Capacitie Home

Capacitie was the word used by Thomas Traherne to describe his essential being. Terms such as Original Nature, True Nature, First Nature, What we really are, Now, etc., are probably the more readily recognized contemporary equivalents. I chose Traherne’s description because this site is the result of my interest in Traherne and what he has to say about Capacitie.

It is an attempt to combine the strands of enquiry and activity which I have found to most fruitful in dis-covering Capacitie. In addition to introductory information on Traherne and the Traherne Association, there are two sections based on the work of contemporary specialists in the field, Douglas Harding and John Wren-Lewis. I recently added a page covering the work of George Schloss which deals with the significance of Harding's work in the context of the history of thought. Another section is dedicated to our regular, David Bohm inspired, Dialogue meetings held in Sydney, New South Wales.

A fourth section carries The Nowletter, a monthly publication of material contributed by the readership or work by others which deals with  the matters in which we are interested. The first edition was circulated in January ’93 as an extension of the Dialogue meetings we started in Sydney following the 1991 visit to Australia of Douglas Harding and the follow-up meeting called by John Wren-Lewis to establish an ongoing community of interest in the work of Douglas and himself.

The relevance of these sections to Capacitie is explained under the various headings. The site is under continuous construction with additional articles and links inserted as they come to hand plus the inclusion of the latest Nowletter every month.

Who am I and why I am doing this? I look upon the website as another strand in the enquiry referred to above, a form of participation in what Traherne called the Fellowship of the Mystery. My name is Alan Mann, I am 72, I was born in the north of England and spent most of my life here in Sydney Australia with my wife Margot and, more recently, the families of our two children Simon and Katie. Margot teaches yoga, proof-reads the Nowletter, and lives a very busy life. I am retired from what is normally regarded as work and, therefore, have time to play around with websites and all the other things which give rise to this enterprise. That's a part answer; the answer to the question of what I really, really am is what these pages are about.