About
Academy of European Arts & Culture
It is a global esoteric school committed to the process of awakening the Soul. Founded in 1991 by the Irish philosopher Mervyn Brady (1948-2006), it has its roots in the Fourth Way, a path to self-development brought to Western Culture by George Gurdjieff (1866-1948). In the Fourth Way, one does not leave “life” (i.e., enter a monastery, convent, etc.) The Work (as it is often referred to) is to be done in life, providing a path for self-development and enlightenment. Harmonizing work on the mind, emotions, and body helps one become balanced.Â
The Terrace at Vernon by Pierre Bonnard (1939)
Mervyn Brady combined the tenets of the Fourth Way with his own understandings to create the Academy, as a school of mysticism and love. The Academy is dedicated to the awakening and growing of one’s soul, and to being of service to the higher. The teaching provides the willing student with practical tools to help them distinguish between their outer world (the world of the body and everyday life) and their inner world (the higher part of themselves, which some refer to as the soul).
Mervyn named his school The Academy of European Arts and Culture to refer to the art and philosophy of the past. In the Academy, we study the rich legacies left to us by artists, mystics, theologians, scientists, poets, and great conscious men and women from all cultures. This is how we further our evolution and understanding. This is how we progress towards awakening.
“As I began to study love, I realized that I was studying awakening all over again. I saw that they both run parallel. The laws of one are the laws of the other.”
~ MERVYN BRADY
Mervyn Brady
Mervyn Brady was a friend, teacher, and mentor - beloved by many around the world. From the moment he experienced the profound awakening of his soul, Mervyn dedicated his life to sharing his understanding of how to find and keep a Divine connection alive within the complexities of our lives. He called this practice Amorology. Through his example, he showed us that our place in the world and our time on this planet have great meaning. He called this practice Amorology.
Through his example, he showed us that our place in the world and our time on this planet have great meaning. In 1989, Mervyn founded The Academy of European Art and Culture, a school dedicated to disseminating and preserving the tremendous contributions of our philosophical forebearers. He spoke passionately about the spiritual treasures of the Western world, which had lain buried for centuries in Europe.
Starting first in London, then moving to Los Angeles, Mervyn eventually established an international school extending from Europe across the United States and into Mexico. Mervyn Brady, our beloved friend who had worked tirelessly serving others, died in Mexico City in 2006 at the young age of 58.
Too often, we look outside ourselves for truth, for the Divine connection to love. We think that the insight or enlightenment we are searching for must be on the next page, in the next painting, in the next sentence spoken by some guru or spiritual leader. Mervyn Brady taught his students the process of awakening from within, using these words, paintings, and music of great enlightened men and women to help us connect to our evolution, as well as to develop in us a profound state of love. He felt that the misunderstanding of love and how this state must be served was one of the major causes of human suffering. His teaching, grounded in the Fourth Way, evolved into a practice which he called Amorology.Â
When Mervyn was buffeted with negative insistence, when he was assailed by external forces sowing doubt, when the siren’s songs of sleeping people tried to steer him into rocks, he didn’t hear them because the voice within—his soul—told him otherwise. This is the voice he heard—the soul's Divine connection—this is the voice he heeded, and this is the voice that led him to create a school of awakening and love. For threads of this in Mervyn's early life, read Smelling the Roses, the extraordinary memoir of his childhood; full of humor, mysticism, and a generous understanding of the human condition.
For a sample of his teaching, read "Meetings with the Teacher or listen to the video excerpt “below”, as Mervyn reads portions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, from his CD collection Poems that Point the Way.
