answer to a Twitter question and some notes

davidbmetcalfe @t3dy Pico as an early De Chardin? Nouspheric evolutionary.
@davidbmetcalfe Ficino is probably a much better place to look for Teilhardian resonance. Now there's a Weird Theology for you.
@davidbmetcalfe Dionysius isn't exactly Teilhard. There's interesting theory of how angels look after cosmos; Pico sees as biblical problem.
@davidbmetcalfe I'm arguing that what Pico found most exciting in Kabbalah was resemblance to Dionysius+xtian neoplatonic negative theology.
@davidbmetcalfe I don't see Pico as doing "weird science" w/magic, it's more of a theoretical category that he didn't want to dirty hands w/
@davidbmetcalfe Pico isn't using cosmological or scientific metaphors in quite the way Teilhard did; he's just not a cosmic magus.
@davidbmetcalfe Pico honestly doesn't know much about natural magic, just finds it exciting from cosmological/theological point of view.
@davidbmetcalfe what Pico wanted to inspire was traditional Christian faith. He didn't think he was altering his faith by philosophizing it.
@davidbmetcalfe I don't think Pico believed spectacular magical experiences should be sought by practical means, or wanted readers to seek.
@davidbmetcalfe Pico used this stuff to shake up people's heads and get them rethinking scholasticism, but still in Christian tradition mode
@davidbmetcalfe I think Pico refers to exotic theologies to "trip people out" with how much it resembles xtianity-- like conspiracy theory!
@davidbmetcalfe I don't think Pico's all that interesting from magical/anima mundi pov. For Pico it isn't really to be hacked but inspire faith...
@davidbmetcalfe It's ironic that most of the culturally important stuff in esotericism Pico inspired with "Magic+KBL" ain't his style at all

Pico was critical of scholastics, preferred greek fathers+peripatetics, but wasn't trying to dismantle or deconstruct, more like improve on.
Theurgic deification in Pico? If Dougherty is correct does Pico offer alternative account of deification? Or just new phil.model post-T/PD?
Pico doesn't see angelizing or deification as a magical project, but biblical and christian tradition, he wasn't altering but philosophizing
Pico goes back via Dionysius to a more raw biblical angelology, although he drags along scholastic+Aristotelian(+KBL!)tools for thinking it.
"Pico della Mirandola spoke in similar terms of an inherent human capacity for deification" in The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe