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The New York Open
Center Presents:
An Esoteric Quest for
The Golden Age of Andalusia
Sufis, Kabbalists and
Christian Philosophers
In Medieval Spain
A Conference in Granada, Spain
September 15th
to 20th 2007
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| A Message from Ralph White, Conference Director
Hello,
For those of you contemplating joining us for the first time
at an Open Center esoteric conference, I thought I'd say a few words about how
The Esoteric Quest for the Golden Age of Andalusia: Sufis, Kabbalists and
Christian Philosophers came about. It will, in fact, be the sixth conference
that we have organized in Europe since 1995 on
the overall theme of the Western Esoteric Tradition, although this one will,
for the first time, embrace Islamic esotericism.
During the final session at our last conference in Central
Europe, I mentioned that we hoped to organize the next quest in Andalusia in Southern Spain on the wonderful golden age in the Middle
Ages when Muslims, Christians and Jews not only co-existed relatively amicably
but also produced works of spiritual and esoteric genius. However, the
particular challenge at that time was that most speakers and writers attuned to
the Western Esoteric Tradition as it played out in Bohemia, Italy, Britain and
Germany were not experts on medieval Spain.
In fact, I felt that a conference on esoteric Andalusia
could only happen for us with the help of the gods.
Amazingly enough, things came together very rapidly in a few
short months. We made contact with a charming and knowledgeable man, Pablo
Beneito, from the University
of Seville, who has been
invaluable in connecting us with faculty who are deeply knowledgeable in this
field and in helping to find meeting places and hotels etc. Pablo has organized
fourteen conferences in Southern Spain and
understood our aims both spiritually and logistically from the start. So things
have fallen into place in a way that seems to me almost miraculous, and the
upshot is that we are all set to do our next Esoteric Quest in Granada from September 15th to 20th 2007.
I went to Granada
in November to examine the practicality of it all. Granada
is a beautiful, medieval city of winding cobbled streets, charming squares,
blue skies and gracious people set below the Alhambra
Palace, the fortified palace of the
last Muslim rulers in the Iberian Peninsula. I
was stuck again by how appropriate it is to do a conference on this period
given the current world situation and the dangerous possibility of a drawn out
war between Islam and the West. While I was in Granada, the prime ministers of
Spain and Turkey met in Istanbul to promote an Alliance of Civilizations and it
strengthened my feeling that it's very valuable for us all to be reminded of a
time when Christians, Muslims and Jews all got along reasonably well and
produced works of spiritual and esoteric genius - from the Kabbalistic Zohar to
the works of the greatest of Sufi masters, Ibn Arabi, to the philosophy of
Ramon Lull further north in Majorca.
Three months later we appear all set for next September. We
will be updating our web site - www.esotericquest.org - in the next few weeks
for more details on faculty, accommodation, evening performances etc. And, as
always, a full brochure will be available in the spring. The current Open Center
catalogue also contains a short description of the conference on the inside
back cover, as does the Open
Center website at
www.opencenter.org.
This is really shaping up as an exceptional and very timely
event. Our partners are the Ibn Arabi Society and the Centro Abierto Tomillo, Madrid's own Open
Center. We have speakers
from the Sorbonne on Arabic alchemy and the links between the medieval Sufis
and kabbalists. Our good friend Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, the English speaking
world's first professor of western esotericism, will join with his wife Clare
to offer an afternoon workshop reading the works of the amazing Ramon Lull.
Christopher Bamford will speak on the Troubadours and their links to Sufi
poetry, and Mario Satz, a kabbalist and novelist from Barcelona, will lecture on the Zohar. We will
also be joined by Mirabai Starr, the acclaimed translator of St. John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila's
work.
I won't attempt to describe all the faculty, lectures,
workshops and performances - you'll see them all on the website and in the
brochure soon - but I have to mention Robert Bly. Those readers of this
newsletter who were present at our conferences in Cesky Krumlov, Prague and Florence
will remember Robert's unique and soulful evenings of poetry as among the
spiritual highlights of our time together. Of course, he is well known for his
translations of Rumi and Hafiz, but he has also translated the great Spanish
poets Antonio Machado and Juan Ramon Jimenez and Spain clearly holds a special charm
for him. I'm delighted that Robert and his wife Ruth will be with us one more
time in Granada.
I'll say a few words too about our post-conference journeys
to Marrakech and through Andalusia.
Personally, I've been trying to get to Marrakech since the Sixties so this is a
thrill for me. We expect to meet local Sufis and participate to some degree in
their spiritual practice. Apart from time exploring the medina and the museums
of this ancient and mythical city, we will spend a day in the beautiful,
verdant valley of Ourika in the high Atlas Mountains,
home to the indigenous Berber people. We also expect to travel to Essaouria, an
idyllic fishing village  of whitewashed buildings on an emerald sea that has
drawn artists and musicians for decades. And we will also have the opportunity
to visit shrines to seven Sufi saints around Marrakech itself.
Those who choose to take the Andalusian journey to Cordoba, Seville
and the ruins of Medinat az-Zahra, exquisite city of the Umayyad dynasty, can
expect to travel through mountains and olive groves, and delve deeply into the
historic and spiritual riches of this region. Cordoba, in many ways, was the capital of the
western world in the 11th Century and we can still hear echoes of the Iberian,
Roman, Visigothic, Jewish, Islamic and Christian civilizations that held sway
there. Seville
has been described as on of the most beautiful and majestic cities in the world
- almost a living museum. There we will visit the evocative old Jewish quarter
and soak up the orange blossoms and bougainvillea that decorate one tiny square
after another. It's going to be a lovely way to conclude our time together.
After our last esoteric quest from Renaissance Bohemia to
Goethe's Weimar,
I felt hugely enriched by the soul experiences of Goethe, Schiller and the
Bohemian alchemists. Now I find that I'm thrilled by the discoveries I'm making
about the spirituality, myth, romance and esotericism of medieval Spain. It's
such a rich and little known period filled with stimuli to the historical and
spiritual imagination on so many levels. I already feel very nourished and
inspired by contact with that age, and my mind is expanding to really include
medieval Andalusia as a vital part of the
Western Esoteric Tradition. It was the source of so much that has influenced Europe and the world and I can't think of a better place
to continue our unending esoteric quest.
With Warmest Regards,
Ralph
Faculty Spotlight
Pablo Beneito has been invaluable in helping us with the logistics of our upcoming conference. Production Manager Carrie Wykoff recently caught up with him to ask him a few questions.
As a Professor in the
Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Seville.
What are some of the classes you teach there?
It depends very much on the time of year. There are 14
teachers so we often teach different classes. The main topics I teach are:
Arabic language, The Koran, Islamic thought and Arabic literature.
You have translated
and edited several of Ibn Arabi's works. Do you have a favorite?
Each one of them is a favorite. To edit and translate
Contemplations of the Holy Mysteries was an especially valuable experience
working together, first with Souad Hakim in Lebanon
and, later on, with Cecilia Twinch in Oxford.
I also very much enjoyed writing The Seven Days of the Heart with Stephen Hirtenstein.
Penetrating the meaning of Ibn Arabi's work with somebody else has been
particularly enriching for me.
When did you first
start collaborating with Stephen Hirtenstein (who will also be a presenter at
our conference)?
I was at the University of Oxford for a period of research
in 1996 and, after a symposium organized by the Ibn Arabi Society, we decided
to study and translate the famous Prayers Ibn Arabi wrote for every day of the
week. Later on, we kept working in Paris (I was
at the time at the Sorbonne) and Seville.
Finally, the Seven Days of the Heart, our book was completed. It was a real
experience of sharing, mirroring and contemplating together.
You have organized 14
international conferences. What have been some highlights for you?
Many of them have been around Ibn Arabi, mainly organized in
Murcia, Spain. A very
special one was a conference celebrating him in Damascus. A theme of many of my events has
been tolerance and dialogue, understanding the diversity of belief. In Avila,
at the CIAM (International Center for
Mystical Studies) I organized a conference with the title "Women of
Light" about feminine spirituality and the feminine in mysticism that
produced a book I like very much: Mujeres de Luz: Mística Femenina, Lo Femenino
en a Mística (Women of Light: Feminine Mystic, the Mystical Feminine).
The plenary session
you will be presenting at our conference will be called "Exploring the
Roots: The Esoteric Interpretation of Words in Andalusian Sufism" please
tell us what to expect.
Secrets... The unveiling of some of the secrets of the
Arabic language. I'm not allowed to say more for the time being (otherwise they
would not be secrets anymore).
One of our post
conference tours will be making a stop in Seville, your home town. What are a few must see sights there?
Certainly, the old mosque in the actual church of El Salvador.
Also the Cathedral of Seville (previously the Almohade Mosque), the old
synagogue transformed into Santa María la Blanca, the very impressive
Moorish-Christian palace of Los Reales Alcázares, the Archeological Museum and
the ruins of the Roman town (which was the town of the Emperors Trajan and
Adrian). There are also some wonderful examples of Mudejar Art.
What is Mudejar?
Mudéjar is the name given to the Moors, and native
Andalusians practicing Islam, who remained in the Iberian
Peninsula after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted
to Christianity.
Thank you, Pablo. We
look forward to seeing you in Granada
in September.
Upcoming events of interest
Conviviencia: Muslims,
Christians and Jews in Tolerant Medieval Spain (Al-Andalus)
a series of
workshops at The NY Open Center.
As the world faces the danger of a war of religions and
cultures, we gain great benefit from recalling the brilliant and little known
world of Medieval Spain, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in
relative harmony for centuries. It will be of special interest to those
considering attending the Open Center Conference in Granada in September.
Introducing the
Spiritual Culture of Andalusia
Ralph White
This evening offers an overview of the brilliance of
Andalusia and the spiritual streams at work in Iberia. How did the Muslim conquest
in the 8th Century lead to the highly refined culture of Cordoba
and the enduring kingdom
of Granada? This was a
time when Sufis and Kabbalists intermingled, and the pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostela maintained the grail and alchemical quests. Tuesday, March 6,
8-10pm 07WEC26TA
Hidden Currents in
Esoteric Christianity: The Andalus Connection
Christopher Bamford
This was a magic moment in the Abrahamic family in which we
can find the seeds for a new understanding of religious pluralism. This talk
will explore the Christian context of Al-Andalus and examine the esoteric,
mystical and Christological currents that made possible the incredibly fruitful
interchanges that inseminated a profound moment of change in the evolution of
the three traditions. Tuesday, March 13, 8-10pm 07WEC26TB
Hidden Currents in
Esoteric Christianity: The Fruits of Al-Andalus
Christopher Bamford
This talk will consider the transmission and establishment
of alchemy as sacred science, the universal love religion of the Troubadours,
the recovery of the Hermetism and Platonism at the School of Chartres,
the emerging Grail traditions, the recovery of Mary-Sophia and, above all, the
new heart-based thinking of the profoundly esoteric culture of the High Middle
Ages.
Tuesday, March 20, 8-10pm
07WEC26TC
The Zohar: Bible of
the Kabbalah
Edward Hoffman, PhD
The Zohar (Book of Splendor) is the greatest mystical work
of Jewish history. Emerging in late 13th century Spain, it aroused enormous
excitement for its lofty vision of human life in a divine cosmos. This evening
highlights the Zohar's intriguing teachings on inner development, intuition,
dreams, ecstatic states and the soul's journey through lifetimes. Tuesday, April
l 10, 8-10pm 07WEC26TD
Ibn Arabi and the
Sufis of Andalusia
Andrew Vidich, PhD
Ibn Al Arabi, known in the Islamic world as the Shaykh al
Akbar, or the greatest Shaykh and the Seal of the Saints, was the most seminal
philosopher and thinker in Islamic history. Born at a time of the most fertile
interreligous dialogue, his revolutionary concept of the Unity of Being created
a major shift in Islamic theology and practice. Join us for an exploration of
this Andalusian Sufi genius and his legacy. Tuesday, April l 17, 8-10pm
07WEC26TE
(5 sessions) Tuesdays, March 6-April 17, 8-10pm
07WEC26TZ
Members $75 / Nonmembers $85 / Individual Sessions $20
No class on March 27 & April 3
To register please see www.opencenter.org
or call
212-219-2527
Help Us Spread the Word
Please help us get the word out about our upcoming
conference. You can help in the following ways:
Postcards: we have some extra postcards announcing
the conference. If you can help us distribute some or know of a good location
for them please let us know by writing to: quest@opencenter.org.
List Serves/ Links: Do you know of some good list
serves that we should send our information to? Or do you know of a good
organization we can link to? Again, please let us know at quest@opencenter.org.
Website: Please send your friends to our website at www.esotericquest.org,
currently we have a placeholder up but our full site will be launched in the
early spring.
Newsletter: Did you enjoy this newsletter? If so
please forward it to a friend.
The Esoteric Quest is presented by
The New York Open Center, a non-profit holistic learning center offering
evening events, full-day workshops, ongoing classes, advanced trainings, and
graduate degree opportunities.
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The Quest News
1st Edition, February, 2007
Quest news is published in order to introduce you to our staff & faculty and to pass on exciting information about upcoming Esoteric Quest. Enjoy!
* Message from the Conference Director
* Faculty Spotlight
* Upcoming events
* Help Spread the Word
The Esoteric Quest is presented by The New York Open Center, a non-profit holistic learning center offering
evening events, full-day workshops, ongoing classes, advanced trainings, and
graduate degree opportunities.
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