The Other Side – The Vibration of different Souls / by Jennifer Higgie

In her book The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World, Jennifer Higgie offers an account of the ways in which women’s art has developed in response to spiritual experience, highlighting the artists who were bold enough to question the status quo and give shape and colour to new ways of seeing and being in the world. Weaving in her own biography and search for enchantment, The Other Side is, in the words of novelist and critic Stephanie Bishop, ‘an account of creativity, one that invites us to engage with alternative modes of being’. Jennifer will introduce her book, discussing its themes and contemporary relevance via a range of historic and contemporary artists and thinkers.

Sophia unveiled: Aspects of the Esoteric in the Paintings of Odilon Redon / by Cyril Coetzee

This slide illustrated lecture will discuss the prevalence in the artist’s work of themes involving ‘radiant female imagery’, ‘imagery of floating heads’, Venus, Mary and Sophia imagery etc. Particular emphasis will be given to the artists literary sources and preoccupation with such notions as an ‘other self’ and the ‘other side of the threshold’. The lecture will also highlight the material and ‘surreal’ aspects of Redon’s art making process with particular reference to the creative significance of ‘Erasure’, ‘Accident’, and Surprise’.

Workshop 1: Active Imagination: The Island/ by Cyril Coetzee

Participants will be guided through an experience of how to practice ‘Active Objective Imagination’ in order to enter thereby into a ‘Waking Dream State’ and thus find answers to questions from the ‘Other Side’ of the threshold.

The Active Imagination /  by Jennifer Higgie

This richly slide illustrated lecture will examine Mikhail Vrubel’s feverish preoccupation with the theme of the Daimon throughout his career, giving attention to his many literary sources (Lermontov, Schopenhauer Nietzsche, Soloviev) and contextualising these ‘Daimon paintings‘ within the social milieu of the so-called ‘Silver Age’, the Symbolist period of Russian art and literature.Particular attention will be given to the themes of Androgyny, ‘Longing’, Madness and of the ‘Dionysian impulse’ as well to a discussion of the creative tension between Pessimism and Mystical transcendence.

Workshop 2: The ‘Reverse View’ ('Ruchschau’)/ by Cyril Coetzee

An auto-ethnographical journey of the self and the lesser-than-self. This seminar will be offered in a workshop format. In and as the awakening Anthropocene we began to think of ourselves as people within a larger context. We became aware that our manner of observing and thinking which had been informed by our ever-growing historical position as central, took a “turn” of realisation that this anthropocentrism has not served us, nor our environment favourably. Moreover, it was not only dysfunctional, disorienting and pathologizing of the human beingness, the notion that we know because we know, was altogether in the wrong. This growing realisation and its effects have sanctified a new way of thinking, feeling, experiencing and moving. It opened up a cathartic vocabulary – fierce and intimate – of a humble embodiment of the decentred being, now merging freely with viruses, bacteria, pollutants, material toxicity, poverty, food insecurity, economic instability, political mayhem and overall dystopia. The sooner we embody the new materialism and their archetypes with a different presentation of: What are we for? the better we will be equipped to manage so-called futures of the interior.

Cosmic Polarity and Gender: the Magnum Opus of Edith Maryon/ by Cyril Coetzee

British Sculptor Edith Maryon’s massive wood sculpture: The Representative of Humanity’, which she co-created in active dialogue with the esotericist Rudolf Steiner, was the fruit of ten years of shared inspiration and work.Now, one hundred years after her death, an examination of this sculpture provides a fascinating window into a key idea of modern Spiritual Science as well as insight into the role of creative synergy spanning the gender divide.

Workshop 3: Meditation: ‘Before the eyes can see’ (The inspiration of Mabel Collins) / by Cyril Coetzee

Participants will be introduced to the techniques and benefits of meditating with ‘imaginative’ mantras, drawn from the selected writings of British Esotericist (and co-worker of H.P. Blatvatsky) Mabel Collins.