Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00260)

or, one possible reason HPB still fascinates readers.

In the past year I've gone from knowing the names of 38 ancestors to 
over 400, some of them as far back as the 15th century. But what 
I've noticed, not just in myself but among the newly-discovered 
cousins I've met through the Net, is that the greatest interest is in 
our great-great-grandparents' generation, that is those who came of 
age in the Civil War era. One obvious reason for this is that in 
many families, expecially in Virginia and North Carolina, the Civil 
War was the period of greatest trauma and excitement in the family's 
history. But I think there are other reasons, that relate to why the 
1990s brought a burgeoning of scholarly interest in HPB.

First is simple math. Allowing a generous 30 years per generation, I 
had 2 parents of childbearing age in 1950, 4 grandparents in 1920, 8 
great grandparents in 1890, and 16 great great grandparents in 1860. 
The sequence progresses: 1830-32, 1800-64, 1770-128, 1740-256, 1710-
512, 1680-1028. Although the first century of British settlement is 
not lacking in intrinsic interest, no one seems to care about their 
ancestors that far back. When any given forebear is less than one 
tenth of one percent of the total, it's hard to feel any emotional 
identification with any of them from that era. And intellectual 
interest seems to coincide for many with emotional identification. 
Somehow, knowing that at the time of the Civil War there were 16 
ancestors living through it as adults is much more accessible. We 
can grasp those 16 in our imaginative embrace, unlike those 1028 
living in 1680.

Second is the nature of family memories. Our parents, grandparents 
and great-grandparents don't have the same aura of mystery and 
otherness that our great-great-grandparents do; they lived in a 
modernizing technological world and we grew up knowing about their 
lives more or less. But there is something about that generation of 
the 1860s, the last ones to be born in a preindustrial world, that 
evokes a sense of wonder, a feeling that they are somehow more 
special than those who came after or before them. (Case in point-- 
the Johnsons and Dunlows I've met at reunions tend to think in terms 
of their Civil War ancestors as defining the family that reunites.)
And while we rarely know much about our grandparents' grandparents, 
we usually have heard stray, random bits about them-- which is less 
likely for ancestors further back.

So as I ask myself why I care passionately about the lives of my 
great-great-grandparents, and have little curiosity about those who 
lived before or after them, I'm led to the question of HPB. Why 
devote years and years to absorbing her writings and then researching 
their sources? Not just for me, a Theosophist at the time, but for 
others of my generation who are not? In addition to all the 
individual reasons related to HPB specifically, I think the 
generational factor counts for a lot. Her lifetime spans a period 
that is strongly appealing to plenty of contemporary readers. People 
still read her, not in spite of the dated character of her writings, 
but *because of it*-- they like being transported to the mid-19th 
century. 

Just some recent thoughts,

PJ