Gothic Egypt

As part of Museums at Night 2011, hundreds of London museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage sites are unlocking their doors for special evening events over the weekend of May 13-15. On Friday evening, May 13, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, at University College, London, will be offering a walk through titled “Gothic Egypt.”

Gothic Egypt is an attitude to Egypt. An image of Ancient (and Modern) Egypt based on ideas of decay, an obsession with death, a civilization alien to Western cultural norms. Egypt is related to and yet lies outside the ‘West’ and has been perceived as typifying Oriental excess.

Aside from the exhibits, there are notes on the motif of Egyptian horror, from Bram Stoker to the Hammer films of the 1960s. Referring to Mme. Blavatsky, the program guide says:

The Theosophical Society, originally for the study into medium and spiritualistic traditions and practices, was founded in New York in 1875. One of the founding members was Madame Helena Blavatsky who had lived in Cairo in the early 1870s and published the massive Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology in 1877. Blavatsky attributed the ancients, and in particular the Egyptians, with superior knowledge and wisdom and drew on ancient texts as well as current Egyptology. Of particular significance to her was the Book of the Dead as well as the divine figures of Osiris and Isis….The magical wisdom offered from Ancient Egypt by Queen Tera in [Bram Stoker’s] The Jewel of Seven Stars seems to embody the secret and lost spiritual knowledge revered by Blavatsky and others.

The program guide can be accessed here.

Enlightenment for Sale

The Chakra (ChakraNews.com), “the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of worldwide Dharmic-related news,” for April 28th has a piece of the popularization of Indian ideas through the New Age movement. “Modern Transpersonal Psychology, Consciousness Studies, the occult religion of Theosophy, Landmark Education’s The Forum and ‘est’ seminars with more than 700,000 graduates, Filmore’s Unity School of Christianity, occult religion of Eckankar, Scientology and many thousands of new-age schools and philosophies are in fact all crude derivatives and adulterated spin-offs of a mix of ancient Hindu concepts.”

More importantly, Madame Helena Blavatsky (founder of Theosophical Society) who has been considered one of the biggest pioneers and the ‘mother’ of new-age thinking has wielded a far reaching influence on occult thinkers and on Western mysticism as a whole. What is not commonly known however is that her magnum opus (book) ‘The Secret Doctrine’ that set the pulse for most of the new-age thinking was in fact inspired by Hindu theories on cosmic evolution and manifestation. She often quotes the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Puranas in her works and is even said to have travelled in India and studied under Brahmin teachers.

In response to this diffusion of Indian culture, there has been a move in India, it reports, to patent “nearly 900 yoga asanas (postures), to prevent European and American companies involved in fitness-related activities from claiming them as their own.”

Donald Lopez, Jr. on Mme. Blavatsky

Karl Pohrt posts on his blog, thereisnogap.com, an interview with Donald Lopez, Jr., that will appear in issue #48 of The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal (May through August 2011). The main topic is Lopez’s news book, The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography, recently published by Princeton University Press. In the course of the interview, Pohrt asks:

Karl Pohrt: From our vantage point, it is easy to dismiss Evans-Wentz, who was born in Trenton, New Jersey and never learned the Tibetan language, or Lama Govinda, who was born Ernst Hoffman in Germany, or Madame Blavatsky, a Russian medium who started the Theosophical Society as—at best—romantic amateurs who misrepresented and twisted Hinduism and Buddhism to fit their own agendas. But is this too harsh a judgment? Maybe the window through which we observe others is always cloudy. Evans-Wentz, Govinda, and Blavatsky were also early western pioneers in the encounter with Asian religious traditions.

Donald Lopez: I agree entirely. I’ve often tried to talk about the importance, especially, of Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. In the late 1800s India and Asia were being overrun by Christian missionaries who were telling the Buddhists that their religion was idolatry and superstition. Madame Blavatsky, a Russian medium, and her friend Colonel Olcott, an American Civil War veteran, sailed to Sri Lanka to defend the Buddhists against the British and they went to India to defend the Hindus against the British. There’s something quite heroic about them. They believed that there is a single mystical tradition from which all religions spring, an idea that continues to this day. And so the fact that they were trying to see Hinduism and Buddhism through that lens is not surprising in the least.

The rest of the interview can be read here.

Mondrian

The blog Art History Unstuffed continues its exposition of art and artists at the turn of the 20th century. Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) receives the treatment in a post on April 22:

An important indication of the underlying meaning of Mondrian’s art is one of his last representational paintings, the Evolution triptych of 1910, a symbolic evocation of a human journey to spiritualism. Mondrian had been an adherent of the pan-philosophy, Theosophy, since 1909, and embraced its idea that absolute laws rule the universe. Founded by Madame Hélène Blavatsky at the end of the nineteenth century, Theosophy attempted to explain why neither science nor religion could provide the answers to life’s mysteries. Theosophy was widespread and many early twentieth century artists, such as Kandinsky and Malevich and Klee, were adherents of the philosophy. The Dutch artist, J.L.M. Lauwerkis stated that, “The concepts of Theosophy are preeminently suited to be expressed by art because of their magnitude and profundity.”

His involvement with the Dutch art group De Stijl, “The Style,” and its influence on his style, can be read here.

Hume, Allan Octavian

Meiosis.org.uk, “A small site that is interested in things botanical and historical, associated with the herbaria@home project,” posted a piece on April 13 about the post theosophical pursuits of A.O. Hume (1829–1912) as part of their series on British botanists. “During his latter years, he devoted time and money to the establishment of the South London Botanical Institute; this was and is based in a large house on Norwood Road, Tulse Hill.”

The piece, which has since been taken down, had the obligatory reference to Blavatsky and Theosophy: During his time in India, Hume become involved in the Theosophy Movement (Blavatsky and Olcott) but later dissociated himself from most of its tenets though he remained a vegetarian (and was a vice president of the British Vegetarian Society). Hume was not alone in the adoption of such beliefs—Mary Ann Atwood embraced theosophy, Wallace–Spiritualism, and H C Watson –Phrenology: the interpretation of bumps on the head.

Hume, along with A.P. Sinnett, was one of the recipients of what came to be known as the Mahatma letters. Some of the best-known letters were to Hume. He must have been a formidable personality. Critical of the British Government in India, he took early retirement after being demoted, got involved with the Theosophical Society in India, and, leaving that, went on to help start the Indian National Congress. A passionate ornithologist in India, he became an equally passionate botanist after he settled in London in the 1890s.

The South London Botanical Institute, which was founded by Hume in 1910, still exists, and according to their website: “the aims of the Institute have remained almost unchanged in 100 years. Hume’s lasting contribution has been to provide an environment where those interested in plants, be they amateur or professional, may meet and develop their knowledge of plants.” The Institute, at its original location in London, houses a library with an extensive collection of botanical books and journals, a herbarium, and impressive garden, and hosts a number of related events during the year.

Blavatsky’s Influence in Australia

An article in the magazine section of the Sunday April 17, 2011, issue of The Hindu newspaper of India carries the news that “the fastest growing religion in Australia is Buddhism.” Starting with the arrival of Chinese labourers in Adelaide in 1851 to the more recent immigrants from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Buddhism has been a presence in Australia.

The next link with Buddhism was through the Theosophists. Helene Blavatsky and Col. Henry Olcott, who had formally converted to Buddhism in 1880 in a temple in south Ceylon. Olcott spent several months on a lecture tour of Australia in 1891 and though there are many differences between Theosophy and Buddhism, his assertion at several lectures that the central aim of Theosophy was to draw attention to Buddhist philosophy led to a greater white Australian interest in Buddhism. Particularly as Alfred Deakin, a Liberal politician and later to be Prime Minister of Australia three times, was a Theosophist and chaired several of Olcott's meetings.

The paper reports that “The biggest stupa outside the countries with a significant Buddhist presence is being built in Bendigo, not far from Melbourne….The FPMT’s [Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition] Great Stupa of Universal Compassion will be 50 sq. m at the base, will rise to a height of 48 m. and resemble the Great Stupa in Gyantse, in southern Tibet, which dates to 1474. In the acres surroundings the Bendigo stupa there will be raised a monastery, a meditation centre, a hospice and accommodation for visitors.” The Dalai Lama laid the foundation on June 7, 2007, and the town “is expected to boom with thousands of visitors anticipated every year.”

The rest of article can be read here.

model of The Great Stupa

Hilma af Klint

The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for April 17 contains the news about an exhibition at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm’s National Museum of Modern Art, planned for 2013. It will be a retrospective of Hilma af Klint, who was born in 1862 in Sweden and died there in 1944. While Kandinsky is credited with creating his abstract paintings as early as 1911, Hilma af Klint was working in the same way much earlier, as this exhibition will show. Using sketches, notes and diaries from the painter’s estate, “Diese Ausstellung wird Hilma af Klint als Urheberin des ersten abstrakten Bildes der Moderne auf den Plan der Kunstgeschichte bringen. (This exhibition will put Hilma af Klint as the author of the first abstract image of modernity on the map of art history.)”

Of course her interest in Mme. Blavatsky is mentioned. Theosophy is portrayed as a kind of Masonry for women: “Sie hatten plötzlich Zugang zur Metaphysik, den höheren Sphären also, die als unentbehrlich für die Schaffung großer Kunstwerke galten. (They suddenly had access to metaphysics, so to the higher spheres, which were considered essential to the creation of great art.)” Hilma af Klint also knew Rudolf Steiner. The rest of the article can be read here.

No doubt this exhibition will bring her work greater recognition. Hilma af Klint was never interested in selling her paintings or drawings. At her death in 1944, she willed her belongings to her nephew Erik af Klint. The will specified that her works should not be shown publicly until 20 years after her death. It took, however, 40 years before Hilma af Klint’s art was first shown to the public at an exhibit on spiritual art in Los Angeles in 1986. The first large separate exhibition in Sweden was in 1989 at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In 1998, Södertälje konsthall had a large exhibit with focus on her anthroposophic period. The entire Paintings for the Temple series was shown at the Liljevalchs konsthall in 1999. Today, the collection is owned by the Hilma af Klint Foundation.

There was an exhibition of her paintings at BildMuseet, Umeå, Sweden, in 2004, titled “Geometry and Spirituality,” and one in the Netherlands in 2010.

Hilma af Klint, Diary page