[HN Gopher] Art and Theosophy (2006)
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Art and Theosophy (2006)
Author : dvt
Score : 22 points
Date : 2021-10-08 03:59 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.katinkahesselink.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.katinkahesselink.net)
| vector_spaces wrote:
| Theosophy, like anthroposophy, has a bizarre cosmology that
| positions white Aryans as the pinnacle of human spirituality.
| Anthroposophy originated through a schism with the theosophists,
| and posits a form of reincarnation that includes a racial
| hierarchy in which those who live virtuous lives are reborn,
| first as "lesser races" (Africans, indigenous peoples, South
| Asians), and eventually as white people if they live virtuous
| lives. This derives from the theosophist conception of "root
| races". See [1] for more discussion on antisemitism in theosophy,
| and [2] for mention of an incident at a Waldorf school (which
| follow the tenets of anthroposophy) in which white schoolteachers
| apparently self-identified as all races because they believed
| they had "ascended" through all of them.
|
| Oh, it's worth mentioning that another movement derived from
| theosophy, ariosophy, went on to form the basis of Nazi
| cosmology.
|
| All of these movements originated in turn of the century Europe
| and largely reflect the values of the era. And all of them,
| particularly the anthroposophists, are extremely aggressive about
| reputation management and sanitizing their histories.
|
| Ah, and one final point -- the founders of the organic food
| movement were students of Rudolf Steiner, the originator of
| anthroposophy, who popularized his own system of agriculture --
| biodynamics. A lot of cultural norms and attitudes in modern
| alternative health and natural food circles began with
| anthroposophy, and theosophy, by extension -- including the anti-
| vaccination movement. Weleda, a natural skincare company founded
| by Steiner still operates today.
|
| See [3] and [4] for some discussion of anthroposophist attitudes
| about vaccinations
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_mysticism#Blavats...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/education-28646118
|
| [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/21/rightwing-
| popu...
|
| [4]
| https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Blavatsky was an anti racist. She deliberately tried to
| integrate wisdom from all sources, seeing common truths. nazism
| that's nonsense. Read original work, please.
|
| Even in the first article you cite, it says: The first aim of
| the Theosophical Society she founded is "To form a nucleus of
| the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of
| race, creed, sex, caste or colour"
|
| That's pretty chill for 1870.
| vector_spaces wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's what theosophists are saying about her
| today, but a cursory evaluation of her corpus shows that by
| anyone's standards her beliefs around race were white
| supremacist. I'll be charitable and assume that you missed
| this during your own reading:
|
| "Mankind is obviously divided into god-informed men and lower
| human creatures. The intellectual difference between the
| Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the
| South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No
| amount of culture, nor generations of training amid
| civilization, could raise such human specimens as the
| Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African Tribes, to
| the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and
| the Turanians so called. The 'sacred spark' is missing in
| them and it is they who are the only inferior races on the
| globe, now happily - owing to the wise adjustment of nature
| which ever works in that direction - fast dying out. Verily
| mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence. We
| are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature,
| having in us a spark, which in them is latent" (The Secret
| Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 421).
|
| Hopefully you agree that's pretty ugly.
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| >Oh, it's worth mentioning that another movement derived from
| theosophy, ariosophy, went on to form the basis of Nazi
| cosmology.
|
| This claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Ariosophy was known as
| _ario-christianity_ by its formulators [0]. Theosophical
| elements were twisted by the Nazis as were elements of many
| religions: Christanity(as above), Buddhism and Hinduism (the
| swastika), etc. That you can find elements of each of those
| religious systems in twisted form in Nazi cosmology does not
| mean it was derived from them nor that Theosophists,
| Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists share any kind of common
| cause with the Nazis.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariosophy
| vector_spaces wrote:
| A key differentiator between theosophy and the other
| ideologies you mention is that the former's seminary text
| includes the words inferior races with regard to certain
| specific "non-Aryan" races, and discussions on the spiritual
| poverty of semites compared with Aryans.
| jinpa_zangpo wrote:
| The anti-vaccination movement predates theosophy and is as old
| as vaccination itself. There is some overlap in membership, but
| it is a historical error to see it as an offshoot of theosophy.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| Modern art was indeed heavily influenced by theosophy at the
| start, even if it stands on its own feet since half a century and
| more. And historians that trace the development of abstract art
| are indeed amiss if they omit this influence, but superficial
| histories such as exhibition catalogues will understandably try
| and avoid such 'complications' in the narrative.
|
| Btw one artist conspicuously missing from the article is Hilma af
| Klint [0], a Swedish "modernist" and theosophist too, that
| predates all the the others (Turner, Kandinsky, and Mondrian et
| al).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilma_af_Klint
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Theosophy is awesome. Blavatsky was a genius. Neither were
| spotless. Both had concerted campaigns to defame them. Keep in
| mind what life would be like for a genius female philosopher in
| 1870. Blavatsky had a HUGE influence on India. She was
| surprisingly rational, particularly for trying to rationally take
| on mysticism. Someone needed to do it.
|
| Many people get scared off but it is worth reading some original
| work. https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu-hp.htm
| vector_spaces wrote:
| "Not spotless" is another way of saying that her writings were
| rife with anti-semitism and anti-indigenous sentiments that
| pretty much everyone today should find reprehensible. The fact
| that these sentiments are fundamentally baked into her
| cosmology via her root races ideology blights her efforts with
| regard to mysticism.
|
| I'll go farther and say that I think celebrating her without
| detailed qualification and acknowledgement of these issues
| (saying she's "not spotless"/"wasn't perfect", etc. obviously
| doesn't count), along with wantonly dismissing people who take
| issue with this content, is both extremely irresponsible and
| extremely unkind, not to mention deeply immature.
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