From Divination to Philosophy: The Hermetic Transformation of Astrology

all forms and deceive man. The $12$ punishments, the $12$ vices, the $12$ perverse powers that keep man anchored to the phenomenal world are thus originated from the perverse aspect of zodiacal signs and astral influences, which must be conquered and expelled by precise beneficent powers so that the individual can experience regeneration. Made unshakeable by God, oh father, I represent things not with the sight of eyes, but through the spiritual energy of powers. Thus with the Corpus Hermeticum takes shape the idea of an astrology that is no longer only a method of divination but also an instrument of progressive liberation of the soul and ascesis in view of the supreme spiritual transmutation. In the astrological field, Hermeticism contributed to increasingly shifting astrologers' attention from the divinatory aspect to the more properly philosophical one. The intensification of the debate on free will in sharp opposition to the fatalistic divinatory aspect of astrology, conversely went perfectly in accord with the philosophical and magical aspect of astrology that found its fertile and natural environment in Hermetic philosophy. In philosophical astrology planted in Hermeticism therefore, intellectuals and scientists, who saw in astrology an indispensable mechanism to explain the intimate connections and correspondences of nature, found themselves in perfect agreement with the most fervent and fierce opponents of astrology as a negator of freedom and centrality of the individual. It is no coincidence that the same first advocates and propellers of Hermetic doctrines were also the first great critics of astrology. Ficino, Savonarola and Pico della Mirandola (notes sketched, just ideas) played a very important role in the shift from Astrology to astrosophy, three characters of the era, closely linked to each other like Ficino, Savonarola and Pico della Mirandola. Their firm negation of divinatory astrology constituted a clear turning point in the interpretation of this discipline, giving at the same time a strong impulse to a type of magical astrology unlinked from the divinatory one. Pico in particular is interested in using the Kabbalah to expand Christian interpretation and unite these two streams. Despite all three being very distinct from each other, these $3$ characters have many traits in common, having lived in the same period. Among the three, the one with the clearest position is Savonarola who denies with a writing the divinatory part of astrology as precisely contrary to free will. Speculative astrology is therefore true science, because it seeks to know effects through true causes [...] but divinatory astrology, which consists entirely in effects that indifferently proceed from their causes, especially in human things that proceed from free will, and in those rare times that proceed from their causes, is entirely vain and cannot be called either art or science. Ficino and Pico della Mirandola instead were misunderstood for a long time by historians who did not understand their ambiguous behavior. The two, in fact, while making extensive use of philosophical astrology in their writings, nevertheless both, at the end of their lives published writings against Astrology. The celestial bodies are not to be sought in any external place to us: heaven, in fact, is all within us, who have in ourselves the vigor of fire and celestial origin. First of all the Moon: what else does it signify in us, if not the continuous movement of body and soul? Mars, then, indicates readiness; Saturn, instead, slowness. The Sun signifies God, Jupiter the law, Mercury reason, Venus humanity. In particular for Pico della Mirandola came out posthumously a book entirely dedicated to the demolition of Astrology called "Disputations against Divinatory Astrology". This made historians think there had been a radical about-face by Pico towards Astrology and Ficino's teachings. However, Ficino himself, to those who questioned him about the book, declared to agree with what was affirmed by his friend and disciple and to have never been contrary to it. Pico's theses exposed in his $12$ books are important for the role they would have subsequently. First of all, he makes a clear difference between "mathematical or speculative astrology," that is astronomy, and "judicial or divinatory astrology"; the first allows us to know the harmonic reality of the universe, and therefore is right, while the second believes it can predict the future of men based on astral conjunctions. According to Pico, such science erroneously attributes to celestial bodies the power to influence human affairs (physical and spiritual), subtracting such power from divine Providence and taking away from men the freedom to choose. Among Pico della Mirandola's most important criticisms regarding astrology are: • the fact that judicial astrology subordinates the superior, that is man, to the inferior, that is astral force • uncertainty in ephemerides and uncertainty in predictions • poor translation of most Greek texts • that stars are intermediaries only between God and earth, while angels between God and man • criticizes the possibility of reading from stars miraculous events and coming from divine will like the birth of Christ or the universal flood. In the book's title one must indeed note the element "divinatrice" which is the key element. Ficino and Pico della Mirandola had always been against judicial astrology and especially against the astrologers of the time who, it is known, amused themselves in mocking with a series of invectives. It should therefore not be considered a sudden change or abrupt about-face by Pico. Pico's case is moreover not an isolated case, we will see Cornelius Agrippa in the same year publishes both Occult Philosophy and De vanitate scientiarum, a sign that in this period these contrasting attitudes cannot be easily catalogued as simple processes of linear conversion of thought but antithetical visions coexisting in the same character, as much as the expression of a theme present in both for some time and originating from the will to undermine at its foundations that superstitious and fatalistic astrology that rendered men passive and helpless before an already written destiny. One must also note how at the time it was full of apocalyptic news even before $1525$, for example the advent of printing.