The Greek journal of esoteric tradition studies, Hypatia, will soon be available online in English translation. The original Greek edition is already online at the website. Editor Erica Georgiades was an organizer of the conference on esoteric traditions in the ancient and modern world last June that included presentations in absentia by Marc Demarest and me, both now viewable on Youtube along with six other presentations.
American history has been my sole obsession as a researcher and writer for the last twenty years. But in the late 1980s and early 90s, Europe and Asia were far more interesting to me. The “Rip Van Winkle” feeling upon reading Gary Lachman’s new biography of Blavatsky coincides with work I’ve been doing for Ghost Land and Con Artists, Enthusiasts, and True Believers. Research on the former focused almost entirely on Europe, although Britten’s book was published in America. And for Con Artists, although Colonel Olcott is American, my new research on him has been centered on India. So in 2012 for the first time in two decades I’ve been thinking much about Asia and Europe in the late 19th century, and how a generation of American spiritual pioneers developed a global perspective through travels to the Old World. It has been very encouraging to see this new research welcomed as part of conferences in Europe in 2012. Next month I will post about the revival of interest in Adelma von Vay in Slovenia and adjacent countries, and how Ghost Land relates to this development.