Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1 (Dover Publications, 2000), 390.
Quoted in Iris Müller-Westermann, “Paintings for the Future,” in Hilma af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction (Moderna Museet, 2013), 38.
Although in 1888 the Fox sisters admitted they had fabricated their story, the movement had by then spread worldwide, with its own rituals, images, and communities.
Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, The Blaue Reiter Almanac, trans. Henning Falkenstein (Viking Press, 1974), 173.
Annie Besant, Karma (Theosophical Publishing House, 1895), i.
Interestingly, the split between Steiner and the Theosophical Society was rooted in both doctrinal and methodological disagreements—one of which concerned the role of art in spiritual life. In his Munich conferences, Steiner reimagined the Theosophical gathering as a kind of theatrical Gesamtkunstwerk, incorporating drama, sculpture, and painting as vehicles for esoteric experience. This artistic turn, along with his rejection of Krishnamurti as a messianic figure, deepened the rift with leaders like Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, ultimately leading to the formation of the Anthroposophical Society in 1913.
