The Planets Within

by Thomas Moore, Noel Cobb (Introduction)

Overview

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 taught that all things exist in soul and must be lived in its light. This study of Ficino broadens and deepens our understanding of psyche, for Ficino was a doctor of soul, and his insights teach us the care and nurture of soul.

Moore takes as his guide Ficino's own fundamental tool--imagination. Respecting the integrity and autonomy of images, The Planets Within unfolds a poetics of soul in a kind of dialogue between the laconic remarks of Ficino and the need to give these remarks a life and context for our day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780940262287
Publisher:	SteinerBooks, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/01/1993
Series:	Studies in Imagination
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Thomas Moore is the author of Care of the Soul, which spent forty-six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as fifteen other books on deepening spirituality and cultivating the soul in every aspect of life. He has been a monk, a musician, a university professor, and a psychotherapist, and today he lectures widely on holistic medicine, spirituality, psychotherapy, and ecology. He lectures frequently in Ireland and has a special love of Irish culture. He has Ph. D. in religion from Syracuse University and has won several awards for his work, including an honorary doctorate from Lesley University and the Humanitarian Award from Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University. He also writes fiction and music and often works with his wife, artist and yoga instructor, Hari Kirin. He writes regular columns for Resurgence and Spirituality & Health. He is a patron of Re-Vision, a London center of spirituality and counseling, and on the board of Turning Point, a bereavement counselors training program in Dublin, Ireland. Recent works include Soul Therapy: The Art and Craft of Caring Conversations (2021) and Ageless Soul: The Lifelong Journey toward Meaning and Joy (2017).

Noel Cobb (1938-2015) traveled widely in his early years, both geographically and intellectually, in search of a way of thinking adequate to his own rich and abounding imagination. His odyssey brought him to working with R. D Laing, becoming a Jungian analyst, and developing, with other contemporary thinkers, the re-visioning of psychology and culture through archetypal psychology. With his partner Eva Loewe, he cofounded The London Convivium for Archetypal Studies and published numerous books, including Prospero's Island: The Secret Alchemy at the Heart of The Tempest.