Scholars like Egil Asprem and @profstorm.bsky.social have shown that modernity has been a project, not an unstoppable force in which human agency is tangential. A realtime analogy to how this played out: AI boosters' confident predictions about the coming dominance of AI in nearly every field.
![Image of the Thesosphical Society in Altadena near Pasadena, along with a post by Wouter J. Hanegraaff: Horrible, deeply dramatic news for anybody who cares about the preservation of Theosophical heritage.
I was just told that the entire property of the Theosophical Society in Altadena near Pasadena has been completely destroyed by the fires in Los Angeles. This was the world's largest archive of Theosophical materials, including a library with 40.000 titles, the entire archive of the history of the TS, including ca. 10.000 unpublished letters, pertaining to HPB, the Mahatmas, W.Q. Judge, G.R.S. Mead, Katherine Tingley, and G. de Purucker, membership records since 1875, art objects, and countless other irreplaceable materials. The archives also contained works of Boehme, Gichtel, donations from the king of Siam including rare Buddhist scriptures, and so on. [with thanks to Reinout Spaink for the information]
This is obviously just one part of an even much larger drama that is currently unfolding, but one that deals a devasting blow to the modern study of esotericism and of modern Theosophy more in particular. It is hard to fathom but it seems to be true.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mm6k7dx5zlvj2l5wu7eaiqhb/bafkreib2sscppfgtfctksyhgrcccgelt23gz6v2jcpeozd3uerebrjzgem)
