Temenos Academy Newsletter July 2025

[Temenos Academy]

NEWSLETTER July 2025 EVENING LECTURES The Image Bears Witness to Your State: Gifts for our world from the Sufi tradition SIR NICHOLAS PEARSON In the chair Ian Skelly Wednesday 9 July 2025 This lecture will explore the origin, nature and significance of the image in light of the wisdom of some of the great visionary teachers of Islam. Drawing upon the insights of the Sufi mystic 'Ibn Arabi and the Persian physician Avicenna, as well as their later interpretation by Henry Corbin, Nicholas Pearson will relate how the understanding of the image offered by these thinkers has profoundly affected his approach to 'the learning of the imagination' as a working psychotherapist. After charting the degradation of the image and the imagination in the West, this talk will explore how we might find a path out of our current secular malaise. It will argue that a recovery of a spiritual orientation can be found through a true understanding of the nature of Soul and the images that circle around that reality. Citing examples from his own practice in working with autoimmune dis-ease, this lecture will show how the direct experience of the image, and the powers it contains, can be found through careful attention to the body and mind. NICHOLAS PEARSON was born in India in 1943 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 has explored the nature and creative power of working with the imagination. 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 The Art Workers' Guild, 6 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AT Doors Open 6.10pm, Lecture Begins 6.30pm £10 General Admission FREE for Temenos Academy Members/Full-time students with student ID card E - temenos...@myfastmail.com T - 07513 883 335 [Image credit - detail from royal manuscript of Conference of the Birds, 1487, Isfahan, Iran; illustration added by Habibullah of Mashad, c. 1600. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]   Shakespeare and the Language of Nature DR JOSEPH MILNE In the chair Kamil Sawicki Wednesday 23 July 2025 This talk will argue that Shakespeare's plays move us because they are rooted in a primordial sense of a great cosmic order. This sense of a cosmic order is a distinguishing feature of human intelligence which first apprehends all things as a whole. This apprehension of the whole may be traced back to the most ancient creation myths which present the created world as a living being, peopled with heavenly and earthly powers, and imbued with meanings and signs of eternal mysteries. While portraying such a cosmic vision, these ancient myths also narrate an unfolding drama, so that the universe is above all revealed and known through story. The human story is itself an integral part of this cosmic story, providing a key to true drama, most powerfully exemplified in the plays of Shakespeare. The poet's vision reverts back to this primordial way of seeing which gives birth to myth. Nature herself speaks through the poet. 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 in 2013. His interests range among Hinduism, Platonism, Patristics, classical natural law, medieval mysticism and theology. 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). His forthcoming book is Natural Law and the Just Society. He is a Trustee of the Eckhart Society and a Fellow of the Temenos Academy. Venue & Admission Rudolf Steiner House, 35 Park Road, London, NW1 6XT Doors Open 6.10pm, Lecture Begins 6.30pm £10 General Admission FREE for Temenos Academy Members/Full-time students with student ID card E - temenos...@myfastmail.com T - 07513 883 335   YOUNG SCHOLARS DAY The Symbol in Literature and Philosophy Saturday 26 July 2025 Rudolf Steiner House, 10am - 17.15pm The Temenos Young Scholars invite 18-35-year-olds from all backgrounds to attend a conference on the theme of The Symbol in Literature and Philosophy. The day will feature lectures, Q&A sessions, and poetry recitals accompanied by plenty of convivial breaks. The aim of the event is to explore the nature of the symbol, its use in philosophy and the arts, and its integral role in human civilisation. For more information and to register see: https://www.temenosyoungscholars.org/upcoming-events/   EVENTS ELSEWHERE KFSTA Degree Show 2025 8 July - 3 August 2025 Drawing upon the great art traditions, East and West, the graduating students at the King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts will present work in a range of media including: Indonesian batik, wood carving from the Balkans, Islamic cosmology and geometry, devotional paintings, furniture inspired by the Book of Kells, a Garden of Paradise and a gathering of medieval beasts. For more information click HERE.   THE ARCHIVE Our website Archive hosts many audio and video recordings of lectures, digital versions of all thirteen issues of the journal TEMENOS, and the texts of seventy articles from Temenos Academy Review. New material is added regularly. https://temenosacademy.org/main-lecture-archive https://temenosacademy.org/temenos-journal-archive https://temenosacademy.org/temenos-academy-review-archive Many of our audio recordings are available as PODCASTS. PAYPAL GIVING FUND UK The Temenos Academy is registered with PayPal Giving Fund UK. When using PayPal if you choose you may also make a donation in support of the Temenos Academy. Thank you FURTHER INFORMATION EMAIL temenos...@myfastmail.com TELEPHONE 07513 883 335 PRIVACY POLICY https://temenosacademy.org/privacy-policy