Hypatia Book Party Guide

GoddessTempleMovie05172014-30-copyA great way to celebrate the March 15 birthday of Hypatia of Alexandria is to invite your friends to join you to talk about their reactions to a book like The Wisdom of Hypatia, by Bruce MacLennan.

You could invite friends over for wine and cheese (or brew and snacks),  go to your favorite restaurant and get a table, or hold a bring-your-own-picnic at a local park.

The discussion questions below can help you get the conversation flowing.  Be sure to give everyone a flyer and invite them to join The Hypatia Society to support Cherry Hill Seminary. AMP Dis1And don’t forget to send your photos and camcorder bits to us so we can share them on our blog wall!

Hypatia Party Discussion Guide
1. Can philosophy be a religious practice? How?
2. How would Hypatia be received by modern Pagans in the western world?
3. What lessons can we learn from Hypatia about living in religious pluralism in today’s world?
4. Historians suspect that Hypatia or others at the Alexandrian school posited a heliocentric solar system, but we don’t know. We do know some of her important work in geometry which has been preserved. If all of our modern knowledge were lost, what ideas do you think would still be in use a century later?
5. Who in our contemporary world do you see as a kind of Hypatia? Why?
6. Plotinus said, “Each of us is a noetic cosmos.” What does that mean for you?
7. What one new resolution might you make for yourself because of this discussion?