Creating the Psychohistory Mailing List

In recent years there has been an enormous growth in electronic messaging. It is an outgrowth of the desire during the Cold War in the mid-1960s to create a non-centralized, low-maintenance network as a means to “provide for robust, survivable communications links in the event of wartime disruptions.” Soon thereafter, scientists developed communication protocols, or rules, to facilitate the transmission of personal messages and, thus, “e-mail” was born. Today, protocols also exist to support Usenet newsgroups, World Wide Web pages, information search services, and remote file access. This article will focus on a form of messaging known as the “mailing list,” which allows computer users to exchange e-mail messages with all others in a group, who are known as “subscribers.”

Many computer users subscribe to several of the 70,000 public mailing lists. The mailing lists with the most subscribers provide news and information on such diverse topics as business, China, computing, golf, Israel, medicine, parenting, politics, sailing, television, and travel. In contrast to these gigantic lists, most mailing lists facilitate discussion and sharing of information among subscribers with specific interests. There are two mailing lists on psychoanalysis: “psychoanalytic-studies” and “psychoan”. To subscribe, e-mail the message <subscribe [list name] [your name]> to <> for “psychoanalytic-studies” or to <> for “psychoan”. There are also many mailing lists on political and other histories that can be of interest to psychohistorians.

However, prior to my launching of the Psychohistory List there has not been a public mailing list focused primarily on the field of psychohistory. During its first month of activity, each subscriber received as many as 140 messages containing introductions, referrals, and discussion. Some subscribers have introduced themselves and their interests and current projects. Other subscribers have contributed information about journals, books, events, organizations, electronic articles, and other resources. The topics of discussion on the list have included George Bush, child abuse and child protection, Churchill, computers, fascism, group behavior, the history of psychohistory, leading-edge questions, parricide in nursing homes, the Promise Keepers, research methodology, Russian crime and politics, and the October stock market panic. There has even been some humor.

Several events and connections motivated me to create the Psychohistory List. I began to do psychohistorical research, in earnest, in response to Lloyd deMause’s encouragement this year that I participate in a panel discussion at the 1998 International Psychohistorical Association Convention. I set up the Psychohistory List two weeks later upon winning a “free” mailing list as a lottery prize. At a conscious level, I created the list in order to have a forum where I could practice discussing psychohistorical ideas. My deeper motivation is to “become closer” to the people who care so much about the inner life, who I met at the 1996 and 1997 IPA Conventions.

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I welcome your participation. If you have an e-mail address (<>), you can subscribe to the Psychohistory List by contacting me at .

In your e-mail message, please indicate that you want to subscribe and include any questions you may have. After I add you to the subscriber list, you will be sent a Welcome Message and will receive all subsequent messages. To send a message to all other subscribers, use this address:

<>

Archived messages (including indexes to Clio’s Psyche) are accessible on the World Wide Web at

http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/psychohistory.html

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