Académie Temenos
L'Académie Temenos, ou Temenos Academy of Integral Studies, est une organisation caritative éducative à Londres qui vise à offrir une éducation en philosophie et en arts à la lumière des traditions sacrées de l'Orient et de l'Occident.
Ses origines remontent à 1980 lorsque le journal Temenos est créé par Kathleen Raine, Keith Critchlow, Brian Keeble et Philip Sherrard pour publier des travaux originaux reconnaissant la spiritualité comme un besoin primordial de l'humanité[1]. Dix ans plus tard, l'académie est fondée pour étendre ce projet au travers de conférences et de groupes d'étude. Il est d'abord hébergé à l'Institut d'architecture du Prince de Galles à Regent's Park. Depuis la fermeture de l'institut, l'académie organise désormais des réunions dans différents lieux à Londres.
Depuis 1990, le prince de Galles est parrain de l'académie[2]. Il affirme:
« The work of Temenos could not be more important. Its commitment to fostering a wider awareness of the great spiritual traditions we have inherited from the past is not a distraction from the concerns of every-day life. These traditions, which form the basis of mankind's most civilised values and have been handed down to us over many centuries, are not just part of our inner religious life. They have an intensely practical relevance to the creation of real beauty in the arts, to an architecture which brings harmony and inspiration to people's lives and to the development within the individual of a sense of balance which is, to my mind, the hallmark of a civilised person. »
— HRH The Prince of Wales[3]
En outre, le travail de l'Académie Temenos aborde l'importance de l'enseignement de ce que l'on peut définir comme la philosophie éternelle qui sous-tend chaque civilisation et chaque religion. Conformément au message de Kathleen Raine :
« The Temenos Academy is an association dedicated to the teaching and dissemination of the perennial wisdom, which has been the ground of every civilisation.
Whereas in Shelley's words, 'the deep truth is imageless', the Arts (from architecture, painting, music and poetry, to the songs and dances of the villages and the designs of textiles and pottery), have within every civilisation been the flowering of a vision of the Sacred, embodied in some tradition of spiritual teaching. The arts of the imagination flourish therefore in the Temenos - the precinct of that sacred centre, be that centre temple, synagogue, church, mosque, or the invisible sanctuary within the heart. Since knowledge is universal we seek to learn from all traditions. Within western civilisation, Temenos follows the Platonic and Plotinian tradition from its pre-Socratic origins to the present day.
Our purpose is to study the learning of the Imagination, both in the arts and also in such metaphysical teachings as are likewise the expression of traditional spiritual knowledge. We reject the premises of secular materialism, widespread at the present time, which deny the very ground of meaning and value. W.B. Yeats wrote of the soul:
"Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence"
Therefore we look also for contemporary expressions in the arts and other modes of thought which are rooted in that unageing spiritual reality. »
Personnalités associées
Les conférenciers incluent Hossein Elahi Ghomshei et Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi (Warren Kenton)[4]. L'académie a organisé une conférence du Dalaï Lama lors de sa visite à Londres en 2004[5]. La revue Temenos est poursuivie sous le nom de Temenos Academy Review[6] - [7].
Travaux
- René Guénon and the heart of the Grail, 2015[8].
Références
- Shusha Guppy, « Orient your thoughts », sur Times Higher Education, London, TSL Education Ltd., (consulté le ) : « Scholars from all over the world have given lectures and seminars at Temenos Academy, in a spirit of the affirmation of 'the excluded knowledge' - the spiritual tradition, Platonic in the West, Vedic in India - that was once central to academic education but has now almost disappeared. »
- Isabelle Rivère, Charles et Camilla: Une histoire anglaise, Fayard, (ISBN 978-2-213-68368-3, lire en ligne)
- "Message from HRH The Prince of Wales", Temenos Academy website.
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Janet Watts, « Obituary. Kathleen Raine. Singular poet who stood as a witness to spiritual values in an age that rejected them », The Guardian, (lire en ligne, consulté le ) :
« The editors of Temenos (the word means the sacred area around a temple) declared that 'the intimate link between the arts and the sacred' had fired imaginative creation in almost all human societies, except our own. »
- The 2004 Singhvi - Temenos Interfaith Lecture
- « Critique de l'Académie Temenos », sur atelieremploi.fr (consulté le )
- (en) SandraBill OKR, « A new quatrain in Temenos Academy Review », sur Omar Khayyam Rubaiyat, (consulté le )
- (en) S. Wilson, « René Guénon and the heart of the Grail », Temenos Academy Review, vol. 18, , p. 146–167 (lire en ligne, consulté le )