Blavatsky, Modern Art & Lawren Harris

The Occult Roots of Modernism
Joséphin Péladan’s mystical art exhibitions, in Paris, set the stage for everything from Kandinsky’s abstractions to Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”
June 26, 2017 Issue - Alex Ross
Péladan had little direct impact on early modernism: instead, the dominant force was Theosophy, the half-visionary, half-spurious movement that Helena Blavatsky and others launched in New York in 1875. Blavatsky devoured Rosicrucian texts and related Christian esoterica, and combined their ideas with influences from the East. She notoriously claimed to be communicating with eternal Indian Masters. Such hocus-pocus did not prevent the likes of Kandinsky from appreciating the vigor of Theosophy’s assault on materialism in the name of higher truth. Kandinsky’s controlled explosions of color bear a striking resemblance to images that appear in “Thought-Forms,” a standard Theosophical text. His paintings can be viewed as opaque sacred emblems, conduits of spiritual revolution. Silver sees similar tendencies in the work of Marcel Duchamp, Kazimir Malevich, Hilma af Klint, and Piet Mondrian. “I got everything from the ‘Secret Doctrine’ (Blavatsky),” Mondrian wrote, in 1918.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/26/the-occult-roots-of-modernism

Matthew Collings on meaning, abstraction and why judgementalism can be a problem.
May 2017
Matthew Collings: There is no single meaning. In historic modernism it’s a development in art (mostly painting) in the 1910s, considered to be something to do with spirituality – to be spiritual was a middle-class, pan-European vogue focused on charismatic figures like Blavatsky and Steiner. (The idea was that human spirit evolves over time, and that spiritualism is a concentrated effort to further that process.)
http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/modern-art-is-not-rubbish/19760#.WS8axGeM3cs

Interview with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
3 May 2017, Neil Powell
Well that’s a very good question. It came about on a very small scale, which is that I was looking for quite a number of years, for the original washes (watercolour illustrations) that Annie Besant had asked a bunch of friends including John Varley who was the grandchild of the one who had illustrated Blake, and anyway I had been looking for these original washes for years because I figured that they were published in the thought forms [1] book in 1905 they had to exist as originals and finally two months after the opening of the Istanbul Biennial in September 2015… these were found in Varanasi in the Theosophical Society library [2] and so I started to think “well I should exhibit them immediately!”.
http://wsimag.com/art/25518-colour-me-bad

Canadian Theosophist-painter Lawren Harris had a big year:
Where the Universe Sings gives us a portrait of painter Lawren Harris
Chris Knight -January 24, 2017
A new film by Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang explores Harris’s life and influences, from his 1885 birth in Brantford, Ont., to his death 84 years later in Vancouver
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/movies/where-the-universe-sings-gives-us-a-portrait-of-painter-lawren-harris

the theosophical references in the article below are not so great:
The Mystic
Jason McBride 2016
http://torontolife.com/culture/art/lawren-harris-mystic/

Deep lines: New Glenbow exhibition explores abstract period of Group of Seven's Lawren Harris
Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald October 5, 2017
http://calgaryherald.com/entertainment/local-arts/deep-lines-new-glenbow-exhibition-explores-abstract-period-of-group-of-sevens-lawren-harris

Blavatsky & Alternative Science

Thomas Edison

From Frankenstein to feminism: how electricity powered our imaginations
Naomi Alderman - 20 Feb 2017
Surprisingly perhaps, Bulwer-Lytton’s novel was so popular in Britain at the time that the word “vril” became a synonym for any “life-giving elixir”. It’s still in the language today: Bovril is a portmanteau of “bovine vril” – that thing derived from cows that gives you life and energy. The founder of Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky, was a great fan of vril, and you can still find websites today explaining how Atlanteans mastered gravity via vril energy, capturing it in pyramids.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/20/from-frankenstein-to-feminism-how-electricty-powered-our-imaginations

Weird NJ: Thomas Edison wanted to talk to the dead
Aug. 13, 2017
For example, in 1878 Edison briefly wound up associating with an organization of mystics known as the Aryan Theosophic Society, where he discussed the role of science and technology in mysticism with their leader, Madame Elene Blavatsky. While Edison left the group (and even went on to deny ever associating with them), these experiences got him thinking about different Eastern religious ideas, particularly reincarnation.
https://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/weird-nj/2017/08/13/weird-nj-thomas-edison-talk-dead/556305001/
Edison’s ‘Spirit Box’ Tried to Determine the Nature of Life, Not Just Talk with the Dead
Matthew Hart - October 20, 2017
https://nerdist.com/thomas-edison-spirit-box-life-death-ghosts/

Materializations.
JAMES GALLANT - 4 November 2015
But facts were facts, and Richet’s list of scientists who had examined the most gifted physical mediums for trickery “not once, but twenty, a hundred, or even a thousand times” — and found none — included Alfred Russel Wallace, a colleague of Darwin’s who wrote on various aspects of evolutionary theory, and physicist-chemist Sir William Crookes.”
http://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2015/11/materializations/

Bhiku Chaman Lal's 'discovery' of Hindu America
S.K. Saksena - 03 April, 2017
Madam Blavatsky wrote: "A daughter of Kauravya, King of the Nagas in Patala ('patal lok'!) was married to Arjuna, the disciple of Krishna, whom every tradition, oral and written, shows travelling five thousand years ago to Patala. The Puranic tale is based on a historical fact. Moreover, Ulupi, as a name, has a Mexican ring in it."
http://www.merinews.com/article/bhiku-chaman-lals-discovery-of-hindu-america/15924183.shtml

Ancient Civilisations: The Theories of Atlantis and Lemuria – May 18, 2017
http://mysteriousearth.net/2017/05/18/ancient-civilizations-the-theories-of-atlantis-and-lemuria/

Blavatsky, Sri Lanka & India

Sri Lanka, ambassador for Buddhism over the years
Randima Attygalle - Sunday, May 07, 2017
The establishment of the Buddhist Theosophical Society of Ceylon by Colonel Henry Olcott and Madame Blavatsky was a turning point as this became a voice for the Sinhala Buddhists. “Since the architects of this society and later their follower, Anagarika Dharmapala were fluent English speakers, they could lobby for the Buddhist interests in this country, by being heard by the British rulers,” says the scholar who cites the feats such as gaining recognition for Vesak as a national holiday for the first time and creating a Buddhist flag, facilitated by this forum.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170507/plus/sri-lanka-ambassador-for-buddhism-over-the-years-239091.html
Critical discussion of Dharmapala biography:
Anagarika Dharmapala Revisited
Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan - May 11 2017
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/anagarika-dharmapala-revisited/
Science and religion in theosophy
Sri-Aurobindo  - 12th April 2017
The Theosophical Society was the first body of inquirers which started with the set & clear profession of bringing out this great mass of ancient truth into public notice and establishing it in public belief. Instead of bringing them out into public notice they have withdrawn them into the shrouded secrecy of the Esoteric society; instead of establishing them to public belief.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2017/apr/12/science-and-religion-in-theosophy-1592924.html
Forgotten American Religion Finds Home in India: Selective Consciousness and Increased Awareness at the Theosophical Society in Pune
04/14/2017 -  Michael Hall,
Some occult groups, such as the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.), traced their roots to a Gnostic form of Catholicism, while the most popular occult movement, the Theosophical Society, combined Western and Eastern tantric traditions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/forgotten-american-religion-finds-home-in-india-selective_us_58f11a95e4b0156697224f01