History and Development
FPA is a modern (-historic) and unique online Academy and is captured by the search for spiritual, intellectual, cultural and religious symbols to articulate the signs of the times. Through dialogue we try to find what is happening in our world today and how to move ahead in responding to milestone issues and events on local as well as on global level.
The desire to re-evoke the flow of presence as experienced in centuries past was developed in Ireland through careful analysis of philosophical and religious texts, with their roots in Ancient Greece, Israel, Celtic Monasticism and the interests evoked by archaeological places such as Glendalough, Knowth, Dowth, Tara and the Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange (3200 BC). There is no clear date of foundation as such, but the Flow of Presence Academy existed already in some form from the beginning of 2001 in the Heart and Mind of the directors Meins G. S. Coetsier and Gabriel Slattery and the founding fathers, recently deceased, Timothy Hamilton and Steven Tuohy, who contributed in developing an overall vision for the twenty-first Century.
With the help and vital encouragement of people as Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Alan McGuckian, Michael Hurley, Brendan Comerford, Laurence Murphy, Colin Warrack, Frank Doyle, Myles O'Reilly, Brendan Duddy, Joseph McCarroll, Gabriel Slattery, Michael Rodgers, Brendan Purcell, Denise de Costa, Klaas A.D. Smelik, benefactors, family and other close friends...
this vision developed rapidly from 2004 onwards, when FPA’s director Meins G. S. Coetsier committed himself to a careful analysis of Eric Voegelin’s philosophical notion of the flow of presence as illustrated in the life and works of Etty Hillesum. Inspired by the absorbing account of the life, works and vision of these two prominent mystical thinkers, Eric Voegelin and Etty Hillesum, whose lives were shaped by the totalitarian Nazi-regime, Coetsier explored how mystical attunement to the flow of presence is the key to the development of their reflective work and to historical material in general. Eric Voegelin’s analysis of the history of order is focused on the responses of individuals and societies to the divine presence. Etty Hillesum’s The Letters and Diaries illustrates her heroic struggle to come to terms with her personal life in the context of her gradual response to the flowing presence.
Etty Hillesum died at the age of twenty-nine in Auschwitz midway through WW II. All her energy had been absorbed in a daily search for the meaning of her life, for an understanding of her relationships with others, and for an insight into the ultimate purpose of each individual’s contribution to the well being and maintenance of the human spirit.
Eric Voegelin’s philosophical symbol ‘the flow of presence’ is designed to ‘catch’ changes and shifts in the mode of human responsiveness to the divine presence and it is especially helpful in clarifying what is taking place in the soul of Etty Hillesum. Her response to the flow of presence while she was undergoing significant breakthroughs in her spiritual life in the context of a period of overwhelming social disorder, amounts to a testament of great courage. It is an inspiration and an affirmation of the indestructible wonder of life, which energizes the spiritual and academic life of the FPA and of generations to come.
Coetsier is convinced that: ‘The complexity of the human condition will require the ability to be human in transcending our immediate and simply given context through an attunement to the flow of presence.’ As the director of the FPA he pursued his scholarly journey the last years heartrendingly recording the horrors inflicted on his countrymen and women during WW II - he pays tribute to the subjects of this study, Eric Voegelin and Etty Hillesum. They have provided a vision for the FPA and indeed for all of us with a welcome antidote to the restless and wandering spirit of a complex and turbulent era and we are indebted to Coetsier for guiding us to the heart of their mystical thought.
With the current explosion of interest in inter-religious dialogue, peace studies, Judaism, the holocaust, gender studies and mysticism, it is clear that the FPA is responding sensitively to the signs of the times, by opening up an international Forum of dialogue.