The goal of this exercise is to go through each of the parts of Esotericism and Theosophy and see what ideas we can pull out of them.

One of the primary goals at Theosophy.Net is to bring all of these concepts and ideas into the lives of ordinary people.  Therefore we must find ways to take the design and engineering of Faivre, Hanegraaff and others and make it into something that just about any reasonably intelligent person can use in their daily life.

This deals with Part I: 

Correspondence: Everything in Nature is a sign. The signs of Nature can be read. The microcosm, mesocosm, and macrocosm interplay. Synchronicity exists. Understanding of signs and synchronicities may lead to the understanding of the Divine.

What do we mean by ideas?  Well, they could be the basis for books, papers, projects, classes, workshops, training nuggets, infographics and any number of blogs, forums, etc.

We'll start off here with a few...

Nature as sign and symbol.

This is a very media rich category.  You can do visuals, guided visualizations, books, papers and an endless variety of other materials that help people see the richness of symbol and meaning in their lives.  In Esotericism these are all tools to help one achieve Gnosis and are present in many paths.

Reading the signs and symbols.

This seems to be even more fascinating than the abstract idea of Nature as sign and symbol.  This is actually the how-to portion.  It's openness leaves a lot of room for creativity.  How do we recognize symbols and how do we bring them into our consciousness in meaningful ways.  Reading is not just about the written word.  It is about recognizing something in consciousness with meaning.

These two topics could start a cottage industry all by themselves!  Have I even begun to scratch the surface?  Nope.  Not by a longshot.  But let's get into a bit more here?

What could we do with the ideas of how we relate the microcosm and macrocosm together.  After all, as above, so below, as the inner, so the outer, etc. Mesocosm adds yet more layers.

Synchronicity has been addressed in numerous places, most notably by C.G. Jung, but it is still an area that can yield further insights.

Lastly, how do we tie these together, make combinations, compare and contrast, etc.  This is important, because we know that none of this exists in isolation.

There is a lot of stuff here to ponder, and to be just crazy creative with.  We have given a few examples of things that can be done with the first portion.  If anything that you can take away from this, perhaps it's the idea of the nature of a framework and its flexibility. 

It is our view, which may or may not be agreed with by some academics is that Esotericism is not solely the property of Western thought processes or traditions.  We believe that the landscape is broad enough to accommodate a broad scope of Eastern and Western thought.  The world is getting much smaller and some distinctions which may have been relevant only a few decades ago may have outlived their usefulness, and may, in fact become a detriment to us all.

Please, we would love to hear from you on this and please feel free to offer constructive comments.