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".
