History
The pre-internet School of Wisdom was founded in 1920 in Darmstadt, Germany by Count Hermann Keyserling. It was a key forum for many of the great spiritual thinkers of the day, including psychiatrist, Carl Jung, translator of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm, theologian, Paul Tillich, German novelist and Noble prize winner, Hermann Hesse, and Noble prize winning Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore. The School of Wisdom was the first group to promote the idea of a world culture which honored and included all spiritual traditions.
Today the School of Wisdom is inspired primarily by Arnold Keyserling and his many books, most of which are available only in German.
Arnold Keyserling was a Professor of Religious Philosophy at the Academy of Art in Vienna, Austria until his death on September 7, 2005. He was a writer, teacher and public speaker well known throughout Europe and Asia. He continued the work of his father, and his teachers, George Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharishi, and Josef Matthias Hauer (mystical 20th Century composer who started 12-tone music). Along with his wife, Wilhelmine, who also studied with Gurdjieff in Paris after the War, he was the first Westerner to bring Yoga to Europe in the early 1960s. Although a philosopher, not a psychologist, he was elected President of the Association of Humanistic Psychology in Europe in the mid 1980s. He was also a poet and prophet, heralding the coming Age of global technology and friendship, and of holistic thinking. Under Keyserling's philosophy God, as source of the Universe, is seen as a Friend, not a lord and master. This website provides the only glimpse now available in English to his important works. German language proficient students should see our related web-site: Schule des Rades.
The School of Wisdom is an idea, and timeless
tradition. It was first re-manifested in modern times in 1920 in Darmstadt,
Germany by the efforts of Count Hermann Keyserling. The School has had
many important students and teachers over the years, including
psychologist, Carl Jung, translator of the I Ching and sinologist,
Richard Wilhelm, German novelist and Noble prize winner, Hermann Hesse, Noble prize winning Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and
theologian, Paul Tillich. After the death of Count Keyserling in
1946, his son, Arnold Keyserling took over this idea/tradition. In the
early 1990s Arnold for the first time allowed two of his American
students, Ralph and Molly, to begin using the School of Wisdom name and
carry on its tradition and ideas. Today most of the activities of the
School of Wisdom are carried out in CyberSpace. ...Read More
Count
Hermann Keyserling is the founder of the School of Wisdom in
modern times. His son, Professor Arnold Keyserling, Vienna, Austria, is
a well known philosopher and spiritual leader in Europe today. Count
Keyserling is the author of numerous books, many of which were best
sellers in the 1920's in Europe, North America, and South America,
including The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, America Set Free, Europe,
The World in the Making, The Book of Marriage, Immortality, Creative
Understanding, South American Meditations. ...Read More
Arnold
Keyserling was born in 1922, an exile of the Baltic Republic of
Estonia, he died in
Austria in 2005. Arnold is the son of philosopher and author,
Count Hermann Keyserling., and the great grandson of Chancellor
Bismark. Arnold Keyserling is the original "new age thinker" in Europe
who first introduced both the Human Potential movement and the Native
American shamans to Europe in the 1970's and 1980's. A full Professor
of Spiritual Philosophy at the Acaemy of Art, Vienna, Austria since the
1960s, in the 1980's Arnold also served as President of the European
Humanistic Psychology Association. ...Read More
Richard
Wilhelm is the Marco Polo of the inner world of China. He, more
than any other, is responsible for opening up to the West the vast
spiritual heritage of China and thus all of Asia. He translated the
great philosophical works from Chinese into German, where they have in
turn been translated into the other major languages of the world,
including English. To this day, among the dozens of translations of the I
Ching now available, his 1923 translation stands head and shoulders
above the rest. He introduced the I Ching, and Chinese philosophy, to
the School of Wisdom when it first opened in 1920. These ideas have been
a integral part of its program ever since. Richard Wilhelm, and the
ancient Chinese Sages he came to know so well, are key Ancestors of the
School of Wisdom. ...Read
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Rabindranath
Tagore was born in Calcutta, India into a
wealthy Brahmin family. After a brief stay in England (1878) to attempt
to study law, he returned to India, and instead pursued a career as a
writer, playwright, songwriter, poet, philosopher and educator. During
the first 51 years of his life he achieved some success in the Calcutta
area of India where he was born and raised with his many stories, songs
and plays. His short stories were published monthly in a friend's
magazine and he even played the lead role in a few of the public
performances of his plays. Otherwise, he was little known outside of the
Calcutta area, and not known at all outside of India. ...Read
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