The Planets Within

The Planets Within asks us to return to antiquity with new eyes. It centers on one of the most psychological movements of the prescientific age--Renaissance Italy, where a group of "inner Columbuses" charted territories that still give us today a much- needed sense of who we are and where we have come from, and the right routes to take toward fertile and unexplored places.

Chief among these masters of the interior life was Marsilio Ficino, presiding genius of the Florentine Academy, who taug...