Thoughtforms: A Record in Clairvoyant Investigation, was repressed by Sacred Bones records, in 2021. This was quite a shock to me. As I had seen these pictures from a blogspot 10 odd years ago and it influenced a tape release I did in my early 20s, purely from the standpoint of the striking imagery. Here is what Sacred Bones had to say about the repressing:
“…In this narrative of Modernism, Wassily Kandinsky is widely viewed as one of the most important founders of abstraction, and his manifesto “On the Spiritual in Art” is mandatory reading in art school.
What was never mentioned to us in school however, was that Kandinsky was a member of the Theosophical Society, and had acquired a copy of their book Thought Forms a few years before he abandoned conventional ways of painting. Learning that Kandinsky didn’t just come upon these ideas on his own as previously thought, totally changed our understanding of his work. It’s worth mentioning that Piet Mondrian was also deeply influenced by Theosophy and later on, Jackson Pollock was as well.
Last year the Guggenheim held the first US retrospective of Hilma af Klint’s paintings. She was a member of the Theosophical Society and was undoubtedly influenced by the spiritualistic currents of the time. Theosophy was the first occult group to open its doors to women, and it deeply questioned gender roles, many of these ideas are also in Af Klint’s paintings. This show was one of the first times the all-male origin story of abstraction was challenged within the ivory tower. Af Klint, made these paintings before Kandinsky, and she was a woman. Thought Forms came out before Af Klint began her abstract paintings and it is certain that she must have come across this book.
We’re republishing this beautiful, overlooked book, so that it may be widely accessible and no longer omitted from the past. Thought Forms offers a reminder that the history of modernist abstraction and women’s contribution to it is still being written.
Theosophy’s motto seems as appropriate today as it did in 1880, “there is no religion higher than truth.”
This is a significant book of interest to me, in our first lecture on this module, we read Constance Classen’s Anthropology of the Senses, which got me thinking about visuo-centrism as the main 19th century tool of science. There seems to have been a counter movement to modern rationalism and science; Theosophy and Anthroposophy. I am interested in these two distinctly similar “studies” of spirituality, as I feel they are related to visuo-centrism in their choice to attempt to visualize the invisible. This paradox shows a failure of mysticism to take account for the ‘lesser’ senses (hearing, touch, smell) when claiming to be a medium between a physical and spiritual plane. In a pre-Schaeffer, Chion, Cage, Oliveros world… where Sound Studies did not have an extensive canon yet, were these mystic surveyors aware of any form of deep listening? Vibration and Sound have immersive effects on the body. Sound travels differently in spaces. Reverb, Humidity, time of day, weather… Innumerable variables change the affect of a given environment on the senses and so when interpreting this book, I am interested if there is any mention of an unhearable sound, mystic aroma (like ‘Odour of Sanctity’ within Catholicism mentioned by Classen), ghostly sensations of touch – and whether the lack of these examples showcases a conformity to science principles of ‘see it to believe it’ visuo-centrism. Perhaps even the reverb of a church could’ve been perceived as magic than acoustic theory? Esoteric thinkers believed there could be a liquid form to the spiritual plane and sound was newly proven to be some kind of waveform. …
After listening to some podcasts on Theosophy, I have begun to gain a loose understanding of the background to these Spiritualist figures. Theosophy in the 1800s was a direct response to modern rationalism/science. It was mostly explorations by the ruling class of the west travelling to the newly opened east, taking Hindu and Buddhist principles back with them and appropriating them into a mixture of all religions… Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of this ‘research’ was permeated with racist values of that time and representative of upper class thought. The Theosophy Society has a dark underbelly through leader Blavatsky’s book ‘The Secret Doctrine’ – this work is deeply racist and filled with proto-nazi thought. The Theosophy Society is perhaps in part responsible for popularising concepts of the Aryan Race. It’s emblem also includes symbols from all mainstream religions, including the swastika. Which was commonly used before the Nazi Party, however quite eerie in conjunction with the Aryan concepts present within the society. The Anthroposophy society also delved into these concepts of root races but were later perceived as an enemy to the Nazi Party. So whilst, they were not outward supporters of Fascism, evidence suggests a lot of these unfounded musings influenced it.
According to podcasts ………, there was a lot of in-fightning in the Theosophical society, as members would attempt to claim their evidence-free proof of concepts to each other as truth (echoes new age cults of today) and when the leader of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky died, these communities branched off… Blavatsky loyalists splintered off into Neo-Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner rejected Besant’s Theosophy (who became leader of the society after Blatlavsky’s death) due to rejecting the concepts of the ‘Mahatma’ (chosen leaders with divine knowledge of the spirit realm). Steiner went on to create Spiritual Science movement ‘Anthroposophy’, the fundamental ideas of which exist today filtered through Steiner Schools as alternative education. Steiner did not believe in disease and subsequently was anti-vaccine… which is interesting to think about. As a lot of modern New Agers during the pandemic are branching off into QAnon due to anti-vaccine/lockdown sentiments, the founder of alternative, creativity-focussed education expressed views in line with those a hundred years prior. I think about New-Age music and “healing music” within this context… I have found no evidence of the New Age musicians I am reading about being against vaccines however, but I have found evidence of a clear connection to Theosophy teachings and Thoughtforms. Other noticeable artists who have been influenced by Theosophy are Stravinsky, Kandinsky, Hilma Af Klint and more recently Lou Reed, who claimed White Light/White Heat was a reference to Theosophist author Alice Bailey’s book, “A Treatise on White Magic”.
What I find compelling about Besant is her socialism and political activism. She was responsible for helping indigenous people protest colonial rule and supported Indian and Irish independence movements. Meeting and befriending Ghandi in the process, given him the title ‘Mahatma’. She was also an early advocator of Women’s Rights. Whilst she believed she was a clairvoyant, I can’t see any indication that she self-proclaimed Mahatma ascendance like Blavatsky before her and many more cult-like figures who came later in Theosophy. These so called masters were thought to posses an innate understanding of the fabric of the spiritual plane. They claimed french lord Saint Germain from 1300s was a five hundred year old Mahatma, who’s name today is attached the one of the richest football clubs in the world, Paris-Saint-Germain.
Besant adopted a son whom she thought to be such an emissary, he ended up rejecting Theosophy and forming his own Spiritual ideas separately. From what I have read, Besant, whilst holding some very questionable assertions and work that is largely considered pseudo-science. Did so under the intention of unification, the damage in these New Age esoteric thinkers is perhaps the less clear forms of bigotry through spiritual narcissism. Annie Besant seems to attempt to be as neutral as possible in Thoughtforms, expressing a limit to what science can help us postulate. Esotericism vs Rationalism. Occult vs Science. Perhaps she possessed a form of synaesthesia… could you call that a type of Extra-sensory Perception? Being a mediatory to a spiritual plane sounds similar to Deep Listening in some ways. How do we differentiate forms of meditation from spiritual practice.. and how do we differentiate clairvoyance from the delicate arsenal of senses we possess? In my opinion Theosophy’s motto should be ‘There is no religion higher than imagination’ but clearly something from Thoughtforms resonated with many artists, and whether or not all that can be extracted from the pseudo-science is some of the earliest forms of Abstract art, it undeniably was hugely influential.