MARSILIO FICINO’S
JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
A DISCUSSION OF BEAUTY AND THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL:
IMAGINATIONS FOR THE CLINICAL PRACTICE
OF MUSIC-THANATOLOGY
ANNAFIASCA
I dedicate this paper to Cherri Newton,
whose exquisite attunement to beauty was and is
a source of true inspiration to all whose lives she touched.
The fact that I have never met her in person
attests to her influence, which transcends
even the bonds of death.
Copyright © 2001 Anna Fiasca All Rights Reserved
2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without the assistance and support of many people this paper would never have been conceived,
nor would it have come to fruition. I am deeply indebted to Therese Schroeder-Sheker and the
faculty of the Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana. Ms. Schroeder-Sheker is founder of
the Chalice of Repose Project and academic dean of the CORP School of Music-Thanatology. She
has, through sustained effort over nearly three decades, pioneered the field of music-thanatology,
breathing into it the inspiration of her vision, anchoring it in the world with a solid methodology.
She has developed a language for the work, which beautifully expresses its multi-discipline approach
to the care of the dying; an approach that weaves together contemplative, musical and clinical
capacities into a seamless blending of head and heart at the bedside of the dying. My academic
formation and clinical internship at the School of Music-Thanatology has drawn me so deeply into
her ways of thinking, being, and languaging that it is difficult to know sometimes where this
formation ends and my own words and thoughts begin. Consequently, much of the language in my
writing is a product of her influence, and I directly and indirectly borrow from her lectures, writings,
and lexicon throughout this paper. Where possible I footnote these references. I thank her for her
lectures on Marsilio Ficino, which were the original inspiration for this paper. I also thank her for
introducing me to Hans Urs Von Balthasar, a brilliant 20
th
century theologian whose exhaustive
work,The Glory of the Lord: a Theological Aesthetics, opened a whole new world to me in my work with
the spiritual and transcendental qualities of beauty.
Thanks also to Dr. Robert Sardello for his profound contribution to the Chalice of Repose
curriculum . His lectures and guidance into the world of soul were a great source of inspiration to
me and deeply informed my development as a music-thanatologist and as a human being. Again,
much of his languaging on the soul has become my own over the past two-and-one-half years of his
mentorship. He has been a great support in my writing process, and, in spite of demands on his
time, has always been available to me when I needed him. Many thanks to him for reviewing,
editing, and making suggestions. I have drawn liberally from his lectures and writings, which he has
generously offered as resources for my use in the preparation of this paper.
3
I wish to express my gratitude to Sharon Murfin and Linda Schneck, my professional paper
mentors. Assistant Dean Murfin, as faculty member, Schola Cantorum director, and voice teacher,
has deeply influenced my formation. Her unflagging support and loving assistance helped carry me
through the rigor of the academic work, and her mentoring in my musical and personalmetanoia
process opened me to new ways of thinking and being. Her strength, wisdom, and beauty were a
beacon for me during my time at Chalice of Repose. I thank her also for her support, suggestions,
and guidance in preparing this paper, as well as her helpful insights about Marsilio Ficino. Thanks to
Linda Schneck for her commitment to my development as a harpist. Through lessons with her I
came to a new understanding of true musicality and began to learn how to bring my whole self—
body, mind, and soul—to the harp and to music. The honing of this capacity is a life-long process,
and I am grateful to have been set on the journey. Thanks also for the time she spent reading the
drafts of my paper and for her comments and suggestions.
I thank the faculty and clinical residents at Chalice of Repose. Through the dedication of Lois
Mandelko, Jocelyn Botkin, Laura Moya, Sharon Murfin, Linda Schneck, and Sile Harris in lessons
and at the bedside during clinical internship, I have developed and refined my capacities to be
present with the dying, and to lovingly serve their needs with prescriptive music. Thanks also to Dr.
Alice Reich for her presentations on cultural anthropology and the anthropology of religion, through
which I came to understand the important roles of ritual and religion in culture. She also helped me
to see the transparent, but powerful, influence of the cultural lens through which we look at the
world. I express my appreciation to Dr. Ken Thorp for opening up the worlds of epistemology and
phenomenology as important access points to working intelligently and compassionately at the
bedside. To Dr. Fred Paxton I owe my understanding of the spiritual and cultural heritage of the
work of Chalice of Repose. He gave me a context that places music-thanatology in the stream of the
history of human responses to death and dying.
Many thanks to the reference librarians at University of Montana who guided me through the
labyrinthine world of scholarly research. This was my first major research project, so their expertise
was invaluable and their patience deeply appreciated. A special thanks to Linder Schlang and David
Werner, and to Shawn Lake in the Interlibrary Loan Department, who were especially helpful.
4
My heartfelt gratitude to the Class of 2000: Hilly, Barb, Laurie, Suzanne, Sharilyn, Cynthia, Jane,
Kelly, Dolan, Andrea, Karla, and Michael. It has been a great privilege to know and work with these
exceptional people, whose strength, wisdom, friendship, and collaboration have made the last two-
and-one-half years some of the most memorable and rewarding of my life.
I also owe inexpressible thanks to my extraordinary children—Soma, Joel, Amelia, Marisa, Ondine,
Sönda, Karis, Faith, and Chess, whose support and encouragement have been a great source of
strength to me. I extend a special thanks to Marisa, who made great personal sacrifices to make my
dream of working with the dying a reality for me. Thanks also to Julie, Paige, David, Mark, and Brian
for their genuine interest in my work and their words of encouragement. And finally, I thank my
partner, Dan, who has been unfailing in his support of my endeavors. He has cheerfully borne
separations and inconveniences necessitated by my relocation to Missoula to study at Chalice of
Repose, and has been my faithful companion and cheerleader, advisor and soul friend through the
triumphs and travails of my journey.
To all of these people, and to divine grace, I owe this paper and completion of the arduous and
profoundly fulfilling academic program and certification at the Chalice of Repose Project School of
Music-Thanatology. I am deeply humbled by their goodness and their faith in me.
Anna Fiasca
Missoula, Montana
April, 2001
5
INTRODUCTION
Before the moment of our birth, even before the alchemy of matter and spirit join forces in our
conception, we have already embarked on a pilgrimage of being and becoming, a journey of personal
and universal proportion. For us, in conscious memory, this journey begins with our individual
human biography. From the womb of our mothers we are thrust forth into an unmediated world of
sensory experience: light, sound, heat, cold, smell, taste, and touch assail us from all sides. We burn
with the fire of our first breath and feel the weight of body and matter. Where is that buoyant and
watery world of warmth and protection that has held us safe until now? Was there another world
before that, of even more exquisite lightness? Did we once know a freedom and beauty, a harmony
and radiance of sublime, transcendent being? A faint memory glimmers, just beyond conscious
reach. It shimmers softly in a now-veiled memory of some almost forgotten past. How have we
come to be in these bodies, and why? What is this journey? What is its meaning and purpose?
The complexities of adjusting to this world of place and matter seem to erase our memories of the
worlds we knew before. We bring ourselves to the demands of physiological, psychological, and
sociological development necessary in order to find our place in our families and our communities.
But as we progress along our journey every once in awhile something stirs within us like a faint but
familiar memory from another existence. We begin to suspect that there is something more to life
than this world of everyday experience. We discover that the task of becoming human also includes
the search for meaning and purpose, and the longing and desire for something beyond material
existence. And, indeed, this journey encompasses a much larger domain. What we are waking up to
in these moments of insight is the journey of the soul.
Modern life, however, does not offer much support for us as we explore this journey. Science has
placed a great deal of emphasis on the physical, sociological, and psychological aspects of human
development, and we are all reasonably well informed in these areas. We are generally aware of the
conditions necessary for healthy development, even though they are not met in every case. But
understanding of the soul and its needs in human growth and development has gotten far less
6
attention. The result has been an eclipse of the soul-nourishing elements of our culture and of the
world by materialistic interests. As with any unmet need, the neglect of soul has manifested in
individual and cultural symptoms. Thomas Moore, observes, “The great malady of the twentieth
century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is ‘loss of
soul.’…the root problem is that we have lost our wisdom about the soul.”
1
The public, too, has
sensed this vacuum in modern life, and in response, is returning its attention to the critical area of
the soul. Robert Sardello, an international figure who writes, lectures, and teaches on spiritual
psychology and the soul, makes the following remarks: “Who would have suspected a few years ago
that books whose major concern is the life of the soul would be among theNew York Times ten best-
sellers, two of them remaining there for nearly a year. The value of this interest in soul is enormous.
People…feel a deep urging to make soul-work a central aspect of their everyday lives.”
2
The need
for this shift is becoming so clear to people, Sardello goes on, that “[they] are, in effect, saying that
they will not tolerate living in a world devoid of the qualities of soul.”
3
One avenue for developing our awareness of soul experience is in becoming more conscious of the
soul and its processes as we move through life. According to many traditions, we have been engaged
in the soul journey since before our birth, though for most of us it is not something we take up with
any consciousness until we are well into adulthood. Yet, the more consciously we take it up, the
more we can engage in our own soul life and the more we can respond to the soul life of others.
This valuable soul-work adds dimension to our being and infuses life with value and wholeness.
We can become more conscious in our own journey through exploring the soul journey as others
have understood it and written about it. Through reflective consideration of these ideas we open the
possibility of a deeper understanding of who we are and why we are here. We rediscover the
connection between our individual soul life and the soul life of others and, beyond that, with the
larger soul life of the world. We find greater depth in ordinary life because we are reconnected with
meaning and our place in life’s grand design.
1
Moore, Thomas.Care of the Soul,xi. Moore is a leading lecturer and writer in the areas of archetypal psychology,
mythology, and imagination.
2
Sardello, Robert.Love and the Soul, 1.
7
A wealth of resources is available to us on the life of the soul from theologians, philosophers and
other great thinkers throughout history. One of these people from the Western tradition is Marsilio
Ficino, a 15
th
century Italian physician-musician-philosopher-priest. He offers the richness of a
lifelong inquiry into the soul, its qualities, its purpose, and its journey in earthly existence as
examined from the broad scope of his multi-discipline expertise. His considerations draw on many
sources and from these fashions a picture for us of the path of the soul from the antenatal life of
union with the divine, to the descent of soul into body, and finally to its return to the divine worlds.
He bases his writings on the premise that once the human soul has incarnated into bodily existence,
its whole purpose is to make this return journey to the divine realms.
In his treatment of this subject Ficino places particular emphasis on the vital function of beauty in
guiding the soul back to the spiritual worlds. Michael J.B. Allen puts it this way: “…both his
metaphysical and ethical system areincomprehensible without the idea of Beauty.”
4
(italics mine).
Beauty, Ficino says, is the only one of the philosophical transcendentals that appeals to sight, our
“keenest” sense, and acts as the lure to bring our attention back to our real purpose here. Without
beauty, we would probably never begin the return journey. And yet, as with soul, Western culture
has abandoned a true understanding of beauty. The void left by this abandonment has been filled
with substitutes that do not nourish the soul. Robert Sardello speaks about this process when love
and soul are neglected, but I believe that it applies equally to beauty. “There is a tremendous void of
love, and thus of soul, in the world. This void does not remain empty but is taken up primarily by
scientific, technological, and economic materialism, which would try to make a world full of
substitutes for love and soul.”
5
If true beauty is substituted with a superficial and materialistic
quality of surfaces, it is stripped of its essence as light radiating from within form, suffusing form
with splendor. It is this irradiation with splendor that draws the attention of the soul and starts it on
its course back to its Source. In other words, without beauty, the soul cannot even begin its journey
back to the divine. A very vital part of reclaiming our soul life includes a rethinking of our personal
3
Ibid., 1.
4
The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 202.
5
Sardello, Robert.Love and the Soul, xvii.
8
and cultural understanding of the beautiful so that it regains its stature as a transcendent and
interior quality of being.
It is my intent in this paper to explore Ficino’s model of the soul journey and to discover how
beauty plays a vital part in this movement of the soul, and then to relate these insights to the work
of music-thanatology. I wish to offer Ficino’s model as an imagination, full of rich images with
which to approach a new understanding and re-enlivening of this mostly neglected part of ourselves.
It is not necessary to accept Ficino’s picture as literal, and to do so may, in fact, limit its value as a
resource for re-imagining soul life. Instead we can open to these ideas as pictures, and allow them to
add color and dimension to our own imaginations about soul and the life of spirit. Suspending
judgment, we can walk with Ficino for a distance to consider what he has to offer that can broaden
and deepen us as soulful beings.
To begin, we will look at some background on Ficino. Then I will discuss the soul as he conceived it
based on the writers and philosophers who shaped his thought. In this discussion I will give a more
detailed description of the soul’s journey as he saw it. I will then draw on his writings and others,
particularly those of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Robert Sardello, in exploring the role of beauty in
this journey. In this way I hope to develop a broad picture of beauty as both a theological and
philosophical transcendental of Being, and as an essential ingredient in caring for the needs of the
soul, and thus of the dying. We will look at questions such as: What is Beauty? What does Beauty
do? How does its presence or absence affect soul life? It is my hope that through this kind of
consideration of beauty, we might begin to recover its richer and deeper meanings and thereby open
the way toward a healing and recovery of soul life.
Finally I will examine all of the foregoing in the context of music-thanatology. Because this is a
relatively new field and is unfamiliar to most readers, I would like to offer a brief description of the
substance and spirit of the work. Music-thanatology has been developed over nearly three decades
by the dedication and visionary work of Therese Schroeder-Sheker, founder and dean of the Chalice
of Repose Project School of Music-Thanatology. Her vision offers an innovative alternative to the
9
d
usual response to the issues of death and dying. She describes this work as “a palliative medical
modality employing prescriptive music
to tend the complex physical and spiritual needs of the
dying.”
6
The music-thanatologist attends to the patient at the bedside with harp and voice in
hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and private homes. These musical deliveries, called
‘vigils,’ are based on careful observation of the changing phenomenology of the patient. The
musician-clinician works closely with the patient, applying the dynamic and prescriptive qualities of
music in response to moment by moment needs and symptoms. For this reason, vigils are always
live, human-to-human musical deliveries.
Because we are attending to the spiritual as well as physical needs of the dying, this work is not only
practical, but also deeply spiritual in intention. It requires profound capacities for receptivity,
responsivity, sensitivity, and compassion to be warmly and lovingly present to the vulnerability and
suffering of body and soul in the dying process. Robert Sardello tells us that the bedside vigil “is a
moving into soul space.”
7
Indeed, the vigil takes place during the culmination of the soul’s journey
in body. How might the insights of Marsilio Ficino, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Robert Sardello, an
others inform our work with the soul forces in the vigil setting? How might a deeper understanding
and new imagination of soul and beauty open new ways for attending the complex needs of the
dying? If, as Ficino held, it is beauty that draws the soul back to its divine origins, and if we are
committed to deep engagement in supporting the soul journey of our patients, then these questions
and reflections will be of abiding concern to us as musician-clinicians. It is my hope that this paper
will contribute to the ongoing dialogue of how to serve ever more lovingly and sensitively the
physical and spiritual needs of the dying with prescriptive music.
The music delivered by the music-thanatologist is dynamic and prescriptive, and as described by Ms. Schroeder-
Sheker, is “individual to each patient, for each death—is unique in timing content, and context.” See “Music for the Dying”
fromNoetic Sciences Review, 33.
6
“Music for the Dying” fromNoetic Sciences Review, 32.
Music is prescribed based on body systems phenomenology, the ongoing dynamic changes in the patient. Because
taped music cannot respond to these changes, live music is the sole application of music-thanatology.
7
“Spiritual Psychology”, Lecture October 27, 1998, Chalice of Repose Project School of Music-Thanatology, Missoula,
Montana.
10
PART I:
MARSILIO FICINO AND HIS JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
Ficino: His Life and Legacy
Marsilio Ficino was born in Figline Valdarno, near Florence, Italy on October 19, 1433 to
Alessandra di Nanoccio de Ludovico and Diotifeci d’Agnolo. His father, Diotifeci, was physician to
Cosimo de Medici—a member of Italian nobility and ruler of Florence—among others. The young
Marsilio suffered from frail health, and throughout his life was given to bouts of melancholy.
Nevertheless, his was a cheerful and forgiving nature, which was later reflected in his writings and
doctrines in his emphasis on harmony, unity and beauty. One of the most outstanding examples of
this aspect of his nature was his belief in the relationship between religion and philosophy, which
fueled his lifelong work of harmonizing Platonism with Christianity.
8
Ficino was raised and educated in the values and disciplines of Italian Renaissance humanism—a
cultural movement centered on rhetoric, literature, and history—which was at its maturity during his
lifetime. His formal studies began at the Studio of Florence when he was about 12 years of age
where he was educated in the humanities. Here he was first exposed to Plato and also began his
musical studies on the lute, an instrument he continued to play, and with considerable skill,
throughout his life. His interest in Platonic philosophy began to blossom at this time, and most of
his life’s work was to be built upon this early foundation. He was deeply drawn to philosophy. His
father’s hopes for his career in medicine notwithstanding, philosophy became the focus of his work,
though the breadth of his interests and study also embraced many other disciplines including
medicine, astrology, music, and theology.
8
As Kristeller comments inEight Philosopners of the Italian Renaissance,“ …Ficino is convinced that true religion, that is,
Christianity, and true philosophy, that is Platonism, are in basic harmony with each other…and even considers it as his
own mission, assigned to him by divine providence, to revive true philosophy for the benefit of true religion.” 49.
11
Through Diotifeci’s connections, the talents of the young Marsilio came to the attention of Cosimo
de’ Medici, who summoned him to Florence. It was Cosimo’s dream to establish a Platonic
Academy there and he pinned his hopes on the young Ficino. He became Ficino’s benefactor,
providing him in 1462 with a home in Florence and a villa in Careggi surrounded by beautiful
gardens. He encouraged Ficino to perfect his Greek, providing a tutor to help him polish his skills,
and expensive Greek manuscripts for translation. The villa in Careggi became the home of the so-
called “Platonic Academy of Florence” of which Ficino was the founder and head. There an
informal circle of distinguished thinkers gathered for discussions and courses. And from here Ficino
was said to have delivered public sermons, held long discussions, and offered direct instruction to
his friends. In his day, the Academy had no official organization or discipline, and, in fact, was not
an academy as we know it today.
9
Instead it was dedicated to bringing to life Plato’s Academy and to
allowing Plato “to be heard once again.”
10
In 1473 Ficino was ordained and thereafter received several ecclesiastical benefices (some of them
thanks to Cosimo’s heir, Lorenzo de’ Medici). Later in his life he was made a canon of the Cathedral
of Florence. Parallel to this ecclesial movement in his life, his work took on a decidedly theological
flavor. In his later years Ficino occupied himself with translating the works of Plotinus into Latin
and with the writing and publication of his (Ficino’s) chief philosophical work, thePlatonic Theology or
the Immortality of Souls. This opus became the culmination of his life’s work and study, weaving
together his doctrines on the dignity of the human being with the immortality of the soul. A treatise
on the fundamental agreement of religion and philosophy, it bound these two disciplines together as
two harmonious streams leading humans back to God. In 1494 when the Medicis were expelled
from Florence Ficino retired to the villa at Careggi, where he lived out his final years. He died on
October 1, 1499.
9
Erwin Panofsky says inStudies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, “[Ficino’s] modestly comfortable
villa at Careggi…purported to be the Academeredivivus, was not only the life and soul but also the constructive mind of
an informal ‘society’ which was a combination of club, research seminar and sect, rather than an Academy in the modern
sense.” p 130. His comments may shed light on the recent questions about the actual existence of a ‘Platonic Academy.’
For a discussion on this controversy see James Hankins article “The Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence”,
Renaissance Quarterly44.3, 429-475.
10
Raffini, Christine,Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, 25.
12
Besides his role as head of the Platonic Academy, Ficino is probably best known for his
translations into Latin of Plato, Plotinus and other Greek philosophers, standard translations used
by scholars and philosophers for centuries afterward. His commentaries affected the understanding
of these translations. Paul Oskar Kristeller, noted German philosopher and Ficino scholar, writes,
“Ficino added to his translations extensive introductions and commentaries which were intended to
facilitate the understanding of the texts, and which also had a considerable influence on the way
Plato and the Neoplatonists were understood during the sixteenth and following centuries.”
11
Ficino
also maintained an active correspondence with many great thinkers and leaders of his day. Many of
these letters were collected and published in the final years of his life. He was Florence’s greatest
philosopher and metaphysician, exerting influence during his lifetime in virtually all of Europe with
his letters, personal connections, and writings. But the power of his work did not stop there.
Through his translations and commentaries, which were reprinted and widely read for centuries, he
continued in some degree to shape science, philosophy, theology, medicine, poetry and literature
until the end of the eighteenth century.
12
His work in reviving Platonism has an effect even today on
the intellectual currents of Western civilization. And furthermore, his synthetic writings on
philosophical and spiritual themes provide a source of inspiration and guidance for the twenty-first
century as well. In his lovely little book,The Mysteries of Love, Arthur Versluis says this of Ficino:
One might…[say] that Ficino’s genius consisted above all in synthesis and rediscovery, in revealing in
new ways essential currents that inform the ancient Mysteries and Christianity alike. In accomplishing
this [he] was able to reveal the spiritual heart of the Christian tradition, which reappears in ever renewed
forms.
13
And he continues by saying:
Ficino is not merely an antiquated figure influential in the hazily recalled past, but rather stands as an
extraordinary exemplar of and guide to the transmutative process that we are each called to by the
purifying fire of eros, of longing for peace and wholeness.
14
11
Marsilio Ficino and His Work After Five Hundred Years, 6.
12
Ibid, Cf. 51-52.
13
Versluis.Mysteries of Love, 89.
14
Ibid., 92.
13
Ficino’s View of the Soul
In Ficino’s cosmology the soul is incorporeal and while it is substance – that is, incorporeal
substance with rational capacities – it is not body.
15
The soul does not originate in matter but rather
by divine agency.
16
As direct divine creation, it “bears the image of the divine countenance [and] in
it… we meet God himself and the works of God.”
17
The soul as rational incorporeal substance is
complete enough to act independent of matter and body, and so is also complete enough to exist
independently of it. In other words, according to Ficino, the soul does not need the body to have
existence.
And yet, Ficino also recognized that soul and body are profoundly connected. The soul with its
incorporeal and rational nature, is perfectly fitted to direct the body because, he says, the two are in
harmony with each other by a natural proportion.
18
Indeed, the soul possesses a form which it gives
to the body, so that the body becomes the expression of the soul’s ‘idea’ of itself.
19
The body is the
vehicle of the soul in its physical existence, and to this vehicle the soul imparts motion and life. And
since being belongs to the soul, it also imparts its being to the body.
20
In Ficino’s model, the soul is
also dependent on the body for some of its functions, such as sensing, so he sees the body/soul
relationship is one of intimate interconnection and interdependency. To Ficino it is this union of
body/soul that is the true definition of soul. “…[T]he soul for Ficino really means the individual
monad of being, including both body and soul…”
21
Nevertheless, the immortality of the soul, one of Ficino’s most fundamental doctrines, is founded
on the soul’s capacity to exist independent of body. Soul has existence independent of the body,
having existed prior to its life in the body. And, by the same logic, it also survives the death of the
15
Kristeller,The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, 325-326.
16
Collins, Ardis B.The Secular is Sacred, 52. See chapter 4 for a detailed discussion of the origin and nature of the soul.
17
Ibid., 3.
18
Ibid, 142, 148,149.
19
Allen, Michael J.B.,The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 70. See also footnote 9.
20
Collins explains it this way: “The soul’s role as principle of being for the body manifests in its intimate union with the
body. Being, because of its primary efficacy, permeates all that a thing is. Nothing, then, is more intimate to a thing than
being.” 52.
21
Jayne, Sears,John Colet and Marsilio Ficino, 57.
14
s
body. “[Man} is destined eventually to return to his ante-natal condition when he will accompany
the angels (if not exactly become purely angelic himself.)”
22
This idea of the antenatal existence
Ficino drew from Plato. “Plato considers … that our soul, before it descended into bodies, dwelt in
the abodes of heaven where, as Socrates says in thePhaedrus, it was nourished and rejoiced in the
contemplation of truth.”
23
The human soul occupies a unique and privileged position in Ficino’s philosophical and theological
cosmology. In his doctrine of the dignity of the human being, Ficino positioned the soul in a
privileged place between the physical and spiritual realms. “…the human soul is the centre of the
world, the hub and turning point of the universe, where divine love becomes human, where
becoming begins to be being. The soul enjoys this position by virtue of its own weaknesses, its
double desire for the flesh and the spirit binding the…spiritual substances above it…to the…
physical substances… below it…”
24
With this dual desire, the soul aspires to both worlds, turning at
one moment to the spiritual and at another to the temporal, partaking of both. This makes the soul
the mediator of these worlds, connecting them in such a way that unity becomes possible. Kristeller,
speaking of Ficino’s view of the soul, puts it this way: “The soul is the greatest of all miracles in
nature because it combines all things, it is the center of all things, and possesses the forces of all
things. Therefore the soul may rightly be called the center of nature, the middle term of all things,
the bond and juncture of the universe.”
25
From this central position in the hierarchy of being the
soul has access to the divine, but is also susceptible to the folly of weakness. It is this great polarity
of soul existence, the difficult balancing of the life of spirit with the life of body, which characterize
the journey of the soul. Let us now look at how Ficino described this journey.
The Soul Journey
Ficino tells us that if we trace the luminous thread of soul life back to its earliest existence, we
discover a divinity that existed in union with Beauty, Truth, and Goodness in the celestial realms.
22
Walker, D.P.,Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 131.
23
Ficino, Marsilio,The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Vol. I, 43.
24
Ibid.
25
Kristeller,The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. III, 197-198.
15
its essence.
27
Here it was nourished and perfected, rejoicing in the contemplation of truth. As noted above, the
journey of the soul extends beyond the limits of bodily existence, beginning prior to life in the body
and continuing indefinitely beyond the end of bodily life. We can find a wealth of information on
this in Ficino’s commentary on Plato’sPhaedrus, written late in his life, around 1493. The journey
begins in this antenatal state at the highest point of supernal contemplation, with the soul gazing on
the ideal Beauty of the divine world without hindrance. The soul remains in this state until, through
negligence, its higher powers remit to lower ones, and then it begins to descend through the realms
until it finds itself in the elemental realm at the bottom of the hierarchy of being.
26
This occurs as
the gaze of the soul narrows and, as a result of this narrowing, contracts into successively lower
bodies. At the limit of contraction it takes on a physical and mortal body, though remaining
immortal in
As the soul descends, its capacities to know and perceive the higher realms become more and more
limited until it reaches a state of forgetfulness of its celestial origins. “…those who were previously
fed on ambrosia and nectar, that is the perfect knowledge and bliss of God, in their descent are said
to drink continuously of the river of Lethe, that is forgetfulness of the divine.”
28
Describing the
stages of descent, Ficino says in hisPlatonis opera omnia, “So you can see that the soul descends from
the One which is above eternity down into eternal multiplicity, and thence from eternity into time,
and from time into place and matter; and since it descends by these four stages, it must likewise
ascend by them.”
29
Herein Ficino points out that implicit in the soul’s descent is its eventual ascent
and return to its spiritual home. So when we ‘descend into body’ and forgetfulness the primary
purpose of our physical life is to complete, through a process of remembering, the circuit of our
journey—that is, to make our ascent back into Oneness with the divine worlds of our origin. The
return journey, then, is one of remembering what we already know. “Souls are depressed into bodies
through thinking about and desiring earthly things… They do not fly back to heaven, whence they
fell… until they begin to contemplate once more those divine natures which they have forgotten.”
30
26
For a complete discussion on this descent, see Michael J.B. Allen’ book,The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, Chapter 7.
27
Ibid., 100.
28
Ficino,Letters,Vol. I, 43.
29
Fol. 59v. Cf. Walker,Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 134.
30
Ficino.Letters, Vol. I, 43.
16
The soul, we established, is dual in nature, and, as such, has two duties: to contemplate the divine
and to attend to the material world. As long as the soul is able to maintain this balance it is in union
with the divine realm. The human soul, being (in Ficino’s view) at the lowest level of souls, is
incapable of maintaining this balance. Since it cannot fulfill both duties simultaneously it tends to
alternate between the two and can become lost in its lower nature.
31
How does the soul, then begin
this process of remembrance and recollection? It would seem that it would be caught forever in a bi-
polar course, oscillating between the eternal and the temporal.
According to Ficino the soul retains a memory of the antenatal vision of beauty, and will eventually
recall that beauty through the experience of the beauty in the world. “Regaining the memory of the
true and divine beauty by the appearance of beauty that the eyes perceive, we…desire to return again
to the contemplation of divine beauty; a desire arising from the sight of its physical likeness.”
32
This
occurs not only through apprehension of visual beauty, for he also says, “…[Plato} thinks that the
harmony which we make with musical instruments and voices is the image of divine harmony, and
that the symmetry and comeliness that arise from perfect union of the parts and members of the
body are an image of divine beauty.”
33
And then he concurs with Plato, showing how the divine
splendor, which suffuses the world, points the way back to God. “…we do indeed perceive the
reflection of divine beauty with our eyes and mark the resonance of divine harmony with our
ears…Thus when the soul has received through the physical senses those images which are within
material objects, we remember what we knew before when we existed outside the prison of the
body.”
34
As the soul, nudged onward by its experience of beauty, begins to turn its attention back to
the contemplation of divine things, it is gradually liberated from a purely physical existence. It now
begins to move back upward through ascending degrees of contemplation, expanding into higher
and higher fields of Being, until once again it “finds its end and final achievement in…a direct
perception of God.”
35
31
Allen,Platonism, See 166-168.
32
Ficino,Letters, Vol. I, 44.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.
35
Kristeller,The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, 331.
17
We now begin to see the fundamental role that beauty plays in Ficino’s journey of the soul. Once
the soul has descended into body, it is as if asleep, and only beauty has the capacity to reawaken it to
its real nature and purpose. Michael Allen comments on beauty’s pre-eminence in Ficino’s
interpretation of the soul’s return flight: “Without the lure of beauty, the charioteer[*] would never
commence his forward career, let alone his flight; for although the goal of the enlightened
philosopher might be goodness, the first goal of the earthbound soul is beauty.”
36
In this same
chapter, Allen emphasizes the impact beauty had on Ficino’s formation, for, not only did it refine his
sensibilities and musical skills, “beauty shaped his understanding of the noumenal and…
phenomenal worlds…”
37
The Idea of Beauty is so fundamental to Ficino’s philosophy that without
it his metaphysical and ethical systems are incomprehensible.
38
What is it about beauty that has such
power to form and transform us? Let us now consider beauty and its impact on soul life.
PART II:
BEAUTY AND THE SOUL
The Nature of Beauty
What is beauty? In the Navajo worldview, beauty is our ultimate context. To walk in beauty, the
Navajo people tell us, we must connect with reverence.
39
“Beauty is an inexhaustible source,” says
Robert Sardello.
40
Plotinus describes beauty as “a manifestation of the spiritual force that animates
all of earthly reality.”
41
Ficino considered it the most splendid of the divine attributes.
42
Great
36
The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 202. * Note: The charioteer here referred to, who struggles to steer his chariot
heavenward, pictures metaphorically the human soul on its return journey to God.
37
Ibid. 203.
38
Ibid., 202.
39
Reich, Alice, “The Anthropology of Religion” Lecture March 11, 1999, Chalice of Repose Project School of Music-
Thanatology.
40
Sardello, Robert. “Spiritual Psychology of Beauty”, Lecture notes February 1997, Chalice of Repose Project School of
Music Thanatology, 16.
41
Salas, Jo, “Aesthetic Experience in Music Therapy”, 2.
42
Allen,Platonism, 191.
18
thinkers through the centuries have expounded on this subject and many attempts have been made
to define and articulate beauty. I have selected the following ideas from five writers who represent
the worlds of philosophy, theology, spiritual psychology, music therapy, and mysticism. These
diverse perspectives can, I believe, contribute toward our understanding of the nature and power of
beauty.
Let us begin by exploring some of the ideas about beauty put forth by Marsilio Ficino and the
Neoplatonists. Plato began the trend to elevate beauty in his writings, but it was the Renaissance
Neo-Platonists, and Ficino in particular, who raised beauty to the status of the highest artistic, moral
and intellectual abstraction.
43
To their way of thinking, “Beauty is the light of the Good that
irradiates (form),”
44
infusing both the seen and unseen with splendor. It has “more light” than other
Ideas and is the most accessible of the transcendentals because it is revealed through our “keenest”
sense, sight.
45
Beauty, when revealed to us through sight, does so in context. It is proportion, the
harmonious balancing of all the parts that make up the whole, which makes something truly
beautiful. And when we perceive beauty in the physical world, what we see is a reflection of the even
more radiant Beauty, the primal Beauty that originates with the Ideal, or God. This is because of the
unique way in which Beauty “ ‘propagates its images’ to our souls (and) to ‘sensible forms.’ ”
46
Thus,
when we behold the beauty of the world we are reminded of true beauty, the memory of which
excites and inflames us, drawing our souls upward toward the source of true beauty. “For alone of
divine things,” Ficino writes in hisPhaedrusCommentary, “beauty manifestly goes forth through all
and advances into the sight there and here likewise as eagerly as liquid.”
47
Commenting on this
quote, Michael J.B. Allen says, “Thus Beauty inspires both vision and love in man. At the same time,
of all the heavenly Ideas, it alone enables him to achieve the union between his own intellect and the
intelligibles [the highest Ideas]…by granting him truth and the love of truth.”
48
(Bracketed
explanation mine.) For Ficino, beauty is not a part of a narrow system of aesthetics, but rather it
penetrates all things and participates wholistically in the glory of all things, being the light that
43
.Ibid., 188.
44
Ibid., 187.
45
Ibid., 191.
46
Ibid.
47
Summa 28.
19
irradiates the True and the Good. So as we are drawn to Beauty, so also are we drawn to Truth and
Goodness.
49
Another writer of note on the subject of beauty is 20
th
century theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar.
The first book of his multi-volume work,The Glory of the Lord, A Theological Aesthetics, is an exhaustive
examination of beauty in the theological context. In this volume he focuses on beauty as expressed in
Christianity through its central figure, Jesus Christ. His deep reflection and consideration of beauty in
spiritual life offers many insights into the nature of beauty in the broader context, which can illuminate
our explorations. “The beautiful,” he says, “is above all aform, and the light does not fall on this form
from above and from outside, rather it breaks forth from the form’s interior.”
50
Beauty, then, is not a
superficial quality of pleasing surfaces illuminated by exterior light and reflected as impressions back
into our eyes. Instead it is the very quality of light, as splendor, that emanates from within the form. It
is this ‘great radiance from within’ (splendor) that transforms the merely outward form into that which
is truly beautiful. In our apprehension of beauty we enter the intersection of form and splendor, and
there we experience what Balthasar characterizes as “the two moments of beholding and being
enraptured.”
51
As we behold the beautiful we are captivated by it; our attention, our imagination, our
soul forces are drawn to it in an experience of rapture. The moral meaning of beauty’s revelation
penetrates our hearts with such urgency that we cannot experience true beauty without being changed
by it. As Rilke says about the beauty of form in his poem, ‘Archaic Torso of Apollo,’ “There is no
place in it which does not see you. You must change your life.”
52
We are arrested by beauty, literally
‘stopped in our tracks.’ Unexpectedly its radiance penetrates us and we are transfixed, called to a
higher order of being. Its power transforms us, drawing us to the higher purposes of truth and
goodness. And yet, to experience beauty we must be changed already because beauty is invisible to us
48
Allen, 195.
49
See Allen’s discussion of the charioteer’s flight inThe Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 202.
50
Von Balthasar,A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. I, 151.
51
Ibid.
52
Ibid., 23.
20
until we are open to the spiritual quality that permeates all of nature. We must be open to the
experience of beauty to be able to perceive the divine nature of each thing in the world.
53
Jo Salas is a practicing music therapist at the Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, New York.
While the clinical applications and objectives of music in her field are different than they are for
music-thanatology, she offers ideas on the meaning of beauty which are insightful, and contribute
depth and sensitivity to our discussion. In an article she wrote for the journal,Music Therapy, she
focuses on “the element of beauty itself and on the aesthetic experiences of the creator and
perceiver of beauty.”
54
She notes that in order for something to be perceived as beautiful certain
elements are required, and these elements have something to do with unity and order—“an organic
unity that holds a variety of complex elements in an organized form.”
55
This alone, however, does
not guarantee that the thing will be universally recognized as beautiful. It also must fulfill our quest
for grace by conveying something of the unity and pattern of existence; it must reveal to us through
its integrity of form a reminder of the order, form, and elegance of the universe. “Beauty is no more
or less than a phenomenon of universal order, and we experience it as an affirmation of ontological
meaning.”
56
That is to say, we experience something as beautiful when through its form we are
reminded that the universe holds order and meaning, and because that order exists we, too, have a
place in it; our lives have meaning. And conversely, when we cannot or do not experience the
pattern of the universe, life seems chaotic and meaningless. Salas offers us this definition of beauty:
“Beauty is the quality of integrity of form that echoes, to a greater or lesser degree, the grace and
elegance of the patterns of existence.”
57
Robert Sardello is a contemporary teacher and writer in the field of spiritual psychology. He is a
former faculty member of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and co-founder the School of Spiritual
Psychology based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is also on the faculty of the Chalice of Repose
53
Ficino clearly understood the importance of beauty in the perception of the divine. As Ardis Collins notes, his
intention in his philosophy is to open us to “the divine dimension of the world…to show that man himself and the
world around him are flooded with the divine presence.”,The Secular is Sacred, 7.
54
Salas, Jo, “Aesthetic Experience in Music Therapy,” 2.
55
Ibid., 3.
56
Ibid., 4
57
Ibid.
21
o
Project School of Music-Thanatology. In a series of lectures he gave there in February 1997 he
spoke about beauty and artistic creation. He described our experience of beauty when in the
presence of works of art, calling it a direct sensory perceiving of the spiritual and soul realm. “Beauty
is the sensory world wearing the garment of the divine,” he states in his notes from that lecture.
58
Art, beauty, and artistic creation, says Sardello, “bring the divine to earth, not by letting it flow into
the world, but by uplifting the world into the sphere of the divine.”
59
Beauty comes into the world
as art when we take in the world and then give it back in creative acts, transforming the world int
more than it was before. Beauty as artistic creation, Sardello maintains, gives to the world the
possibility to be what it is intended to be. As Rilke said in his poem,Ninth Duino Elegy:
So show him (the angel) some simple thing shaped for generation after generation
until it lives in our hands and in our eyes, and it’s ours.
Tell him about things. He’ll stand amazed………..
Show him how happy a thing can be, how innocent and ours;
…Perishing they [things] turn to us, the more perishable, for help.
They want us to change them completely in our invisible hearts,
oh – forever – into us! Whoever we finally may be….
This taking in of the world until it lives in us, and then giving it back to the world in artistic creation
is how we bring beauty into the world, how the Earth realizes Her dream to be transformed into
beauty:
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to resurrect
in us invisibly? Isn’t it your dream
to be invisible one day? Earth! Invisible!
What’s your urgent charge, if not transformation?”
60
Sardello is suggesting that we as humans play a very important part in bringing beauty into the
world. We are here “to add intensity to what already exists, to allow the whole of the earth to speak
58
Sardello, Robert. “The Spiritual Psychology of Beauty: The Soul of Art and the Art of Soul,” 5-6.
59
Ibid., 6.
60
Rilke, Rainer Maria,Ninth Duino Elegy, from Robert Sardello lecture notes “The Spiritual Psychology of Beauty”, .3.
22
in each thing…to bring new life to things.”
61
In doing this we are not bringing the imaginative
element into physical reality, but instead we are “transforming sensory reality into something
imaginative.” “Reality,” he continues, “takes new form with art.”
62
That is, the beauty in artistic
expression allows us to see the world in new ways, so that ordinary and everyday experiences
become ‘uplifted into the sphere of the divine.’ Once more, from Rilke:
Maybe we’re here only to say:house, bridge, well, gate, jug, olive tree, window–
at most,pillar, tower – …. But to say them, remember,
oh, to say them in a way that the things themselves
never dreamed of existing so intensely.”
63
Simone Weil, French philosopher and mystic, wrote of beauty in her book,Waiting for God. She says
that beauty is the only finality in the material world because it has no objective. It is not the means
to anything else; it is good in and of itself. Beauty “offers us its own existence”
64
, and we are drawn
by its goodness. Because we cannot but love beauty, it is through beauty that God most frequently
appeals to the soul in order to win it and open it to the divine realms.
65
For the most part this occurs
through the beauty of the world because in many cultures today this is the only way that we allow
the divine to penetrate us. This beauty of the world, she continues, “is not an attribute of matter. It
is a relationship of the world to our sensibility, the sensibility that depends on the structure of our
body and soul.”
66
This sensibility is based on our having faith in the beauty of the universe on all
levels and especially in the fullness of beauty, in body and psyche, of all of its beings—all those that
exist and all those that can possibly exist. When we look at the world as “an infinity of beauties” it
“gives a transcendent character to the beauty of the world.”
67
Here again we encounter the capacity
of beauty to uplift and elevate our experience of the world. This is what the soul naturally longs for
and inclines toward and so “[it] seeks nothing so much as contact with the beauty of the world.”
68
61
Sardello. Notes, 3.
62
Ibid., 5.
63
Ibid., 2.
64
Weil, Simone.Waiting for God, 166-167.
65
Ibid., 163.
66
Ibid., 164.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid., 174.
23
In exploring these writers, we have necessarily ventured into the discussion of what beauty does. So
let us now pursue this question and the others it engenders: What does beauty do? Why is beauty
necessary? Can the world exist without it? What can we do to keep beauty present in the world?
What Beauty Does in the World
We have already seen from the above discussion some of the ways beauty works in the world. Ficino
has shown us that beauty excites and inflames us, drawing us into union with the divine. It inspires
us to love and vision. We learned from Von Balthasar that beauty elevates us and transforms our
way of seeing so that we experience the divine in all things. Salas has revealed the power of beauty to
connect us to the pattern and unity of the world and the meaning of life. Sardello introduced us to
the notion that we can play an important part in bringing beauty into the world. We do this by
taking the world into ourselves and then giving it back as creative artistic expressions, transforming
it into the beauty that it is intended to be. Simone Weil helps us see how beauty opens us to the
divine and how faith in the beauty of the world allows us to see the transcendent character of the
physical world.
If beauty were to disappear from the world, what would happen? Von Balthasar describes in his
introduction to hisTheological Aesthetics how the degradation and disappearance of true beauty is
already altering our world. He begins by saying that we no longer dare to believe in beauty. We have
reduced it to mere appearance so that we can more readily dispose of it. Thus stripped, the ‘new
world’ is “[left] to its own avarice and sadness.”
69
He goes on: “In a world without beauty…which is
perhaps not wholly without beauty, but which can no longer see it or reckon with it: in such a world
the good loses its attractiveness…[and] truth [loses its] cogency…What remains is then a mere lump
of existence which, even if it claims for itself the freedom proper to spirits, nevertheless remains
totally dark and incomprehensible even to itself.”
70
So when we abandon beauty, truth and goodness
also flee. The darkness precipitated by the absence of the transcendent in the world has terrible
69
Von Balthasar. 18.
70
Ibid., 19.
24
r
e
ld.”
76
consequences for the soul, as Simone Weil warns, “The soul that is prevented by circumstances
from feeling anything of the beauty of the world…is invaded to its very center by a kind of
horror.”
71
We feel horror because we can’t make sense of existence; life appears chaotic and
meaningless. And even if we feel the beauty of physical things, but stop short of their ultimate
expression in universal beauty, these things veil true beauty, and we, deceived into thinking physical
things are the source of beauty, are corrupted by these things.
72
This is why when we reduce beauty
to a mere appearance we are reduced to a materialistic existence and the poverty of our ‘own avarice
and sadness.’
It begins to be clear that beauty is necessary for life to be livable. For humans, who must have
meaning to feel life is worthwhile, to live without meaning would be to live in despair. Referring to
the necessity for beauty, Robert Sardello adds that without the presence of beauty we cannot feel the
life of our own bodies. Without this bodily feeling of life we cannot experience the Earth as a living
being. (Might the degradation of beauty in our modern world contribute to our insensitivity toward
the delicate living systems of our planet?) Sardello sums up by saying, “Without the ongoing
presence of beauty, we lose some of our humanity.”
73
And because beauty is the living connection
to spiritual and soul realities, we lose our link with soul and spirit life. Plato and Ficino tell us that it
is beauty that nourishes the soul.
74
Thomas Moore adds, “What food is to the body, arresting,
complex and pleasing images are to the soul.”
75
This suggests that without beauty the soul would
wither and eventually die for lack of nourishment. Moore describes the result saying, “I will go so fa
as to say that if we lack beauty in our lives, we will probably suffer familiar disturbances in th
soul—depression, paranoia, meaninglessness, and addiction…As long as we leave care of the soul
out of our daily lives we will suffer the loneliness of living in a dead, cold, unrelated wor
71
Waiting for God, 168.
72
Ibid., 166.
73
Sardello, “The Spiritual Psychology of Beauty” 15.
74
SeeThe Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 159.
75
The Care of the Soul, 278.
76
Ibid.
25
Beauty is necessary for life of any quality, and perhaps even for life at all. Since the presence of
beauty is already diminished in the world, what can we do to make possible its continued presence?
This is mostly a matter of cultivating our interior life. Robert Sardello urges us to remain open to
beauty. One of the reasons beauty has been degraded is that we are too occupied with our
obligations to pay attention to beauty in the world. To keep beauty alive we must remain open to the
source of beauty, and awaken to our sensory life in the body.
77
Thomas Moore says, on a similar
note, “An appreciation for beauty is simply an openness to the power of things to stir the soul.”
And he suggests that if we wish to “care for the soul, and we know that the soul is nurtured by
beauty, then we will have to understand beauty more deeply and give it a more prominent place in
life.”
78
PART III:
BEAUTY AND THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL:
THE CLINICAL PRACTICE OF MUSIC-THANATOLOGY
To begin to make a connection between our consideration of beauty in the soul journey and the
work of music-thanatology, let us return to Robert Sardello’s statement cited in the introduction to
this paper. He said that when we encounter the dying in the vigil we are “moving into soul space.”
He suggests by this that the dying person has deeply entered the realm of the soul and that the work
of completing a human biography is essentially soul work. Attending to the soul, then, is essential to
support this process. One way of attending to and deepening our understanding of the soul
experience of the dying patient is to respond from within a soul imagination. How might that
imagination look?
We have stepped into Ficino’s imagination of the soul and seen beauty’s vital place there. He has
given us rich images of soul life that can powerfully inform our work at the bedside. He pictures the
77
Sardello. “Spiritual Psychology of Beauty” 17,18.
78
Care of the Soul, 279, 280.
26
soul as ‘the hub and turning point of the universe, where divine love becomes human,’ and where
there exists a ‘double desire for flesh and spirit.’ The soul always lives at this point of tension,
turning at one moment toward concerns of the body and in the next moment toward attending the
divine call homeward. Its lifelong task, as mediator, is to balance these longings for body and for
spirit. What a picture this gives us of the soul at the end of life! If the soul struggles with this
polarity throughout its bodily existence, how especially poignant this struggle must be as the bonds
of body begin to loosen.
79
It has been the nature of the incarnated soul to attend to body. Now,
standing at the threshold of release from the body, each human being must burn again, even as he
did with the first breath at birth, but this time it is in a burning away of the identities and sources of
meaning that bind us to body and physicality. It is time to let go, but how?
Ficino offers this image: the soul descends into body through four stages—from the ‘One above
eternity’ to ‘eternity’, thence into ‘time’, and finally into ‘place and matter.’ And, he tells us, it must
also ascend by the same way. The dying person, then, stands at the place of liminality
80
between
worlds, somewhere on the continuum between ‘place and matter’ and the ‘One above eternity.’
Perhaps he is speeding along, perhaps moving more slowly, or maybe even caught in the body by
fear. We cannot know where he is on this continuum, but we, as potentiating clinicians,
81
can be
with our patients in this image of soul movement. If our music is informed by image we may be
more able to support the patient as the bodily bonds dissolve and the soul answers the call to return
‘home.’
Our tools for this support as music-thanatologists are our voices and harps, our hands and hearts.
We work with these tools to lovingly serve the dying patient, attending to their physical and spiritual
79
Therese Schroeder-Sheker refers to this process as ‘unbinding’ and describes it as the process during which the
relationship between body and soul is dissolved and completed. See “Music for the Dying.”Journal of Holistic Medicine,
12.1, 93.
80
Liminality (Latin for threshold) is “a sacred condition in and out of time,” and outside the normal cultural context. It is an
in-between state in which the liminal person is moving from one status to another, in this case, from life to death. See
“Music for the Dying.”Advances, 92.
81
Schroeder borrows the term ‘potentiating clinician’ from the homeopathic tradition. The music-thanatologist
potentizes the musical delivery by introducing the medicinal qualities of music like a prescriptive sound tincture into the
vigil space. See “Musica Practica: Prescriptive Music and the History of Music and Medicine.” Lecture by Therese
Schroeder-Sheker April 15, 1999. For an expanded discussion of the potentiating clinician see Budd, Matthew A. and
Zimmerman, Michael E.“The Potentiating Clinician,” fromAdvnaces, Vol. 3, No. 3.
27
needs with prescriptive music. Music is especially appropriate to meet the liminal state of the
patient because it, like the soul, spans the worlds of body and spirit. To sound requires the body of
the musician-clinician and the body of the harp, bodies which are located in place and matter. The
vibrations created by the voice and the plucked strings are physical waves that move through place
and matter, in time, causing sympathetic vibrations in the bodies of the receivers. Yet once this
sound reaches the inner recesses of the ear, a transformations occurs. Robert Sardello describes this
moment, when sound ceases to be vibration and becomes hearing, as a spiritual activity. He says
when the physical activity (vibration) of sound stops, that is when hearing actually takes place. From
a soul point-of-view, connection to spirit is what makes this possible. Sardello explains, “Rudolf
Steiner says that we don’t hear. Our angel hears for us.”
82
In this soul imagination of the hearing
sense, there is a gap between the vibration of sound and the perception of sound. The world of
spirit, ‘our angel,’ fills this gap for us. In another imagination, Therese Schroeder-Sheker says, “In
music…we are perceiving the activity of spirit penetrating matter, disclosing the spirit within
matter.”
83
These two imaginations together illustrate a meeting of these worlds in music and hearing:
the world of matter as vibration reaching to meet spirit, and the spirit world reaching to penetrate
matter. Thus, hearing is exalted from a merely physical reception of physical sound waves to a
higher function that spans the material and spiritual worlds.
How perfect, then, to bring music to the bedside of the dying. Music is able to cross the boundary
between the world of matter and the world of spirit in a way that the usual medical model cannot. If
we draw on the imaginations above we can see that, while music exists in the realm of place and
matter, and occurs in time, it is also ‘penetrated by spirit’ and ‘discloses the spirit within matter.’
Because it lives at the juncture between the material and spiritual worlds, it is able to enter the
eternal world of spirit, going ahead of the dying one, and, in effect, making a musical bridge
84
between worlds to guide the journeying soul homeward. The angel, then, standing at the threshold
82
Sardello, Robert. “Spiritual Psychology of the Body.” Lecture, Chalice of Repose, April 5, 2001. Sardello based this
material on the work of Rudolf Steiner.
83
“The Imagination of the Body: The Ear”, 16.
84
Therese Schroeder-Sheker says far more than being repertoire, music to the music-thanatologist “is understood as a
transformative current that bridges and communicates, reorganizes and transforms, binds and loosens.” “The Chalice of
Repose Project, A Palliative Care Program” brochure.
28
between the worlds, makes that hearing possible so that the soul is able to follow the soundbridge
created by the music. Thus, the dying person, who is already unbinding from the bonds of matter,
can be supported by the music, and following its stream of sound, can be assisted in making the
crossing into the realm of spirit. What a beautiful image to bring to the bedside vigil!
The act of dying is, for the individual, life’s most significant transition. Karl Rahner describes it as a
paradox: It is “an active consummation from within…[a] personal self-achievement…bringing [one]
to…the fullness of [one’s] being…” At the same time, “death…befalls the human person [and] is
something…[one] must passively and helplessly undergo.”
85
Because of this conflict between active
achievement and utter impotence, this is often a time of crisis and suffering. In such times the needs
of the soul become paramount. “…Soul concerns emerge in times of crisis in the outer world, just
as they do when an individual suffers.”
86
It follows then, that those qualities which most nurture the
soul are needed more than ever at the end of life. Which qualities support and nourish the soul? The
soul needs to be seen and valued for itself, that is, to feel loved.
87
It needs to know it has a place in
the order of things, to sense the meaning of its existence.
88
And, as we have seen above, the soul
needs and craves beauty.
How can we meet these soul needs in the vigil? The presence love and beauty in our being and our
music are the most vital elements because these are the two most fundamental desires of the soul.
Robert Sardello reminds us that love is not something of our own doing, but rather a force that
enters into the world through us, if we have prepared ourselves as instruments of love.
89
As music-
thanatologists, then, we can make possible the presence of love by preparing ourselves musically and
interiorly as vessels for love. When we are fully present in our own individuality to the individuality
of the patient, we invite the transformative power of love into the vigil space.
90
Because of the
nature of our work, it is through music that we make this space for love’s entry into the patient-
85
Rahner, Karl.Theological Dictionary, 117.
86
Sardello, Robert,Love and the Soul, 16.
87
Moore, 277.
88
Salas, “Aesthetic Experience in Music Therapy”, 8. Cf. Moore, Care of the Soul, 278.
89
Sardello. “Spiritual Psychology and the Laws of Love,” 2,3.
90
“Individuality…concerns…transforming through love what is experienced…It is a path of development, the path of
love.” Sardello, Robert.Love and the Soul, 24, 26.
29
clinician relationship. Music has the dual capacity to express the unique being of the musician-
clinician and simultaneously to receive, embrace, and prescriptively express the same irreplaceable
particularity of the patient. When music is delivered this responsively and receptively
91
, as is our aim
in music-thanatology, it is able to transcend the value-laden content of ordinary language and to hold
the patient in reverence and humility. This profound acknowledgment of the other allows for a level
of intimacy that feeds the soul. Within this context the dying patient is able to feel seen and loved in
her soul-being and to know her human biography has had inestimable value and meaning.
Beauty, like love, is a favor, a gift of the spiritual realms. Auguste Rodin understood that the artist
cannot create beautiful works of art; instead, the artist works with the materials at hand and then
waits on the possibility for beauty to enter the form. Beauty alone chooses her places of residence.
Rodin said “We prepare forms for beauty, but we do not know whether it will come to live there.”
Yet, he suggests that the work of the artist is to prepare the form so that beauty can choose to enter.
How can we prepare the ‘form’ of our being, our music, or even the vigil for her presence? Sardello
says that we must remain open to beauty so that it can be present in the world. He tells us that
mundane concerns interfere with our capacity to remain open. If we can leave our concerns, our
internal chatter, our preoccupation with the details of our lives outside the door when we enter the
vigil, we can make space in our being for beauty to emerge. When our music is simple and spacious
with judiciously placed elements of dynamic and prescriptive color, rather than cluttered with
complex harmonies and heavy textures, beauty has the space to live there. When we can open in
body, mind and heart to these ways of being, our music can become a vehicle for beauty. When this
happens, it is possible for the vigil to become a container for beauty’s presence.
Quoting from E. Newton’s article,The Meaning of Beauty, Jo Salas illustrates how art can open us to
the presence of beauty. “It is misleading [Newton] concludes, to say that the artist has ‘createdbeauty
91
Therese Schroeder-Sheker identifies radical receptivity and radical responsivity as two of the most important capacities
for the music-thanatologist to cultivate. Schroeder-Sheker.Clinical Notebook, 3
rd
Edition., “What Makes a Professional
Music Thanatologist?” 17.
30
where none existed. What he has, in fact done is to lift a corner of the veil andreveal beauty.’ Beauty
is the underlying reality which the artist’s sensibility perceives and manifests for us.”
92
Here
Salas offers another way for us to prepare the way for beauty in the vigil setting. From this picture
we see that beauty already exists and permeates all things. Invoking this imagination when we are
with the dying, we can create the possibility for the visitation of beauty in the vigil. We can trust
93
that beauty is already present everywhere and that music has the capacity to lift the veil of
perception to reveal her radiant presence. When this happens, the patient experiences the order and
meaning inherent in beauty, and through this experience her own life takes on meaning and value.
Everything, even this death, has a place in the pattern of universal order.
94
Beauty also stirs memories in the soul, reminding the soul of its connection with the divine, and
assisting it in following that link back to its divine origins. Music has an inherent capacity to set this
process in motion because, as Plato said, the music of instruments and voices resonates with the
image of divine harmony, making an auditory picture of beauty. Ficino might say that the patient,
apprehending beauty in the music, hears the divine harmonies resonating within the music. These
divine harmonies awaken the soul to the sublime world of its antenatal existence, and stirred by
these memories the soul turns its gaze homeward. Music has the capacity to shift the gaze of the
dying to the divine realms of their origins. For the dying, then, the power of music is especially
prescriptive, for in addition to caring for the soul, the beauty in music awakens memories that guide
the soul in its final ascent.
92
Salas, 6.
93
See Weil,Waiting for God, 164.
94
Salas, , 5.
31
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, contemplation of soul and beauty offers a wellspring of images and inspiration for
the practicing music-thanatologist. In the Ficinian imagination we might say that in bodily death a
human biography is ending, but at the same time a human soul is being released into its unhindered
and final ascent to its divine origins. Our images of the soul experience of the dying can include
Ficino’s view of death as one phase in the continuum of life. He tells us death is not “an interruption
of life, but a phase in a continuous passage from a less perfect to a more perfect degree of existence,
and the present and the future are almost united in a unique and gradual progression of the soul.”
95
We can imagine Beauty as a radiant Being, who responds to open, receptive spaciousness,
illuminating the vigil space with warmth, intimacy, and reverence. Her presence nurtures and guides
the soul, lifts our gaze to the sublime, and gives context and meaning to the completion of each
human life. Beauty exalts and dignifies the soul, making possible a conscious, peaceful, and blessed
transition. Beauty reminds us that death, too, is a part of the journey of the soul, another step in
preparation for the return to the divine realms.
While the ascent of the soul is lofty, the work of separation from the body is arduous and difficult.
We encounter many challenges in the clinical setting. Most dying persons and their families are
burdened with some level of physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. The goal of our work is to
relieve this suffering by offering the best support possible. To this end, I believe these imaginations
of beauty, soul, and music can become a rich source of creativity for the practicing music-
thanatologist. Working with them in our clinical practice inspires new possibilities for
compassionate, loving care in a patient’s final days and hours. I treasure the opportunity to be with
patients and their families in these intimate and transformative final moments of the human
biography. It is a rare privilege. My hope is that attending to beauty, soul, and music in daily life will
deepen us and nurture our capacity to support and serve our patients and their loved ones. May the
95
Kristeller,Philosophy, 334.
32
insights offered here contribute toward the ongoing development of the field of music-thanatology
and add to the deep reservoir of imagination and creativity from which we draw to do our work. I
believe that as we fine-tune our presence to soul and beauty in the vigil, we will likewise expand in
our ability to respond from our whole being to each patient in the definitive moments at the end of
life. The vigil space, when infused with beauty, can then call forth a radiant and compassionate
musical bridge of support for the soul in its unique and mysterious journey homeward.
33
Bibliography
Of Reference Sources and Works Cited
1.Allen, Michael J.B.The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino:A Study of HisPhaedrus Commentary,
Its Sources and Genesis. Berkeley: University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984.
2._______.Plato’s Third Eye:Studies in Marsilio Ficino’s Metaphysics and its
Sources. Brookfield, Vermont: Variorium, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1995.
3.Audi, Robert, ed.The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy,“Ficino, Marsilio.” Second
edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
4. Collins, Ardis B.The Secular is Sacred:Platonism and Thomism in Marsilio Ficino’s
Platonic Philosophy. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.
5.Budd, Matthew A. and Zimmerman, Michael E. “The Potentiating Clinician, Combining
Scientific and Linguistic Competence.”Advances 3.3 (1986): 40-55.
6.Craig, Edward, ed.Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Aesthetics”. Vol. 1.
London and New York: Routledge Press, 1998.
7.______________. “Beauty”, Vol. 1.
8.______________. “Ficino, Marsilio.” Vol 3.
9.______________. “Humanism, Renaissance.” Vol. 4.
10. Editorial Staff of the Catholic University of America, ed.New Catholic Encyclopedia,
“Ficino, Marsilio”. Vol. 5. New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Toronto, London and
Sydney: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1967.
11. Edwards, Paul, ed.The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.“Ficino, Marsilio”, Vol. 3. New York:
The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, 1967.
12. ______________. “Humanism”, Vol. 4.
13. Eliade, Mircea, ed.The Encyclopedia of Religion, “Aesthetics”. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co., 1987.
14. Ficino, Marsilio.A Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love. Translation with introduction
and notes by Sears Jayne. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985.
15. ________.The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Members of the Language Department of the
School of Economic Science, London, trans. Vol. 1 (Liber I). London: Shepheard-
Walwyn Publishers, repint 1983.
16. ________.The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Vol. 2 (Liber III). London: Shepheard-Walwyn
Publishers, reprint 1982.
17. ________.The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Vol. 3 (Liber IV). London: Shepheard-Walwyn
Publishers, 1981.
18. ________.Three Books on Life. Translation with introduction and notes by Carol V.
Kaske and John R. Clark. Binghamton. New York: The Renaissance Society of America,
1989.
34
19. ________.Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino.Members of the
Language Department of the School of Economic Science, London, trans. Rochester,
Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1996.
20. Hankins, James. “The Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence”.Renaissance Quarterly
44.3 (1991): 429-475.
21. Hastings, James, ed.Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, “Aesthetics”. Vol. I. New York:
Charles Scribners’ Sons/Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1917.
22. _______________. “Beauty”. Vol. II.
23. Huxley, Aldous.The Doors of Perception. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row,
Publishers, 1956.
24. Jayne, Sears.John Colet and Marsilio Ficino, Aberdeen: Oxford University Press, 1963.
25. Kristeller, Paul Oskar.Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press, 1964.
26. ________. “Ficino and Pomponazzi on the Place of Man in the Universe,”Journal of the
History of Ideas 5 (1944): 220-242.
27. ________. “Ficino and Renaissance Platonism,”The Personalist 36 (1955): 238-249.
28. ________.Marsilio Ficino and His Work After Five Hundred Years. Instituto Nazionale di
Studi sul Rinascimento,Quaderni di “Rinascimento”, VII. ISBN 88 222 3489 7.
29. ________.The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. Virginia Conant, trans. Glouster, Mass.: Peter
Smith Publisher, 1964.
30. ________. “The Theory of Immortality in Marsilio Ficino.”Journal of the History of Ideas 1
(1940): 299-319.
31. Kuczynska, Alicja. “The Third World of Marsilio Ficino or on the Indispensibility of
Experiencing Beauty.” Aleksandra Rodzinska, trans.Dialectics and Humanism 15 (1988):
157-171.
32. Moore, Thomas.Care of the Soul. New York: Harper Perennial Books-Harper Collins
Publishers, 1994.
33. Panofsky, Erwin.Studies in Iconology, Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. New
York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1962. Originally published in 1939 by Oxford
University Press, New York.
34. Raffini, Christine.Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione: Philosophical, Aesthetic,
and Political Approaches in Renaissance Platonism. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998.
35. Rahner, Karl, ed.Sacramentum Mundi: an Encyclopedia of Theology. “Neo-Platonism.”
Vol. 4. New York: Herder and Herder, 1969.
36. Rees, Valery. “Marsilio Ficino Renaissance Man.”History Today 49.7 (1999): 45.
37. Reich, Alice. “The Anthropology of Religion.” Lecture, Chalice of Repose Project
School of Music-Thanatology, March 11, 1999.
38. Roberts, Louis.The Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Washington D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1987.
34. Sadie, Stanley, ed.The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. “Ficino,
Marsilio.” Vol. 6. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1980.
39. Salas, Jo. “Aesthetic Experience in Music Therapy”Music Therapy9.1 (1990): 1-15.
40. Sardello, Robert.Freeing the Soul From Fear, New York: Riverhead Books-Penguin
Putnam, Inc., 1999.
35
41. Sardello, Robert.Love and the Soul: Creating a Future for Earth.New York: Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc., 1995.
42. ________. “Spiritual Psychology.” Lecture, Chalice of Repose Project School of Music-
Thanatology, October 27, 1998.
43. ________. “Spiritual Psychology and the Laws of Love.” The School of Spiritual
Psychology, 1999.
44. ________. “Spiritual Psychology of Beauty: The Soul of Art and the Art of
Soul.” Pre-publication notes. Missoula, Montana: Chalice of Repose Project, 1996.
________. “Spiritual Psychology of the Body: The Twelve Senses.” Lecture, Chalice of
Repose Project School of Music Thanatology, April 5, 2001.
45. Schroeder-Sheker, Therese. “Music for the Dying; A Personal Account of the New Field
of Music-Thanatology—History, Theories, and Clinical Narratives.”Journal of Holistic
Nursing 12.1 (1994): 82-99.
46. ________. “Music for the Dying: Using Prescriptive Music in the Death-Bed Vigil.”
Noetic Sciences Review31 (1994): 32-36.
47. ________. “Musica Practica : Prescriptive Music and the History of Music and Medicine.”
Lecture, Chalice of Repose Project School of Music-Thanatology, April 15, 1999.
48. ________. “The Chalice of Repose Project, A Palliative Care Program.” Brochure.
49. ________. “The Imagination of the Body: The Ear; Hearing as Receiving: The
Labyrinth in the Temple.” Missoula, Montana: St. Dunstan’s Press, 1994,1996, 1998,
2000.
50. ________, ed. “What Makes a Professional Music-Thanatologist?”Clinical Notebook, 3
rd
Edition. Missoula, Montana: St. Dunstan’s Press, 1999.
51. Versluis, Arthur James.The Mysteries of Love. St. Paul, Minn.: Studies in Literature and
Religion, 1996.
52. Von Balthasar, Hans Urs.The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics.Vol. I
“Seeing the Form.” Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, trans. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982.
53. Von Balthasar, Hans Urs.The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Vol. II:
“Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles.” Andrew Louth, Francis McDonagh, and
Brian McNeil C.R.V., trans. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984.
54. Von Balthasar, Hans Urs.The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetic.Vol. III:
“Studies in Theological Style: Lay Styles.” Andrew Louth, John Saward, Martin
Simon and Rowan Williams, trans. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986.
55. Voss, Angela. “The Renaissance Musician: Speculations on the Performing Style
of Marsilio Ficino.”Temenos11 (1990): 31-52.
56. Weil, Simone.Waiting for God. Emma Craufurd, trans. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons,
1951.
