Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00350)

Jerry Hejka-Ekins wrote:
> fold. Consequently, the member-at-large population began making up a 
> greater and greater percentage of the total membership. A "National 
> Lodge" was formed, under the control of Headquarters, which effectively 
> encouraged and accelerated this new demographic. 
I have my own experience with that. As one who has been VERY close to 
the bylaws process (at the New York Lodge, I'm still the chairman of the 
bylaws committee by default; every few months, I ask the board if they 
want somebody else for the job, and they say, no), I had some long 
conversations with John Algeo about the National Lodge, and how it was 
created, in the light of the current bylaws. Essentially, you can only 
be a voting member of one Lodge, but the National Lodge is not a Lodge, 
but a discussion group. I wanted to expand that out, and create online 
"Lodges" specializing in a given topic (like Alan Leo's Astrological 
Lodge), but got a cold shoulder from National (not that we can't just go 
ahead and do it on our own).

> We considered chartering under ULT or Pasadena, but had no reason to 
> believe that things would be much different there either. We further 
> concluded that the Theosophical Movement is for more important than the 
> organizations. Therefore, we decided to independently continue our work 
> under the same original program laid out in the beginning, and promote 
> the same objects and the same teachings. Otherwise, we would be 
> completely unconnected to the TSA. 
There was a couple down in Washington, DC, who had broken away from 
ULT. They had a theosophical bulletin board, and they created a telnet 
link to it (they had the domain, theosophy.org). Essentially, they had 
created their own little Theosophical Society.

> While I was not successful in getting a discussion going here, I did 
> succeed in making new friends, and continue to dialogue with them 
> privately.
Well, I hope to be a friend of yours, even if we don't agree on everything.

Bart