Issue No. 47 AUG - SEP 2021 NewAcropolis Philosophy and Education for the Future What is the Universe Made of? A Philosophical Take on PHILOSOPHY Embracing Diversity CULTURE Some Thoughts on SOCIETY Homeopathy ESOTERICA The Legend of Bagger ART Vance AND MORE Logarhitmic radial photo of the universe by pablo budassi About Us Editorial NEW ACROPOLIS isan Team international organization working in the fields of philosophy, culture Sabine Leitner - Director and volunteering. Our aim is to Julian Scott - Editor revive philosophy as a means of Agostino Dominici- Project renewal and transformation and Manager and Designer to offer a holistic education that Natalia Lema - Public Relations can develop both our human potential as well as the practical skills needed in order to meet the challenges of today and to create a better society for the next generation. NEW ACROPOLIS For further details please visit : INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION WWW.NEWACROPOLISUK.ORG Philosophy Culture Volunteering What’s Inside EDITORIAL 04 PHILOSOPHY 05 A Philosophical Take on Embracing Diversity ESOTERICA 11 Some Thoughts on SOCIETY 8 Homeopathy The Persistence of Superstition ART 14 The Legend of Bagger Vance CULTURE 16 The Role of Religion in Culture and History SCIENCE& NATURE 18 What is the Universe Made of? MYTHS OF THEW ORLD 20 Myths of the Pleiades Editorial enables us to perceive the unity behind the different appearances. Imagine you were a 2- Is Truth Dead? dimensional being who is unable to ‘see’ a 3- Truth used to seem quite simple: something dimensional cylinder. All you can see is its 2- was either true or not, and there was usually a dimensional shadow, for example a circle or a general consensus as to what was true. Today, rectangle. Only by developing a 3-dimensional it seems we are living in a post-truth world consciousness would you be able to where the ‘Truth’ doesn’t exist anymore, only understand that both the circle and the ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth’. And where, rectangle can be part of the same thing. obviously, one’s own truth is always more true The previous example of the mother shows than someone else’s truth. But is truth really that we create our own experience of reality. dead? And has it ever been so simplistic and The reality of the loving mother who does one-dimensional? what she thinks is best for her children can be Maybe the only thing that has really changed experienced in very different ways. However, is that we have realized that truth is more the fact that we create our own experience of complex than we thought. And that even facts reality does not imply that there is no are not purely ‘factual’, but actually have underlying reality. several layers to them. Imagine the following In Eastern philosophy the distinction between scene: a loving and conscientious mother the underlying reality and the experienced gives her two children cod liver oil on the reality is sometimes referred to as the recommendation of the paediatrician. Both Absolute and the Relative. The Absolute is the children dislike it because at that time there underlying reality, which does not change were no tablets available to mask its awful according to who is experiencing it. It is as it is, taste. However, one child has a positive an independent reality. The Relative is the experience because her mother’s action reality we observe and experience, the reality makes her feel loved. The other has a negative generated in our minds. experience because she feels forced to do something against her will and therefore does In Greek philosophy a distinction is made not feel loved. Two very different experiences between the phenomenon (“appearance”) − and narratives of the same event and the the reality generated in the mind − and the same mother. Was the mother good or bad? noumenon, or unknowable reality, that underlies it. According to both philosophies, Maybe truth used to be more simple because there is only one Absolute, but there are we kind of believed that it was something numerous relative realities, each relative to a absolute. When our world became more particular experiencer at a particular point in multicultural and a global village, we were time and space. suddenly faced with the relativity of what we thought was right, decent and good. We The antidote to the relativity of truth is not a became more conscious that simple ‘facts’ like return to the comfort of simple truths. The the time of day are relative. It might be 5 pm antidote is to embrace the complexity and rise in one place and 5 am on the other side of the up to a higher dimension where the differing world. Similarly, is it day or night, summer or viewpoints can be understood as facets of the winter? It depends. same ‘archetype’. Truth is not dead, only our understanding of it needs to change. Maybe The safety and comfort of ‘absolute truths’ we just need to be more ‘inclusive’ with the has been shattered and we are overwhelmed truth and accept that different and even by the unfathomable complexity of contradictory accounts of the same fact can all everything. But the world has not changed. be true. And the first step towards Truth Maybe we have only woken up from a more would be to learn to put ourselves into childlike ‘binary’ understanding of the world someone else’s shoes and try to see the world (true or false, right or wrong) and need to from their point of view. develop a higher form of consciousness that Sabine Leitner 4 PHILOSOPHY A Philosophical Take on Embracing Diversity 1 iversity is a big topic and probably one of the perspective. Most people today know that we all Dbiggest cultural values of our time. Diversity need to embrace diversity and practise inclusion in means “a range of people or things that are order to achieve a harmonious coexistence, but different to each other”; and in our society’s context there are some deeply ingrained aspects of our it goes hand in hand with inclusion, which in personality which sometimes cloud over our higher practice is the act of including someone within a functions. group without concern for any difference.The Why do some of us feel triggered when watching difference could be of ethnicity, gender, education, super-extravagant Pride parade-goers; or when our ability, sexual orientation, wealth, etc. A particular children come home after their first lesson at school about same-sex relationships and we fear they’re now at risk of ‘turning gay’? If they weren’t offered this education at school, they would certainly grow up heterosexual, but now there’s a risk they won’t… is this true? There is a common fear amongst parents that their children are influenced by pressures from their peers, and we see it continuously by their choices of clothing, make-up, music, style, language and friends.The pressure to conform these days is huge, and the consequences can sometimes be devastating to individuals and families. When it comes to gender identity and orientation, there is a fear that they’ll want to be or act in a way that’s not in their nature. Students and lovers of philosophy understand that ‘hot rod’that this article will explore is gender the soul has no gender, and the human spirit has no diversity. I won’t be going into the philosophy of gender either. Gender, race and our other physical, human rights here (it would need the entire social and ‘mental’diversities are parts of our magazine for a bare introduction!), but will explore this topic from a more simple and mystical 1. Ikeda, D. Faith into Action. 1; p.25 5 personality – our intersectionality, the many parts is no contemplation”² and “A man free from the that make up our whole.These parts are what we chains of selfish attachments, free from his lower “I learn that enable us to feel a sense of belonging in am”, who has determination and perseverance, and this humanity. Being attracted to a particular whose inner peace is beyond victory or defeat – gender (or more than one) is something we’re born such a man has pure Sattva”³. Referring to selfish with. What we experience thereafter is driven by attachments and the lower “I am”, the Bhagavad our preference and confirms it; it isn’t a choice we Gita can explain how the prospecting philosopher make according to what we see around us. If that can engage in dialogue about diversity and were the case, there wouldn’t be homosexual people, since according to current UK statistics about 90% of the population is heterosexual. Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese peacebuilder and Buddhist philosopher, says “Life is diverse, human beings are diverse.That is the natural way of things.The opposite would be standardisation”¹. Standardisation is in itself inequality; as Aristotle puts it,“the worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal”. What is important is dialogue. Dialogue to become aware of one’s curiosity and explore what it really means; to become aware of conformity and of one’s true self.The people to lead this dialogue aren’t necessarily teachers, who are often blamed and judged by unhappy parents, but at the same time have limited influence over young people, especially in the middle and higher school years.These young people are mostly influenced by their peers, and differences. It describes the 3-fold division of nowadays they turn to their peers for support, even wisdom and steadiness according to the 3 Gunas, though neither has enough experience, discernment the 1st as pure wisdom, the 2ⁿd as impure wisdom, or internal resources to deal with the question and the 3rd as “a wisdom obscured in darkness without bias.