Philosophy & Religion

Awakening Beauty – a 2 wk course on Beauty in Art, Mondays 19th and 26th June 2023, 10am-12pm UK time with Mary Attwood
Awakening Beauty A two week course on Beauty in Art With Mary Attwood Monday 19th June & Monday 26th June 10am – 12pm UK time via Zoom £40 “Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring,...

Spirit Possession in Shamanism by Stone Fitzgerald
The phenomena of spirit possession can be viewed and reviewed through the lens of differing fields of study including and most notably religious studies, psychology and anthropology. When reading in this area of research one would expect to encounter discourse giving examples from within the realms of the main world religions such as exorcism, or the more recent practices of the séance within the spiritualist churches. Here we will engage mainly with this phenomenon as presented through shamanic practices and within this conduct a study of the related context including physical space and ritual. Although there will not be a discussion around the use of the term shamanism, engaging in this particular account of spirit possession will undoubtedly highlight some of its core traits.

The Art of Seeing – Heraclitus and the Harmony of Tensions – With Mary Attwood – 7-8pm UK time- Thursday 24th Nov 2022 – £10 via Zoom
The Art of Seeing Heraclitus and the Harmony of Tensions Thursday 24th November 2022 7-8pm UK time via Zoom with Mary Attwood £10 "The cosmos works by harmony of tensions, like the lyre and bow” Heraclitus As a pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus is often...
Why Your Life Really Matters with Tim Freke – Tuesday 6th December 2022 via Zoom – 6:30-8:00pm UK time – £10
Why Your Life Really Matters with Tim Freke Tuesday 6th December 2022 - 6:30pm-8:00pm (UK time) via Zoom £10 Tim Freke will give a preview of his latest philosophical work on the big questions of existence. What is life? Do our lives really matter? Is...

The Art of Seeing – the sacredness of the Christian Mythos- with Mary Attwood – Thursday 15th December 2022 – 7-8 pm UK time via Zoom
The Art of Seeing The Sacredness of the Christian Mythos through the four senses hermeneutic/ of interpretation Thursday 15th December 2022 7-8pm UK time via Zoom with Mary Attwood £10"The theophanic view sees the cosmos as 'disclosure' of the divine, as...

The Cosmos in Stone – Sacred Geometry of a Master Mason with Tom Bree – Saturday 18th February 2023, 4.00 -6.00pm UK time via Zoom
The Cosmos in Stone Sacred Geometry of a Master Mason with Tom Bree Saturday 18th February 2023 - 4:00pm-6:00pm (UK time) via Zoom £15 Cosmological mythos is not something that is talked about very much in modern day Christianity. This is despite the fact...
The Call of Sophia with Dr Simon Wilson Tuesday 21st February 2023 – 6.30-8pm UK time via Zoom £10
The Call of Sophia with Dr Simon Wilson Tuesday 21st February 2023 6.30-8.00pm (UK time) via Zoom £10 This presentation will look at Sophia, or Woman Wisdom, who calls to each of us personally, to desire her and devote ourselves to her. She was present in...

The Art of Seeing – Unfolding Ways of Wisdom with Mary Attwood – Thursday 23rd February 2023, 7.00 – 8.00 pm UK time via Zoom
The Art of Seeing unfolding ways of wisdom with Mary Attwood Thursday 23rd February 2023 7:00pm-8:00pm (UK time) via Zoom £10 “The philosopher, even in his passions, acts only after reflection; he walks in the night but he is preceded by a torch.” Philosopher,...

The Remarkable Evolution of Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred in Human Culture with Professor Richard Tarnas – Tuesday 21st March 2023 – 6.30-8pm UK time via Zoom £10
The Remarkable Evolution of Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred in Human Culture with Professor Richard Tarnas Tuesday 21st March 2023 6.30-8pm UK time via Zoom £10 In this evening’s illustrated lecture, Richard Tarnas will offer a brief overview of the ways...

The Art of Seeing – The Ancient Egyptian Goddess – with Mary Attwood – Thursday 30th March 2023 7-8pm UK time via Zoom £10
The Art of Seeing the Ancient Egyptian Goddess with Mary Attwood Thursday 30th March 2023 7-8pm UK time via Zoom £10 with Mary Attwood 7-8pm UK ti "The Egyptians lived with an awareness of what might be called the imaginal- a non-physical yet...

The Art of Seeing- the Passion of Christ – Thursday 27th April 2023, 7-8pm UK time with Mary Attwood £10
The Art of Seeing the Passion of Christ with Mary Attwood Thursday 27th April 2023 7-8pm UK time via Zoom £10 7-8pm UK ti “The experience of the Mass is therefore a participation in the transcendence of life, which overcomes all bounds of space and time. It...

Mother Mary & the Mystery of Divine Conception – Marguerite Rigoglioso, PhD – Talk with Q&A – £10 – DOWNLOAD
In this talk, Dr. Rigoglioso calls upon one of the Virgin Mary’s forgotten gospels, the Infancy Gospel of James, to reveal a truth that has been suppressed for nearly two millennia: that Mother Mary was not a passive bystander to her own pregnancy but an advanced member of a sacred order of women trained in divine conception.

The Book of the Sun (De Sole) – Marsilio Ficino (1494) – £5 download
The Book of the Sun represents the culmination of Ficino’s life and work. Published in 1494, five years before his death, it is a supreme example of the very synthesis of astrology, religion and philosophy for which Ficino strived all his life and illustrates his ability to convey the deepest mystical experience within a lucid, authoritative prose.

Introduction to Marsilio Ficino by Angela Voss
The importance of the work of Marsilio Ficino of Florence (1433-1499) in the awakening, transmission and dissemination of esoteric knowledge in the West cannot be overestimated. By ‘esoteric’, we mean a tradition of religious philosophy which embodies an initiatic mode of teaching – a promise of access to hidden meanings deep within the fabric of the world which will eventually lead the searcher to a condition of gnosis or unity with the source of all being.

Life between Lives Therapy: A Mystery Ritual for Modern Times by Angela Voss
The theme of this chapter arose through a strange coincidence and a dream, which I shall briefly relate. Some time ago a friend introduced me to the work of Michael Newton, and I spent a session with my MA students discussing the question of regression therapy and spiritual encounter in relation to Hermetic texts and the mundus imaginalis of Henry Corbin. Shortly after this, I received an email, quite out of the blue, from Michael Newton himself. He was looking for a university department where he could develop his client work into a doctoral thesis, and this initiated a flow of personal communication on the subject of life between lives (LBL) therapy.

Eros by Angela Voss
How do we interpret the word ‘erotic’ in our contemporary society? It usually conveys a sexual allure, a physical attraction, a suggestion of passion and exoticisim. But do we connect it with spirituality, or a sense of divinity? Not usually. In our secular world the sacred is not accessible through sex. We have separated human sexuality from religious experience, yet surely everyone can testify to the tremendous emotional power of the “longing for the beloved” and probably most have sensed what feels like an
immeasurable distance between the ideal of love, the perfect beauty, and the person sitting next to them at breakfast.

Review by Angela Voss: On the Nature of Love by Arthur Farndell
The theme of love was central to the Renaissance revival of Platonism led by Marsilio Ficino of Florence (1433–99).

Fireflies and Shooting Stars – Angela Voss
In this chapter, I explore the phenomena of visual apparitions of daimons and spirits, and how in the neoplatonic traditions they have always been seen as lights.

Becoming an Angel: the mundis imaginalis of Henry Corbin and the Platonic path of self-knowledge – Angela Voss
The profoundly alchemical implications of Corbin’s imaginal hermeneutics, in a spiritual sense, are illustrated by his interest in the hieratic art of statue animation, which he describes as:
neither a simple dramaturgy of the unconscious or psychological allegory, nor a simple manipulation of materials practiced in the manner of a mere chemist or pharmacist (droguiste). It is an operation at once material and spiritual, the juncture between the two aspects remaining the hidden secret underneath the symbols of the “Philosophers” (as the alchemists designate themselves).
Alchemy for Corbin is essentially the inner, spiritual work of attaining union between the human soul and its heavenly counterpart