In this interview, Quebec-based classical painter and art instructor Patrick Cyr talks with Rising Tide Foundation Director Matthew Ehret about the importance of classical thinking the need to revive the lost techniques of classical painting in order to bridge the artificial gulf separating the arts and sciences in today’s age. Patrick’s website can be found…
RTF Review: Ballet’s Secret Code
By Nicholas Jones Ballet’s secret code is a documentary about the Origins and principles behind Maestro Enrico Cecchetti’s lifetime of work and devotion to the Classical humanist art form: Ballet. Madam Julie Cronshaw takes us through the depths of his character, education and philosophy and his work as a Ballet Master under Diaghilev for the…
Poetry, Art and Civilization Today: Reflections on Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry”
By David Gosselin July 8, 2023, marked the 201st anniversary of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s tragic drowning in the Bay of Lerici, Italy, at the age of 31. However, before he died Shelley left the world with one of the most impassioned and timeless defences of poetry ever composed. At a time in which Western…
The Peace of Westphalia as a Lesson in Solving Religious Wars Past Present or Future
By Matthew Ehret In 1999, a seemingly innocuous speech occurred in Chicago that unveiled a new paradigm in world affairs that was dubbed “the Blair Doctrine”. In this speech, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that the realities of the new age of terrorism had rendered the respect for sovereign nation states irrelevant and obsolete requiring a…
Why the Jews of Khazaria, the Himyarites and GokTurk Empire are Keys to Universal History
By Matthew Ehret This article was also presented by the author as a class, as part of the RTF Lecture Series “The Renaissance Principle Across the Ages“. With the fires of potential global war once again erupting across the Middle East, and with obvious anti-jewish rage amplifying to an extreme degree, I would like to take…
St Augustine’s City of God and Lessons for Today’s Religious Wars
By Matthew Ehret Last week, I published an article on The Truth of the Peace of Westphalia followed up with the forgotten Jewish-Christian-Muslim-Confucian Alliance of the 8-9th century. The following story should be seen as a continuation of that unfolding series. It isn’t often that a generation lives through a systemic breakdown crisis. While many shallower minds are quick…
Leibniz vs Newton: A Clash of Paradigms
RTF President Cynthia Chung kicks off the symposium ‘As Above so Below: Re-uniting the Macroverse with the Microverse” with a presentation on Leibniz vs Newton: A Clash of Paradigms. This presentation will introduce the principled conflict of two opposing schools of thought materialist/mathematical defined by Newton vs the higher dynamic/metaphysical method embodied by Gottfried Leibniz….
Geoffrey Chaucer and Cultural Confidence
By Gerald Therrien Have you ever thought about where the English language, that we speak today, came from? In school, we were told that there was some indigenous Celtic language, and when the Romans invaded, the Celtic got mixed in with the Latin. And when the Romans left, the Angles and Saxons invaded, and some…
C.S. Lewis’ “Weight of Glory”: Longing in the Poets, Composers & Theologians
By David Gosselin C.S. Lewis famously discussed the role of an eternal “longing” found in each mortal human being. Lewis referred to this longing using a specific German word, “Sehnsucht.” For Lewis, the longing for a something in the distance and an awareness of its unattainability within this world lay at the heart of man’s…
How to Conquer Tyranny: A Lesson from Plato
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Plato’s Letter VII Plato to Dion’s associates and friends wishes well-doing. You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion, and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can…
Ancient Greece and Africa Share Long History
By Nana Coupeau Africans and Ancient Greeks had long, rich history together often reflected in the depiction of Africa in Ancient Greek art. The first contact between Greeks and Africans was sometime during the Bronze Age. At this time, the Minoan culture on Crete flourished and their shipbuilding skills enabled them to travel to far-flung…
Profiles in Poetry: Friedrich Schiller
By David Gosselin “Trust me, the fountain of youth, it is no fable. It is running Truly and always. Ye ask, where? In poetical art.” – Friedrich Schiller, The Fountain of Youth Friedrich Schiller was born on November 10th, 1759 in Marbach, Württemberg. He was without question one of the greatest poets and dramatists to…
In Defence of King Arthur
Who was the real King Arthur and what did this man do to shape the course of world history during the early years of Rome’s collapse? Speaker bio: Gerald Therrien is a historian and author of a four volume series on Canadian History entitled Canadian History Unveiled and has lectured on topics ranging from poetry,…
How Tragedy Can Heal Society: The Oresteia as Political Therapy with Dr. Nicolai Petro
What does classical tragedy have to do with geopolitics? Why is it so important for modern statesmen, diplomats to think like Aeschylus and why should more artists think like statesmen? In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, Dr Nicolai Petro introduces classical Greek Tragedy from a moral, and philosophical perspective containing within its essence, the necessary…
How to Save a Republic Part Two: Lincoln and the Greenbacks
By Matthew Ehret In my last paper I introduced the figure of Alexander Hamilton (first Treasury Secretary and founder of the American System of political economy). I reviewed how America was saved from an early dismemberment in the early years of chaos after 1783’s Peace of Paris which finally ended the war with Britain but left…
How to Save a Republic Part One: Hamilton’s Genius
By Matthew Ehret Today’s world calls out desperately for a systemic change. This means not only a change in thinking about diplomacy, the superiority of win-win cooperation over “might makes right”, but it also means a change in thinking about value itself. Everyone agrees that money is useful and few people would say that they…
How the ‘Real’ America Is in Harmony With the Belt and Road Initiative
In reviewing some history, you might be shocked to discover that the Belt and Road Initiative is more American than the America which the world has come to know over the past 50 years. The American Revolution as an International Struggle The fact that the American Revolution was an international affair is made evident by the fact that without…
The Spirit of Win-Win Cooperation: 15-19th Century Diplomatic Success of China
Although it is well known that China has become the world’s largest and fastest growing economy in the world- outpacing the USA since the unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, it is too often forgotten that this dominant position is not new, but merely a return to the “normal” state of world…
Kennedy and the New Frontier
In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture delivered as a sequel to last week’s Franklin Roosevelt’s Republican Grand Design, historian Pascal Chevrier introduces the figure of John F. Kennedy from several valuable frames of reference: His family traditions, his experience in the military during WW2, the geopolitical world in which he lived, his anti-imperial vision and…
Robert Frost and the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Gerald Therrien [The following is a transcript to Gerald’s recent lecture to the Rising Tide Foundation. To access the lecture format click below.] I wanted to talk about Robert Frost – not about his poetry, but instead about his politics and about the year 1962 – the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That…
An Overview of the Bay of Pigs and its Relevance for Today
By Cynthia Chung “There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold.” – William Shakespeare Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to see whether this volatile black cloud…
RTF Review of “Seven Days in May”
John Frankenheimer’s “Seven Days in May” (1964) may be a Hollywood movie but it is also an incredibly insightful account of the problem with Cold War thinking, based off of the book by the same title. At the time it was meant to be a lesson and warning to those who allowed themselves to be…
The Art of War in the 21st Century
By Cynthia Chung Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most influential books written on military strategy and philosophy. This is not confined to just Asians but Europeans and Americans alike have attempted to study The Art of War hoping its wisdom would be revealed to them. However, it is clear with…
Beyond Geopolitics EP 3: How NOT to Fall for Gang/Counter-gang Psyops f. Mike Robinson
In this episode of Beyond Geopolitics, Rising Tide Foundation director Matt Ehret talks with UK Column’s Mike Robinson about the techniques of Gang-Countergang Psyops used to fragment target populations into ‘left’ vs ‘right’ controlled oppositions. We discuss the current manipulation of Civil War dynamics in the UK and Europe (which cannot occur without a fair…
Renaissance or Dark Age? RTF Symposium
In this first of three presentations delivered to the Renaissance or Dark Age Symposium on September 7, 2025 in Toronto Ontario, Matt Ehret introduces the concept of Renaissances and Dark Ages as the effects of principles (or the defiance) of Universal Principles of Natural Law applicable to ALL societies across ALL ages. What are those…
Education as the Cause of Political Freedom – The Brethren of the Common Life
We all know that human society is littered with dark ages, renaissances, fallen empires, and brilliant revolutionary bursts of progress, increased liberty and creative freedom. But what is the ‘secret sauce’ that allows a fallen society to rise and generate such powerful artistic, scientific and political minds capable of leading humanity into greater harmony with…
Are we Sleepwalking into Chaos? Featuring John Helmer and Martin Sieff
In this episode of Beyond Geopolitics, two veteran journalists (Martin Sieff and John Helmer) share their insights into the trajectory of our world, the firing of Chrystia Freeland, the efforts to sabotage the Russia-China alliance, Donald Trump’s ability (or inability?) to steer the ship, planned chaos within the USA, how will Russia respond to renewed…
USA vs China: Can There Be A Mutually Beneficial Resolution to the Tariff War?
By Cynthia Chung Mark Wauck recently published on his substack “Who Lost China? And Are They Ultimately Losing America Too?” It is a great short read and I highly recommend it. In case you have not been keeping up-to-date with the latest news on the tariff war between the US and China, which is really…
The Difference Between William McKinley’s American System School of Protective Tariffs and Today
Part III of Make Whose America Great Again? series By Cynthia Chung “Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the…
Beyond Geopolitics EP. 1: The Day the UN Died: Why Dag Hammarskjöld was Murdered
In this first episode of Beyond Geopolitics, Matt Ehret and Martin Sieff chat with Pelle Neroth Taylor about the assassination of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. What was Dag doing to merit an assassination at this period of human history? What plans had he set into motion with John F Kennedy and Pan…
The World Premiere of our new film ‘Edgar Allan Poe’s Final Mystery: A Tale of Two Murders’
The moment has finally arrived! On Thursday November 6 at 7pm Eastern Time, Matt Ehret, Cynthia Chung and David Gosselin are proud to unleash the long awaited film ‘Edgar Allan Poe’s Final Mystery: A Tale of Two Murders’ onto the world. After 180 years of slanderous portrayals as an death obsessed opium addict, This Rising Tide Foundation production will…
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
By Cynthia Chung What say of it? what say CONSCIENCE grim, That spectre in my path? – Chamberlayne’s Pharonnida There has always been a fascination with “horror” since time immemorial, such that much of what functions to thrill us today is not much different from the sort of folk tales told hundreds if not thousands…
James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘The Bravo’: A Lesson in Political Intelligence
By Cynthia Chung [This is a transcript of an RTF lecture that was delivered as part of the “Storytelling, Myth-making and the Shaping of Universal History” Symposium.] So the subject of this class, as the title would suggest, is on James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘The Bravo,’ and I am sure many people here are probably aware of…
Schiller’s Ghost Seer, Intelligence Methods and a Global Citizenry
A Study of Schiller’s The Ghost Seer By Cynthia Chung [The audio version of this article can be listened to here.] The Ghost Seer first appeared in several instalments in Schiller’s publication journal Thalia from 1787 to 1789, and was later published as a three-volume book. It was one of the most popular works of…
Franklin vs British East India Co. Slavery and Origins of Continental Congress (Colin Lowry Lecture)
Historian, lecturer Colin Lowry “How did Anti-Slavery and the Struggle Against the British East India Company Lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774? Ben Franklin’s International Role” Colin Lowry will continue his father’s breakthrough historical discoveries (outlined in How the Nation Was Won vol 1) and will focus on the strategic genius of Benjamin…
Francis Bacon – Father of Scientism (Featuring scientist, inventor, and author Hans G. Schantz)
This RTF lecture featured special guest Hans Schantz who tackled the topic of the intellectual cage of scientism established by occultist and intelligence operative Sir Francis Bacon and which set the foundations for the creation of ‘The Royal Society’ (aka: Invisible College) and today’s system of top down consensus driven system of radical empiricism. Subscribe…
Education as the Cause of Political Freedom – The Brethren of the Common Life
We all know that human society is littered with dark ages, renaissances, fallen empires, and brilliant revolutionary bursts of progress, increased liberty and creative freedom. But what is the ‘secret sauce’ that allows a fallen society to rise and generate such powerful artistic, scientific and political minds capable of leading humanity into greater harmony with…
How To Conquer Tyranny and Avoid Tragedy: A Lesson on Defeating Systems of Empire
By Cynthia Chung This is a transcription of a lecture, which can be found here, given as part of the RTF series “Art, Science and Civilization: The Renaissance Principles Across the Ages.“ It is common today to be confronted with the belief that any country, any civilization that gains a certain degree of power, will…
Plato’s Fight Against Apollo’s Temple of Delphi and the Cult of Democracy
By Cynthia Chung Homer’s great poems that are left to us today, The Iliad and The Odyssey, describe the events of the Trojan War and its immediate aftermath, events which marked the descent of Greece into a Dark Age. Following the Trojan War, c.1190 BCE, the civilization of mainland Greece collapsed, written language was lost, and cities disappeared….
Who Will Be Brave in Huxley’s New World?
By Cynthia Chung “ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public…
League of Nations Neo-Liberal Globalist Utopia and it’s 21st Century Revival (f. Martin Sieff)
A strategic global alliance of all the free market imperialist democracies in the world determined to promote universal peace prosperity and open borders for human trafficking. What could go wrong? Today’s NATO has happened before. They called it “The League of Nations” or “Shangri La”… And the top British imperialists in the world promoted it…
From Cybernetics to the Counter Culture and the New Age Movement to the Oracle of AI
On August 3rd RTF member Sue Wali delivered a presentation titled ‘From Cybernetics to the Counter Culture and the New Age Movement to the Oracle of AI’. I asked Sue to write up a description of her class which is featured below: The West experienced seismic cultural shifts from the 1950s through the 1980s marked…
Interstellar Humanity: The Imperative to reach Earth 2.0
Is humanity destined to be limited by the boundary conditions of earth or do we possess qualities that indicate we can perpetually leap beyond those limits by making creative discoveries of God’s creation? Is our “natural eco-system” defined as the earth, or is it possible that our “eco-system” might extend to the solar system, or…
An Archaic Revival or Classic Rebirth?
With the replacement of the Pantheon and Rome’s vast array of mystery schools by Nicene Christianity, the soothsayers, astrologists, magicians and medicine men of old seemed to have been kicked to the curb for good. Further, with the Judeo-Christian notion of man as imago viva dei and capax dei revitalized and further elaborated during the…
Marlowe vs. Francis Bacon – The Battle for Shakespeare’s Plays
The Rosicrusians laid claim that one of their scribes, Francis Bacon, was the actual author of Shakespeare’s plays. Who will save Shakespeare from the magicians of the Rosy Cross? On Sunday August 17, 2025 RTF member and historian Gerald Therrien unravelled the myth, and see if the republican humanist, Christopher Marlowe, can be the real…
Rabelais and the Fight for the Modern Nation State
Early 16th century France was a newly formed nation-state following the exploits of Joan of Arc and unification efforts of Louis XI. The counterattack coming from the oligarchic forces was a most bloody religious warfare and Inquisition throughout Europe, pitting each against all. In the midst of all this raging madness, stood in France a…
Cervantes and His Age: Don Quixote and a Spain in Crisis
For this lecture from the Rising Tide Foundation Symposium “Storytelling, Mythmaking, and the Shaping of Universal History” Adam Sedia will go over the relevance of Cervantes’s “Don Quixote” for today. Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote is commonly considered the first modern novel. It certainly is one of the most beloved — it has more translations…
Full Documentary: The Devil at Woodstock (Lifting the veil on the image-making machine)
In this new film inspired by the poem ‘The Devil at Woodstock’ by Daniel Leach, and the pioneering work of David McGowan (author of Strange Things at Laurel Canyon), David Gosselin explores the question of culture as both a tool and a weapon using a series of case studies, including the uncensored history of the…
Remembering Rabindranath Tagore: A Life Dedicated to the Universal
Originally published on the Poetry Foundation. On his 70th birthday, in an address delivered at the university he founded in 1918, Rabindranath Tagore said: “I have, it is true, engaged myself in a series of activities. But the innermost me is not to be found in any of these. At the end of the journey…
Exploring the Scientific Fallacies (and Political Realities) Behind Darwinism
Matthew Ehret joins the Discovery Institute’s Dr. Gunter Bechly and talk show host Zain Khan for a lively discussion on the Darwin hoax, it’s political origins and why any honest scientist who cares about truth must recognize its invalidity in the face of empirical data.
Documentary: Reclaiming the Mysteries
Ancient Mysteries, the Mission of Moses and Universal History An excellent new film written, narrated and produced by David Gosselin featuring an invaluable insight into the Egyptian mysteries, human psychology and causes of their corruption – Much of history has been decided off the stage and in the shadows. The first instalment of our 2025 documentary…
Clarity vs. Obscurity I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared
By Adam Sedia Classical and modern poetry are inarguably different. Indeed, modernism’s chief boast is its break with classicism and tradition more broadly. The difference is palpable in even the most cursory reading of a classical poem alongside a modernist one. Yet in what does the difference lie? It might be tempting to follow Justice…
Clarity vs. Obscurity II: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared
By Adam Sedia For Part I to this series click here. In my last essay, I discussed the difference between classical and modernist poetry as a difference of worldviews. Classicism views the art as a vehicle to reveal universal truths, while modernism denies such truths and instead views the primary purpose of poetry as inducing…
Romeo and Juliet: “It was just that the time was wrong”
By Boniface One of Dire Straits greatest hits was their song Romeo and Juliet. It takes a seemingly normal view of the Shakespeare tragedy, that it is the greatest love story of all time. But it does have one line that is good: Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start And I bet, when you…
Spenser and Marlowe – God’s Spies
By Gerald Therrien “Come, let’s away to prison:We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we’ll talk with them…
Art, Metaphor and Epiphany
By David Gosselin The experience of great art is similar to the experience of a great scientific discovery. There is a common sentiment of “epiphany”. It is the strangely familiar feeling of remembering something for the first time, or having our attention fall on something that had been there all along. In both the case…
The Poetic Principle as a Force of Universal History
In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, Gerald Therrien addresses the question of morality’s relationship with creative genius and how this uniquely human power allows us to translate discoveries of human nature and the universe into new forms of action and artistry that both elevates our culture while extending the influence of a mortal life infinitely…
Symposium: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Statecraft
To view all past symposiums click here. To register for future class series email info@risingtidefoundation.net 1st Movement: The Ancients Date: Sunday May 9 at 4pm ESTTitle: Plato and Confucius, Spiritual Brothers and Philosopher Kings Living at the Two Ends of the World Island Lecturer: Dr. Quan LeBio: Dr. Le is a practicing psychiatrist and geopolitical…
Clash of the Two Americas Mini Doc Part 3: How a World of Sovereign Republics was Subverted
Many paradoxes are littered about the contours of history, and many false narratives have been placed between the mind of truth seekers and the basic elementary facts of historical causality which would provide the greatest insight not only into the reasons for our current crises, but also creative insights into solutions for the future. Several…
The Art of Political Freedom Part II: Alexander von Humboldt and the Hudson River School
In this RTF Lecture, Matt Ehret introduces the second lecture of his two-part series on the topic of classical painting with a focus on the political fight to establish a new type of nation on the earth premised upon the belief that each individual is sovereign. This political ideal requires of course an integration of…
The Art of Political Freedom Part I: Thomas Cole’s Course of Empire and the Rise of the Hudson River School
In this first of a two-part lecture series, RTF director Matt Ehret delivers a presentation on Thomas Cole’s Course of Empire and broader political struggles over the soul of the early republic and humanity more broadly during the 19th century. You will be introduced to the aesthetical movement of painting that aspired to achieve the…
To What Purpose are We Drawn to Tragedy: A Study of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
In this lecture, Cynthia Chung discusses whether there is a purpose to tragedy beyond merely being tragic and whether this was the intention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Along with a study of the play, two performances are compared and juxtaposed to determine what Shakespeare intended for his audience. Featured Cover Image: “Hamlet’s Vision” by Pedro Americo