Theos-Talk Archives (May 1995 Message tl00055)

The T.S.  does not have to be a bunch of old fogies sitting
around only remasticating old expressions of the perennial
philsophy.  Our branch, in fact, has lots of active working
people who are not retirees.  We have more than 50 members under
the age of 50.  Theosophy itself, as brought by HPB, and the
historical religious traditions are, of course, basic.  But if we
just sit around rechewing the ancient wisdom, we will not attract
many bright young people who recognize that much about the
universe has only become generally known in the last 100 years.
We tend to forget the second and third declared objects of the
Theosophical Society which encourage the study of comparative
religion, philosophy and science and the investigation of
unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in humanity.

At our Branch there are more than 20 courses being offered and,
although, 4 of these are specifically Theosophical, other things
of more contemporary interest are being explored.  These include,
for example, courses on the teachings of Edgar Cayce, Gurdjieff
and the Urantia book to name a few.  One of the most interesting
courses, in my view, is a study group entitled "Esoteric
Science." The purpose is to try to understand what science has
discovered about the universe and how this is related to
Theosophical teachings.  The group includes several engineers
along with others who just want to try to understand what science
is beginning to acknowledge.  The text being used is Itzhak
Bentov, "Stalking the Wild Pendulum" and will be followed by a
second Bentov text, "A Cosmic Book." A third text that will
likely be explored is the recent book by Norman Friedman,
"Bridging Science and Spirit" , in which the author, a physicist
himself, relates the teaching of David Bohm's physics to the
Perrenial Philosophy and to the Seth material.

I appreciate that many on the Internet Theosophical discussion
list are working independently, but you also have in your
independent studies likely been exploring some of these new
expressions.  I know that these inquiries are going on at our
Branch and also in some other Branches, sometimes quietly,
sometimes not so quietly.

We are only "old fogies" if we make it so.  We need not, and I
think, should not.

Having a wonderful time.  Wish I were here.
Sy Ginsburg, The Theosophical Society, Deerfield Beach, Florida