Description
The School was founded during the Depression years of the 1930s by Leon MacLaren, son of Labour MP Andrew MacLaren. The School had its roots in the economic theories of Henry George, which the Liberal Party sought to implement before the First World War, and the Labour Party in 1931.
From there the School developed and took a new turn in the 1950s, following the discovery of the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. The School’s main focus became philosophy, reinforced by the introduction of meditation through the Maharishi, later guru to the Beatles. Further evolution came in 1965 when Leon MacLaren met the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Sri Shantananda Saraswati, whose spiritual advice is expounded in a series of chapters interspersed through the book.
Under the guidance of the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta the School continued to expand its range of activities, including art, Sanskrit, music and Renaissance studies. It founded an independent school for children which, along with the School itself, has affiliated branches around the world. The School met with criticisms and controversy along the way, and the author deals with these episodes openly.
In Search of Truth helps explain why hundreds of thousands have attended courses at the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in the UK and around the world, and why they hold it in such high regard.
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Author
Brian Hodgkinson has been a member of the School of Economic Science since 1963. Concurrently he has studied modern academic Philosophy, taking a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford and lecturing in Philosophy at Sussex University. More recently he has taught Economics and History at St James Independent Schools, having studied and tutored these subjects within the School of Economic Science. He has published a verse translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and books on Indian Philosophy, Ancient History and Economics.
Visit his Amazon Author Page here.
You can read more about Brian Hodgkinson on his author page.
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Reviews
Clear history of the development of the School of Economic Science which reveals the remarkable story before, during and after the nearly thirty year creative collaboration between a barrister and a guru which affected the lives of so many students and their contacts for the better.”
From a 5* Amazon review
“On every page of this monumental book, the intention of clarity, truthfulness and reason shines through.”
From a 5* Amazon review – Read full review here.
