Strube, Julian (2016b). Sozialismus, Katholizisimus und Okkultismus im Frankreich des 19. Jahrhunderts - Die Genealogie der Schriften von Eliphas Lévi. Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten. Vol.69. Berlin: De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110478105. ISBN 978-3-11-047810-5. Adopted by modern occultists and Satanists. Theistic Satanists may worship it as a deity or demon, while atheistic Satanists see it as a metaphorical symbol. The goat-headed Baphomet image seen here is a 19 th-century drawing made by Eliphas Levi as a metaphorical symbol from Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. It was not originally created as a Satanic symbol or a deity. See also: Sigil of Baphomet and Statue of Baphomet. Kandinsky is perhaps the first artist that comes to mind when we think about abstract art. We now know that he was definitely not the first abstract artist, but nevertheless, he became one of the leading theoreticians of abstract art and spirituality. His most widely known book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, was an elaborate study of the connections between line, color, emotion, and the spiritual state of an artist. Kandinsky further disconnected art from tangible reality, placing it within its own realm. Environmentalism is another theme that plays strongly in art inspired by spirituality. This year brings renewed interest in the art of Monica Sjöö, a Swedish-born artist who described herself as a “radical anarcho/eco-feminist and goddess artist, writer and thinker involved in Earth spirituality”. A retrospective of her work is at Modern Art Oxford this month which moves to London next year. A different division was used by the Traditionalist author René Guénon, who used esotericism to describe what he believed was the Traditionalist, inner teaching at the heart of most religions, while occultism was used pejoratively to describe new religions and movements that he disapproved of, such as Spiritualism, Theosophy, and various secret societies. [17] Guénon's use of this terminology was adopted by later writers like Serge Hutin and Luc Benoist. [18] As noted by Hanegraaff, Guénon's use of these terms are rooted in his Traditionalist beliefs and "cannot be accepted as scholarly valid". [18]

The tree of life is a diagram used in various mystical traditions. It usually consists of 10 nodes symbolizing different archetypes and 22 lines connecting the nodes. The nodes are often arranged into three columns to represent that they belong to a common category Most artists may be engaged in an occult practice without realising that they are. They have, of course, their own art school and peer group initiatory processes with some who, like th Use of the term as a nominalized adjective has developed especially since the late twentieth century. In that same period, occult and culture were combined to form the neologism occulture.Finally, the occult was also used to explore the power of the imagination. Many of the works of the period featured fantastical creatures and landscapes, which were often used to explore the power of the imagination and to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery. The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism and their varied spells. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like extra-sensory perception and parapsychology. Victoria Jenkins: When researching for the book, I initially felt there were clear periods of peak magical artistic interest; the symbolism and mythological sources of the 19th century pre-raphaelite brotherhood, early 20th-century abstract artists’ engagement with, and in some case membership of, theosophical teachings and organisations, and then explorations of feminist mysticism catalysed during the radical political movements of the late 1960s. The occult (from the Latin word occultus; lit. 'clandestine', 'hidden', 'secret') is "knowledge of the hidden". [4] In common usage, occult refers to "knowledge of the paranormal", as opposed to "knowledge of the measurable", [5] usually referred to as science. The terms esoteric and arcane can also be used to describe the occult, [6] in addition to their meanings unrelated to the supernatural. The term occult sciences was used in the 16th century to refer to astrology, alchemy, and natural magic.

Gustave Moreau, The Apparition, 1876–77, oil on canvas, 56 × 47 cm. Courtesy: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Occult Symbolism in Dark Art

It could be argued that I have missed the point - a great deal of art is intrinsically occult and inexplicable to the lay person, a process of creation in which material is alchemically transformed into meaning. Still, our interest should be in artists who deliberatively reflect on this aspect of their work.

Kontou, Tatiana; Wilburn, Sarah, eds. (2012). The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6912-8. Marco Pasi suggested that the use of Hanegraaff's definition might cause confusion by presenting a group of nineteenth-century esotericists who called themselves "occultists" as just one part of a broader category of esotericists whom scholars would call "occultists". [39] Is this true? Yes, to some extent insofar as few artists seem to move away from doing into thinking and much of occult practice is driven, in fact, by ritual, language, text and theory or even ideology than by the artistic 'object'. The 'work' is the person themselves and not their product. The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of British painters, poets, and designers who sought to revive the art of the Italian Renaissance. They were heavily influenced by the occult, and their works often featured themes of mysticism, symbolism, and the supernatural. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John William Waterhouse, and Edward Burne-Jones are some of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite artists. Another feature of occultists is that–unlike earlier esotericists–they often openly distanced themselves from Christianity, in some cases (like that of Crowley) even adopting explicitly anti-Christian stances. [29] This reflected how pervasive the influence of secularisation had been on all areas of European society. [29] In rejecting Christianity, these occultists sometimes turned towards pre-Christian belief systems and embraced forms of Modern Paganism, while others instead took influence from the religions of Asia, such as Hinduism and Buddhism. In various cases, certain occultists did both. [29] Another characteristic of these occultists was the emphasis that they placed on "the spiritual realization of the individual", an idea that would strongly influence the twentieth-century New Age and Human Potential Movement. [29] This spiritual realization was encouraged both through traditional Western 'occult sciences' like alchemy and ceremonial magic, but by the start of the twentieth century had also begun to include practices drawn from non-Western contexts, such as yoga. [29]

Symbol Resources

Victoria Jenkins: This book tells a tale of the occult imagination and curiosity, often found in surprising places. Tate Britain’s 19th-century neoclassical architectural style is often associated with philosophies of the enlightenment, where magical practices and supernatural beliefs were discredited as superstition and something to be consigned to the past. Yet even the building’s walls are flanked by sculptures of sphinxes, mythological creatures associated with riddles and protectors of secrets. A great many artworks in this book are also very much at odds with the myth of a British sensibility that is reserved, stifled and prosaic. There is much wonder and weirdness to be celebrated! This is the aim of almost all forms of magic but a difference here lies in the simplicity of the method employed, requiring as it does no ceremonial equipment or the participation of a concourse of adepts. The specific desire for which any given magical operation is designed must be visualised subconsciously, while the conscious mind is rendered oblivious of the process. Just like Hilma af Klint decades later, Georgiana Houghton created automatic drawings, claiming that she was led by a spirit called Lenny along with seventy Archangels. As a result, she produced abstract compositions of interwoven lights decades before the word abstraction was ever applied to art.