Seven years ago, at the Winter Solstice, three people, possibly from the East, Hari, Jai and Padma, embarked upon a novel project of reporting on the activities and influence related to that singular 19th-century Russian Theosophist, Helena Blavatsky.
The blog caught the interest of many people in cyberspace and proved to be a unique, well-documented, outspoken and useful source of information, tracking what some have called 'The Blavatsky Revival', through an effervescent period of development. Five years later, again on the Winter Solstice, these three worthies departed into the sunset as mysteriously as they had arrived; but their impact and legacy remains and should prove to be a valuable source of information for some time to come.
Although five years is a healthy run as blogs as go, it seemed a shame to see such a good project go by the wayside and so, after less than a two-year hiatus, the powers that be have deemed that a return to action would be feasible. Hence the past few months have been busily dedicated to catching up on the Blavatsky news for all of 2015-2016 so that there is no gap in coverage since the blog's initial cessation at the end of 2014. Moreover, I did not observe any lull in interesting Blavatsky news items; with an impressive diversity of topics such as early twentieth century art exhibitions, contemporary installation art, Spanish-language novels, historical and biographical pieces from the United States, Asia, and Europe, many aspects of popular cultural, Eastern Religion, Western Occultism, academic studies, theosophical and alternative spirituality, the Blavatsky Revival remains a healthy concern and the Blavatsky News project has given a good indication of how impressively her influence, reputation and appreciation have been acknowledged and grown over the last two decades. How the future of her belated-recognition will evolve should be interesting to witness.
I would like to specify that I have no connection or contact with the previous bloggers (and no formal affiliation with any Theosophical groups) and unfortunately do not have the resources to live up to Hari, Jai and Padma's knowledge, enthusiasm, and editorial insight which made every post an obvious labor of love; I have endeavored to make each post as informative and interesting as my meager knowledge and abilities permit. I hope this new version of Blavatsky News has been as enjoyable to read as it has been to research. Please feel free to comment and any news items submitted will receive the utmost consideration and appreciation (e-mail:
theosophyproject@yahoo.ca).
Future plans for this blog remain rather boutique. Since we have pretty much caught up with tracking the backlog of news items, I will try to make future posts comparatively short and sweet and better organized, and less frequent, more of a bi-weekly pace, probably. Editorial input will remain brief, limited to the occasional informative reference mainly, but in the interest of neutrality and objectivity as well as freedom of thought and expression, controversial or critical news items will not be ignored, if they are honest and well-researched. Happy Holidays to one and all, please stay tuned for what should be another interesting year in Blavatsky News.
