Open Buddha

I’m on the Nature Religion Scholars list (have been for years). This list is composed of either academics working on the topic of Nature Religions and Paganism or graduate students working in this area. There are only a few exceptions (I used to be one) of people who were grandfathered in when the list went from being very open to only being open to academics.

Most of the members of the group, at least its leaders, are also involved with Pagan Studies.org and making resources available there.

I wonder why these same sorts of resources aren’t available to people studying Western Esotericism.

In theory, the Association for the Study of Esotericism web page should offer this. The problem is that the page isn’t kept up to date and questions about membership go ignored by whoever is running it. They are doing a conference next year but, looking through the page, it isn’t really clear how to join or what dues to pay for the official stuff. Beyond that, there is no e-mail list so people working in that field or on their degrees can communicate.

I’d set up a list but the obvious question is: why should an individual set up such a list when there is at least two or three organizations for academics out there working in these areas. It seems kind of silly.