Showing 104 articles
History of Education in the Western World
Author: Jim PangApril 30, 2022
The history of education has also been described as the the history of civilisation. Education has a role in perpetuating and passing on knowledge and values to the next generation. Therefore, it has a culturally specific connection -“enculturation” as defined by the cultural historian C. Dawson. The education systems of the world are the product of centuries [...]
Iconology, the Magical World of Emblems
Author: Istvan OrbanApril 18, 2022
Iconology uses images and symbols to express a meaning or an idea. For many centuries, it helped to transmit religious and philosophical messages in an artistic way, when film or photography did not exist. Iconology is closely connected to iconography, which on the one hand is a branch of art history researching the interpretation of [...]
Stones of Time
Author: Zarina ScrewvalaMarch 28, 2022
“Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility. What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason.” – Mary Oliver, Such Silence If you have visited Stonehenge on the Salisbury plains of England, perhaps you sensed a powerful feeling of mystery, of something hard to define. To the eye they are a series of immense standing [...]
Akbar, The Great Enigma
Author: Manjula NanavatiNovember 7, 2021
During the Renaissance, while Europe was experiencing a gigantic shift of ideas in almost every aspect of knowledge, in India, was born a man who, as Emperor of Hindustan, would use his indomitable courage and a restless search for wisdom to weave a similarly audacious social, political, and spiritual vision in the Indian subcontinent. His [...]
Do Not Give In to Pessimism
Author: Delia Steinberg GuzmánMay 2, 2021
We live at a time in history – which is everybody’s life – when events are accelerating unstoppably, and often give us the impression that they are completely beyond our powers. We know that the duration of time varies in accordance with the inner state with which we measure it. For this reason, neither in [...]
Racism, a Product of Modernity
Author: Fernando SchwarzApril 11, 2021
Racism can be expressed and experienced on different levels. Not knowing how to value another race or another religion is part of an ethical conception of racism. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. It appears in the Renaissance and especially develops in the 18th and 19th centuries. Non acceptance has always existed; in this regard, [...]
Mithras and the Mithraic Mysteries
Author: Agostino DominiciJanuary 23, 2021
The Mithraic Mysteries have their roots in the remote Vedic culture of India. Already in the Rig Veda, we find the god Mitra as regent and protector of a perfect cosmic order. Subsequently, in the Indo-European tradition of Iran, we find Mithra identified as the tutelary god of the pact (or oath), slowly assuming a [...]
An Esoteric Interpretation of the Arabian Nights
Author: Ania HajostJanuary 7, 2021
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow’d back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and [...]
The Seven Kings of Rome
Author: Agostino DominiciJanuary 7, 2021
The period known as the Roman Kingdom with its seven kings represents the time when the seeds of an emerging civilisation were firmly planted in the “Italian” soil. There is a growing academic consensus that the seven kings of Rome were all real historical figures, including Rome’s founder Romulus. This doesn’t mean that all the [...]
The Rise and Fall of Mayan Civilization
Author: NA El SalvadorDecember 9, 2020
The people of Mayan society built large cities, sumptuous temples, and towering pyramids. At its peak, around 900 AD, the population was estimated at about 200 people per Sq km in rural areas, and more than 800 people per sq km in cities (comparable to the modern Los Angeles County). This vibrant “Classic Period” of [...]
The Ancient City of Alexandria
Author: Nataliya PetlevychNovember 19, 2020
Once there was a city known as “the greatest emporium in the whole world” (Strabo, Geography). For generation after generation it attracted the finest scholars, philosophers, poets and inventors. It was a truly international centre that brought together Egyptians, Greeks and Jews, as well as Babylonians, Persians, Gauls, Phoenicians and Romans. In a spirit of [...]
Living the Samurai Myth
Author: Shraddha ShettyOctober 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 [...]