The School of Philosophy and Economic Science (SPES), also operating under the names the School of Philosophy and the School of Practical Philosophy and legally named the School of Economic Science (SES), is a worldwide organisation based in London. It offers non-academic courses for adults, primarily influenced by Advaita Vedanta, an orthodox philosophical system of Hinduism. The SES has a history of criminal child abuse that started in the 1970s and lasted at least two decades in its two associated schools, St James Independent Schools and St Vedast's. The organisation advocates conservative values with traditional gender roles and sexual ethics. It has been described as a cult, sect, or new religious movement, including by several former members.
The organisation advertises introductory courses entitled "Practical Philosophy", "Economics with Justice", and other courses including Sanskrit language. The Practical Philosophy course involves a meditative process known as "The Awareness Exercise" and discussion of universal themes drawing on the work of European and Indian philosophers such as Plato, Marsilio Ficino, Swami Vivekananda and Adi Shankara, as well as Advaita. After five years of involvement, people mainly study Advaita and are required to take up meditation, to undertake voluntary work to help with the running of the organisation and to attend residential programmes.
While initially based in London, as of 2012, the SES had a total of around 20,000 enrolments in up to 80 branches worldwide, across 18 countries, including 3,173 enrolments in the UK.
SES is registered as a charity in the UK.
History
Foundation The School of Economic Science was founded in the UK in 1938 by Andrew MacLaren under the name Henry George School of Economics. Initially an economics study group that explored the economic theories of the American economist Henry George,Land and Liberty, Henry George Foundation of Great Britain, 1933 p.231; 1935 p.89; 1936 p.94, 1937 p.97.Land and Liberty, 1936 pp.129, 161, 164. the group met in a Parliamentary committee room of the Houses of Parliament. Leon MacLaren then inherited the organisation from his father, Andrew, and changed its focus to "the study of natural laws governing the relations between men in society". He considered science to be a study of laws that already exist in nature, and economics the study of human nature and its interaction with the natural universe. In 1942 the name of the group was changed to the School of Economic Science, the name used until 2019, when the name was changed to School of Philosophy and Economic Science.
Influence of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff
MacLaren studied the book The Realm of Art (1946), a wide-ranging survey of ideas about the nature of humanity, society, art, science, religion, evolution, creativity, free will, mind and matter, knowledge and consciousness. It was this book which first introduced him to the ideas of P. D. Ouspensky; he incorporated its ideas to the SES and invited the author, Peter Goffin, to give lectures.
Ouspensky was a pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff's philosophy, called the "Fourth Way", was also incorporated into SES teaching. In 1953, MacLaren met Francis C. Roles, a pupil of Ouspensky who had established the Study Society in 1951 to continue the teaching of the Fourth Way. When MacLaren died in the mid-1990s, the SES gradually underwent a change in approach, choosing to be more open. Nowadays, SES has phased out most of its Gurdjieffian material, although it acknowledges Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as a source of the first Philosophy courses on its official SES website.
Influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ouspensky believed that Gurdjieff's teachings were incomplete and both Roles and MacLaren were eager to discover the missing elements. In 1959, MacLaren discovered the teachings of Advaita Vedanta after meeting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and began to practice Transcendental Meditation (TM). Both Roles and MacLaren became pupils of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. On 13 March 1961, MacLaren organised a meeting, called the "1961 World Congress", for the Maharishi at the Royal Albert Hall. Two days prior to the event smaller meetings were held at Caxton Hall. The Royal Albert Hall meeting was attended by 5,000 people, nearly all SES members.
The particular type of meditation used by SES was developed by Brahmananda Saraswati. MacLaren was taken through its initiation ritual, and speculated that he had found the source of Gurdjieff's ideas.
Advaita and Sanskrit On a trip to India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Roles met the Shankarcharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Shantanand Saraswati, who Roles believed was the spiritual advisor both the Study society and SES were seeking. He introduced MacLaren to Shantandand and they both became his students. Swami Shantananda Saraswati had been a disciple, with the Maharishi, of the previous Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. From this point on, MacLaren and the SES's teachings became predominately based on Advaita Vedanta. During the mid-1950s, Practical Philosophy became the central subject of teaching and practice at SES and remains so today. MacLaren's discussions with Shantanand Saraswati solidified the central principle of SES's philosophy as "unity in diversity", a merger of Eastern philosophy and Western wisdom.
Teaching is disseminated by SES advanced students who are volunteer teachers, and is maintained by the successors of MacLaren and Shantanand Saraswati, these being Donald Lambie and SES guru Sri Vasudevananda Saraswati respectively.
From 1965 until MacLaren's death in 1994, conversations between MacLaren and Shantananda Saraswat were recorded and transcribed every 2 years. These were published in a four volume series. In his conversations with MacLaren, Shantananda Saraswati stated the importance of Sanskrit language in the study of Advaita. The study of Sanskrit language at SES began in the late 1960s and became a formal part of what was called the "middle school" in 1977. SES is considered a world-class centre for the study of Sanskrit.
Saraswati also taught that regular and disciplined meditation was highly important. Meditation became central to SES's philosophy programme and MacLaren, together with Roles, was instrumental in founding the School of Meditation (SoM) in London. All senior members of the SES meditate.
New leader In 1992 Shantanand Saraswati advised Leon MacLaren to choose a successor. He chose Donald Lambie, a lawyer, who had joined SES at the age of 17 in 1973. Donald Lambie succeeded Leon MacLaren upon his death in 1994. His succession was approved by the 200-strong Fellowship of senior members of the organisation. Sri Shantanand Saraswati died in 1997. Donald Lambie established contact with his successor, Sri Vasudevananda Saraswati, who took on the role of guru to SES. Sri Vasudevananda Saraswati continues to act in that role.
Artistic endeavours
Art in Action In 1977, the Art Department at SES began an annual, four-day art festival called Art in Action at Waterperry Gardens; the first event attracted 14,000 visitors and recent events have each attracted about 25,000 visitors. Over the years the number of artists exhibiting increased from 51 to 400, specially selected for the quality of their work. The event also included lectures by experts from the National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies, and 3,000 places on practical courses in 20 different subjects. Around 900 volunteers from SES staffed the event. The event was started by steward of Waterperry Estate, Bernard Saunders, and was organised by Jeremy Sinclair CBE between 2005-2014, and later Simon Buchanan
After 40 years, in 2016, the organisers announced that Art in Action would "pause", and that their vision is for Waterperry Gardens to "develop as a centre for the arts in the years to come". Since then the organisation has hosted the Handmade in Britain festival, Celebrating Ceramics, the Oxford Storytelling Festival and the Waterperry Opera Festival.
Waterperry frescos
A project by SES architects and artists' groups to plan and construct a new hall at Waterperry House began in 1971. In 1999–2001, frescos spanning three floors, illustrating SES's philosophies, were added to the property to create a sacred space intended to last at least 500 years. The architects and artists let their designs arise from reflection on a passage from one of the great texts of Advaita philosophy, the Brihadaranyaka Unpanishad: "In the beginning this self was indeed Brahman. It knew only itself as 'I am Brahman'. Therefore, it became All." MacLaren's intention was to create a place fit for King Janaka; accordingly the bridge and staircase was planned in glass.
Children's education In 1975, SES founded the St James Independent Schools in London, comprising one school for girls and one for boys, both catering to children from 4–18 years of age. St Vedast's School for Boys, at Sarum Chase in Hampstead, London, was also founded in the mid-1970s and closed in 1985. Other schools included the Ficino School in Auckland, New Zealand; St James Preparatory Schools in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, South Africa; John Colet School, Sydney, Australia; Erasmus School, Melbourne, Australia; the St James Independent Schools in London; Alcuin School in Leeds (closed in 2009); St James' primary school in Stockport (closed in 2015); and John Scottus School in Dublin. St James Junior Boys merged with the Junior Girls School to form St James Juniors in 2015.
Alongside the regular curriculum, Greek and Eastern Philosophy, Vedic Dancing, Shakespeare, Renaissance art, meditation, mindfulness, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Calligraphy, and Vedic Mathematics are taught from an early age. There is also a strong emphasis on sport through team games, music and arts. Children are taught the virtues of politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty.
Child abuse inquiries
St James & St Vedast Schools In the early 1980s the St James and St Vedast schools received complaints from parents and were subject to a critical series of articles in the London Evening Standard, focusing on the School's harsh discipline regime and its links to the School of Economic Science, which the journalists described as a "cult".
In 2005, following complaints on an internet message board set up for former pupils, the Governors of the St James Schools initiated a private inquiry, chaired by British QC, James Townsend, into the allegations. The investigation found that from 1975 to 1985, children had been "criminally assaulted" while attending the schools including unreasonable punishment, assault from teachers and general mistreatment.
In response to the report the school stated the teachers named in the report "will receive disciplinary warnings", but that "there is no plan to remove them from the schools". The teachers no longer work at St James.
Inquiry press and media coverage The Inquiry report was publicised by a Channel 4 News television special report on 15 March 2006 and in national and local newspapers. The programme reported that there had been complaints about punishment regimes in 1983 and that meetings had been held with parents which the then headmaster David Boddy also attended. The report also stated that "there has been a real change in the ethos and conduct of the schools is established by the evidence of those witnesses, not naturally well disposed towards the SES, who speak of them as happy places where there appears to be a relaxed atmosphere between pupils and teachers".