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the project soon attracted leading personalities from the world of arts and culture.
The focus that brought them all together was an idea and a movement
which were both enriching for the mind and promising for all.
At the beginning of the Seventies, the extent of its social and cultural
activities led to the Association's recognition as a state-approved
organization in Argentina. At around the same time, it began to take
on an international dimension.
Today, the New Acropolis Cultural Association is present in over
50 countries around the world. Its over 10.000 active members and
hundreds of thousands of supporters express themselves in more than
18 languages and come from a wide range of religious denominations,
ethnic origins and cultural backgrounds, offering a fine example of
fraternal co-existence and mutual understanding.
Its Founder
Jorge Angel Livraga Rizzi was born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) on
September 3rd 1930 and died in Madrid on October 7th 1991. Both his
mother, Victoria Rizzi, and his father, Angel Livraga, an industrial
engineer, were of Italian extraction. Both their families were of
peasant origins and had immigrated to Argentina at the end of the
19th century. This family relationship later enabled him to obtain
Italian nationality.
The early death of his father, when Jorge was only fifteen, brought
about a profound crisis which led him to become interested in esoteric
philosophy. He came into contact with the Argentine Theosophical Society,
where he embarked on studies of the History of Religions and Symbolism,
combining them with his training at the Medical Faculty of the University
of Buenos Aires. At the same time, his interest in history, archaeology
and art led him to take courses in these subjects at the same university.
He also cultivated poetry and, in 1951, won the Argentine National
Poetry Prize with his book “Lotuses”.
In 1956 he founded the magazine “Estudios Teosóficos”
(Theosophical Studies), which was intended to make the works of H.P.
Blavatsky more widely known among university students, by comparing
them with the new scientific discoveries of the 20th century. In the
following year, on the instructions of the renowned theosophist Sri
Ram, he took this work a step further by creating “New Acropolis”,
an Association intended to promote Philosophy among young people,
along the lines of the classical Schools of Philosophy, such as Plato’s
Academy and the Neo-Platonist School. “We realized that humanity
possessed an immense treasure of Wisdom, which had been hidden and
forgotten, and lay beyond the reach of young people. A Wisdom that
provides answers about the meaning of life and ways in which society
- the world around us - can be improved”, he recalled on one
occasion.
A few years later, the Association’s international vocation
led it to establish its first centre outside Argentina, in Montevideo
(Uruguay). This first step, which was soon followed by others, took
New Acropolis to other countries on the American continent, such as
Mexico, Peru, Chile and Venezuela. In 1972 Livraga decided to take
his philosophical ideal to Europe, first to Spain, then to France
and the United Kingdom. New Acropolis has continued to expand ever
since and today is present in around fifty countries across Europe,
America and Asia.
It could be said that the life and work of Jorge Ángel Livraga
were bound up with that of the movement he had founded. He focused
on establishing a well-developed and rigorous base of knowledge, a
synthesis of the great systems of thought at the root of the many
civilizations and cultures of history. He was a tireless traveler
and regularly visited the countries where the Association had centers,
promoting cultural activities, giving classes, writing articles and
coming into direct contact with the widest variety of people.
His prime concern was to ensure that this treasure of knowledge was
applied in a practical way, proposing philosophy as a way of living
accessible to all kinds of people of different mentalities and from
various social backgrounds all over the world. In that sense, he used
to define his task as the creation of a survival module”, helping
to foster a better individual, who in turn could build a better world.
The barriers which tend to separate human beings and set them against
one another, such as violence, dogmatism, racism and exclusion of
all kinds, could cease to have their devastating effects if another
way of life was to be promoted – tolerant and educated, firmly
based on a solid philosophical education, capable of awakening the
latent qualities that lie within every human being.
His works
The aim of bringing knowledge and philosophy to the widest possible
audience is paramount in the works of Jorge Ángel Livraga,
which have a clearly educational content. As a result, a considerable
part of his intellectual output consists of compilations of his classes
and lectures, given to the most varied audiences and on the widest
range of topics, although always guided by a single thread: the need
to awaken the individual consciousness in each human being and to
develop a sense of responsibility for creating a more just and caring
world, in which everyone would have access to education and culture.
Jorge Ángel Livraga reflected on the times in which he lived
and argued for the need to exercise freedom of thought and individual
independence in the face of the manipulation and deceit of the powerful.
His lectures are collected into a four-volume work entitled “Magic,
Religion and Science for the 21st Century”.
His first works were in the genre of historical narrative, such as
his first novel, “Ankor the Disciple”. In this he narrates
the adventures of a young aspirant to esoteric wisdom, in the imagined
atmosphere of the time just before the sinking of Poseidonis, the
last vestige of the mythical Atlantis, according to the dialogues
of Plato. In this youthful work, Livraga presents the teachings which
he himself had received during his own philosophical training. He
returned to the genre of historical narrative in “The Alchemist”,
a work which recreates the atmosphere of the secret fraternities that
arose in Europe in the 16th century and at the same time offers an
impassioned defense of freedom of thought.
The explanation of natural phenomena sums up the contents of one
of his most translated works: “The Spirits of Nature”.
The same approach was extended to every area of Esoteric Philosophy
in “Introduction to Eastern Wisdom”, a real guidebook
for those wishing to begin their quest for the underlying knowledge
behind phenomena, philosophies and religions. Another work in this
educational line is “Letters to Delia and Fernando”, a
series of dialogues with two of his closest disciples on the questions
that arise for young people when they adopt a philosophical point
of view, enlivened by the original approach of the founder of New
Acropolis.
Insights into the events of our times are expressed in two works
of particular interest. One of them, “Myths of the 20th Century”,
takes a retrospective look at the high-sounding words which have been
used to justify many outrages, injustices and contradictions, and
invites the reader to enter the 21st century with greater independence
and freedom of opinion. In “Moassy the Dog” he reiterates
that criticism, using the fiction of a dog with the appearance of
a man, who confronts human irrationality with his logical, dog-like
simplicity.
His love for archaeology and his in-depth knowledge of Egyptian civilization
made him choose Thebes, the ancient capital of the Middle Kingdom,
to interpret some of the features of that far-off, yet familiar world,
since, as the author somewhat enigmatically states, “Thebes
is a state of consciousness”.
As a way of transmitting his understanding of the soul of Greece,
Livraga chose the subject of theatre and its genres, in his work “The
Mystery Theatre.Tragedy”. Through his analysis of this art form
he provides deep insights into the world of the soul and unveils some
of its keys, always in the light of the greatness of the inner hero
who lies hidden within every human being. It was the first of a series
of studies which he left unfinished.
These works have been translated into many languages, including French,
English, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Czech and German.
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