New Acropolis Events

This talk will look at the Order of the Knights Templar, established in 1118 by nine Knights, led by Hugh De Payens and will explore the new model of Christianity which emerged: the monk-knight archetype.

After only 200 years of existence, the Knights Templar were persecuted, tortured and killed under the orders of King Philip IV of France. Those who survived escaped to Portugal and some believe that the knowledge the Templars brought from the East was the trigger for the Portuguese Age of Discovery.

Shamanism is an ancient and almost universal tradition among societies that live close to nature, and many seekers in the Western world feel that there is a lot that can be learnt from this natural form of practical wisdom.

Using Mircea Eliades seminal work on Shamanism as a starting point, this talk will look at the universal aspects of this inner path, such as the concepts of initiation, death and rebirth, and renewal of the individual and society through deep inner transformation.

Nikola Tesla was and remains an enigmatic figure, sometimes portrayed as brilliant, sometimes as passionate and sometimes even as crazy. This was because his ideas were, and still are for some, ahead of their time.

This talk will look at Tesla the idealist and his ambitious vision for raising humanity to a higher level of existence, with the help of science and technology. The talk will explore a little of the the mystery that was this innovative and forward-thinking man.

Over thousands of years, myths have helped human beings to understand aspects of life that the rational mind finds difficult to grasp (love, death, mystery...). Great philosophers like Plato have used myths and fables to explain their key concepts. Still today, we find the archetypal patterns of myth in books like Lord of the Rings or films like Star Wars.
This 4-week course (4 evenings over a month) will introduce you to the archetypal structure of mythology and its important role in promoting our spiritual and psychological well-being.

Topics of the 4 evenings

1. Myths, Symbols and Rituals as means of access to the Sacred and as tools for understanding and facing the trials of life.
2. The Myth of Cupid and Psyche: a key to understanding the mysteries of love and the soul.
3. The Oedipus Myth: Can free will and predestination co-exist? What is the nature of the human being?
4. Fairy Tales and Modern Mythology: Archetypal themes and their interpretation in fairy tales, literature and film.

Philosophy means love of wisdom (philo-sophia) and is an active attitude of awareness towards life. In this sense, we are all born philosophers, with an innate need to ask questions and with the intuition that there are answers to be found. And yet, most of us have little knowledge of philosophy. We have never had the chance to learn about the vast heritage of ideas that have sustained, inspired and guided humanity throughout history.

This 16-week course will introduce you to the major systems of thought of East and West. They are arranged under three subject headings: Ethics, Sociopolitics and Philosophy of History.

Course Content

Understanding yourself
Introduction to Ethics. Major concepts of the philosophies of India, Tibet, Ancient Egypt and Neoplatonism

Living together in harmony with others
Introduction to Sociopolitics
Major concepts of the philosophies of Confucius, Plato and the Stoics

Being part of something greater
Introduction to Philosophy of History
Microcosm and Macrocosm
The cosmovision of traditional societies

First introductory evening FREE. Price for the whole course £160 (£120 concessions), handouts included.

Symbols are a language we can all recognise but few of us can read. Over thousands of years, symbols have been used to express the ineffable and to create a bridge between the invisible and visible dimension. Learning to understand them better will help to develop our imagination, which is one of our most important and powerful faculties. Symbols have the power to re-connect us with a world full of meaning.

This 3-week course (1 evening per week) will introduce you to symbology - the study of symbols. The course will explore some of the most important symbols of different cultures and reveal deeper layers of meaning in art and architecture.

Topics of the 3 evenings

1. Introduction to symbology and the universal symbols of numbers, geometrical shapes and nature.
2. The symbolic dimension in Sacred Architecture.
3. Sacred Art and Symbols of India (Buddhism, Hinduism).

"Philosophy is inherent in all human activity."
If this statement is true, then the arts can also be seen as an expression of our thinking and as a quest for the universal archetypes that govern our lives. This year we would like to dedicate our contribution to UNESCO`s World Philosophy Day to the wisdom that can be found in many different artistic creations. After a brief introduction, 4 different speakers will offer their reflections on this topic in short presentations and during the break and after the event there will be buffet-style refreshments and time for philosophical conversation.

The Microbiome - the entire collection of microorganisms in a specific niche, such as the human gut - is a hot topic these days, but the importance of microorganisms in our body to overall health has been recognised for thousands of years. In this talk, homeopath Elizabeth Adalian will introduce the role of homeopathic remedies to enhance the microbiome and trace its path from early life in the womb and through the ancestry. The link with the brain will also be discussed, with a focus on the vagus nerve (formerly known as the cranial nerve).
This talk will be presented against the backdrop of a philosophical approach.

Our mind has a much bigger impact on our life than we usually realize. Knowing how our mind works allows us to take responsibility for our life and to become creators rather than remain victims.

This short course (3 consecutive Tuesday evenings, starting on 10th Oct) will explore the mind and mind-related topics such as consciousness, imagination, creativity and meditation. It will also look at collective mindsets and paradigm shifts throughout history. Each evening is led by a different speaker and will consist of both theory and practical exercises.

First Evening (Tues 10 Oct) How our mind creates our experience of reality Mindsets: what they are and how they work. Learning to see things differently. The importance of distinguishing between two realities.

Second Evening (Tues 17 Oct) Consciousness and self-awareness The stages of inner awakening according to Tibetan Buddhism. Meditation and its different interpretations and practices. Achieving a state of relaxed concentration.

Third Evening (Tues 24 Oct) Develop your innate creativity Creativity and different modes of thinking. IQ vs creativity. Imagination and the ability to create what does not yet exist. What can help us to become more creative.

To prepare ourselves and the next generation for a rapidly changing world we need to be more grounded than ever in the timeless values and principles that have provided a stable point of reference in the past.

Many of the problems we are facing today will not be solved by more money or technology. Most solutions to our current challenges will require a change in our actions, which can only be sustainable if brought about by an inner change. How can we bring about this inner change? If our actions are a result of our thoughts, then we need to change the way we think about many things.

Philosophy has for thousands of years been a valid path to explore our thinking, to search for the underlying principles of life, to put them into practice and to develop our inner potential. Philosophy as a way of life is not only an intellectual enterprise but an education for the head, the heart and the hands.

Course Content

Understanding yourself
Introduction to Ethics. Major concepts of the philosophies of India, Tibet, Ancient Egypt and Neoplatonism

Living together in harmony with others
Introduction to Sociopolitics
Major concepts of the philosophies of Confucius, Plato and the Stoics

Being part of something greater
Introduction to Philosophy of History
Microcosm and Macrocosm
The cosmovision of traditional societies

First introductory evening FREE. Price for the whole course £160 (£120 concessions), handouts included.

Does ancient Egypt still have a message for our time? This short course with 4 different sessions invites you to discover the spirit of this mysterious civilization that lies at the root of our modern culture and has - through the currents of Pythagoreanism, Platonism and the Corpus Hermeticum - continued to inspire Western civilization. By examining certain facets of the cosmovision and lifestyle of ancient Egypt, we will seek inspiration to “build towards the future”

First evening (Wed 20 Sept)
Philosophy in Ancient Egypt
Many people think the Egyptians had no philosophy, only religion and magic. However, a deep study of their culture reveals an underlying philosophy behind everything they did. Their world view was one of unity in multiplicity, in which all things become differentiated in order to travel a path towards reunification and peace.
Psychology in Ancient Egypt Although psychology was only established as an independent scientific discipline in the late 19th century, its roots are much older. Ancient Egyptians identified many different aspects of the human psyche and had a profound awareness of what contemporary neurocardiology has labeled the “consciousness of the heart”.

Second evening (Wed 27 Sept)
The Egyptian Book of the Dead This session will lead you on a journey through the Papyrus of Ani, a more than 3,000-year-old scroll whose original is housed in the British Museum. It contains teachings about the different stages of the passage of the soul from death to after-life and is beautifully illustrated.
Invisible Egypt
Over thousands of years, symbols have been used to express the ineffable and to create a bridge between the invisible and visible dimensions. This session invites you to discover the timeless importance of the symbolic imagination and will help you understand the meaning of some of the most well-known symbols of ancient Egypt.

Philosophy in the West

Shamanism is an ancient and almost universal tradition among societies that live close to nature, and many seekers in the Western world feel that there is a lot that can be learnt from this natural form of practical wisdom.

Using Mircea Eliades seminal work on Shamanism as a starting point, this talk will look at the universal aspects of this inner path, such as the concepts of initiation, death and rebirth, and renewal of the individual and society through deep inner transformation.

Out of the thousands of films produced in the 20th and 21st centuries, some have given us acute analyses – humorous, tragic or tragi-comic – of the social and philosophical dilemmas of our times. This talk, richly illustrated with film-clips, will focus on how some of the great directors have commented on the contradictions of the modern world.

One of the most important tributaries to the great river that is the Platonic tradition is that of the mystical Orphic mythology and theology. As Proclus (the 5th century head of the Platonic Academy) wrote "All the theology of the Greeks is the progeny of the sacred initiations of Orpheus. For Pythagoras first learned the celebrations of the Gods from Aglaophemus [the pupil of Orpheus]; but Plato was the second who received a perfect science of these, both from the Pythagorean, and Orphic writings."

In this one day workshop we will explore the fragments of Orphic teachings that have survived the long centuries together with the insights Plato and the later Platonists took from this profound stream. We will consider especially what the mysterious myth of the torn-apart Dionysus who is regenerated from his heart through the power of Apollo and Athena has to tell us about our own journey through the realms of mortality. In doing so we may see in a new light the Platonic teaching of the immortal soul which recovers itself by drawing its divided powers together through the discovery of its divine core. This recovery, said Plato, is an act of memory - for deep within the self lies the truths of the eternal realm waiting to be brought to light in order to illuminate our lives.

Over recent years a number of gold tablets have been found in the graves of Orphic devotees from all around the Mediterranean world. Inscribed upon these tablets are short but profound texts designed to remind the departing soul of its continuing need to hold to the Orphic path: many of them have the following beautiful formula -

"I am a child of Earth and starry Sky,
but my race is heavenly. You yourselves know this.
I am parched with thirst and am dying, but quickly grant me
cold water flowing from the lake of Memory."

Thus the cult initiations of Orphic teaching and the philosophic initiations of the Platonic teaching converge and speak of one underlying truth.

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Tim Addey is the author of several books on philosophy and myth, and a teacher with the Prometheus Trust.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is not only considered to be one of the greatest works of world literature, it is also a timeless description of the ascending path of the Soul, full of psychological insight. This 1-day workshop will give you an introduction to this masterpiece and a key for understanding the text that will enable you to discover its deeper meaning for yourself. It will consist of both theory and practical exercises that will help you to experience various stages of the journey in a deeper way. We will provide an optional vegetarian lunch for an extra £7 or there are various cafés close by. Times: 9.45 to 5.30 pm, lunch from 1-2 pm