Showing 594 articles

The Dance of Life

Author: Trishya Screwvala

October 14, 2020

Dance is a universal language that transcends geography and time; it is a means to express sentiments that cannot be captured in words. Although forms of dance differ across cultures, the aspiration of a true dancer always seems to remain the same – to assimilate and internalize principles of beauty, harmony and grace through movement [...]

A Diary of a Struggling Ecologist

Author: Ubai Husein

October 14, 2020

This journey started with my love for food, which prompted me to pursue a degree in Culinary Arts. There, in addition to simply cooking, I was introduced to the various aspects about growing and producing food before it enters the kitchen, including the entire mechanism of factory farming and the resulting destruction caused to the [...]

Living the Samurai Myth

Author: Shraddha Shetty

October 14, 2020

The word Samurai originally meant ‘those who serve’, although individuals of this elite warrior class in medieval Japan were also referred to as Bushi, or warrior. And Bushido was the code of morality which the Samurai were meant to follow, not just in battle, but also in day-to-day activity. Speaking of this code in his [...]

Acupuncture- An Ancient Healing Method

Author: Istvan Orban

October 2, 2020

In recent decades, there has been a revival of acupuncture and, together with other alternative and complementary medicines, it has become popular among medical students all over the world . For most people, acupuncture means stimulation of certain points on the body that can ease symptoms of sickness. But what makes this old healing method [...]

The Philosophy of Climbing

Author: Eddie Selby

October 1, 2020

“I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still. And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience  a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche (1844–1900) [...]

Myths of Africa: Deepening our Understanding of Life and Death

Author: Siobhan Farrar

October 1, 2020

Africa is a vast continent with many different peoples and a diverse diaspora whose cultural and spiritual heritage has often been misunderstood and misrepresented through colonial and Western perspectives. The ability to move past assumptions and conditioning always presents a challenge, which requires that we aim to see the essence of human life and experience. [...]

Aesthetic Intelligence

Author: Sabine Leitner

October 1, 2020

We have probably all heard about different types of intelligence: kinaesthetic, verbal, logical-mathematical and lately also emotional and even spiritual intelligence. Recently I came across the term aesthetic intelligence and it inspired me to think about what this could mean in a philosophical and metaphysical way and why it might be important. From a philosophical [...]

Why Philosophy Matters in Times of Crisis

Author: Sabine Leitner

October 1, 2020

We seem to be living more and more in times of permanent crisis: terrorism, armed conflicts, unprecedented waves of desperate refugees, crises in practically every field of public life, including financial and economic, environmental, political, cultural, educational, institutional, (mental) health, etc. There is hardly any area which is not affected by some crisis in one [...]

John Keats: Immortal Beauty

Author: Maria Virginia Reina

October 1, 2020

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness” So begins the epic poem Endymion by John Keats. And in these opening lines, as through his exquisite body of work, he presents to us one of the core themes of his poetry, if not all art: that [...]

The Magical Function of Rituals and Ceremonies

Author: Julian Scott

October 1, 2020

From an esoteric point of view, a ritual is dependent on the existence of the invisible dimension. This invisible dimension consists of a spiritual-mental aspect, which is the domain of the archetypes or ‘living idea-beings’ spoken of by the Platonists; and an ‘astral’ aspect, which is an intermediate world between spirit and matter, just as [...]

Terra Preta, the Black Earth upon which Civilisations were Built

Author: Gareth Kinsella

July 30, 2020

“Agriculture is the noblest of all alchemy; for it turns the earth, and even manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of health.” – Hebrew proverb In 1542, a Spanish conquistador named Francisco de Orellana set sail along the Amazon river with a group of his fellow countrymen, looking high and low [...]

Anne Conway: the Ultimate Unity of Spirit and Matter

Author: Siobhan Farrar

July 30, 2020

Seventeenth century England was a time of conflict and rapid change, and it is under such conditions that Countess Anne Conway, one of the few female philosophers of her time, developed her clarity of vision and influence. From her home at Ragley Hall and mostly through letters, Anne Conway was in continuous dialogue with the [...]