Convention 2019 Videos

Below are video recording of some of the presentations at the Convention in January 2019.

1. Science and the Akasha Field

Betty Bland, guest speakers for the convention considers some current scientific ideas about the make-up of the cosmos and how they might correlate with Madame Blavatsky’s writings concerning cosmogenesis and Akasha. As science explores the infinitely small and the infinitely vast, it identifies an intricate interconnectedness that impacts our understanding of our place in the universe.

Bio: Betty Bland, past National President of the Theosophical Society in America and now retired to Raleigh, North Carolina, has presented workshops and lectures on the spiritual life both in the United States and abroad. Her professional life has included work as a teacher, employment counselor, systems analyst, and entrepreneur. In addition to being a social activist, she sings in the choir and plays the bells at her local Episcopal Church; volunteers at a “Cat House,” SAFE Haven for Cats a no-kill, adoptive cat rescue; and chairs a local Theosophical Study Center.

2. The Cosmic Web and You

The more that we begin to understand the cosmic web and entanglement of all creation, the more we begin to realize our participation in the unfoldment of creation itself. Discussion and contemplative exercises included.

3. The Soul Speaks

The mind is full of voices, thoughts, ideas, desires , worries, anxieties etc. Where do they come from and can we stop this? How do we know which thoughts come from our own mind and which are from someone else’s. Can we hear the voice of the soul through all this noise?

4. A Call to Social Action - David Bland

I acknowledge that the Society’s mission is that of teaching a world-view of unity and kinship, but it also calls us to a well-considered responsibility of living into the truths that we discover on our pilgrimage. The question is “Will we gird up our loins and claim our just place in the struggle?”

5. Stellar Changes by Benjamin Upton

Benjamin is a software developer from New Plymouth who spends his spare time uncovering the connections between the scientific and the spiritual. A keen follower of scientific theories that have been swept under the carpet by the mainstream scientific dogma, he hopes one day we as a collective will experience a consciousness renaissance.

6. Question & Answer Panel

On our panel we have our two International guests: Betty and David Bland and John Vorstermansour NZ National President.

7. Dharma: The Maintenance of Order by Simon Webber

This session explores how the tenant of dharma relates to our Convention theme: Connectivity and Responsibility, and how this relates to the work of the Theosophical Society and to ourselves in our daily life.    

8. Connections and Responses

Penelope’s presentation is a brief look at true human connectedness, the difference it can make and the responses it invokes.

9. Our Responsibility to Serve by Raymond Kortas

In the last few months a Theosophical Order of Service (TOS) group has started in Hamilton. This has prompted me to explore the TOS and how it differs from the Theosophical Society since service is also promoted by the TS. In this talk I will explore the history of the TOS, its founder, Annie Besant and her motivation to start the TOS. I will also explore the subject of service as I understand it and how the TOS can help us to connect with our communities and further abroad to help us fulfil our responsibility (dharma) to serve.

10. The Invisible Thread ~ Surfing the inner-net by Carol Collier

One of the Fundamental Propositions of Theosophy is 'that the universe and all that exists within it are one-interrelated and interdependent whole' What does this mean to me?

11. Responsibility in the Webwork of Life- the realisation of our innermost potential by Murray Stentiford

On how the experience of Oneness deepens in the journey from Independence to Interdependence. When the sense of who we care for and about, embraces an ever-expanding circle of people and life-forms, with the action that follows.

13. Beyond the noise – attuning to the vibration within

If all is vibration, what does this mean to us, here and now and how might we live our lives in harmony with this law?