We are deeply saddened to announce the death of our co-founder Laura Winckler on May 15, 2024. At the age of 21, accompanied by her husband Fernand Schwarz, she left her native Argentina to embark on the adventure of promoting a philosophical ideal and to found New Acropolis France in 1973.

Her funeral took place at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. A large crowd gathered to pay their last respects in an atmosphere of contemplation. Countless flowers, with messages from all over the world, bore witness to the extraordinary impact of this woman who, alongside Fernand Schwarz, worked tirelessly for over 50 years to develop philosophy throughout the world, bringing her humanist and spiritual message with warmth and unflagging kindness.

Highly erudite, she had studied in depth the practice of spiritual exercises in the philosophical schools of antiquity, whose approach enchanted her, but she was not satisfied with this erudition and put all her knowledge at the service of action, working with all her strength to promote the development of the inner life in our contemporaries.

Laura Winkler was a powerhouse of Life, possessing to the highest degree that rare quality of soul which, combining humility and determination, stubbornly refuses self-pity in favor of concern for something greater than oneself. In difficult times, in the face of illness and in her final moments, her lack of concern for herself and her concern for others, as well as her fidelity to the great principles that had guided her life, won the respect of all those who crossed her path.

Our thanks to her for her work and her message, and our gratitude to her who, with the simplicity of a strong soul, always knew how to transform adversity with grace and lightness, and turn the events she encountered into opportunities for greatness, where the inner life unfolded.