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The original Mystery Schools were not only concerned with The Great Mysteries of Life itself, but also the experiential realms of transcendence, or direct interaction with the divine. As the modern world becomes increasingly disillusioned with mainstream religion, many feel that this need to move beyond the concepts and dogma of institutionalised religion – be it Catholicism, Zen Buddhism or New Ageism – to a more embodied spirituality, has become paramount.
More and more of us realize that the Truth that we seek transcends the dialectical ‘black and white’ debate that typifies the modern western mind and there is the need to integrate new ways of thinking to understand the systemic and dynamic complexity of Life itself. All too often, it seems that progressive thinking is derailed by an habitual relapse into an enculturated polarization.
Hence the need for a modern Mystery School – one which moves beyond the ‘mere words’ of spiritual and religious dogma, in search of embodied and experiential transformation; one which is not so much just mysterious, as concerned with The Great Mystery, or the mysterium tremendum.
Rather than proclaiming allegiance with any tradition, doctrine or set of teachings, TI is therefore more concerned with what is known as the philosophia perennis, or the Perennial Philosophy that became the title of Aldous Huxley’s eponymous book in 1945, the universal wisdom that lies at the root of all religious and mystical traditions.
In a sense, Tyringham is a response to the notion that we do stand on the cusp of a New Renaissance, another Copernican shift which integrates all levels of the human condition into a new possibility, supported by both direct mystical experience and ‘new paradigm’ science – that consciousness may in fact be primary to matter; that We arise within Consciousness, rather than consciousness being generated by the brain.
The Tyringham Initiative therefore sees a role for a new focus in human evolutionary endeavour, collaborating with similar organisations and leading luminaries in the Consciousness arena to shift the emphasis from discourse and debate into tangible transformation and change.
It is time for humanity to experientially embody what is emerging from ‘new paradigm’ thinking, the marriage of perennial spiritual wisdom with a new world-view – one that recognises a systemic, holistic, organic, evolving and interconnected universe. As futurist and visionary Barbara Marx Hubbard points out, we are entering an era of ‘conscious evolution’.
Evolutionary biologists cite one momentous event in history – when the first single-celled organisms virtually wiped each other out due to competition over resources and nearly destroyed life on earth. Then, at the 11th hour, something extraordinary happened. They learned to co-operate and share resources, forming ‘complex co-operative communities’ and thus kick-starting multi-cellular life as we now know it.
As a species, we might well be standing at the threshold of a similar moment. The Tyringham Initiative aims to play a pivotal role in realigning our beliefs so that, as a species, we can attempt to actualize the necessary transformation within our political and economic systems and thereby in society itself, thus avoiding the collapse of the very systems that support Life itself.
