FYI August 12, 2020

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On This Day

1323 – The Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic is signed, regulating the border between the two countries for the first time.[3]
The Treaty of Nöteborg, also known as the Treaty of Oreshek (Swedish: Freden i Nöteborg, Russian: Ореховский мир, Finnish: Pähkinäsaaren rauha), is a conventional name for the peace treaty signed at Oreshek (Swedish: Nöteborg, Finnish: Pähkinäsaari) on 12 August 1323. It was the first settlement between Sweden and the Novgorod Republic regulating their border. Three years later, Novgorod signed the Treaty of Novgorod with the Norwegians.

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Born On This Day

1831 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist and scholar (d. 1891)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Russian: Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская, Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya, often known as Madame Blavatsky; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was a controversial Russian occultist, philosopher, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, the esoteric movement that the society promoted.

Born into an aristocratic Russian-German family in Yekaterinoslav, then in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), Blavatsky traveled widely around the empire as a child. Largely self-educated, she developed an interest in Western esotericism during her teenage years. According to her later claims, in 1849 she embarked on a series of world travels, visiting Europe, the Americas, and India. She also claimed that during this period she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom”, who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy and science. Both contemporary critics and later biographers have argued that some or all of these foreign visits were fictitious, and that she spent this period in Europe. By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement; although defending the genuine existence of Spiritualist phenomena, she argued against the mainstream Spiritualist idea that the entities contacted were the spirits of the dead. Relocating to the United States in 1873, she befriended Henry Steel Olcott and rose to public attention as a spirit medium, attention that included public accusations of fraudulence.

In 1875 New York City, Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society with Olcott and William Quan Judge. In 1877, she published Isis Unveiled, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view. Associating it closely with the esoteric doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, Blavatsky described Theosophy as “the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy”, proclaiming that it was reviving an “Ancient Wisdom” which underlay all the world’s religions. In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. That same year, while in Ceylon, she and Olcott became the first people from the United States to formally convert to Buddhism. Although opposed by the British administration, Theosophy spread rapidly in India but experienced internal problems after Blavatsky was accused of producing fraudulent paranormal phenomena. Amid ailing health, in 1885 she returned to Europe, there establishing the Blavatsky Lodge in London. Here she published The Secret Doctrine, a commentary on what she claimed were ancient Tibetan manuscripts, as well as two further books, The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence. She died of influenza.

Blavatsky was a controversial figure during her lifetime, championed by supporters as an enlightened guru and derided as a fraudulent charlatan and plagiarist by critics. Her Theosophical doctrines influenced the spread of Hindu and Buddhist ideas in the West as well as the development of Western esoteric currents like Ariosophy, Anthroposophy, and the New Age Movement.

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FYI

https://youtu.be/bxtVTm3mAz4
 
 
 
 

By Nate Chinen, NPR: Helen Jones Woods, Groundbreaking Female Trombonist, Has Died From COVID-19
 
 
Helen Elizabeth Jones Woods (October 9 or November 14, 1923 – July 25, 2020) was a jazz and swing trombone player most renowned for her performances with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. She was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

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By Jonathan Lethem, Rolling Stone: Being James Brown: Inside the Private World of the Baddest Man Who Ever Lived
 
 
 
 

By Ryan Cooper, The Week: The case against American truck bloat
 
 
 
 

Fireside Books presents Shelf Awareness for Readers for Tuesday, August 11, 2020
 
 
 
 

By Alisa Ross, Good News Network: Drive-in Movies Are Coming to Walmarts Across America – And Every Showing is Free
 
 
 
 
Atlas Obscura: A broom closet hides a New England museum’s secret
 
 
 
 
Tiny Buddha, Judith Pinto: What We Need to Grow and How It Can Happen in Just One Day
I learned that real change and growth doesn’t have to take years. It doesn’t even have to take months. Change—real change—can happen in a moment. The moment someone is able to see, hear, and acknowledge you. Your strengths. Your worth. Your dignity. And honor you despite your weaknesses and failings.

To be truly seen, heard, and understood, and be loved anyway—that is real agent of change and the basis for all meaningful growth and development. It certainly was for me.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Recipes

By Diana Rattray, the Spruce Eats: Copycat Applebee’s Quesadilla Burgers

Betty Crocker Kitchens: 6-Ingredient Skillets That Are Weeknight Easy

By Sheela Prakash, The Kitchn: It’s Hot. Five-Ingredient Fudge Pops Are Here for You.