Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00219)

I looked again at the theosophical seals that I just referred to, and notice

that I've given examples of two different kinds of seals in the previous
discussion.



The watermark seal on the 



http://theos-talk.com/archives/index.html



is a copy of the original seal, as scanned from an early theosophical

magazine. (I'd have to look to double check, but I think it was THE

THEOSOPHIST from HPB's days.) The color used in the watermark is pink for

the seal and a transparent background, chosen to not be too intrusive as a

watermark on the webpages. (Obviously, the original color would have been

black ink on a white page, when it first appeared in the 1800's; I don't

think they were able to print in color at the time.)



The example of the other type of seal is a proposed evolution of the seal,

where the swastika is replaced by the Mandelbrot set. A enlarged version of

that seal can be seen at:



http://www.theos-world.com/images/newseal1.gif



and with the Mandelbrot set highlighted:



http://www.theos-world.com/images/newseal2.gif



For an enlarged view of the Mandelbrot set, see:



http://www.theos-world.com/images/newseal3.gif



Should the seal change? Each theosophical organization makes its own

decisions. The same is true of independent groups and projects. Although the

original Wisdom Tradition remains timeless, the outward forms are subject to

innovation, change, and evolution. The basic teaching of karma, for

instance, represents an eternal truth. But how we talk about and teach it in

1870 to a crowd of spiritualists might differ from how we'd explain the same

truth to a typical crown of inquirers in modern-day Los Angeles. 



Over the years, we've had many discussions of the seal on several mailing

lists. Some comments from a July 17, 2001 posting to the young-theosophists

list:



>I've been wondering about the T.S. seal too. The swastika

>is seen by many people as an evil of Nazi Germany. Its

>original meaning of timelessness, eternity, spirit in motion

>has been forgotten.

>

>About one to two years ago, I was thinking about the

>mandelbrot set. This is something from modern mathematics

>that would not have been known about by the ancients,

>except as an intuition. It requires the right mathematics

>to generate, and a computer printer or screen to display it.

>

>The mandelbrot set could be considered as a graphical

>representation of the dynamics of creation. It maps out

>what can exist as opposed to what is unstable and will

>quickly fall out of existence. (Each point is a complex

>number that when subject to indefinite feedback into itself

>either blows up to infinity or becomes cyclic in nature,

>staying finite in nature. Each point also represents a

>julia set that has that behavior.)

>

>I redrew the theosophical seal using the mandelbrot set

>instead of the swastika, and used it on a few web pages,

>including my main page for Theosophy World Magazine,

>

> http://theosophy.net/tw.html



(note that this link has changed)



>

>I also had it printed on the cover of a limited set of

>theosophical audio cdroms.

>

>I thought I might evoke some comments from people, some

>liking and some disapproving what I had done. No one

>said anything, though. Apparently my change wasn't

>enough to attract any attention?











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