by E. Garzilli

I want to open this first issue of the IJTS thanking everybody who subscribed to this journal. It is your trust and your contribution that make this journal possible. I would also like to thank who subscribed just to criticize us: there are many truths, and only an open dialogue and confrontation will allow us to communicate and to improve.

Prof. A. Passi asked me an important question: whether the papers published in this journal could be recognised as "normal", printed publication. They should be! In fact, the Copyright rules recognize anything published via computer as printed matter. Therefore the author of a paper published here has the legal right to include it in his/her cv and to have it valued as such. If anybody asks for a hard copy of the journal, we will print it and send it (price: the actual cost & postage in US $ at the time of the dispatch). I underline this is a refereed journal: before publication all the papers are sent to our Co-Editor and Editorial Board for review, notes, etc. However, due to the increasingly legal implications, I have already asked the Library of Congress for the ISSN number.

I am very pleased to inform you that Karel van KOOIJ (Leiden University) has joined us as a member of the Editorial Board. Soon you will find his shortened cv in our www pages.

I have already asked whether anybody would like to have a discussion list on Tantrism. I receive from time to time interesting questions from you. They will be included in the Letters to the Editor (with the name of the requesting person). If you have any question you would like to ask the members, or any point of discussion you would like members to consider, please send them to the list or to me ([email protected]). I will publish them.

I would like to remind you that this journal is meant to be your space: submit papers, news, abstracts of papers and books, URL of common interest, adresses of lists interesting to us, etc. This is NOT a self-celebrative (or self-denigrating) voice in the cyberspace!