Temenos Academy Newsletter August 2026
Temenos Academy
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New Courses
Shakespeare’s
Richard II Shakespeare’s Richard II presents a king with a most sublime power of speech. The potency of speech becomes an essential quality of the play since it is spoken entirely in verse. And yet Richard’s high kingly speech becomes dissociated from his actions in the name of the kingdom. His abuse of sovereign power is incongruous with his elevated royal speech and leads to his eventual enforced abdication. The dramatic unfolding of the play raises questions of the relation between divinely destined sovereignty and the frailty of mortal human nature, symbolised in the tradition of the king’s two bodies. We are asked throughout the play how far King Richard understands himself. Dr Joseph Milne is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Kent where he taught on the MA course in Mysticism and Religious Experience until his retirement. He is Editor of Land & Liberty, the journal of the Henry George Foundation, and the author of the Temenos Academy Papers The Ground of Being: Foundations of Christian Mysticism (2004), Metaphysics and the Cosmic Order (2008), The Mystical Cosmos (2013) and The Lost Vision of Nature (2018). He is a Trustee of The Eckhart Society and a Fellow of the Temenos Academy. His new book Natural Law and the Just Society will be published with Shepheard-Walwyn in September 2026. Venue
& Admission
The Daode jing (also referred to as the Laozi or Tao Te Ching) is the foundation text of both philosophical and religious Daoism. During these six sessions, we will read the text together, occasionally looking at different translations in order to reveal the essence of these cryptic writings and allow a deeper understanding of their key concepts. We will consider how the Daode jing understands Dao; what exactly is referred to by ‘de’; and how the seminal ideas of wuwei (non-action) and ziran (spontaneous arising), jing (stillness) and qing (clarity) relate to Daoist practices of cultivating the heart. We will look at key terms as they are understood within the classical Chinese language, allowing the pictographic characters to enlighten the mind and enhance our understanding in ways that are often difficult to transmit in translation. Dr Sandra Hill studied Fine Art at the University of the Arts Central St Martins, and completed postgraduate studies at Chelsea College of Art. She later travelled to South and East Asia to pursue her interest in both Eastern art and philosophy and lived for several years in Japan. Sandra currently teaches the Daoism module on the Temenos Academy Foundation Course in the Perennial Philosophy. She gained her PhD at the King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts with a thesis entitled ‘Approaching the Formless’, which explored the concept of the Absolute in both Hindu and Daoist philosophy, and its depiction within sacred art traditions. Venue
& Admission
Led by Sir Nicholas Pearson, this group will meet monthly with the aim of helping people build a regular stillness and awareness practice. Drawing upon his psychotherapeutic work over 25 years with clients whose over-riding need is to calm and centre themselves, these sessions will aim to still the busy and often over-active mind in order to move consciousness from the head to refuge and rest in the heart. Informed by a range of spiritual traditions, the meditative techniques used during this course will include group silence, gentle humming practices, and inner visual contact with the central archetype of the Child. Sir Nicholas Pearson was born in India and spent his first half-century in the Army, in politics and in international business. This period ended for him abruptly in a catastrophic car crash which ushered in a total re-orientation of his life. Eventually training as a counsellor aged 60, he explored the nature and creative power of working with the imagination in mental and physical disorders. He is a Fellow of the Academy, having served as its chairman for twelve years, and runs a busy psychotherapeutic practice from Kensington where he lives with his wife. Venue
& Admission
Awake
O Sleeper of the Land of Shadows: William Blake’s Call to Us Now
The
Philosophy of Thomas Taylor: Becoming Friends with Ourselves and the
Gods
The
Art of the Heart (xin shu) in early Daoist texts
Living
Prayer in Christianity – A Film by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky
Can
Poetry and the Poetic Imagination Save our Trees?
That
Feathered Hunter: Spiritual Poetry in a Secular Age
Divine
Providence and Natural Law
For
more information about all our events click
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BECOME A MEMBER You can support the Temenos Academy by becoming a member for £60/year. Members benefits include free admission to our lecture programme, concessionary rates to seminars, study days and online courses, a free copy Temenos Academy Review 28 and Ten Basic Principles that Inspire the Work of Temenos on joining, and complimentary copies of forthcoming Temenos Academy publications as they are issued. To
become a member click
HERE
Our website Archive hosts many audio and video recordings of lectures and the texts of many articles from Temenos Academy Review. New material is added regularly. https://www.temenosacademy.org/videoarchive Many of our audio recordings are available as PODCASTS.
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