Categories:
Magick & Occult,
Paranormal & Psychic Abilities,
Theosophy
£22.00
It's not so long ago that a woman's expressed interest in other realms would have ruined her reputation, or even killed her.
And yet spiritualism, in various incarnations, has influenced numerous men - including lauded modernist artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Paul Klee - without repercussion. The fact that so many radical women artists of their generation - and earlier - also drank deeply from the same spiritual well has for too long been sorely neglected.
In THE OTHER SIDE, we explore the lives and work of a group of extraordinary women, from the twelfth-century mystic, composer and artist Hildegard of Bingen to the nineteenth-century English spiritualist Georgiana Houghton, whose paintings swirl like a cosmic Jackson Pollock; the early twentieth-century Swedish artist, Hilma af Klint, who painted with the help of her spirit guides and whose recent exhibition at New York's Guggenheim broke all attendance records; the 'Desert Transcendentalist', Agnes Pelton, who painted her visions beneath the vast skies of California; the Swiss healer, Emma Kunz, who used geometric drawings to treat her patients; and the British surrealist and occultist, Ithell Colquhoun, whose estate of more than 5,000 works recently entered the Tate gallery collection.
While the individual work of these artists is unique, the women loosely shared the same goal: to communicate with, and learn from, other dimensions. Weaving in and out of these myriad lives, sharing her own memories of otherworldly experiences, Jennifer Higgie discusses the solace of ritual, the gender exclusions of art history, the contemporary relevance of myth, the boom in alternative ways of understanding the world and the impact of spiritualism on feminism and contemporary art. A radical reappraisal of a marginalised group of artists, THE OTHER SIDE is an intoxicating blend of memoir, biography and art history.
£15.99
Running alongside the mainstream of Western intellectual history there is another current which, in a very real sense, should take pride of place, but which for the last few centuries has occupied a shadowy, inferior position, somewhere underground.
This other stream forms the subject of Gary Lachman s epic history and analysis, The Secret Teachers of the Western World.
In this clarifying, accessible, and fascinating study, the acclaimed historian explores the Western esoteric tradition a thought movement with ancient roots and modern expressions, which, in a broad sense, regards the cosmos as a living, spiritual, meaningful being and humankind as having a unique obligation and responsibility in it. This is in stark contrast to much of modern science, which sees the universe as a meaningless flow of matter and energy, and human beings as pointless accidents within it.
The historical roots of our counter tradition, as Lachman explores, have their beginning in Alexandria around the time of Christ. It was then that we find the first written accounts of the ancient tradition, which had earlier been passed on orally. Here, in this remarkable city, filled with teachers, philosophers, and mystics from Egypt, Greece, Asia, and other parts of the world, in a multi-cultural, multi-faith, and pluralistic society much like our own, a synthesis took place, a creative blending of different ideas and visions, which gave the hidden tradition the eclectic character it retains today.
£9.99
£28.00
In this thorough critical appraisal, 20 specialists on modern art, art history, philosophy and religious studies examine the unique art, the cultural circumstances and art-historical positioning of Swedish abstractionist Hilma af Klint. Topics explored range from early abstract art and the impact of Darwinism to Goethe’s colour theory, as well as the importance of occult religious movements such as theosophy and anthroposophy that influenced the early modernists, and discussions of af Klint’s own personal diary notes and research.
The book is based on the seminars that were held in conjunction with the exhibition Hilma af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction in 2013. This extremely successful exhibition attracted a record number of visitors to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, after which it continued to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.