‘‘Theosophical’’ Artistic Networksin the Americas, 1920–1950
Massimo Introvigne
ABSTRACT: Latin American scholars have discussed interbellum‘‘Theosophical networks’’ interested in new forms of spirituality as alter-natives to Catholicism, positivism and Marxism. In this article I argue thatthese networks included not only progressive intellectuals and politicalactivists but also artists in Latin America, the United States and Canada,and that their interests in alternative spirituality contributed significantlyto certain artistic currents. I discuss three central locations for thesenetworks, in part involving the same artists: revolutionary Mexico in the1920s; New York in the late 1920s and 1930s; and New Mexico in the late1930s and 1940s. The Theosophical Society, the Delphic Society, AgniYoga and various Rosicrucian organizations attracted several leadingAmerican artists involved in the networks.
KEYWORDS: Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, Eva PalmerSikelianos, Alma Reed, Delphic Movement, Emil Bisttram, NicholasRoerich, Agni Yoga, Transcendental Painting Group
I n 1999 Chilean historian Eduardo Deves Valdes and his Peruviancolleague Ricardo Melgar Bao created the category of‘‘Theosophical networks’’ (redes teosoficas), suggesting that a number
of key political leaders and intellectuals in Latin America between the twoWorld Wars, in contact with each other, shared an interest in Theosophyand other alternative spiritualities.1 Several studies by Guatemalan histo-rian Marta Elena Casaus Arzu2 and the dissertation on Latin American
‘‘esoteric revolutionaries’’ by Nicaraguan political scientist Marco AurelioNavarro-Genie further developed the argument.3
The expression ‘‘Theosophical networks’’ does not mean that all ofthese intellectuals were members of the Theosophical Society (for thisreason, I prefer to use quotation marks around ‘‘Theosophical’’). Manyof them had anti-American sentiments and rejected the TheosophicalSociety as a ‘‘Yankee’’ enterprise; yet, they read Theosophical works aswell as Rosicrucian and Spiritualist publications. Almost all had beenraised in the Catholic Church but later were involved in criticism of theChurch typical of Latin American revolutionary movements. They werefamiliar with Marxism, and some joined Communist parties, but theyregarded Marxist materialism as foreign to the Latin American spiritualtradition and looked to new religious movements for an alternative toboth Catholicism and Communism.
While ‘‘Theosophical networks’’ have been studied with respect topolitical leaders and academics, less attention has been paid to the factthat the networks included artists. In fact, they were instrumental inpromoting lively dialogue among modernist visual artists in LatinAmerica, the United States and Canada, united by the common searchfor a spirituality that would offer an alternative to both traditional reli-gion and the materialism of modern ideologies.
Three main events created the artistic networks: in Mexico (1921–1924), the mandate of Minister of Education Jose Vasconcelos (1882–1929); in New York (1927), the establishment of the Delphic Center; andin New Mexico (1938), the gathering of artists who established theTranscendental Painting Group. These were linked by the involvementof some of the same artists. For example, Emil Bisttram (1895–1976),a key figure in the New Mexico artistic community during and afterWorld War II, studied in Mexico under muralist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) and achieved national fame through the patronage of New York’sDelphic Studios. Another leading Mexican muralist, Jose ClementeOrozco (1883–1949), was promoted by and received commissions in theUnited States through the Delphic Studios, where he met and influ-enced Bisttram and other artists who later moved to New Mexico.
In these three scenarios—revolutionary Mexico, New York and NewMexico—the painters shared certain artistic proclivities, including aninterest in Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), who in turn was influencedby Theosophy4 and whose theoretical works they all read. What is more,they shared an interest in alternative spiritualities and formed an artisticsubnetwork within the larger transnational ‘‘Theosophical’’ network.They kept their respective styles, and the abstract art that emerged inNew Mexico’s Transcendental Painting Group was very different fromthe works of the Mexican muralists; yet, this subnetwork dialogue led toartistic meditations on such topics as karma and reincarnation, to sharedinterest in a spatial fourth dimension, and to the influence of the art and
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ideas of Russian painter Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947), active in thesubnetwork and leader of an occult movement, Agni Yoga, headquar-tered in New York City. It would be wrong to regard alternative spiritu-alities as the only tool to interpret the work of the artists whoparticipated in the ‘‘Theosophical’’ subnetwork, but alternative spiritualinterests did play a role in their careers, and for some, including Roerichand Bisttram, this role was crucial.
ACT 1: REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO
In 1909 Vasconcelos and other young intellectuals in Mexico estab-lished El Ateneo de la Juventud (Atheneum of Youth), with the aim ofoverthrowing both the dictatorship of Porfirio Dıaz (1830–1915) andwhat they called the dictatorship of positivism in Mexican education.5
They found their political hero in Francisco Madero (1873–1913), whostarted the Mexican revolution, defeated Dıaz and became Mexico’spresident in 1911, only to be assassinated in 1913 by a military coup.
Madero was a fervent Kardecist Spiritist, i.e. a follower of the institu-tionalized version of Spiritualism created in France by Allan Kardec (pseu-donym of Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, 1804–1869). Madero wasa member of the Travelers of the Earth, one of several Spiritualist move-ments that emerged in Mexico as variations of Kardecism. The spiritsguided his main political decisions, and under the pseudonym‘‘Bhima,’’ the name of a warrior in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, heauthored what became the most popular Spiritualist manual in Mexico.6
Madero also was a Freemason and a regular reader of Theosophical liter-ature. Before his death he had started writing a commentary on theBhagavad Gita for the Spiritualist journal Helios in which he argued thatboth Kardecist Spiritualism and ‘‘original’’ Buddhism and Hinduism weresuperior to the Theosophy of Madame Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891)because she had introduced the faulty doctrine of pantheism.7
Vasconcelos praised Madero’s essays on the Bhagavad Gita and crit-icized both Spiritualism and ‘‘Blavatsky’s insincere and second-handeloquence.’’8 When Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy yAlcayaga, 1889–1957), of the same ‘‘Theosophical’’ network of intellec-tuals, came to Mexico to work in Vasconcelos’ Ministry of Education, theminister warned her against the Theosophical Society. When Mistraltold him that she believed they shared an attraction to Theosophy, theMexican answered: ‘‘Were you an older woman, I would allow myself totell you certain jokes about Blavatsky. What a pity that you take herseriously.’’9 In 1911 Mistral joined the lodge of the TheosophicalSociety called Destrellos (Beams of Light) in Antofagasta, Chile10 andremained a loyal member for many years before coming to accept atleast a portion of Vasconcelos’ criticism as valid.
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As late as 1944, however, Mistral was still involved in the SociedadBiosofa y Teosofa (Biosophical and Theosophical Society), a splinterTheosophical group founded in Guatemala.11 In 1920, when a SociedadGabriela Mistral devoted to the promotion of women and heavily influ-enced by Theosophy had been founded there, Guatemala counted 150Theosophical lodges.12 In Costa Rica, the dominant figure in the artisticestablishment for several decades was Spanish-born painter TomasPovedano de Arcos (1847–1943). He founded the local section of theTheosophical Society in 1904 and kept in touch with theosophicallyoriented intellectuals throughout Latin America,13 although his defenseof the academic style of painting put him at odds with the avant-garde.
In later years, Vasconcelos came to accept the reality of someSpiritualist phenomena,14 and Theosophy influenced his theories aboutthe races and Atlantis.15 He adopted other beliefs about Atlantis fromScottish journalist Lewis Spence (1874–1955) who, though critical ofTheosophy, was widely read in Theosophical circles.16 When the ministertold Mistral that Theosophy should not be taken seriously, he meant the‘‘Yankee’’ organizational structure of the Theosophical Society ratherthan the Theosophical worldview, parts of which he himself adopted.
As part of Latin American networks connecting revolutionary leadersinterested in alternative spirituality, Navarro-Genie in his 2009 disserta-tion highlighted Vasconcelos, Peruvian revolutionary Victor RaulHaya de la Torre (1895–1979) and Nicaraguan Augusto Cesar Sandino(1895–1934). Haya de la Torre corresponded with both Sandino andVasconcelos on esoteric matters, stationed trusted lieutenant EstebanPavletich (1906–1981) as his representative in Sandino’s army, andworked for Vasconcelos as personal secretary during his exile inMexico.17 Crucial for Haya de la Torre’s worldview was his embrace ofthe ideas of Estonian-German Theosophist Hermann Graf Keyserling(1880–1946). The European nobleman believed that the true modernheir of Eastern wisdom was Latin America, where a new and more spir-itual race would soon emerge, favored by the special telluric energy—a geomagnetically induced current with alleged spiritual effects—ema-nating from the Andes. Haya de la Torre came to believe himself to be theleader of this new race.18
Sandino was initiated into various alternative spiritualities in Mexico.He became an enthusiastic member of EMECU (Magnetic SpiritualistSchool of the Universal Commune), a new religious movement foundedin 1911 by Basque Spiritualist Joaquın Trincado (1866–1935) as a mix-ture of Theosophy, Kardecist Spiritualism and Socialism. Sandino alsowas in communication with Vasconcelos and Haya de la Torre, anddiscussed with them the relationship between Latin America, Atlantisand a coming new race.
Trincado taught that Adam and Eve were born in India after thedestruction of Atlantis and joined by 27 elect spirits, the Titans, incarnated
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with them to redeem humanity. Adam, Eve and the Titans reincarnatedseveral times in history to lead the forces of good and justice in their mostcrucial battles against evil. In 1931 Sandino announced that he was thereincarnation of Adam, his wife Blanca Arauz (1909–1933) was the rein-carnation of Eve, and the 27 Titans were reincarnated as commanders inhis army. This was the final battle of good versus evil that eventually wouldusher the Earth into a state of perfection. These millenarian ideas even-tually contributed to the crisis leading to Sandino’s assassination in1934.19
Vasconcelos, as Casaus Arzu documented, consciously tried to spreada ‘‘Theosophical’’ network in other countries, believing that this wouldreinforce both his position in Mexico and a regional cultural leadershipof the Mexican government. He invited Mistral from Chile, and poetPorfirio Barba-Jacob (pseudonym of Miguel Angel Osorio Benıtez,1883–1942), a Theosophist from Colombia, to come to Mexico, andthen dispatched Barba-Jacob to Central America, where he ‘‘foundedinnumerable Theosophical societies in Guatemala, Salvador andHonduras.’’20 Barba-Jacob and those who continued his work recruitedyoung artists for their Theosophical groups, including painterHumberto Garavito (1897–1970) and sculptor Rafael Yela Gunther(1888–1942) in Guatemala, and poet/painter Salarrue (pseudonym ofSalvador Salazar Arrue, 1899–1975) in Salvador. These artists continuedto participate in a transnational ‘‘Theosophical’’ network for decades.21
Patricia Artundo’s studies of the library and papers of Xul Solar(pseudonym of Oscar Alejandro Schulz Solari, 1887–1963) confirmedthat, even before moving to Europe in 1912 and becoming a close asso-ciate of the British magus Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), this leadingArgentinian artist subscribed to a large number of Theosophical jour-nals and corresponded with Theosophists and Rosicrucians in severalcountries. Upon his return to Buenos Aires in 1924, Xul Solar joinedboth the Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua, a Rosicrucian organizationfounded by Arnoldo Krumm-Heller (1876–1949), and a local branch ofthe Martinist Order.22
Xul Solar’s circle included the leading modern Uruguayan artistJoaquın Torres Garcıa (1874–1949). The latter lived for several decadesin Europe and knew Theosophy through his friendship with Dutchpainter Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), a member of the TheosophicalSociety,23 who greatly influenced his style. Torres Garcıa wrote (but didnot publish) a booklet on ‘‘Esotericism in the Art.’’ He exploredFreemasonry, and concluded that ‘‘the ultimate objectives of his artisticproject . . . coincided with those of freemasonry,’’24 the Kabbalah, andXul Solar’s own esoteric theories. Further south, Brazilian painterManoel Santiago (1897–1987) met a Theosophical group as early as1916 and later established a series of contacts with Mexican muralistsand other artists of Vasconcelos’ circle.25
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Vasconcelos’ role in creating the artistic subnetwork was very impor-tant. As president of the National Autonomous University of Mexico(1920–21) and Minister of Education (1921–24), he conceived an ambi-tious program to spread revolutionary ideas through the arts. He becameprotector and patron of Mexican muralists, though they all were more orless Communists and Vasconcelos was critical of Marxism. Mural artneeded walls, however, and the government could provide them.
Vasconcelos thus became the most important patron of Diego Riveraand induced him to return to Mexico from Europe, where the promisingyoung artist had been subsidized by Mexican authorities in order to studyart. In Paris, Rivera had embraced Cubism, Marxism and atheism,although his vocal support of Communist materialism did not excludeesoteric interests. While critical of organized religion, Rivera had beenexposed to Theosophy in Paris, where he had met Torres Garcıa throughhis friendship with Mondrian, whom he called ‘‘my closest friend,besides [Pablo] Picasso [1881–1973].’’26 Both living in Paris in 1912–1913, Rivera and Mondrian became close and decided to have theirstudios in the same building.27 Also in Paris, Rivera befriended anotherMexican artist interested in Theosophy, Adolfo Best Maugard (1891–1964),28 who would serve under Vasconcelos as director of Mexico’sNational Department of Art Education. Rivera portrayed Maugard in1913 in what he considered the most important work of his European
Figure 1. Xul Solar, Entierro. 1915. Courtesy of Fundacion Pan Klub-Museo XulSolar, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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period, Portrait of Adolfo Best Maugard. Returning from France to Mexico,Rivera continued his esoteric proclivities.29
Several scholars have argued that despite his Marxism, ‘‘a good part ofRivera’s murals . . . are clearly esoteric.’’30 His reading of ancient Mexicanmythology owed more to local new religious movements than to archae-ology. In 1922, upon receiving a commission from Vasconcelos, he com-pleted his first mural in the National Preparatory High School, housed inthe crumbling building of the former Ildefonso College in Mexico City.La Creacion shows the primal cosmic energy flowing in all directions.31
Mexican scholar Susana Pliego Quijano notes how Marxist emblemsin Rivera’s murals in the National School of Agriculture in Chapingo(1923–1927) coexist with others derived from the artist’s reading ofesoteric magazines and books produced, in particular, by Rosicrucianorganizations active in Mexico.32 Pliego Quijano finds parallel esotericreferences in another leading Mexican painter, Dr Atl (pseudonym ofGerardo Murillo, 1875–1964), at one time a teacher of Rivera. Atl con-ceived, though never realized, the idea of founding an ‘‘ideal city’’ whereartists, scientists and initiates of different branches of wisdom could livetogether.33
Vasconcelos gave to Rivera some of his most important commissions inMexico, but Rivera broke with the politician. In 1927, after Vasconcelosleft office, Rivera painted a mural in the same Ministry of Educationdepicting Vasconcelos seated on a white elephant, a Marxist criticism ofthe politician’s ‘‘theosophical’’ and escapist leanings.34
Rivera’s opposition to Vasconcelos’ brand of esotericism, however, didnot mean that he abandoned alternative spirituality altogether. Thepainter regarded Rosicrucianism, for which Vasconcelos had little interest,as more compatible with Marxism. In 1926, Rivera was among the foundersof the Mexico City organization called Quetzalcoatl, of the Ancient andMystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), created in the United States byHarvey Spencer Lewis (1883–1939). He also painted Quetzalcoatl, a render-ing of the Mesoamerican deity, for its Mexico temple.35
In 1954, seeking readmission into the Communist Party, Rivera hadto justify his AMORC activities. At that time, international Communismwas particularly hostile to Freemasonry, and Rivera had to defend him-self against the accusation of being part of what some described asa quasi-Masonic organization. Rivera answered that by joiningAMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical ‘‘Yankee’’ organization onbehalf of Communism. He also claimed, however, that AMORC was‘‘essentially materialist, insofar as it only admitted different states ofenergy and matter, and was based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledgefrom Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.’’36
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), Rivera’s beloved third wife,37 was a staunchmaterialist impervious to religion, yet in her later years she included inher paintings Eastern and esoteric symbols such as Buddha and the
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Third Eye. She also confessed her fascination with ancient Egyptianreligion38 and became interested in karma and reincarnation. In a seriesof what she called ‘‘carma’’ paintings and drawings, she ‘‘amalgamate[d]Christian, Hindu, and Aztec symbols to express her desire to overcomesuffering and reach spiritual release’’ while ‘‘alluding to the Easternconcept of reincarnation according to the law of Karma and the cycleof suffering that life on earth entails.’’39
Rivera and Kahlo were not the only Mexican revolutionary artistsinvolved in alternative spirituality. Jose Clemente Orozco was the mostmystical, and less Marxist, of the great Mexican muralists. In 1922,Vasconcelos hired Orozco for the murals of the former College ofSaint Ildefonso. In 1926, Orozco decided to repaint them in a differentand more revolutionary style. He kept, however, the original version ofone of them, Maternidad. It was a good example of his earlier styleinfluenced by European Symbolism and, according to Mexican scholarFausto Ramırez, by the popular esoteric book The Great Initiates (1889) byFrench Theosophist Edouard Schure (1841–1929).40 In 1925, in a then-private Mexico City residence, Casa de los Azulejos, Orozco painted whatcritics regard as his most esoteric mural. Omniscience depicted Grace,Force and Intelligence, and at the same time the spirit between theeternal male and female principles.41 These themes would keep surfac-ing in the more mature Orozco’s work.
The least interested in spirituality among the great Mexican muralistswas David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974), a strict Stalinist Marxist; yet,leading scholars of Siqueiros, such as Jorge Reynoso Pohlenz, havedetected an ‘‘inclination towards esotericism’’ in the artist’s last years.42
Siqueiros’ less political masterpiece is Plastic Exercise, a 1933 mural in thecountry home of media magnate Natalio Botana (1888–1941) in DonTorcuato, Argentina (now at Buenos Aires’ Museo del Bicentenario). Inthis mural, which celebrates the Eternal Feminine, Siqueiros obsessivelyreproduced images of his wife, Uruguayan poet Blanca Luz Brum (1905–1985).43 The mural’s esoteric allusions appear less surprising when weconsider that Siqueiros cooperated for the work with other artists, includ-ing Argentinian painter Antonio Berni (1905–1981), who was associatedwith the group of Lelio Zeno (‘‘Loz,’’ 1890–1969). A medical doctor whotried to combine Theosophy and Communism and interacted with themain figures of the American and European Theosophical milieu, Zenobelieved that ‘‘Theosophy was the Soviet Russia of a SpiritualistInternational.’’44
Zeno’s experience confirms the complex web of relationshipsbetween Latin American revolutionaries and alternative spirituality.Rather than conflicting ‘‘Marxist’’ and ‘‘Spiritualist’’ wings, the net-works connecting Latin American progressive intellectuals and artistsbetween the two World Wars reveal continuous interaction betweenand among Communists, Spiritualists, Theosophists and Rosicrucians.
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This interaction took place not only within the same milieus but quiteoften in the minds of the same persons.
ACT 2: NEW YORK
‘‘Theosophical networks’’ within Mexico were particularly well devel-oped in Yucatan, where Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1874–1924)befriended the local branch of the Theosophical Society and took a par-ticular interest in its ideas about Blavatsky’s sixth sub-race of the FifthRoot Race. In the Theosophical system, humanity evolves by passingfrom one of seven Root Races through the next, with seven sub-raceswithin each Root Race. In Blavatsky’s original model, the sixth sub-raceof the Fifth Root Race would emerge in the United States. Wishing to usethis sub-race theory to promote his revolutionary Mayan indigenism,45
Carrillo Puerto moved the location of the development of the sixth sub-race to Mexico.
Carrillo Puerto also was an active Freemason. While he was Governorof Yucatan, the local Freemasonry attracted prominent foreign membersincluding Sandino, Pavletich (Haya de la Torre’s man in Sandino’sarmy), and the revolutionary leader from El Salvador, FarabundoMartı (1893–1932),46 yet another example of how internationalrevolutionary-esoteric networks functioned in the 1920s.
Promoting Mayan archaeology was an integral part of CarrilloPuerto’s program. In 1923, he welcomed an American expedition fromthe Carnegie Institute accompanied by New York Times journalist AlmaReed (1889–1966), with whom he shared an interest in Theosophy andAtlantis. The two fell madly in love. Carrillo Puerto, however, was married,and he introduced and passed the first Yucatan divorce law with theintention of being among the first to use it. Before he could marryReed, however, a military group supporting the revolt of Adolfo de laHuerta (1881–1955) captured and executed him in Merida on 3January 1924. This tragic love story lives in Mexico through the famoussong La Peregrina (The Pilgrim), created for Reed at the governor’srequest by poet Luis Rosado Vega (1873–1958) and musician RicardoPalmerın (1887–1944).47
Scholars often complain that Reed’s biographies48 are all more orless novelized, but her life does read like a novel. In addition to herinvestigative reporting and Mexican romance, she was an amateurarchaeologist in search of Atlantis and the lost wisdom of the ancientoracles. In 1927, her interest in the oracles brought her to Delphi, whereshe met an American girlhood friend, Eva Palmer (1874–1952), a NewYork heiress and lover of Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972), a poet atthe center of a Parisian literary circle.49 Many of those attendingBarney’s gatherings in her Paris Temple of Friendship (which looked
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very much like a real temple) were Theosophists. Even some of thosewho were not, including Lithuanian Roman Catholic poet and diplomatOscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877–1939) and painter Tamara deLempicka (1898–1980), shared some esoteric interests. By 1927, how-ever, Palmer had turned the page of her annees folles and had marriedcelebrated Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos (1884–1951).
When Reed arrived in Delphi, Palmer and Sikelianos were busy orga-nizing the first Delphic Festival featuring music, theater, athletic contexts,art performances, and rituals celebrating Greek heritage and utopian(and Theosophical) ideas of universal brotherhood. The festivalsexpanded into a larger Delphic Movement attracting artists and writers,particularly in the milieu of modern dance, including Isadora Duncan(1877–1927), whose brother married Sikelianios’ sister. It also includedan inner, esoteric circle believing that the Delphic Movement wouldeventually emerge as a meeting place for all religions and creeds.50
Palmer and Sikelianos’ marriage did not last, and the poet had itannulled in Greece in 1934 after the couple had a son, who would becomethe grandfather of contemporary American poet Eleni Sikelianos.51 Eva,however, continued cooperating with the Delphic project for several dec-ades. In 1928, she founded a Delphic Society, headquartered in New Yorkat 12 Fifth Avenue, nicknamed ‘‘the Ashram’’ in reference to MahatmaGandhi (1869–1948). Palmer decided to share this apartment with Reed,and the two women, socialites with Theosophical inclinations, attracteda Who’s Who from among the Theosophical milieu, including AnnieBesant (1847–1933), president of the Theosophical Society,52 andLebanese poet Khalil Gibran (1883–1931).53 True to Carrillo Puerto’s(and Vasconcelos’) program of reform through the arts, Reed emergedas a key patron of Mexican artists in the United States.
After coming to the Ashram in 1928, Orozco wrote to his friend,painter Jean Charlot (1898–1979), of his journey there. He had cometo the Ashram through Mexican Theosophist and poet Juan Tablada(1871–1945), had met another Theosophist, architect Claude Bragdon(1866–1946) ‘‘of the 4th Dimension and Tertium Organum,’’ and hadencountered ‘‘two dozen respectable old ladies, all Theosophical andGreek’’ (i.e. with Delphic insignia). The Fourth Dimension (1909) andTertium Organum (1912) were written by Russian Theosophist Pyotr D.Ouspensky (1878–1947), and Bragdon was an important character ina quest, involving both Theosophists and artists, for a fourth dimensionlocated in space rather than time.54 Orozco called Palmer ‘‘an elderlyAmerican millionaire’’ and Reed ‘‘a beautiful woman’’ and ‘‘one of myadmirers.’’55 In a few months, Orozco and Reed became lovers.56
In 1929, at 9 West 57th Street, Reed opened the Delphic Studios, anart gallery and offshoot of the Delphic Society. The Studios becamethe official representative of Orozco in the United States and helpedhim secure commissions for murals at Pomona College in California, the
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New School of Social Research in New York, and Dartmouth College inHanover, New Hampshire. Particularly, the murals at Dartmouth,including those on the coming and departure of Quetzalcoatl, show howOrozco, in the United States, returned to spiritual themes he had devel-oped in Mexico, possibly reinterpreting them in light of theTheosophical proclivities of Reed’s circle. In 1932, Reed publisheda selection of Orozco’s works,57 and later wrote what remained for manyyears the standard book on Orozco in English.58
Although strongly warned by Orozco against Rivera and Siqueiros,Reed’s efforts quietly promoted their work. She invited Ione Robinson(1910–1989), Rivera’s assistant and a good friend of Siqueiros, andSiqueiros himself,59 to the Ashram. A Marxist, Robinson later wrotethat she was ‘‘frightened’’ by the meeting of the Delphic Society.‘‘A Mrs. Hambridge, the wife of the man who is supposed to have discov-ered Dynamic Symmetry (a system of drawing mathematical forms), wasthere, dressed in white veils, and she wore Greek sandals. The rest of thepeople (all women) wore long chains with Greek crosses. The lights weredimmed—and the discussion of ‘Art on a Higher Plane’ commenced.’’60
‘‘Mrs. Hambridge’’ was actually Mary Crovatt Hambidge (1885–1973),widow of Jay Hambidge (1867–1924), who developed the system ofDynamic Symmetry based on a mathematical study of proportion inancient Greek art, which influenced many leading artists. Robinson’scomments echoed those of American muralist Thomas Hart Benton
Figure 2. Party at Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios, ca. 1936, with David Alfaro Siqueiros(left), Alma Reed (center), and Jose Clemente Orozco (right). Enrique Riveron Papers.
Courtesy of Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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(1889–1975), who wrote that he joined the Delphic Society because of hisadmiration for Orozco, but found the ‘‘resuscitation of the Greek myster-ies of Delphi . . . considerably too esoteric for me.’’61 While some accusedReed of ‘‘de-politicizing’’ the Mexican revolutionary artists, her campaigngenerally was well received. She greatly helped promote the Mexicanmuralists in the United States.62
While Reed’s Mexican connection was strong, the Delphic Societyand Studios were meeting places for artists from various parts of theworld to share their interests in alternative spirituality. An importantpresence was Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter and Theosophist inNew York in 1920, 1923–1924, 1929–1930, and in 1934, when he hadalready decided to live in the Himalayas. He and his wife Helena Roerich(1879–1955) claimed to receive messages from some of the sameMasters who had once spoken to Blavatsky. The Theosophical Societyeventually declared the messages spurious, and the Roerichs ended upestablishing their own independent movement, Agni Yoga, although formany years they tried to keep the organization somewhat connected tothe Theosophical circuit.63
In fact, some of the Masters’ messages were kept hidden to all but themembers of the Roerich family and a close circle of (mostly American)followers. The messages instructed Nicholas Roerich to play a compli-cated political game with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, andChina, which would eventually allow him to emerge as the ruler of a largekingdom in Central Asia, where he would build an ideal city in which themysterious Masters would interact openly with their followers.64
Several American artists became friends and disciples of Roerich,most of them members of Cor Ardens (Burning Heart), a spiritual-artistic brotherhood founded in Chicago in 1921 by Roerich and painterRaymond Jonson (1891–1982). Some of the artists connected with bothCor Ardens and Corona Mundi, Roerich’s American art gallery, werenever introduced to the Roerichs’ most esoteric teachings, but all sharedthe aim of a spiritually oriented art.
Less recognized, in the circle around the Delphic Society and Studiosthere was also a Swedenborgian presence. Chauncey Giles (1813–1893),a theologian and minister of the Church of the New Jerusalem, hadfounded a Swedenborgian church in New York. His grandson, HowardGiles (1876–1955), also a Swedenborgian, was part of the Delphic circle.He was a painter known for his patriotic propaganda art in World War I,and a popular teacher at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts,where he introduced several young artists to Swedenborg’s ideas.65
Although Howard Giles was the only Swedenborgian in the Delphiccircle, Swedenborg’s ideas and books influenced several participants.
Roerich’s grand project in New York was the Master Institute ofUnited Arts, a school promoting all forms of a spiritually oriented art.He involved several Delphic Society regulars, including Giles and his
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brilliant pupil Emil Bisttram, who became important teachers at theInstitute. Bisttram had been a young street gang leader and professionalboxer in Hungary before finding his way as an artist. A spiritual seeker, hewas familiar with Theosophy, Swedenborgianism, and the RosicrucianFellowship of Max Heindel (1865–1919), of which he became a memberabout 1928.66 Alma Reed organized his first important exhibition at theDelphic Studios in 1933,67 and arranged for a Guggenheim grant allowinghim to study in Mexico under Diego Rivera. Bisttram would be part of thelast generation of Delphic artists when the struggling Delphic Studios,overwhelmed with financial difficulties, closed during World War II.Although it had a short-lived revival between 1946 and 1950, Reed leftNew York to spend her last years in her beloved Mexico.68
The Delphic Movement had a real influence on both Greek cultureand modern dance and choreography.69 In New York, only a handful ofwomen took the revival of the ancient mysteries of Delphi seriously. TheAshram and the Delphic Studios, however, played a crucial role in pro-moting Mexican artists in the United States. It was through the DelphicCenter and Studios that the Mexican muralists came into contact withartists from the United States who shared similar interests in alternativespiritualities, as well as with Roerich and his disciples. The Mexicanartists learned in New York that there was much less opposition thereto the supernatural claims of Theosophy and other occult movementsthan among their fellow Latin American Marxists. On the other hand,they noticed that their work was accepted as ‘‘exotic,’’ perhaps witha touch of patronizing ‘‘Latinism’’ not dissimilar from Orientalism,which might also function to neutralize their revolutionary political crit-icism. Although they felt uneasy about it, they realized that the fact thatthey shared certain interests in Theosophy and other alternative spiri-tualities with artists from the United States, and with influential patronsof the arts such as Palmer and Reed, greatly enhanced their chances tofind an international audience.
ACT 3: NEW MEXICO
After his training in Mexico, in 1931 Bisttram decided to settle inTaos, New Mexico, home to several artists interested in alternative spir-ituality, and where eventually other painters associated with the DelphicStudios in New York also moved. Artistic colonies had a long story in NewMexico. The Roerichs themselves had visited the state in 1921 andreceived revelations from Master Morya concerning its special signifi-cance.70 Several of Roerich’s followers lived in Taos and Santa Fe, andBisttram naturally was attracted to their circle. The group of artistsaround Bisttram in New Mexico was among the first in the world to talkconsistently of a coming New Age connected with the astrological Age of
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Aquarius, whose beginning they awaited in 1936. Bisttram’s manuscripts,studied by art historian Ruth Pasquine, demonstrate that upon hisreturn from Mexico in 1931 the artist believed ‘‘we are on the thresholdof a new cycle in man’s evolution called the Aquarian era (we are justpassing out of the Piscean era).’’71
Bisttram based his ideas about the New Age on Blavatsky’s notion ofthe emergence of a new sub-race, as re-interpreted by Annie Besant.72 Itis probable that Bisttram also was familiar with New Age theoriesadvanced by Alice Bailey (1880–1949), since she was an occasional visitorto the New York Ashram73 and worked for a while at Roerich’s MasterInstitute, where Bisttram was also a teacher.74 The date 1936 came fromRoerich, revealed to him by the Masters as the year that would mark thebeginning of his mystical kingdom in Central Asia. Bisttram also tookfrom Roerich the notion that 1936 ‘‘began the Aquarian Age, the age ofwomen and the liberation of women,’’75 an idea expressed in his muralContemporary Justice and Women (1937), which he executed in a styleinfluenced by Rivera for the United States Department of Justice inWashington, D.C. Bisttram, however, also believed that the passage inthe visual arts from Cubism to what he called ‘‘Neo-Classicism’’ corre-sponded to the entrance into a new cycle or sub-cycle, a view that mightalso reflect his observation of ‘‘Rivera’s view of himself’’ in Mexico.76
Upon settling in New Mexico, Bisttram was fascinated by theBrotherhood of Los Penitentes, a Catholic group practicing self-flagellation and a ritual reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion on GoodFriday. These extreme practices led to the Penitentes’ exclusion from theRoman Catholic Church, although they would be readmitted into the foldin 1947. According to Pasquine, ‘‘Bisttram was probably so fascinated bythe Penitentes because of Blavatsky’s assertion that a symbolic crucifixionwas the last and most secret of Egyptian mysteries.’’77 In the early 1930s, heproduced several paintings inspired by the Penitentes.
Later, however, Bisttram came to believe that the art for the New Ageshould be abstract. Between 1936 and 1947, he produced abstract paint-ings influenced by Hopi Indian art, using the encaustic technique basedon the use of beeswax and pigments on paper. He never sold the worksduring his lifetime, showing them only to close friends. He intended hisencaustics to be meditation tools and mystical objects whose aim was torealign spiritual forces in anticipation of the advent of the New Age.78
In fact, rather than a time of universal peace, World War II wascoming, and Bisttram’s works became somewhat darker as the war pro-gressed. The New Age’s failure to arrive in 1936 seemed to be yetanother case of failed prophecy for Bisttram and Roerich. TheMasters advised the latter that the New Kingdom had started in theinvisible ‘‘subtle spheres’’ rather than on Earth in Central Asia,79
another example of ‘‘spiritualization’’ of a failed prophecy.80 Bisttrameventually found solace in the study of local Native American folklore.
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Ancient prophecies persuaded the artist that the New Age he awaitedwas not an external political event but an inner transformation of thehearts of an enlightened minority, visible only to those who had eyes tosee.81
The failed prophecy did not prevent Bisttram from becoming a cen-tral figure in the American network of artists interested in alternativespirituality. Some actually moved to New Mexico. One was Lawren
Figure 3. Emil Bisttram, Spectre. c. 1940. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of MichaelRosenfeld Gallery, New York, New York.
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Harris (1885–1970), the best-known Canadian painter of the twentiethcentury and a very active member of the Theosophical Society; anotherwas Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), who had encountered Theosophythrough Bragdon. Harris spent 1938–1940 in New Mexico, as his art wasincreasingly turning to abstraction. He also was interested in Canadiannationalist political thought, and he placed the emergence of Blavatsky’ssixth sub-race in Canada rather than the United States, just as CarrilloPuerto had placed it in Mexico.82
In 1937 in Santa Fe, two members of Roerich’s inner circle, a wealthysocialite from Oklahoma, Clyde Gartner (1900–1967), and pianist/com-poser Maurice Lichtmann (1887–1948) founded the Arsuna (from theLatin ars una, ‘‘One Art’’) Gallery and School, where both Jonson, whoin the meantime had moved to New Mexico,83 and Bisttram came toteach.84 In 1938, Jonson, Bisttram and Harris were among the foundersof the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG). Another painter witha background in Theosophy and Agni Yoga, Agnes Pelton (1881–1961),85 also joined the TPG, although she never made the move fromCalifornia to New Mexico. What created a ‘‘strong bond’’ among TPGmembers was their shared ‘‘admiration for Kandinsky,’’86 whose theo-sophically oriented book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912)87 remaineda crucial influence on all these networks.
The administrative and publishing arm of the TPG was the AmericanFoundation for Transcendental Painting, which elected as one of its vice-presidents Dane Rudhyar (pseudonym of Daniel Chenneviere, 1895–1985), a French-born composer and artist who went on to become oneof America’s leading astrologers of the twentieth century. He was alsoa decisive influence on the group’s theories about the New Age.88 TheTPG was short-lived, however, and its activities formally ceased in 1942.
With the beginning of World War II, Harris returned to Canada andinternational contacts became difficult, particularly with Roerich in theHimalayas, where in 1947 he died in Kullu, India. The TPG’s choice forabstraction separated the American painters from the Mexican muralists,and after the war new trends emerged. Although most of the artists whowere part of this ‘‘Theosophical’’ network remained active for several dec-ades after World War II, the network in its original form no longer existed.
For some of the artists, however, alternative spirituality remained a cen-tral concern. Bisttram aligned himself with a splinter group of Agni Yogaled by Ralph Harris Houston (1908–1976),89 known as Guru R.H.H.,hosting R.H.H. meetings in his home in Taos, to which people came fromas far as away as California. One was social activist Burt Wilson, who laterwould found his own group, the Academy of Ancient Wisdom. Anotherwas Gayle Pierce (1903–1999), a popular chiropractor and spiritual healerwho had several artists among her clients and followers. Her life showshow relationships between the artistic milieus and alternative spiritualitysurvived the demise of the pre-war network. Raised Mormon, Pierce was
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part of the early Dianetics movement of L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986).Later, she became a close disciple of Guru R.H.H. along with Bisttrambefore starting her own group based on both Roerich and Ouspensky.She then traveled to Japan, where she joined one of the local new reli-gions, Tensho Kotai Jingu-kyo, and became a health advisor to its founder,Kitamura Sayo (1900–1967), known as ‘‘Ogamisama.’’ After Kitamura’sdeath, Pierce left Japan and later adopted Tibetan Buddhism.90 Her storyillustrates that many artists and their friends were ‘‘seekers,’’ exploringdifferent forms of alternative spirituality.
CONCLUSION
In 2015, the English translation of substantial parts of the journals ofSina Fosdick (1889–1983), originally written in Russian, was published inthe United States.91 Fosdick was Roerich’s closest American disciple andhis successor as leader of Agni Yoga. The monumental journals showhow Roerich consciously tried to create an international network ofartists interested in Theosophy and other forms of alternative spiritual-ity, and to remain at its center, cooperating with several esoteric move-ments and creating new structures such as Corona Mundi and theMaster Institute. Roerich certainly pursued the mundane goals of pro-moting his own work and Corona Mundi as an art gallery. Fosdick’sjournal, however, shows that Roerich claimed to receive almost dailyinstructions from the same Masters of Wisdom who had once spokento Blavatsky. Beyond the immediate purpose of promoting and sellingpaintings, the Masters asked Roerich to create an international groupwhose final aim was nothing less than to ‘‘unite all religions under theroof of our [the Masters’] house.’’92 Even the smallest decision was ‘‘tobe considered in relation to the Great Plan.’’93 Roerich and his friends,including Bisttram, expected that the Plan would eventually include thevisible coming of a new millenarian era. In turn, in Argentina, Xul Solardid not correspond with like-minded international artists and esotericauthors only to promote his work. He wrote down his esoteric visions ina language he invented himself, and only in 2012 was American scholarDaniel Nelson able to translate and publish Solar’s magical journal.94
There, it becomes clear that the artist’s efforts were in fact directedthrough visions and dreams by supernatural beings he knew throughhis association with Crowley.
The dialogue between painters of different nationalities united bya common interest in alternative spirituality—in Latin America duringthe Vasconcelos years, then in New York around the Delphic Center andStudios, and finally in New Mexico with Arsuna and the TranscendentalPainting Group—demonstrates that a significant subnetwork of artistsoperated within the larger transnational ‘‘Theosophical’’ network.
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Participating in the transnational subnetwork provided several painterswith the opportunity to correspond with artists in other countries whoshared their interests. For those who believed, with Roerich, Solar andBisttram, that it was part of their mission to announce a spiritual messagefrom supernatural beings, the subnetwork contained kindred spirits andopportunities to spread their ideas.
While the artists did not adopt the same style, they influenced eachother in many different ways. Alternative spiritualities led them toinclude in their artworks themes such as a coming New Age, reincarna-tion, karma, supernatural entities, and a reading of Native American andMesoamerican spirituality through the lenses of modern movementssuch as Rosicrucianism and Theosophy. The artists interpreted thesethemes according to their own proclivities and styles. On the other hand,the friendships established through the subnetwork, the transnationalcontacts, and the interest in esoteric themes and ideas contributed bothto their art and to how it was received by international audiences.Because the subnetwork included prominent artists in North, Centraland South America, its transnational exchanges of ideas about alterna-tive spirituality became relevant not only for the history of esoteric cur-rents in the Americas but also for the history of art.
ENDNOTES
1 Eduardo Deves Valdes and Ricardo Melgar Bao, ‘‘Redes teosoficas y pensa-dores polıticos latinoamericanos, 1910–1930,’’ Cuadernos Americanos 78 (1999):137–52; E. Deves Valdes and R. Melgar Bao, ‘‘Redes teosoficas y pensadores(polıticos) latinoamericanos, 1910–1930,’’ in Redes intelectuales en AmericaLatina. Hacia la constitucion de una comunidad intelectual, ed. E. Deves Valdes(Santiago de Chile: Instituto de Estudios Avanzados, Universidad de Santiagode Chile, 2007), 75–92.2 Marta Elena Casaus Arzu, ‘‘Las redes teosoficas de mujeres en Guatemala. LaSociedad Gabriela Mistral, 1920–1940,’’ Revista de la Complutense de Historia deAmerica 27 (2001): 219–55; M. E. Casaus Arzu, ‘‘La creacion de nuevos espaciospublicos en Centroamerica a principios del Siglo XX. La influencia de redesteosoficas en la opinion publica centroamericana,’’ Universum 17 (2002):297–332; M. E. Casaus Arzu, ‘‘La formacion de la nacion cultural en las elitesteosoficas centroamericanas 1920–1930. Carlos Wyld Ospina y AlbertoMasferrer,’’ a paper presented at the First Conference on the History of ElSalvador, 25 July 2003, available at at www.ues.edu.sv/descargas/memoria/sigloxx/casaus.pdf, accessed 10 November 2015.3 Marco Aurelio Navarro-Genie, ‘‘Longing for the Fifth Race: Esoteric RacialistRevolutionaries in Hispanic America, 1910–1935,’’ Ph.D. diss., University ofCalgary, 2009.4 See Sixten Ringbom, The Sounding Cosmos: A Study in the Spiritualism ofKandinsky and the Genesis of Abstract Painting (Turku: Åbo Akademi, 1970).
Ringbom (1935–1992), a distinguished art historian, opened the door to subse-quent studies of Theosophical influences on Kandinsky, although other scholarsnow reject his main argument, that Kandinsky was influenced by the 1905 bookThought Forms, published through the Theosophical Publishing House(London) by Theosophical leaders Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater(1854–1934). The frequent reference to a first edition allegedly published in1901 comes from a misunderstanding based on an error in the 1925 edition. SeeJohn Crow, ‘‘Thought Forms: A Bibliographic Error,’’ Theosophical History 16, no.3–4 (July-October 2012): 125–26. There is no clear evidence that Kandinsky wasinfluenced by Thought Forms, although he surely was familiar with Theosophicalliterature in general. See Raphael Rosenberg, ‘‘Mapping the Aura in the Spirit ofArt and Art Theory: Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Besant, and Steiner,’’ paper pre-sented at the conference ‘‘Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy and the Arts inthe Modern World,’’ Amsterdam, 25 September 2013; and Massimo Introvigne,‘‘The Sounding Cosmos Revisited: Ringbom, Kandinsky, the TheosophicalTradition and Religious/Artistic Innovation,’’ paper presented at the XXIWorld Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions,Erfurt, 24 September 2015.5 Navarro-Genie, ‘‘Longing for the Fifth Race,’’ 89–94.6 See Francisco I. Madero, La revolucion espiritual de Madero. Documentos ineditos ypoco conocidos, comp. Manuel Arellano Zavaleta (Mexico: Gobierno del Estado deQuintana Roo, 2000); and C. M. Mayo [Catherine Mansell], Metaphysical Odysseyinto the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual(Palo Alto, CA: Dancing Chiva, 2014).7 Francisco Ignacio Madero, Obras Completas de Francisco Ignacio Madero, VII.Escritos sobre espiritismo. Doctrina Espırita, 1901–1913 (Mexico: Clıo, 2000), 257.8 Jose Vasconcelos, Estudios Indostanicos (Mexico: Botas, 1938), 405. OnVasconcelos, Madero and Theosophy, see Jose Ricardo Chaves, Mexico heterodoxo.Diversidad religiosa en las letras del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX (Mexico: BonillaArtigas, 2013), 90–92.9 Augusto Iglesias, Vasconcelos, Gabriela Mistral y Jose Santos Chocano. Un filosofo ydos poetas en la encrucijada (Mexico: Clasica Selecta, 1967), 39.10 Martin C. Taylor, Gabriela Mistral’s Struggle with God and Man: A Biographicaland Critical Study of the Chilean Poet (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), 156.11 Casaus Arzu, ‘‘La creacion de nuevos espacios publicos en Centroamerica,’’310.12 Casaus Arzu, ‘‘Las redes teosoficas en Guatemala.’’13 Chester Urbina Gaytan, ‘‘Teosofıa, intelectuales y sociedad en Costa Rica(1908–1929),’’ Ciencias Sociales 88 (2000): 139–44.14 Jose Vasconcelos, Indologıa. Una interpretacion de la cultura Ibero-americana(Barcelona: Agencia Mundial de Librerıa, 1926), 425.15 Navarro-Genie, ‘‘Longing for the Fifth Race,’’ 138–41. On Theosophical ideasabout races and Atlantis, see James A. Santucci, ‘‘The Notion of Race inTheosophy,’’ Nova Religio 11, no. 3 (February 2008): 37–63.16 Navarro-Genie, ‘‘Longing for the Fifth Race,’’ 138–39.17 Navarro-Genie, ‘‘Longing for the Fifth Race,’’ 13–14.
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18 See Frederick Pike, The Politics of the Miraculous in Peru: Haya de la Torre and theSpiritualist Tradition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986).19 M. A. Navarro-Genie, Augusto ‘‘Cesar’’ Sandino: Messiah of Light and Truth(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002).20 Casaus Arzu, ‘‘La formacion de la nacion cultural,’’ 4.21 Casaus Arzu, ‘‘La formacion de la nacion cultural,’’ 4–6.22 Patricia Artundo, ‘‘Primera historia de un Diario Magico,’’ in Los San Signos.Xul Solar y el I Ching, ed. Daniel E. Nelson (Buenos Aires: Fundacion Eduardo F.Constantini and Fundacion Pan Klub, 2012), 103–24; available as pdf at www.academia.edu/4104243/Primera_historia_de_un_Diario_M%C3%A1gico_Xul_Solar_y_la_tradici%C3%B3n_esot%C3%A9rica_occidental_.23 See Massimo Introvigne, ‘‘From Mondrian to Charmion von Wiegand:Neoplasticism, Theosophy and Buddhism,’’ in Black Mirror 0: Territory, ed.Judith Noble, Dominic Shepherd and Robert Ansell (London: FulgurEsoterica, 2014), 47–59.24 Luis Perez-Oramas, ‘‘The Anonymous Rule: Joaquın Torres Garcıa, theSchematic Impulse, and Arcadian Modernity,’’ in Joaquın Torres-Garcıa: TheArcadian Modern, ed. Luis Perez-Oramas (New York: The Museum of ModernArt, 2015), 31.25 See Flavio de Aquino, Manoel Santiago. Vida, obra e crıtica (Rio de Janeiro:Cabicieri, 1986).26 Ramon Favela, Diego Rivera: The Cubist Years (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum,1984), 47.27 Favela, Diego Rivera, 36–37.28 Favela, Diego Rivera, 49–51.29 In 1977, Rivera’s La Mujer del pozo (Lady of the Well, 1913) was discoveredhidden in the back of his 1915 Cubist Zapatista Landscape. The painting associ-ated a clearly recognizable Rosicrucian emblem with the Aztec creator deityQuetzalcoatl, confirming that Rivera’s esoteric interests dated back to the 1910sand to his European period. See Edgar Vidal, ‘‘Diego Rivera entre os Rosacruces yMarx,’’ Revista de Historia e Estudos Culturais 10, no. 2 (June-December 2013): 1–12;available as pdf at www.revistafenix.pro.br/vol32-a03.php.30 Renato Gonzalez Mello, ‘‘Diego Rivera entre la transparencia y el secreto,’’ inHacia otra historia del arte en Mexico. La fabricacion del arte nacional a debate (1920–1950), Tomo III, ed. Esther Acevedo (Mexico: Direccion General dePublicaciones del Conaculta, 2002), 43.31 Diego Rivera, Arte y polıtica, ed. Raquel Tibol (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1979), 354.32 Susana Pliego Quijano, ‘‘Lenguaje esoterico y funcionamiento del universoen los murales de Diego Rivera en Chapingo,’’ Discurso Visual 20 (May-August2012), available at discursovisual.net/dvweb20/entorno/entsusana.htm; andSusana Pliego Quijano, ‘‘Los murales de Diego Rivera en Chapingo, una inter-pretacion iconografica,’’ Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autonoma deMexico, 2009.33 Cuauhtemoc Medina Gonzalez, ‘‘Una ciudad ideal. El sueno del Doctor Atl,’’Lic. diss., Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1991.
34 Raquel Tibol, Diego Rivera, luces y sombras. Narracion documental (Mexico:Lumen, 2007), 75.35 R. Tibol, ‘‘Aparecio la serpiente. Diego Rivera y los rosacruces,’’ Proceso 701(9 April 1990): 50–53.36 Rivera, Arte y polıtica, 353–54.37 Rivera occasionally referred to her as his second wife, ‘‘forgetting’’ the firstwife he married in Paris, Russian painter Angelina Beloff (1879–1969).38 Gannit Ankori, ‘‘Moses, Freud, and Frida Kahlo,’’ in New Perspectives on Freud’sMoses and Monotheism, ed. Ruth Ginsburg and Ilana Pardes (Tubingen: MaxNiemeyer Verlag, 2006), 135–48.39 Gannitt Ankori, Frida Kahlo (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), 148.40 Fausto Ramırez Rojas, ‘‘Artistas e iniciados en la obra mural de Orozco,’’ inOrozco. Una relectura, ed. Xavier Moyssen (Mexico: Universidad NacionalAutonoma de Mexico, 1983), 93.41 Ramırez Rojas, ‘‘Artistas e iniciados,’’ 95–96.42 Jorge Reynoso Pohlenz, ‘‘Siqueiros. Los lımites de la utopıa y la figuracion,’’unpublished lecture at the Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguerez,Zacatecas, 21 April 2008.43 Ironically, at that time, Blanca was carrying on an affair with Botana. SeeAlvaro Abos, Cautivo. El mural argentino de Siqueiros (Buenos Aires: Libros delZorzal, 2004).44 Juan Pablo Bubello, Historia del Esoterismo en la Argentina. Practicas, representa-ciones y persecuciones de curanderos, espiritas, astrologos y otros esoteristas (Buenos Aires:Biblos, 2010), 92.45 Beatriz Urıas Horcasitas, ‘‘El poder de los sımbolos / los sımbolos en el poder.Teosofıa y ‘Mayanismo’ en Yucatan (1922–1923),’’ Relaciones 19, no. 115(Summer 2008): 179–212.46 Deves Valdes and Melgar Bao, ‘‘Redes teosoficas y pensadores (polıticos)latinoamericanos,’’ 89–90.47 Michael K. Schluessler, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in Alma M. Reed, Peregrina: Love andDeath in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 1–53. Carrillo Puerto’sfamily later tried to deny that the governor actually intended to marry Reed, butany doubt disappeared in 2011, when the Mexican National Council for Culture,which owned the love letters exchanged between Alma and Felipe, authorizedtheir publication. See M. K. Schluessler and Amparo Gomez Tepexicuapan, Tuyohasta que me muera . . . Epistolario de Alma Reed (Pixan Halal) y Felipe Carrillo Puerto(H’Pil Zutulche) (Mexico: Conaculta, 2011).48 See e.g. Antoinette May, Passionate Pilgrim: The Extraordinary Life of Alma Reed(New York: Paragon House, 1993).49 Susanne Rodriguez, Wild Heart: A Life. Natalie Clifford Barney’s Journey fromVictorian America to Belle Epoque Paris (New York: Ecco, 2002), 58–62. Palmer’slove letters to Barney have been published in a Greek translation: Grammata tisEvas Palmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie Clifford-Barney, ed. Lia Papadaki (Athens:Kastaniotis, 1995).50 See Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic: The Autobiography of Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, ed. John P. Anton (Philadelphia: Harwood Academic Publishers,
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1993); and Matteo Zaccarini, Feste Delfiche (1927 e 1930). Fotografie dagli ArchiviStorici del Museo Benaki di Atene – Delphic Festivals (1927 and 1930): Photographs fromthe Historical Archives of the Benaki Museum of Athens (Imola: Meduproject andEditrice La Mandragora, 2009).51 See Eleni Sikelianos, ‘‘The Lefevre-Sikelianos-Waldman Tree and theImaginative Utopian Attempt,’’ Jacket 27 (April 2005), at jacketmagazine.com/27/w-sike.html; accessed 12 November 2015.52 S. Pliego Quijano, ‘‘Creation, Generation, Transmutation and Rebirth in theWork of Mexican artists Diego Rivera, Xavier Guerrero and Jose ClementeOrozco,’’ paper presented at the conference ‘‘Enchanted Modernities:Theosophy and the Arts in the Modern World,’’ Amsterdam, 25–27September 2013.53 Schluessler, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 18–19. For Gibran’s relations with theTheosophical Society see Jean-Pierre Dahdah, Khalil Gibran. Une biographie(Paris: Albin Michel, 1994), 383–84.54 See Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-EuclideanGeometry in Modern Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).55 Jose Clemente Orozco, The Artist in New York: Letters to Jean Charlot and UnpublishedWritings (1925–1929), ed. Jean Charlot and Ruth L. C. Simms (Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1974), 66. On Tablada’s important role within the MexicanTheosophical and esoteric milieu see Chaves, Mexico heterodoxo, 143–48.56 Like Carrillo Puerto, Orozco was married. His widow, Margarita Valladaresdel Valle (1898–1993), tried to deny the affair with Reed and even that theAmerican writer had any significant influence on Orozco’s art and career. Seeher notes and appendix to the second edition of J. C. Orozco’s Autobiografıa(Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1970). Schluessler, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 316–17, regardsMay’s reconstruction of the affair as essentially reliable.57 Alma Reed, ed., Jose Clemente Orozco (New York: Delphic Studios, 1932).58 Alma Reed, Orozco (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).59 A photograph of Siqueiros at a Delphic Studios party in the 1930s with Reed,Orozco, and Riveron is included in the papers of Cuban painter EnriqueRiveron (1902–1998) at the Washington, D.C. Archives of American Art; avail-able online at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/images/detail/party-alma-reeds-delphic-studios-1445; accessed 15 November 2015.60 Ione Robinson, A Wall to Paint On (New York: A. P. Dutton & Co., 1946),150–51.61 Thomas Hart Benton, An American in Art: A Professional and TechnicalAutobiography (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969), 61.62 See Anna Indych-Lopez, Muralism without Walls: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros inthe United States, 1927–1940 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009).Reed’s final statement on the matter is her book, The Mexican Muralists (NewYork: Crown Publishers, 1960).63 Alexandre Andreyev, The Myth of the Masters Revealed: The Occult Lives of Nikolaiand Helena Roerich (Boston: Brill, 2014), 104.64 The most complete reconstruction of the Roerichs’ esoteric career isAndreyev, Myth of the Masters Revealed. On Roerich’s messianic claims, see
Danny Savelli, ‘‘Alexandra David-Neel et Nicholas Roerich. Histoire d’une ren-contre autour de Gesar de Ling et de Shambhala,’’ Politica Hermetica 27 (2013):150–67.65 See Ruth Pasquine, ‘‘The Politics of Redemption: Dynamic Symmetry,Theosophy, and Swedenborgianism in the Art of Emil Bisttram (1895–1976),’’Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 2000, 20–25.66 Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ 223. Among the artists who joinedHeindel’s Rosicrucian Fellowship, the most famous was French painter YvesKlein (1928–1962). See Thomas McEvilley, ‘‘Yves Klein et les rose-croix,’’ inYves Klein (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983), 233–44.67 Leo Katz, ed., The Dancing Gods Series: Exhibition of Water Colors by Emil Bisttram(New York: Delphic Studios, 1933). Katz (1887–1982), an art historian and anartist himself, was part of a New York ‘‘occult circle’’ that included Bisttram, Giles,Roerich, Bragdon and Manly P. Hall. See Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ iv.Manly P. Hall (1901–1990), who was an influential occult author and member ofthe Rosicrucian Fellowship, moved to California in 1934 and established his owngroup, the Philosophical Research Society.68 May, Passionate Pilgrim, 244–48.69 See John P. Anton, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in Upward Panic: The Autobiography of EvaPalmer-Sikelianos, by Eva Palmer-Sikelianos (Philadelphia: Harwood AcademicPublishers, 1991), xi-xxv.70 Andreyev, Myth of the Masters Revealed, 96.71 Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ 232.72 See Catherine Lowman Wessinger, Annie Besant and Progressive Messianism(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988).73 Pliego Quijano, ‘‘Creation, Generation, Transmutation and Rebirth.’’74 Fosdick, My Teachers, 97.75 Walt Wiggins, The Transcendental Art of Emil Bisttram (Ruidoso Downs, NM:Pintores Press, 1988), 22.76 Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ 292–93. See also Ruth Pasquine, EmilBisttram (1895–1976): American Painter: Dynamic Symmetry, Theosophy,Swedenborgianism, 2 vols. (Saarbrucken, Germany: Lambert AcademicPublishing, 2010).77 Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ 310.78 Warren L. Shaull, James Parsons, and Larry Bottigheimer [sic: in fact,Boettigheimer], Emil James Bisttram, Encaustic Compositions 1936–1947:A Pictorial Monograph with Essays (Salina, KS: G & S Publishing, 2013).79 Andreyev, Myth of the Masters Revealed, 420–21.80 See J. Gordon Melton, ‘‘Spiritualization and Reaffirmation: What ReallyHappens When Prophecy Fails,’’ American Studies 26, no. 2 (Fall 1985): 17–29.81 Shaull, Parsons and Boettigheimer, Emil James Bisttram, 40.82 See my ‘‘Lawren Harris and the Theosophical Appropriation of the NationalTradition in Canada,’’ in Theosophical Appropriations: Kabbalah, Western Esotericismand the Transformation of Tradition, ed. Boaz Huss and Julie Chajes (Be’er Sheva:Ben Gurion University Press, forthcoming).
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83 On Jonson’s continued interaction with esoteric groups, see Herbert R.Hartel, Jr., ‘‘The Art and Life of Raymond Jonson (1891–1982): Concerning theSpiritual in American Abstract Art,’’ Ph.D. diss., City University of New York,2002.84 Sharyn R. Uddall, Arsuna: The Culmination of an Ideal, 1937–1942(Albuquerque: Jonson Gallery, University of New Mexico Art Museum, 2002).85 See Michael Zakian, Agnes Pelton: Poet of Nature (Palm Springs, CA: PalmSprings Desert Museum, 1995).86 Pasquine, ‘‘Politics of Redemption,’’ 494.87 Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, trans. Michael T. Sadler(New York: MFA Publications, and London: Tate Publishing, 2001). Sadler trans-lated the German edition, dated 1912 but in fact printed in December 1911. TheRussian edition, published in 1914 but written by Kandinsky in 1911, includedimportant differences. See John E. Bowlt and Rose-Carol Washton Long, eds.,The Life of Vasilii Kandinsky in Russian Art: A Study of ‘‘On the Spiritual in Art’’(Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1980).88 Deniz Ertan, Dane Rudhyar: His Music, Thought, and Art (Rochester, NY:University of Rochester Press, 2009), 146–48.89 See Guru R.H.H., Talk Does Not Cook the Rice (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser,1982 and 1985).90 Cornelia Hoppe, Growth on the Path: Based on the Life and Teachings of Dr. GayleC. Pierce (San Francisco: Trafford Publishing, 2008).91 Sina Fosdick, My Teachers: Meetings with the Roerichs, Diary Leaves 1922–1934(Prescott, AZ: White Mountain Education Association, 2015).92 Fosdick, My Teachers, 469.93 Fosdick, My Teachers, 536.94 See Nelson, Los San Signos.
