The subject matter of School of Angelology is integral knowledge and its motivation is self-improvement, ennoblement of personal life of an individual as well as the life of the whole society.
Angelology of history
The actual content of the school consists of the results of an original research by Dr Emil Páleš which has begun 30 years ago. These results are being gradually published in a three volume monograph called Angelology of history. This comprehensive transdisciplinary study is an attempt to synthesize several branches of science (psychology, history and biology), and also to synthesize contemporary science with the oldest religious traditions of humanity.
By comparing the cultural morphology in the global history, we discover the main value and psychological patterns shaping epochs and civilizations. By separating what is common and recurring from what is accidental and unique, we can distill pure archetypes - prototypes of spiritual experience. We will find out that different archetypes dominate the collective consciousness in a certain time order, periodically and synchronically. People from distant continents refer about similar creative intuitions and inspirations independently of each other and yet at the same time. The nature of these inspirations, their order and time rhythms were already known in ancient and later in medieval times. They are recorded in myths about gods of various nations and in the Christian West they are to be found in the teachings about angels. According to an old creed, seven archangels cyclically take turns as time spirits and they inspire the world. Each epoch has its own primary value intuition - its own mood. With changing of this central value, all the domains of society change accordingly: a corresponding type of philosophy, science, religion, aesthetic style and political organization of society will turn up.
This observation of history can be further linked with developmental psychology of an individual and with evolutionary biology as well. Cultural epochs are analogous to personality types and age stages in an individual biography. Moreover, every soul process is psychosomatically linked with a certain type of physiology and physiognomy. That is why we also find the same patterns in the history of nature - in the shapes and behavior of animals and plants. Evolution worked predominantly on certain organ systems in each geological epoch. Living creatures were transforming in a similar way in each specific time period and these evolutionary convergencies are analogous to the synchronicities in the history of culture.
We will find out that traditional symbols of archangels and deities contain the concentrated figurative wisdom of our ancestors about the laws of human fate and psyche: about the rises and falls of civilizations, and waves of creativity in the history of culture and nature. Archangels embody the virtues, dreams and ideals which shape our human nature and they have been influencing us mightily since the dawn of time to these days in the same rhythm, clothed into ideological, artistic and political currents of the world. Traditional archdemons tell us in a similar way about personality disorders, decadent social tendencies or the causes of species extinction in nature.
Angelology is the most successful philosophy of history, and it is the only one which has withstood being tested on independent data by means of exact methods of mathematical statistics. It elegantly explains whole series of phenomena which remain a mystery for the mainstream science, and it also enabled to successfully predict future scientific discoveries.
Sophiology and Socratic dialogue as a method
Slavic thinkers such as Comenius, the Štúr group or Solovyov were inspired by the vision of integral knowledge, holistic wisdom – Sophia. Sophiology is an effort to synthesize three sources of knowledge (senses, reason and intuition), as well as three domains of life (science, art and religion). Only such an endeavor to overcome some particular specialization and to integrate all psychological abilities of man can bring forth a free, independent human individuality, that is able to discern truth and withstand moral evil.
In our school we do not presume that any particular current is true just because of its authority. We strive for our own synthesis of facts using correct thinking and intuition purged by moral effort to improve oneself. In the sense of the Socratic method, every student has to make each step himself – to lay every brick of the cathedral of knowledge himself while being confident why he has done it.
Student of the school will not only gain a wider perspective and some knowledge in new, meaningful connections, but above all, he will gain new abilities. Human psychology, history and nature are just a working material on which we train and validate our abilities in a way similar to a student of mathematics when solving exercises. At the entrance of the temple of Apollo there was an inscription: “Know thyself and you will know the universe and the gods!” In order to truly get to know world events we must pursue them to their sources in the deepest nooks of human souls. And reversely; when we want to truly see and cultivate our inner world, we can only do so with the help of an objective touchstone of the outer world. Angelology teaches us how inner and outer realities relate to each other: how internal attitudes manifest themselves in bodily health on one hand, and in social institutions on the other. The student works on knowing himself, and depending on how well he begins to orientate in his internal world, he gradually gains the key to understanding the outer world. Purged thinking, feeling and volition get transformed into an eye of the heart with which he can then perceive the spiritual archetypes and predict the future of things, people and nations. To get to know archangels means to master the elementary archetypal forces of the mental world that are comparable to alphabet in linguistics or to pure elements in chemistry.
Organizational form and additional artistic activities
The school consists of seven seminars – each lasting three days and dedicated to seven archangels: Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Michael, Samael, Zachariel, Oriphiel. The seminars build upon each other in a set order which cannot be changed.
The school has hundreds of leavers, it started in 1994 and it has been running in the current form since 2004. It takes place at Slovak castles and manor houses: Budmerice, Topoľčianky, Mojmírovce. The school fee includes three days accommodation and meals at the castle. We always start with dinner on Thursday evening and finish on Sunday afternoon. An integral part of each seminar is a concert with music from the particular cultural epoch, which brings us artistically closer to the epoch we currently study.
Each seminar is complemented by some non-intellectual work led by art lecturers. These are activities which have to do with the specific quality of the discussed archangel: Gabriel – painting (imagination, psychological meaning of colors), Raphael – eurythmy, visit of arboretum (motion, rhythm, vitality), Anael - singing (psychological meaning of musical intervals), Michael – archery (concentration, self-control, harmonization), Samael – creative speech (self-expression, voice control, forming of thoughts), Zachariel – clay modelling (spatial sense and sense for forms), Oriphiel – watching the sky with an astronomical telescope (scientific exactness).
Conditions for attending
The school does not require any special type or level of education. It is open to everyone. All that is required is a genuine motivation and psychological health (student must not be diagnosed with any psychological illness). People younger than 18 years can attend upon the approval of their parents.
