The Danger of ‘Historical Illiteracy’
Author: Sabine LeitnerApril 30, 2017
Studies in several countries have highlighted that there is growing ignorance and lack of interest amongst young people about even basic historic facts of fairly recent national history. Americans of all ages fail to answer simple questions like “Who won the Civil War” and “Who did we gain independence from?” One of the most frequent answers to these questions was: “I have no idea.” A [...]
A Revolution for the Future
Author: Pierre PoulainApril 17, 2017
It will not surprise anyone if we say that the world we are living in has become “global”. Although this globalization was initiated at the political and economic levels at the end of the second world war, it became subject to a huge acceleration at the end of the 20th century, first with the development of the internet, and then with social networks and smartphones. At the same time, the [...]
Nikola Tesla, forgotten inventor.
Author: Florimond KrinsApril 17, 2017
Nikola Tesla was probably one of the greatest minds of the 19th and 20th centuries, yet his name is rarely associated with one of his many inventions, AC electric power. When we mention the discovery of electricity, or how we came to use it in our modern civilisation, we think first of Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Werner Von Siemens or even Benjamin Franklin - even if the latter did only a few [...]
The constitution of the human being in the Western tradition
Author: Agostino DominiciFebruary 7, 2017
From time immemorial, human beings have asked themselves the question ‘who am I?’ And philosophers, theologians and metaphysicians have all come up with different answers. The classification of the various human ‘constituents’, from one system of thought to another might have changed, but the underlying principles in question have remained the same. Thus, even though we hear of a twofold, [...]
Utopia at The Bauhaus
Author: Siobhan FarrarJanuary 27, 2017
Four hundred years ago in 1516, Thomas More wrote his extraordinary piece of work ‘Utopia’. More derived the word Utopia from the Greek words ‘ou’ & ‘topos’, which together translate as ‘nowhere’. Rather than being a blueprint for a fantasy future society, Utopia is aimed much more at our faculty of imagination - it encourages us to dream in the now. As is often the case, it [...]
Hilma Af Klint: Painting the Unseen
Author: Siobhan FarrarNovember 12, 2016
Earlier this year the Serpentine Gallery held an exhibition described by the Telegraph as “a sense of unfathomable mystery”. Hilma Af Klint, a Swedish born female painter who began producing work in the early 1900s, is beginning to be recognised as the first artist ever to have produced a piece of ‘abstract art’. Prior to her discovery, abstract art was considered to have begun famously [...]
The Need For a Vision of the Future
Author: Sabine LeitnerNovember 12, 2016
I recently read a review of the book “Eden 2.0: Climate Change and the Search for a 21st Century Myth”. The central argument of the book is that humanity needs to find - rather fast - a myth that would enable us to transcend our differences and inspire us to follow a radically new course. Dry facts and policies won’t be enough. We need to be inspired by a shared vision in order to bring [...]
John Dee – Magician, Mathematician and Angelologist
Author: Julian ScottNovember 12, 2016
Earlier this year a remarkable exhibition was shown at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, London: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee. Born in 1527, of Welsh ancestry, John Dee was one of Tudor England's most extraordinary and enigmatic figures. A brilliant mathematician, he was offered the chair of mathematics at the University of Paris at the age of 23, [...]
Philosophy in Ancient Egypt
Author: Julian ScottSeptember 7, 2016
It is a commonly held view that ‘the Egyptians had no philosophy’ and that philosophy began with the ancient Greeks. However, some of the major Greek philosophers, including Thales, Pythagoras and Plato, recognised their huge debt to the sages of Egypt for their knowledge and ideas. Plato, for example, spent 13 years studying with the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis. The difficulty [...]
Urban Wildlife
Author: Miha KosirSeptember 7, 2016
At the beginning of the 19th century three out of four Britons lived in the countryside, where they worked the land. By the end of the 19th century three out of four lived in the city. This was a result of the industrial revolution, which marks a turning point in history. The speed of urbanisation and technical development has changed people’s lives immensely, though not always for the [...]
Archetypal Astrology: re-enchanting the cosmos
Author: Agostino DominiciSeptember 7, 2016
In the last 50 years astrology has started to gain a level of intellectual respectability which would have been unthinkable before. This has been thanks to the recent contributions of many brilliant and open-minded thinkers who have come to embrace the teachings of this ancient discipline. A long time has passed since Voltaire defined astrology as “the mad daughter of a wise mother”. [...]
Flu Pandemics
Author: Florimond KrinsAugust 22, 2016
We have all experienced the flu at least once in our life. And even if the "common" flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people every year around the world, the media still warn us about the danger of flu pandemics such as swine flu (H1N1), which in 2009 killed around 9,000 people. So what is the big deal? Is it just a trick played by the media and pharmaceutical companies to scare us and make [...]