Showing posts with label Theosophical society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theosophical society. Show all posts

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Reflections on the drawings of my grandmother Zilla Warren's great-aunt, Georgiana Houghton


With thanks to my second cousin John Rust, who drew my attention to the drawings of our great-great-grandmother's sister, GH.

The "Spirit drawings" of Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884) are being exposed at the Courtauld Gallery in London, from 16 June to 11 September 2016. The magnificent drawings in water colours have been preserved by the Victorian Spiritualist's Union and were previously exhibited by the Monash UniversityMuseum of Art in Victoria, Australia, under the pregnant title: "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits" (2015).

 

Watercolor drawings by Georgiana Houghton.


Why was this artwork, although submitted at the time to the Royal Academy, only once exhibited and not appreciated as it seems to be the case now? One reason is perhaps that Georgiana Houghton embedded her work in a spiritual decor, claiming that others than she led her hand while drawing. One such spirit was Henry Lenny, a deaf and dumb artist who had died and led her hand from beyond the grave (information from John Rust).
The Victorian Spiritualist's Union in Melbourne, Australia, that got hold of Georgiana's drawings, is a well-established spiritual center with a church and ordained ministers. In their explanation of Spiritualism they predict that science, dedicated to working out the laws of the universe, "can only proof us to be correct". Mentioning Quantum Physics and the String Theory they suggest that the vibrations forwarding messages from the spirits reflect the properties of vibrating strings. Is this "certainty" perhaps meant to give comfort to those, like me, who do not understand the deep concepts of the Standard Model of physics?

Georgiana Houghton must have found comfort in believing that spirits were supporting her. According to the story of Lucy Davies, journalist of TheTelegraph, she was a lonely spinster, who grieved about the loss of her siblings, especially her youngest sister Zilla Rosalia Warren-Houghton. While taking care of Zilla's 4 children, she must have had a very difficult life, obtaining status and consolation from being a medium.

My grandfather
Although I do not know to what extent my grandfather, Conradus Woldringh, believed in afterlife, clairvoyance, reincarnation or astrology, he certainly supported the Theosophical Society, probably already in Java, but certainly in the Netherlands.

 

My grandfather in his "theosophical library", Bussum, around 1955. Here, as a teenager, I spent many hours looking into his books.
Below: The emblems of the Victorian Spiritualist's Union resembles that of the Theosophical Society, which bears the promising sanskrit motto: "There is no religion higher than truth"  (translation by H.P. Blavatsky).



I remember some of his stories, like "hidden forces" experienced in Java and performances of fakirs in India (Bombay). In our conversations, my father took hardly part, while my deep-religious mother just believed all the stories. Without realizing my father must have conveyed some skepticism to me.

(See: also my blog in dutch.)

 
Left: 'The Flower and Fruit of Henry Lenny' (August 1861) by Georgiana Houghton. Credit: Victorian Spiritualist's Union/ Courtauld Museum. Right: Some of the drawings of Georgiana Houghton reminded me of my schematic representations of DNA supercoils.
Here, an adapted and enlarged cutout of such a drawing.


Science
As a student, trying to become a biologist, many of my more spiritual friends reproached me that I was arrogant and self-assured in my views about phenomena that could not be proven to be correct.
Now, after so many years of research on a question in the field of bacterial cytology (i.e. the segregation of DNA), I have learned that in science it is not fruitful to try to confirm your views to be correct. It is more rewarding to expand your uncertainties by formulating new questions and to renounce any consolation from work or recognition from colleagues.
Most people, searching for consolation in the big questions of life, have no patience or time to ask detailed, explicit questions that require repeatability in painstaking measurements. I was privileged in being allowed to do just that.
Now the tables have turned: I see arrogance in the assuredness with which my more spiritual friends and societies like the above mentioned Victorian Spiritualist's Union, say that science will proof them to be correct.
I understand and accept that there is consolation in the implicit answers religion and spiritualism can give to the big questions of life. But there must be another aspect of spiritualism that is not involved in "proving the truth", in status or comfort. Especially in present day Indonesia, spiritualism involving the search of the history of ancestors and the recovery of hindu-javanese traditions seems to pervade society. This is at least my impression from the (Javanese) websites of young, indonesian people from Kebumen, like the one of Ravie Ananda (the blog is in Javanese; use Google translate). They certainly seem to be "trying the spirits".