries.

Luna is a Roman moon goddess (identified with the Greek Seléné) and a sister of the sun god Sol. Later, she is identified with Diana and Hekaté.

Diana is the Old Italian goddess of fertility and vegetation, also moon goddess and was especially worshipped in sacred forests and traditionally identified with the Greek Artemis (a.o. as goddess of hunting). Viewed from esoteric perspectives, many spiritual luminous beings converge in the luminous side of the moon. Ancient ‘Masters’, angels and archangels, the ‘World Teachers’ and high intelligences work together, through the bright side of the moon, deeply into the purity of humanity and world development.

Diana also works from these atmospheres as protector of female life. Her name is explained from ‘Diviana’ (=the luminous one). She was given a temple in the popular neighbourhood on the wooded Aventine hill in Rome, where she was worshipped mainly by the lower working class (the plebs) and regarded as the patron goddess of slaves. Diana is represented as a huntress, with suspended robe and quiver of arrows, accompanied by a doe.

Artemis as Greek goddess of the hunt, the moon and fertility, protects women in travail. As Lochia, it is ‘she who redeems’. Accompanied by nymphs, she wanders around mountains, forests and fields and protects animals, but she also hunts and kills.

One of her oldest characteristics is that of the death goddess, and in the oldest times human sacrifices were even offered to her (in Tauris). Her renowned sanctuary, the Artemisium, was located outside Greece, at Ephesus. Here she was depicted with numerous breasts as a sign of her creative power.

From the light bright side of the moon, we see through the illuminated pure spirit of the Muse, as we can experience in Danté's Divine Comedy. Danté chose Beatrice as his muse. She was the pure light that led the artist from the dark abyss of Hell through Purgatory to the eternal Source of all life. ‘A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to open for him in a moment of ecstasy the gates of all paths of error and glory.’

Thus, the Artist and his Muse are each other's reflections from earthly life into the very highest realms of the Infinite cosmic Source of all life.

ArZo, the Artist and his Muse are each other's reflections from earthly life into the very highest realms of the Infinite cosmic Source of all life.

As an afterthought, we delve further into Plato and Neoplatonism in the artistic world. But first we turn back to Plato's teacher and initiate Socrates.

Socrates (469-399 BC)

Again: Socrates passed on secret initiations to his student Plato. When the oracle of Delphi named Socrates the wisest man in Greece, he began to question others with a reputation for wisdom and denounce their pretensions. And then there were his vehement criticisms of the democracy of the time. How could it happen that Athena, the first bastion of democracy, violated its own principles by condemning a philosopher for his non-conformist views and teachings.

Socrates died by the poison cup, with a drink made of spotted hemlock. His last hours are known to us through the dialogue ‘Phaedon’ by his pupil Plato. The poison potion was prepared from the unripe fruit of the spotted hemlock (conium maculatum). The poison causes paralysis of the skeletal muscles and finally of the respiratory centre, causing sudden death. Usually, consciousness remains intact until the very last. Socrates lived his last years of life in his villa in Ephesus.

Plato (426-347 BC)

Plato was inspired by the teachings of Socrates. Contact with the Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia showed him that in geometry we are dealing with theorems that are never more than approximately true as far as the visible world is concerned, but absolutely and immutably true as far as the triangles and circles we can contemplate while thinking are concerned. This is how he arrived at his theory of Forms (or Ideas). In Republic, he compares mankind to prisoners in an underground cave, looking dazedly at the shadows on the walls.

The philosopher is the man who frees himself and so comes into the light of day. At first he is blinded by the glare, but gradually his eyes get used to the daylight and he sees objects, not shadows, and he knows the shadows for what they are. When he then returns to the cave and tells the prisoners that they live in a world of illusions, they do not believe him and he is laughed at. But despite everything, he must return to the light. The soul that knows the Forms must itself be immortal since they are so eternal and only equals can recognise their equals.

Plato put forward a doctrine of contemplation or memory in Meno and Phaeda. The soul has known the Forms before birth, ‘but our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting’ and material objects can serve us as reminders of eternal truths. Plato adopted from the Pythagoreans the doctrine of soul migration and reincarnation.

He expounded the immortality of the soul in mythical form at the end of Phaeda and The Republic. But the soul itself has a reasonable and a non-reasonable element, and it seems that ultimately only the reasonable soul survives. It is curious that in the Theosophical Society and Anthroposophy, from karma research, Kuthumi as the spiritual inspirer is regarded as the reincarnation of Pythagoras himself. While we are then speaking here in the time period of the 20th century. The soul's pursuit of higher experiences is called Eros or Love. Plato gives a treatise on it in Phaedrus and The Symposium, (on platonic love, that is). In the latter book, the ultimate vision is that of beauty.

From this a fascinating passage: ‘Whoever has so far allowed himself to be led on the field of love by his guide, beholding on his journey all that is beautiful, one after the other in the right order, will at last, Eros’ final initiation being near, suddenly behold in full clarity a beauty of a wonderful nature... which first of all is eternal and neither arises, nor decays, nor grows, nor blossoms, nor is part clean, part innocent, nor sometimes clean, sometimes not, or next to the one clean, next to the other innocent, nor clean here and innocent elsewhere. And neither will beauty appear to him as a face or as hands or as anything else of a body, nor as a certain maxim or a certain science, nor somewhere in a certain form of being, for instance in a living being whether on earth or in heaven or in something else, no, itself in itself, with itself always plural, while all other forms of beauty participate in it in a way, which can be described approximately thus. While all other forms of beauty arise and perish, it neither increases nor decreases in any respect, nor is it susceptible to any influence. ...Do you consider this an inferior existence, the life of such a man who always directs his gaze there and always contemplates that glorious beauty with the organ (the mind) intended for it and is always absorbed in it? Or do you not realise that it is only there that it will fall to him - that is, only in the contemplation of beauty with the only eye with which it can be contemplated (third eye or forehead chakra) - to produce, but then not false images of values - after all, he is not in turmoil with a false image - but real ones, because he is in turmoil with the truth. And that it is he, who has produced and cultivated true virtue, who is destined to acquire the agreeableness of the gods and, if so, surely he, becomes immortal? (Symposium 210 E-212 A)

Very clear parallels of similar experiences can also be found in Dante's work in the Divine Comedy. In this, the guide or beloved initiate is, of course, Beatrice. Curious also when we consider that in medieval times, Dante had seen Beatrice only a few times as a spectator in his social life.

In Theaetetus (176 A-B), Plato wrote that because of its imperfections, should try to escape as quickly as possible to the place where the gods and goddesses dwell. Escape means combining righteousness and piety with wisdom. This notion of being ‘equal to God’ is found in many mystery schools and esoteric religions. One then speaks of the androgynous God-Man. The divine man lives in the highest forms of consciousness and fulfils his earthly ‘duties’ with joy and devotion.

Plato's most influential work on subsequent religious thought was Timaeus, a kind of creation song. The divine Craftsman is good and wishes all things to be equal to him. So he brings order out of chaos and fabricates a world soul, also called the anima mundus; thus the cosmos is a living creature endowed with living beings and intelligence. These cosmic philosophies sound closely related to Freemasonry's inspirations with the great Master Builder and the creative work in matter. We also find these roots in the ancient Egyptian solar mysteries. The material universe involves fire and earth to become visible and tangible, and the other elements to give proportion to it. The Father and the Cosmic Goddess (from Tantramysticism) create the divine heavenly bodies, the visible gods and goddesses, entrusting them to create the mortal part of man, themselves creating, from what remains of the creation of the world soul, as many souls as there are stars.

Physical objects are created by the impression of Forms on matter, within the nutrient soil of space. The vital aspect of Timaens cosmology is that the soul bridges the worlds of Being and Becoming.

Plato, with his corresponding ideas, was actually at the root of almost all Western mystical philosophy.

Neoplatonism as a philosophical system constitutes a profound synthesis of the philosophies of classical antiquity. It had its high points around the 3rd to 6th centuries AD. It was a compilation of the theoretical teachings of the pre-socratics, sophists; Socrates who had passed on his initiations to Plato, and Aristotle who had also received teachings from Plato and Alexander the Great was influenced with these teachings. On the other hand, many influences of practical philosophy can be seen, such as from Scepticism, the Stoa and Epicureanism. From the reflections of Plato's epistemology and ontology, Platinus (as the greatest representative of Neoplatonism around 204 to 270 AD), recognised the dualism about a transcendental world of ideas and a visible world subordinate to it. He described a hierarchical order in the universe, the ‘stages of emanation’; As the summit experience of all representations and principles, there is the One, which is the Absolute.

Everything flows from this divine form and consciously or unconsciously strives to reunite with it. The first thing emanated is the divine principle (Nous or spirit) then follows the world soul (Psyche) and finally the material world (Cosmos). Platinus preached about reunification with the One, the ultimate goal. This could also be achieved through matter, and pure man can achieve spiritual salvation through spiritual devotion and ecstasy.

In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's inspirations had a central function. In the 15th century, the philosophy of Plato and especially Neoplatonism experienced a strong and new revival. At the time, people were not fully aware about the fact that Neoplatonism and the original Platonic philosophy had grown out of other ‘cosmic energies’. Marsilio Ficino was born in Eigline Valdarno on 19 October 1433. He was the son of the body physician of Cosimo de Medici. He never completed his university studies, but he later taught at the University of Florence. Ficino was the first to translate all the works of Plato and Platinus into Latin. The villa in Carregi became the meeting place of the Platonic Academy and Ficino was its initiator and inspirer.

We can see through from clairvoyant observations how here reincarnated spirits (human souls) could meet again in another cultural period. Members of the academy celebrated Plato's birthday ritually every year. Besides the regular garden, the Villa (or temple) also possessed a secret garden for meditation and initiations.

Marsilio Ficino and his mystical ideas influenced art and literature until well after the Renaissance.

Michelangelo Buonarotti and Botticelli were greatly inspired by the philosophy developed by Marsilio Finico.

Finico was later ordained a priest and felt it was his vocation to reconcile Neoplatonism and Christianity.

Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510) as an artist in Italy gives wonderful examples of Neoplatonic influences in his artworks. His Primavera was commissioned by Lorenzo de Pierfrancesco de Medici, a pupil of Ficino. At the time, the de Medici family was a powerful wealthy family who made their influences felt at many levels in Italy at the time.

Finico, as a spiritual initiate, was thus the first to translate all the works of Plato and Platinus into Latin, and had many pupils, including among the de Medici family.

Sandro Botticelli's Primavera is a symbolic Neoplatonic allegory inspired by some of Politian's poems. Mercury, astrologically linked to the liquid metal mercury, representing Reason, plucks fruit from a tree: this is how the reason of the young Lorenzo de Medici will come to fruition as it unites with humane culture. We see from spiritual viewing how then profound mystic-magical rituals were carried out between the mystic painter, his patron, and ancient mythological symbolic experiences. Three translucent ‘delicate’ Graces represent splendour, youth and happiness, or grace, beauty and faith.

At the same time, they are connected to Venus. Venus as goddess of love and the pure arts as a symbol of the heart of man (the heart chakra or anahata chakra). One can also speak of the division of divine Unity and Love through the goddess Venus into the Three Graces. Floating above the head of Venus, Cupid aims his three arrows: the Three Graces too must strive towards God through love, strive upwards towards the divine through Eros. On the other side, we see Zephyrus, the West Wind, at the setting sun with the nymph Flora, purified into a serene goddess with her enchanting robe of flowers. Another Botticelli painting, The Birth of Venus, has some of Politian's ideas, but Ficino has exerted stronger influences here. It is an allegory about the birth of beauty in the essence of the universe, the higher spirit of man and, of course, in matter and the material world, in paints and canvas, but also in the social culture of the time.

In an ancient myth, Saturn (who from the higher realms lets his energy flow into man through the occiput and end up in the human skeleton and in the metal lead deep into the mineral world of the earth, i.e. the lower chakra, the muladhara in the human aura), castrated Heaven and threw his testicles into the sea; from the rising foam, Venus was born. This is the potential fertility latent or dormant in the cosmos and human beings. The divine spirit pours these spheres into the human soul and into the material world (called the sea).

The soul thus fertilised creates beauty within itself. There is another painting by Botticelli in which his knowledge of astrology comes strongly to the fore. The artwork is entitled Mars and Venus. Mars stands for violence and war, but also for life drive and creative power. Venus is about peace, beauty and the artistic. Ficino says; Mars is the strongest among the planets, but Venus overpowers him. Mars never overpowers Venus. The clearest sign of love's transcendent power is that all things obey love. Love obeys no one. Gods love, all creatures love, all animals, all people; wise, brave, rich, rulers, poor.

Love does not submit to anyone. Love is free. It arises in free will, which even God cannot force, because he wanted it to be free. Love rules over everything and submits to no one.

Now we turn to another great Neoplatonic artist, namely: Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardi Buonarotti di Simoni (1475-1564).

He was born in Capresa on 6 March 1475 and died in Rome on 18 February 1564. He was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet. Michelangelo's father, Lodovico, descended from an old once prosperous merchant family from Florence. Lodovico was mayor of Caprese. Michelangelo was six years old when his mother died, so he was entrusted to a nurse to raise him further and provide the necessary security. This nurse was the wife of a stonemason. As a joke, Michelangelo later said that he had already ingested the love of sculpture with the milk of his mistress. His exceptional talents emerged at an early age. At the age of 16, he was apprenticed to Domemico Ghirlandaio. Some time later, he joined the sculptor Bertaldo di Giovanni, former pupil of Donatello. From 1490 to 1492, the young artist was under the patronage of the famous Lorenzo I de Medici.

During those same times, Michelangelo philosophised in circles of prominent scholar and poets such as Marsilio Ficino and Angelo Poliziano.

As a 20-year-old, Michelangelo created the Angel with the Candlestick and the statue of Saint Petronius. Michelangelo, meanwhile, read the works of famous Tuscan poets such as Dante Alighieri, Gionvanni Boccaccio and Franscesco Petrarch. Michelangelo's first poetic verses were strongly influenced by Petrarch.

In Rome, he creates his first Roman works: Bacchus (the god of wine, with his nymphs and satyrs) and the famous Pieta, the divine Mother holding in her womb the body of Christ Jesus who has left his body, the marble statue now displayed in a side chapel of St Peter's in Rome.

In 1501, he returned to Florence where he created his famous and transcendent statue; the David in beautiful white marble. Together with the famous Leonardo da Vinci, he is asked to execute a large mural. Unfortunately, as we know from cultural history, Michelangelo and Leonardo later became arch rivals.

For Pope Julius II, Michelangelo creates another magnificent funerary monument that can be seen in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. Commissioned by the pope, Michelangelo paints the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. They became Michelangelo's most famous paintings, especially the Creation of Adam is well known. Michelangelo's other paintings include The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

His works of art brought him such fame and prestige during his lifetime that, with Giorgio Vasari, he was sometimes called II divino Michelangelo, the divine Michelangelo. Michelangelo is buried in a mausoleum in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence.

Curiously, though, there is a statue of Michelangelo in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges titled: Madonna with Child.

This is how Michelangelo sounds in his love poetry: I cannot now, in things doomed to death, see Thy eternal light, without deep longing.

There is again the contrast to be seen between the ephemeral material world and the cosmic and spiritual forces of eternity; and the deep longing, Eros, love and striving for union with the divine (following Plato's mystical thinking, that is). Even the beauty of the beloved Vittoria Colonna will wither away. But Beauty, as pure Heavenly Being will never wither.

Thus Michelangelo writes:

The beauty You see is indeed hers

but grows upon rising to a better place,

passing through material eyes to the soul.

She becomes divine, noble, and beautiful,

for one immortal seeks equals elsewhere.

This, and nothing else, is the purpose of thy visions.

Neoplatonism, from higher ‘spiritual worlds’, has infused and inspired our ideas and many creative experiences.

As meditators in the artistic world, we can, infused with the Energy of the Luminous Source of all life, relive our spiritual Rebirth and spiritual Redemption every time.

We wish all people Universal love,

goodness in our hearts and pure inner peace.

-Karel Meul (in loving memory) 

Published in the summer of 2008

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