 Art and Occultism
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The surge, at the beginning of the XX century, of new spiritual theories such as Theosophy, Anthroposophy, etc., originated an artistic search narrowly tied to spirituality. Art took on a relevant role, beyond the esthetic, as a refuge in the spiritual search. The paradigm of this movements was the work of Wassily Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), based on the theories of Theosophy. This text would announce the new function that would have to with the characterizing of a work of art in the XX century and beyond. The artistic images, which with the birth of abstraction acquired a new potency, reemphasized the weakness of religious discourses for expressing the mystery.
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Beginning the process 
Art and Occultism
The surge, at the beginning of the XX century, of new spiritual theories such as Theosophy, Anthroposophy, etc., originated an artistic search narrowly tied to spirituality. Art took on a relevant role, beyond the esthetic, as a refuge in the spiritual search. The paradigm of this movements was the work of Wassily Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), based on the theories of Theosophy. This text would announce the new function that would have to with the characterizing of a work of art in the XX century and beyond. The artistic images, which with the birth of abstraction acquired a new potency, reemphasized the weakness of religious discourses for expressing the mystery. Traditionally, all spiritual examples had two faces: one inside and one outside. The exterior, or exoteric, gathering the well walked path of directions for devotions and rituals designed to take mankind towards salvation. The interior, or esoteric, is secret and only is known through the experience of initiation. On the medallion of Notre-Dame these two aspects appear through the two books that the personage hold in the right hand, one of them appears to be open and the other one closed.
Medallion from the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris, c. 1245.
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2 of 12. The Aura of Nations
A member of the Theosophical Society, Rudolph Steiner became Helen P. Blavatsky's secretary, her fund raiser, until, disenchanted, he created his own philosophical system which he called Anthroposophy. In this way he separated himself from the fascination with the orient advocated by Blavatsky and centered himself in the western tradition, above all Christianity. As a visionary he wanted to represent the aura of the ancients who dominated the earth, thus showing the evolution of souls tied to the nations: those who are remain attached to the earth and those they abandoned until, according to this Anthroposophist, other evolutionary processes.
- Rudolph Steiner, "The aura of the people of Persia and Egypt", 1914.
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3 of 12. Parallel Action or Double Vision
In this work titled "Woman in Moscow", Kandisnsky expressed Steiner's ideas with respect to "parallel action" or double vision. On the material plane there appears to be a woman in the middle of the street, on the other plane, the spiritual, a black spot seems to travel beyond her range of vision.
Also the woman's aura appears and a rose colored thought form next to her. It clearly deals with the sight of a "parallel action". The artist had read in Steiner's articles that life appears to the visionary as chromatic emanations. Feelings and thoughts floating around the people like colored clouds, or according to ones own perception: "manifestations of beings that surround us all the time."
If the "Woman in Moscow" has number 152 in the catalog, "Black Spot I" has number 153, or it may be that they were consecutive works. Kandinsky dedicated a great deal of force to this meticulously prepared composition. "Woman in Moscow" is an example of parallel representation of material reality, with an occasional influx of spiritual atmosphere, while in the "Black Spot I" only spiritual atmosphere is represented.
The spot is the first step towards the point with which, according to Kandinsky, begins all plastic art. "The point, he wrote, is installed over the surface and affirms itself indefinitely. In such a way it represents the most disengaged internal affirmation..."
Wassily Kandinsky, "Woman in Moscow", 1912
Wassily Kandinsky, "Black Spot I", 1912.
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4 of 12. Sacred Geometry
From Pythagorean history, geometry was closely linked to the knowledge of the world and of God. In the alchemical engraving by Michael Maier, geometry serves to explain the process of the Great Work of the philosophers, of which at times it has been said that it consists in ordering chaos, ordo ab chao. In this emblem is written: "With the male and female make a circle, from that a square, from it a triangle; make then a circle and you will have the Philosopher's Stone."
Kandinsky also understood that an order existed, cosmos that refreshed the spiritual world, of which numbers are the ultimate expression. The Russian artist interested himself with sacred geometry and expressed his own theories in a work titled "Point and line to the plane" and in the courses that he gave in the Bauhaus school. The scheme that is presented pertains to these courses. In it appeared three angles colored in a different way. The sharp angle is painted yellow, the right angle is red and the obtuse-angled is blue.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, emblem XXI, 1618.
Diagrams by Kandinsky for the Bauhaus school.
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8 of 12. Separation
In both images appears an out of body experience, or the separation of body-spirit. In Munch's painting, the woman, or spirit, is separated with sadness from her body, or masculine part. The journey out of body could be compared to a kind of temporal death in which the spirit, separated from it body, travels through hidden and subtle worlds.
At the beginning of XX century, the occultists believed that photography was able to capture the astral spirit. In reality, they aspired to create a spiritual Science not separated form the profane world.
Eduard Munch, "Separation", 1896, Munch Museet, Oslo.
Louis Moreau, "Photograph of a Dance", 1906.
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9 of 12. Adam's Ecstasy
Kupka wrote about the experience that generated this painting: it seemed to him: "that I was observing the earth from outside. I was in a vast empty space and saw the planets slowly turning." In his youth, Kupka was formed close to a Spiritualist who directed a secret society. He transferred his visionary experiences to painting, creating images that were beyond normal perception, in them color and space appear to be in a constant flow. For Kupka, as for the Theosophists, nature was manifested through a rhythmic geometrical force.
There is an amazing similarity between Kupka's painting and the representation of "Eve's Creation" or "The Birth of Eve". In the Scriptures it is written that Eve is born from Adam's rib after his dream, exstasis. According to Kabbalistic teachings, it would deal with his astral body.
Frantisek Kupka, "The Dream", 1906, Museum Bochum, Germany.
Lorenzo Ghiberti, "The Creation of Eve", detail on the baptistery of Florence, 1425-1447.
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10 of 12. The Three Levels of Being
According to the generally accepted concept, mankind is formed of body and soul. On the road of progress we have lost an essential part of the composition that would be the spirit or divine presence that should live within mankind. In the first image the body appears, symbolized by the serpent that envelopes the soul, represented in this case by the figure of Lilith, a first woman for Adam, according to tradition. Lilith is a nocturnal specter, enemy of childbirth and the newly born babies, as in her union with the body nothing is generated. It deals with a passing union, what is destroyed by death.
In the other image the third component appears that comes to animate the first union, the woman and the serpent are fixed in eternal life by means of the tiger-sun.
The harmonic union of these three principles, represented by mercury, sulfur and salt, is the basis for the alchemical Great Work, as is written in an alchemical text of 1612:
"As far as the virtue that animates, this is nothing more than a means between the spirit and the body, given that being this virtue as the tie that is the bond between the two: which really consists of the sulphur in the form of red oil, transparent as the sun in the macrocosm and as the heart of humanity in the microcosm". (Aphorismi Basiliani)
John Collier, "Lilith", 1892.
Louis Cattiaux, "La Foret Philosophal", c. 1942.
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11 of 12. The Origin of the Sacred
The visions of an authentic artist can move them to a reality of union, without which, perhaps, being fully conscious of it. The artist visionary's perception doesn't stop being a depository for the sacred, as Kandinsky, author of this composition in which it is difficult to deny that the union is reflective of what we ourselves have referred to earlier, says: "Finally, I would like to add that every time we get closer to the age of conscious and rational agreement, that we're already in the time of useful creation and, finally, that this spirit of the painting is in organic relation directly with the already initiated construct of the new spiritual reign, that this spirit is the soul of the age of great Spirituality." (Concerning the Spiritual in Art)
Wassily Kandinsky "Cool Concentration," 1930.
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12 of 12. The Reign of God
We could ask ourselves about the relationship, besides the plastic, that exists between this miniature of the Apocalypses of the Beato of Liébana, with the earlier image of Kandinsky, and also with the new spiritual reign for which he was looking. Does occult art really reencounter the sacred; or rather is it only a beginning on the path that ought to be followed until "coming forth by day"?
Christ is the symbol of the benediction that provokes the opening of the inner eyes and that permit knowledge of the hidden meaning of the Word.So, the Parusia, or coming of Christ as Judge of the world, that men in the medieval ages lived as though it were imminent, could also be understood like the Kandinsky's "age of great Spirituality" or the Reign of the Holy Spirit.
"I saw a door open in the sky, and I heard that voice as a trumpet that had spoken to me at the beginning and it said to me: Rise here and I will show you the things that must happen after these. The following action I was suddenly moved by the Spirit, and I saw a seat of honor in the middle of heaven, and on the seat was someone occupying it". (Ap. 4, 1-3).
Apocalypses of the Beato de Liébana, "Códice San Severo", X century
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