T.S. Bookshop

We are very excited to announce that the 2023 Thomas Zimmer Astrological Planting Calendar has now arrived in store!

Give us a call (03 8638 0364), or visit us in store to snag yours. They’ll go quick !

Hello valued customers,

We are very pleased to announce that after three months of being temporarily closed, we will be reopening on the 24th of November !

We have been in process of developing an open, and comfortable space for customers to browse, borrow, and explore the wonders of the T.S. Bookshop. Due to the ever-changing business environment that we find ourselves in, we have had to head in a slightly different direction. To continue being able to provide a unique experience at the T.S., and to keep advancing the ideas of Theosophy, we have created a more focussed retail environment.

We really value our customers and their loyalty and thank you for your support, especially over the last 3 years.

With Love,

T.S. Bookshop ❤️

Ahh, Kabir 🙏

- Kabir

When our Board discovered we'd invited Theosophical Society members to visit our shop on Saturday, talk to staff and see for themselves the space the directors want to rip up, they instructed us not to open, because the "meeting" was "unauthorised" and ... um, Covid?

But we have regulars on Saturdays, and our superstar bookseller Rosie couldn't bear the thought of them turning up to find us closed, so she decided to stand outside ALL DAY and let them know what was happening. Our other superstar, Sam, wouldn't let Rosie do it alone, so he went too.

We love our customers, and they love the TS Bookshop. Rosie and Sam spoke to dozens of lost customers during the day, including some who had come from Geelong and Wangaratta to visit us. Apparently the Society can't afford to prop us up any longer -- but it can afford to lose a days' trade in the busiest week of our year so far.

Rosie's feet were like ice by the end of the day, but her smile never faded. Awesome.

If you haven't signed our petition yet, please join the 3,500 people who have at https://www.change.org/p/save-melbourne-s-iconic-t-s-bookshop?

Many thanks to ArtsHub and Mary Dalmau for their support. If you haven’t read Mary’s article, please do. And head over to change.org and sign our petition - linkage in the comments below.

How saving a bookshop can strengthen society Bookshops strengthen the social fabric, one of many reasons The TS Bookshop must be saved, argues Mary Dalmau.

Quote of the day...

Learn more: www.ancient-origins.net

New in store!

Mary Dalmau has written a great piece on why bookshops are such an important part of our cultural fabric. ❤️‍🔥🙏

How saving a bookshop can strengthen society Bookshops strengthen the social fabric, one of many reasons The TS Bookshop must be saved, argues Mary Dalmau.

T.S. Bookshop added a Shop on website button to their Page.

So much support, from many wonderful people. Please, sign the petition below.

Sign the Petition Save Melbourne's iconic T​.​S. Bookshop

We are in a fight for survival. If you’ve already signed the petition to save this historic bookshop, thank you and please share. If not, please, please sign. We have been overwhelmed by the love and support people have shown us. 🙏 Thank you again from all of us.

Sign the Petition Save Melbourne's iconic T​.​S. Bookshop

So great to hear from some of our supporters - Joan worked at the T.S.Bookshop for many years. Big love Joan xxoo

Please, if you haven't yet, we really appreciate you signing our petition - https://chng.it/7BrxYdNpQZ

Joan: For me the gift of the TS Bookshop over the many years I worked there was hearing so many people gasping at the quiet refuge of this shop in such a busy city. It is even more imperative at this time to have the gift of access to very... Save Melbourne's iconic T​.​S. Bookshop

Big thanks to Mother Earth Father Son, we totally agree with you. Thankyou for your support 🌏🌞❤️‍🔥🙏

Sign the Petition Save Melbourne's iconic T​.​S. Bookshop

We are very excited to be featured in this beautiful literature map of Melbourne!!

Created by the city of Melbourne, and illustrated by the wonderful

You can grab one of these wonderful maps in store.

Be sure to come and pick one up to discover all the incredible bookshops and libraries around Melbourne. We truly are living in a place with such a wealth of knowledge!

Many thanks to Mary Dalmau for talking to Sammy J on ABC Melbournethis morning in defence of the T.S.Bookshop 🙏❤️‍🔥

ABC Melbourne Live Audio Listen live, whenever you want, wherever you are with ABC Melbourne.

This will be of concern to supporters of the T.S.Bookshop, the wider spiritual community and explorers of meaning. Specific details are laid out in the petition via the linkage below.

Please, share this far and wide amongst your friends and community - we cannot allow the destruction of a 100 year old (and counting) institution.

Regards - Perry, bookshop manager.

Sign the Petition

New releases by Alex Kerr on the heart sutra, Tasya van Ree on The Untamed Elemental Oracle, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli on Yoga Nidra Made Easy and Heidi Shamsuddin with Nusantara - A Sea of Tales. Come to have a look at our other new releases as well covering everything that you’re used to here at The T.S. Bookshop. Thank you for your ongoing support throughout the years and presently 🙏

T.S. Bookshop updated their info in the about section.

Well this is exciting! Our annual shipment from just arrived! Piles of hard-to-find texts from the Tph India publishing house including books by , , , and others. You can find them on our bookshop website and they’ll be on the shelves tomorrow. Come all ye theosophists!

Not only are we a bookshop, but we also stock a small, but eclectic range of CDs and Vinyl.

Here is a sneak peak of some of the newest vinyl we have in our collection !

Inspiring words from Starhawk …

Forty-nine years ago I was twenty-two, newly immersed in the feminist movement’s upsurge in the early seventies, helping to organize our local women’s center, going every week to my consciousness-raising group, participating in self-health sessions where we learned to examine one anothers’ cervixes with a speculum and how to perform menstrual extraction, and supporting all the organizing and agitation to advocate for the right to control our own reproductive capacities.

When the Roe vs. Wade decision came down, it was a moment of jubilation—and relief! We still had so many things to fight for—but this was one battle that we’d won.

Now, almost half a century later, comes this huge setback. I am so angry that I actually find it hard to write, hard to even say anything without just ranting and screaming.

But one thing is clear to me—we have work to do!

We need to do the long, hard work of building a pro-life movement. Not the anti-abortion, anti-sex, anti-woman movement that has co-opted the term, but a movement that is truly pro-life, and capable of creating a pro-life nation, a pro-life world.

What would that look like?

Life is embedded in bodies, bodies that are complex and unique, resilient and fragile, prone to many mysterious conditions, capable of producing both immense pleasure and extreme pain. Some of those bodies are female, capable of harboring and nurturing new life, and a pro-life movement would honor and cherish all those capacities.

A truly pro-life nation would care for bodies and provide health care for all, including the spectrum of care we need for safe expression of sexuality.

In a pro-life world, it would be utterly unthinkable that someone might go hungry while others are fed, or that some would be unsheltered while others have homes. Access to food, shelter, and education would be human rights—not access to assault rifles.

Living bodies contain living minds, hearts, spirits, the capacity to reason, the ability to feel compassion, the urge for agency and dignity—all those things that make us human. So a truly pro-life movement would support each person’s right and responsibility to make the key decisions that impact their lives, to have agency over their bodies, to make their own medical and moral choices according to the guidance of their own conscience.

A pro-life movement would hold that pleasure is a good thing—especially sexual pleasure in all its various forms, so long as they manifest with mutual consent. Sexuality would be seen as a sacred gift. Yet we could also acknowledge that any force so powerful can also be an arena of wounding and hurt. In a pro-life world, we would be allies for one another in healing the wounds, weathering the disappointments and celebrating the joys of being sexual creatures.

Life exists on a living planet, so a pro-life world would tend and cherish the web of life in all of its complex interrelationships. A truly pro-life movement would be marshaling all its power to halt climate change and repair damaged ecosystems, to protect biodiversity, care for the life-support systems of the planet, to build soil, protect water, conserve old growth, plant trees, to teach the science and skills of regeneration and honor of the spirit of interconnectedness.

Life is messy. When we’re truly alive, we make mistakes. We are faced with choices and sometimes make the wrong ones. We do unwise and foolish things, and face unexpected consequences. A movement that is truly pro-life is all about accountability but also second chances, ways to make amends when needed, pathways back to rebuild trust. It’s about nuance and complex questions, not simple answers.

We have many, many movements advocating for these goals. But now is the time to come together, to build coalitions, practice solidarity, and be more welcoming and more strategic than ever while we build for the long term.

Because only a powerful, broad-based movement can counter the right-wing, anti-sex, anti-pleasure, anti-democratic forces that seek to impose theocratic rule.

One more thing about life—life resists control. Life is resilient, endlessly creative, and so are we when we work in its service.

Here is a taste of our fabulous Japanese incense range!!
We just received a new shipment, and are well stocked!

- Northern Rose: Sweetly scented rose, native to Northern Japan.
- Moonlit Night: Sandalwood, Daphne and Japanese Persia Bark.
- Forest of Flowers: Sandalwood, Daphne, Cinnamon, Chinese perfumed plants.
- Twilight Peace: Sandalwood, Cinnamon, Star Anise, Patchouli, Clove, Ginger Lily, Japanese Persia Bark.
- Heavenly Palace: Cyprus Oil, Cinnamon, Jatamamsi, Zanzibar Cloves.
- Imperial Mountain: Japanese Medicinal Herbs, Green Tea, Charcoal Powder.
- Sacred Tree: Sandalwood.
- Gohitsu/ Five Brushstrokes: Sandalwood Oil, Sandalwood Powder, Siam Agarwood, Chinese Herbs.
- Hoboken/ Silhouette: Sandalwood, Frankincense, Herbs.

New releases are in stock. Come in to check out our new releases from Shamanism to Seth to daily rituals in ‘Hello, Goodbye’, to Moon Power, Lakshmi and witch power through our new oracle decks. Open from 11 - 5 pm today as usual like every other Saturday as well. Sending you all sunny vibes from the T.S. ☀️ 🪄 📚

Ganesh, Shiva Nataraja, Lakshmi and Phra Phrom Buddha keeping us all protected throughout this cold spell and winter period. Come in to have a look at our statues and incense holders to energize your practice whatever it may be 💫

Beautiful 🙏

Oneness
by Thich Nhat Hanh

The moment I die,
I will try to come back to you
as quickly as possible.
I promise it will not take long.
Isn’t it true
I am already with you
in every moment?
I come back to you
in every moment.
Just look,
feel my presence.
If you want to cry,
please cry.
And know
that I will cry with you.
The tears you shed
will heal us both.
Your tears are mine.
The earth I tread this morning
transcends history.
Spring and Winter are both present in the moment.
The young leaf and the dead leaf are really one.
My feet touch deathlessness,
and my feet are yours.
Walk with me now.
Let us enter the dimension of oneness
and see the cherry tree blossom in Winter.
Why should we talk about death?
I don’t need to die
to be back with you.

This beautiful calligraphy is by Brother Phap Huu, the abbot of Upper Hamlet at Plum Village Monastery in France, senior Dharma teacher, and longtime attendant of Thay's.

As always, new releases and arrivals keep on rolling in. So whether your interest is knowing how your mind functions, bringing awareness into yoga practice - beyond body beautiful, exploring Runes (or creativity - through shamanism) - we have you covered.

And then some. 📚

Another great artwork from across from the in Scott Lane.

This is part of the program - beyond this wall is going to be the entrance to the Flinders Street underground.

In the meantime, all who venture to our shop window, get to enjoy these ever changing works of art.

Here’s something online that may interest people into Western Esoteric traditions …

Join the United Lodge of Theosophists - San Diego for “The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus” in the Aquarian Series with MARTIN LEIDERMAN. Date May 28, TIME: 4:30 pm PDT / 7:30 pm EDT. Click here to participate: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5769002006

Hey there, we just received a cache of lovely jewellery. These are just some of the highlights of a pretty magnificent collection. ✨❤️‍🔥✨

Instore - 11-5 Tues-Saturday - sorry, jewellery not displayed online.

Hooray 🥳 The latest Brad Warner ( ) book, The Other Side of Nothing, has arrived from the US.

In his new book, he writes about nonduality, an integral part of Zen ethics. As always, Brad writes in a style that is humourous and relatively easy for your brain to digest. I say relatively, because, well sometimes nonduality is like, say, pretending a brick fence is a cuddly sheep. Or thereabouts … did I miss something 🤔

There you go … check it out, your pet lamb will be better for it.