Online School of Theosophy

The Online School of Theosophy (OST) (https://study.theosophical.org) is a platform that offers self-paced educational courses built with multimedia material and interactive features. Created as a cooperative effort between the Theosophical Society in America (TSA) and the Krotona Institute of Theosophy, with the generous support of the Kern Foundation, the OST was launched during the 2019 Summer National Convention organized by TSA.

Description

Modern life imposes extreme busyness and long work hours on a vast number of people, so many countries are witnessing steady falling rates of volunteerism and engagement with community organizations. The Theosophical Society is not immune to this trend, which poses a challenge to finding new and appropriate ways of bringing Theosophical teachings to an increasingly busy population. When looking at how educational organizations are responding to the current conditions, the main strategy observed is the development of online learning, also known as “e-learning”. This new modality is growing rapidly, and is currently considered to be the future of education by those in market research.

Structure

The Online School of Theosophy is built on "Moodle," an open-source Learning Platform used for education in business, non-profit, government, and communities around the world.

The OST aims at presenting, in a systematic way, the wealth of Theosophical teachings available. Given its online nature, it can offer courses by teachers from all over the world, allowing students to take advantage of the best resources that the TS has to offer internationally, regardless of where they live. Additionally, the material provided in these courses can become an important resource to aid the work of Theosophical groups.

The courses are built on multimedia resources (videos, audios, texts, and more) that enrolled students are able to access at any time. A typical course is composed of a series of “units”, consisting of the following elements:

1- A video recording by one a Theosophical teacher.

2- A reading assignment (usually an article or chapter from a book), to supplement the information shared in the video.

3- A series of quizzes (True/False, Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank, Drag and Drop activities and more) where students can self-evaluate their understanding.

4- A proposed exercise of meditative inquiry.

5- Additional resources in the form of articles, audios, and videos, to help deepen the exploration of the subject.

In addition to structured courses, the school’s website also offers a carefully curated collection of video presentations organized by topic. At present there is no tuition, but donations are appreciated to continue to expand the school’s offerings.

Online resources

Articles

• Interview: The Online School of Theosophy by Pablo Sender

Video

• Getting Started with the Online School of Theosophy