Blavatsky: Mystic and Occultist
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- Published: Wednesday, 03 December 2014 05:27
A review of Divine Fury: A History of Genius, by Darrin McMahon, in The New York Review of Books, 56.15 (October 9, 2014), comments about H.B.P.: “In McMahon’s story the part played by Romaticism is chiefly that of mystification (he even at one point compares Romantic claims about the realm of Idea or Spirit made by such writers as Schelling, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel to the obscure and rambling occultist Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society). But in fact at the foundation of much Romantic thought was an attempt at demystification, at clarifying the relationship between mind and world.”
That comment betrays a common but all too frequent view of H.P.B. and Theosophy. To be sure, “obscure and rambling” H.P.B. often was. But she was also extraordinarily well-informed about the subjects she dealt with. She was certainly romantic in the sense of being “marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized” (Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary). But she was also practical in applying her ideals in the everyday world. As I have pointed out elsewhere: “In her book The Key to Theosophy, Blavatsky said, ‘Theosophist is who Theosophy does.’ Theosophy is not something to believe; it is something to do — that is, to live by” (Theosophy — An Introductory Study Course, chapter 12).
In 2013, I went to Sweden twice for the retrospective exhibition on Hilma af Klint. The invitation came through the Ax:son Johnson Foundation, founded in 1947 by the late Consul General Axel Ax:son Johnson together with his wife Margaret, owner of the Nordstjernan group. The foundation, led by the highly amiable Kurt Almqvist, facilitates scientific research in general, but in particular the liberal arts and the social sciences. I was deeply impressed by their hospitality and professionalism. The foundation has clearly thought very deeply and constructively about how to inform a wider public about pressing issues in society. Conferences with scholars from all over the world, a website, a magazine, even their own TV channel with the top-Swedish interviewer Thomas Gür, who courteously and tongue-in-cheek said it was his fun ‘to ask stupid questions and get intelligent answers’. All in all, amazing. I wish we had such an institution in my country!
The adventure started in February, when an expert meeting was organized at the opening of the exhibition. The meeting was held in Engelsberg, a top-list Unesco heritage site own by the Ax:son group. Mid-winter, snow-covered landscape in the middle of the woods, paths at night lighted with candles along the sides, in the typically Swedish manner; a truly romantic setting. And a relaxed place to meet many international colleagues from other disciplines. For me personally, my acquaintance with Hilma’s work came full circle, when I met Maurice Tuchman again, who in 1986 organized “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985”. Its venue at The Hague constituted my first job as a curator. That exhibition showed Hilma’s work in public for the first time after World War II.
