New Acropolis Oeiras in collaboration with the Marqués de Pombal Foundation and the support of the Oeiras Town Hall, organized the seminar entitled: “Myths, Rites and Symbols: Introduction to the Anthropology of the Sacred”, taught by Prof. Fernando Schwarz, director of the Hermes International Institute of Anthropology and Communication, president of New Acropolis France and former thesis director of L’École D’Anthropologie of Paris. Philosopher, Egyptologist, anthropologist and reference author in the area of the “new anthropological spirit”, he has worked directly with Gilbert Durand, Mircea Eliae and other participants of the Eranos Circle.

In the first part, professor Schwarz presented a synthesis of the new paradigm of anthropology, in which the imagination and symbolic thought play a fundamental role, affirming that man is not characterized, with respect to the other living species, by the making of tools as previously thought, but by their ability to “produce” symbols.

The second part of the seminar was dedicated to the phenomenon of the sacred, its manifestation and its four functions: archetype, myth, rite and symbol.

At the end of the event, the author signed the Portuguese edition of the book “Myths, Rites and Symbols. Sacred Anthropology”, and everyone enjoyed lunch.