The Wisdom Tradition | a philosophy podcast · Alexander Sachon

The Philosophy of Astrology by MANLY P. HALL | Part 1 of a Six-Part Series

January 27, 2026·35 min·1 clip

Astrology is treated as philosophy, and the episode means it. The host presents Manly P. Hall's Philosophy of Astrology as a somewhat rare PRS pamphlet, roughly 75 to 80 pages, and sets it next to the show's earlier Nostradamus series. This is not newspaper horoscope stuff. Hall's subject, as read here, is astrology as a language for nature, planetary alignment, zodiacal pattern, seasonal rhythm, and the older symbolic world around them. The reading leans hard on ancient sources. Pythagoras shows up as more than a lone Greek thinker, with teachings linked to Indian Brahmins, Egyptian priests, and Greek mystery hierophants. The suggestion is that something was carried forward through hidden schools, including a doctrine in which the planets moved about the sun. Then the episode makes its main split. Heliocentric astronomy belongs to the physical solar system. The Ptolemaic geocentric diagram belongs to the world as experienced through matter. That shift changes Earth. In this symbolic frame, central Earth is not only the planet. It is the element Earth, or matter itself, with other planes of energy arranged around it. The old diagram becomes a kind of psychic architecture. The seven planetary orbits are treated as zones or planes of magnetic energy, linked to the bodies of blessed gods and to medieval ideas of the anima mundi. The fixed stars widen the picture. Beyond the planetary orbits, Ptolemy's great circles of fixed stars push the model toward pure spiritual energy, deity, and a larger container for mind and matter. The host slows down over the obvious snag: physical astronomy and geocentric symbolism do not answer the same question. One places objects in space. The other describes quality, matter, and how human beings perceive order from inside creation. The close comes back to metaphysics. Astrology becomes a puzzle about matter and spirit, and about whether space can be understood as one field holding both mind and material form. The series continues elsewhere. The first episode appears on the podcast, while later Manly P. Hall Monday readings continue for Substack subscribers.

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