Статті в журналах з теми "Theosophy and art"

AbstractThe art of Paul Sérusier and that of his artist friends has been interpreted in this essay as having its roots in the Theosophical themes prevalent in an interdependent circle of authors and spiritualists in 18th and 19th century France. These mystical thinkers were less concerned with the writings and indomitable presence of the acknowledged leading light of Theosophy Helena Petrovna Blavatsky than with a more specifically French national yearning for its imagined Celtic and traditionally Roman Catholic roots, smothered, in their view, by secular and materialistic modern sensibilities. Theosophy, “the essence of all doctrines, the inmost truth of all religions” as defined by the doyenne of French Theosophy Maria, Countess of Caithness and Duchess of Medina-Pomar, led Sérusier to seek elemental truth for his art in a remote inland village in Brittany where he painted for many years, to a Benedictine monastery on the Danube where formerly Nazarene artist/monks had created a system of drawing and painting believed to be based on the original design of the universe, and to the widely read text Les Grands Initiés (1899) by the mystic writer, Edouard Schuré. Sérusier's broad-reaching search for the Theosophical roots of art was one aspect of the fin de siècle malaise that led the arts out of the world into dreams.

The aim of the following paper is to show that it is not possible to penetrate into the depths of Nikolay Raynov's universe and to comprehend its wholeness, without posing and investigating the question about the origin or the foundation of his various creative occupations, i.e his novels, philosophic and theosophic writings, art history and critique, paintings, decorative design etc. This question is far too complex to be answered briefly without being simplified, and therefore two main directions will be articulated: the recption of Orphism developed in Plotinus' and Porphyry's Neoplatonism – which is the basis of modern Theosophy –, and the synthetic understanding of art, which puts Raynov's views in close proximity to Wassily Kandinsky and Nicholas Roerich.

Around the year 1900, European discourse on art was becoming increasingly ‘esotericized’. The 1890s saw esoteric art salons create a sensation in Paris, and art critics and theorists painted a picture of the true artist and the esotericist as overlapping figures. There was also at the time a conflict regarding mediumistic art, a phenomenon initially made popular through Spiritualist mediums. This debate, as we shall see, had interesting gendered dimensions. In what follows, I will discuss how the Swedish female esotericist and artist Tyra Kleen (1874–1951) attempted to situate herself in connection to the concept of the artist as a magus, and the tensions between the positive view of mediumism in Spiritualism and the more negative or cautious approach to it in Theosophy, as well as in relation to the attendant gender issues.

Starting with the 2013 conference Enchanted Modernities in Amsterdam, a number of academic events, exhibitions, and publications (including a 2016 special issue of Nova Religio) documented the growing interest of both art historians and scholars of new religious movements in the influence of the Theosophical Society and other esoteric groups on the birth and development of modern art. At the center of this renewed interest is the controversial work of Finnish art historian Sixten Ringbom (1935–1992), who in the late 1960s “discovered” the Theosophical connections of Russian pioneer of abstract art Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), discussed in his book The Sounding Cosmos. In this paper, I discuss Ringbom’s background, his almost coincidental discovery of Theosophy, the ostracism his work received from those who did not want modern art to be associated with irrationalist and disreputable “cults,” and his posthumous influence on the birth of a new subfield within the study of new religious movements, devoted to their relationships with the visual arts.

В статье обосновывается положение о том, что антропологические модели русского авангарда были тесно связаны с метафизикой Всеединства русской религиозной философии рубежа ХIX-XX вв., теософией, философией жизни и древнеиндийскими учениями. Жизнестроительные тенденции эпохи отражали эсхатологические мотивы культуры и искусства Серебряного века. Органическое направление русского авангарда продолжило линию Всеединства, утверждая равенство между микро- и макрокосмом. Предложенный М. Матюшиным метод «ЗОР-ВЕД» отражал антропологические идеи воспитания совершенного человека средствами искусства. The article substantiates the position that the anthropological models of the Russian avant-garde were closely related to the metaphysics of the unity of Russian religious philosophy at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, theosophy, the philosophy of life, and ancient Indian teachings. Vital tendencies of the era reflected eschatological motifs of culture and art of the Silver Age. The organic direction of the Russian avant-garde continued the line of Unity, asserting the equality between micro and macrocosm. The «ZOR-VED» method proposed by M. Matyushin reflected the anthropological ideas of educating a perfect person by means of art.

Meri Genetz (1885–1943) was a Finnish painter, esotericist, and a spiritual seeker. Around 1925, she began truly dedicating herself to spiritual seeking and started to make notes of her studies in black notebooks. This article will go through four of those notebooks which today offer a vivid picture of Genetz’s seeking between the years 1925 and 1943. In the beginning, Genetz acquainted herself with Gnosticism, Theosophy, and Kabbalah, as well as the works of Christian mystics, such as Emanuel Swedenborg and Jakob Böhme, the writings of, for example, Paracelsus, and texts attributed to the mythic figure Hermes Trismegistus. Gradually Genetz started to outline her own views, ideas, and theories regarding higher truth and spiritual wisdom. In the beginning of the 1930s her main quest came to be to find her ‘other half’ and become whole. She started attending Spiritualist séances, where she would ask about her other half and discuss the state of her soul, the souls of others, her art and marriage, and the books she had read. In time, Genetz’s quest for true wisdom and self-fulfilment became more and more restless and impatient. When she died in 1943, she was still seeking.

Much recent critical interest in the relationship between modernism and religion has concerned itself with the occult, spiritualism, and theosophy as opposed to institutional religion, relying on an implicit analogy between the experimental in religion and the experimental in art. I argue that considering Christianity to be antithetical to modernism not only obscures an important facet of modernist religious culture, but also misrepresents the at-once tentative and imaginative thinking that marks the modernist response to religion. I explore the ways in which the poet-painter David Jones combined sources familiar from cultural modernism – namely Frazer's The Golden Bough – with Catholic thinking on the Eucharist to constitute a modernism that is both hopeful about the possibilities for aesthetic form and cautious about the unavoidable limitations of human creativity. I present Jones's openness to the creative potential of the Mass as his equivalent to the more recognisably modernist explorations of non-Western and ancient ritual: Eliot's Sanskrit poetry, Picasso's African masks, and Stravinsky's shamanic rites and suggest that his understanding of the church as overflowing with creative possibilities serves as a counterweight to the empty churches of Pericles Lewis’ seminal work, Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel.

The sacred art of Jerzy Nowosielski, an outstanding Polish painter of the second half of the 20th century, is an example of the creative continuation of the Byzantine tradition in Poland, but also an embodiment of the debate with the painting tradition of the East and with the experience of the Church. Both in theory and in painting practice, the artist redefined the concept of the icon, attempting to expand its formula so that it not only spoke of the Kingdom, but also included the image of the earthly, imperfect reality of the pilgrim Church. In his designs of sacred interiors for churches of various Christian denominations, Nowosielski wanted to combine three theological disciplines and their respective ways of representation: Christology, sophiology and angelology. Beside a classical icon, called by the painter a “Christological- Chalcedonian” icon, Nowosielski demanded a “sophiological” icon, bringing into the space of a church an earthly, painful reality, traces of inner struggle and doubt – hence the presence of doloristic motifs in his icons. The “inspired geometry” also became a complement to the holy images; the artist noticed a huge spiritual potential in abstract painting, to which he eventually assigned the role of icon painting. The poetic concept of “subtle bodies” – abstract angels testifying to the reality of the spiritual world – drew from the early Christian theological thought, which argued about the corporeality of spiritual entities, from Byzantine angelology, the tradition of theosophy and occultism, but also from the art of the first avant-garde, especially that from Eastern Europe, which inherited the Orthodox cult of the image. Nowosielski’s bilingualism as a painter – practicing abstraction and figuration in tandem, including within the church – paralleled the liturgical practice of many religious communities using different languages to express different levels of reality: human affairs and divine affairs. The tradition of apophatic theology, proclaiming the truth about the “unrepresentability” of God, was also important in shaping Nowosielski’s ideas. For Nowosielski’s monumental art, the problem of the mutual relationship between painting and architecture proved crucial. The artist based his concept on the decisive domination of painting over architecture and the independence of monumental painting. His goal was the principle of creating a sacred interior as a holistic, comprehensive vision of space which leads the participants of liturgy “out of everyday life” and into a different, transcendent dimension, in which the painter saw the main purpose of sacred art. From his first projects from the 1950s till the end of his artistic practice Nowosielski tried to realize his own dream version of the “ideal church”. In many of his projects he introduced abstraction into the temple, covering the walls, vaults, presbyteries, sometimes even the floors with a network of triangular “subtle bodies”. Forced to compromise, he introduced sacred abstraction into murals, as accompanying geometries, or into stained glass windows. The interiors, comprehensively and meticulously planned, were supposed to create the effect of “passing through”, “rending the veil” – from behind which a new, heavenly reality dawned. In practice, it was not always possible to achieve this intention, but the artist’s aim was to create an impression of visual unity, a sense of “entering the painting”, of being immersed in the element of painting. Painting in space was supposed to unite a broken world, to combine physical and spiritual reality into an integral whole. When designing sacred interiors, Nowosielski used the sanctity of the icon, but also the pure qualities of painting which were to cause a “mystical feeling of God’s reality”. The aim of sacred art understood in such a way turned out to be initiation rather than teaching. In this shift of emphasis Nowosielski saw the only chance for the revival of sacred art, postulating even a shift of the burden of evangelization from verbal teaching to the work of charismatic art.

Interference of esotericism and politics became apparent especially in the 19th century when the early socialists expected the coming of the Age of Spirit, and narratives about secret wisdom being kept in mysterious sacred places became all the more popular. Thus, the idea of the Age of Enlightenment underwent transformation: the world will be saved not by ordinary knowledge but by some special secret wisdom. In this context, Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) developed the doctrine of Theosophy the ideas of which were overtaken by the next-generation theosophists including also the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) and his spouse Helena Roerich (1879–1955) who developed a new form of Theosophy. The aim of this article is to analyse the interference between Theosophy and politics paying special attention to its historical roots, which, in the context of Roerich groups, are to be sought in the political activities of Nicholas Roerich, the founder of the movement. The following materials have been used in the analysis: first, writings of the founders of Agni Yoga or Teaching of Living Ethics; second, the latest studies in the history of Theosophy made in the available archives after the collapse of the soviet regime; third, materials obtained from the interviews of a field research (2006–2008). The author has made use of an interdisciplinary approach combining anthropological methods with the method of systematic analysis. The historical roots of the political activity of contemporary theosophists stretch into the political aspirations of Nicholas Roerich, the founder of Agni Yoga or Teaching of Living Ethics. Opening of the USSR secret archives and publication of several formerly inaccessible diaries and letters of theosophists offer an opportunity to study the “spiritual geopolitics” of the Roerichs. Setting off to his Central Asian expeditions (1925–1928; 1934–1935), Nicholas Roerich strived to implement the Great Plan, i.e. to found a New State that would stretch from Tibet to South Siberia comprising the territories governed by China, Mongolia, Tibet and the USSR. The new state was conceived as the kingdom of Shambhala on the earth, and in order to form this state, Nicholas Roerich aspired to acquire the support of various political systems. During the Tzarist Empire, the political world outlook of Nicholas Roerich was markedly monarchic. After the Bolshevik coup in Russia, the artist accepted the offer to work under the wing of the new power, but after his emigration to the West Roerich published extremely sharp articles against the Bolsheviks. In 1922, the Roerichs started to support Lenin considering him the messenger of Shambhala. Roerich’s efforts to acquire Bolshevik support culminated in 1926 when the Roerichs arrived in Moscow bringing a message by Mahatmas to the soviet government, a small case with earth for the Lenin Mausoleum from Burhan-Bulat and paintings in which Buddha Maitreya bore strong resemblance to Lenin. The plan of founding the Union of Eastern Republics, with Bolshevik support, failed, since about the year 1930 the soviet authorities changed their position concerning the politics of the Far East. Having ascertained that the Bolsheviks would not provide the anticipated support for the Great Plan, the Roerichs started to seek for contacts in the USA which provided funding for his second expedition (1934–1935). The Roerichs succeeded even in making correspondence (1934–1936) with President Roosevelt who paid much larger attention to Eastern states especially China than other presidents did. Their correspondence ceased when the Security Service of the USA grew suspicious about Roerich’s pro-Japanese disposition. Nicholas Roerich has sought for support to his political ambitions by all political regimes. In 1934, the Russian artist tried to ascertain whether German national socialists would support his efforts in Asia. It may seem that the plans of founding the Union of Oriental Republics have passed away along with Roerich; yet in 1991 his son Svyatoslav Roerich (1904–1993) pointed out once again that the Altai is a very important centre of the great future and Zvenigorod is still a great reality and a magnificent dream. Interference between esotericism and politics is observed also among Latvian theosophists: the soviet regime successfully made use of Roerich’s adherents propagating the communist ideology in the independent Republic of Latvia. In the 1920s and 1930s, the embassy of the USSR in Riga maintained close contacts with Roerich’s adherents in Latvia and made a strong pressure on the Latvian government not to ban the Roerich’s Museum Friend Society who actively propagated the success of soviet culture and economy. On 17 June 1940, the soviet army occupied the Republic of Latvia, and Haralds Lūkins, the son of the founder of the Roerich’s Museum Friend Society, was elected to the first government of the soviet Latvia. Nevertheless, involvement of theosophists in politics was unsuccessful, since after the official annexation of Latvia into the USSR, on 5 August 1940, all societies including the Roerich’s Museum Friend Society were closed. Since the members of the movement continued to meet regularly, in 1949, Haralds Lūkins was arrested as leader of an illegal organization. After the Second World War, theosophists were subjected to political repressions. Arrests of Roerich’s followers (1948–1951) badly impaired the movement. After rehabilitation in 1954, the repressed persons gradually returned from exile and kept on their illegal meetings in small groups. To regain their rights to act openly, Roerich’s followers started to praise Nicholas Roerich as a supporter of the soviet power. With the collapse of the soviet regime, Roerich’s followers in Latvia became legal in 1988 when the Latvian Roerich Society was restored which soon split up according to geopolitical orientation; therefore, presently in Latvia, there are the following organisations: Latvian Roerich Society, Latvian Department of the International Centre of the Roerichs, and Aivars Garda group or the Latvian National Front. A. Garda fused nationalistic ideas with Theosophy offering a special social reorganization – repatriation of the soviet-time immigrants and a social structure of Latvia that would be formed by at least 75% ethnic Latvians. Activity of A. Garda group, which is being criticized by other groups of theosophists, is a continuation of the interference between theosophical and political ideas practised by the Roerichs. Generally it is to be admitted that after the crush of the soviet regime, in theosophist groups, unclear political orientation between the rightists and leftists is observed, characterised by fairly radical ideas.

Since the 1970s, tulpas have been a feature of Western paranormal lore. In contemporary paranormal discourse, a tulpa is a being that begins in the imagination but acquires a tangible reality and sentience. Tulpas are created either through a deliberate act of individual will or unintentionally from the thoughts of numerous people. The tulpa was first described by Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) in Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929) and is still regarded as a Tibetan concept. However, the idea of the tulpa is more indebted to Theosophy than to Tibetan Buddhism. This article explores the murky origins of the tulpa to show how the concept emerged from a dialogue between East and West in which Theosophical metaphysics were combined with terms adapted from Tibetan Buddhism.

AbstractArabic biographical writing is much used as a historical source, and scholars agree that its textuality must be taken into account in evaluating its content. There is less agreement, though, on the importance of thoroughly understanding the range of processes of literary composition used by biographers. This article approaches three sets of biographies from a purely literary viewpoint: two medieval sketches of women, a Sufi and a songstress respectively; three seventeenth-century hagiographies of the physician and theosopher Dāwud al-Anṭākī; and a thirteenth-century portrait of one man of letters, al-Qifṭī, by another, Yāqūt. It concludes that the art and care devoted to shaping such commemorations of individuals is evidence of the aesthetic and cultural importance of biography as an Arabic literary genre.

The work and the life of the English architect Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869–1944) have been extensively documented over the past hundred years and clearly show a career with at least two phases. The first is characterised by the design of private country houses in the Arts and Crafts style and, in collaboration with the horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, the development of their gardens. The second begins around 1900 and reflects a shift towards Neo-Classicism, initially in country houses and later in a wider range of larger public buildings and monuments both in England and abroad. Lutyens developed his use of the Neo-Classical idiom throughout the latter part of his career into a unique style of design which Arthur Stanley George Butler has termed his ‘elemental mode’. This was characterised by a highly controlled use of form and mass, apparent adherence to rules of Classical proportioning and the sparing use of symbolic Classical motifs. However, very little is known with any certainty about how Lutyens actually achieved this style, in particular what role was attributable to intuition and good taste, as is often assumed, and how much may have been attributable to quantitative and formalised methods of design. Circumstantial evidence exists that strongly suggests that quantitative analytical methods may have been used in a method which drew upon his interest in puzzles and mathematics, his interests in architectural history (particularly English Neo-Classicism), his leanings towards mysticism and his exposure to Theosophy.

The article is devoted to the problem of the attitude of the Italian traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola to Christianity and neo-spiritualism. This task is solved on the basis of the comparative historical method of studying the works of Evola of different years and their assessment by researchers. Priority attention is paid to the analysis of the work "The Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism" that was first published in Russian in 2020. The present work is considered in the context of all Evola's work, especially the works published in Russia recently. The question is raised about personalism in Evola's metaphysics. The essence of his criticism of psychoanalysis, spiritualism, theosophy, anthroposophy, primitivism, Satanism, some magical organizations and other forms of "new religiosity" is revealed. In the paper the traditional scheme of opposing the early, middle and late periods of Evola's work according to the criterion of his attitude to Christianity is contested. It is shown that from the early 1930s to the early 1970s his assessment of Christianity was invariably ambivalent and contradictory, although the emphasis on the positive aspects had been gradually increased. The problem of dualism in Christianity and the differences between the early Church, medieval Catholicism and the Aggiornamento of the twentieth century are examined in detail. The main conclusion of our investigation is that Evola, in spite of his personal antipathies to the Christian doctrine, was constantly forced to admit the possibility of a full-fledged spiritual realization of a person within the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and to act as an ally of Catholicism against all forms of neo-spiritualism and neo-paganism.

The article examines the role and place of faith in the concept of Vladimir Solovyov who is considered to be the creator of the first Russian philosophical system. The purpose of the article is to determine the epistemological and methodological significance of faith in Solovyov’s understanding as a special factor of cognition. In order to study this problem, a synthetic method of reconstruction of the thought of Solovyov as well as a method of philosophical analysis was used. First, Solovyov’s project of integral knowledge or free theosophy is presented, i. e. synthesis of philosophy, theology, and science. The suppositions of this concept are revealed and its polemical context is indicated, namely, Solovyov’s attempt to overcome the abstract or one-sided principles: reason, empirical experience, and faith in order to create an integral system that should unite all types of knowledge. In addition, philosophy as such corresponds to reason, science to experience, and theology to faith. The second part of the article is devoted to the epistemological aspects of faith in the concept of integral knowledge. It lies in the fact that each act of cognition begins with the assertion of the objective existence of its object, which Solovyov describes as faith in a broad sense of the word. Thus, faith has a universal significance as a necessary condition for the cognitive process. The third part of the article discusses the methodological aspect of faith as a key link in the system of integral knowledge. As a result, faith has a dominant role not only in theology, but in all spheres of knowledge, including philosophy and science. Thus, it is possible to conclude that there is no conflict between faith and reason; on the contrary, they complement each other. Solovyov’s position is still relevant nowadays.

AbstractBien que la Société Théosophique ait subi, de par le monde, un déclin progressif en matière d'adhérents, au Danemark elle a vu quadrupler leur nombre au cours des vingt dernières années. L'article présente certains des facteurs essentiels qui ont transformé cette religion par ailleurs périclitante en une foi vibrante sur un plan national, faisant ainsi, de nouveau, de la théosophie une source d'inspiration agissant au coeur du nouveau paysage religieux danois. En m'appuyant sur des théories portant sur les rapports sociaux dans la société contemporaine, sur une analyse de revues théosophiques, ainsi que sur une série d'interviews plus ou moins structurés conduits auprès de personnalités officielles importantes à l'intérieur de la Société, je tente de montrer que le fait de tenir compte seulement des tendances théologiques et organisationnelles de la société contemporaine ne rend pas suffisamment compte du récent succès de la Société Théosophique au Danemark. Tout aussi déterminante, en effet, a été l'influence exercée par des facteurs situationnels et par certaines initiatives prises en vue de surmonter des défis variés.

The article considers the prerequisites for the creation of the concept of «space education» in the pedagogical system of M. Montessori. The necessity of its introduction into the work practice of preschool institutions of Ukraine is argued. The 21st century education paradigm is aimed at finding such an education system that would teach a person to live and act in accordance with the universal laws of Nature and the Cosmos. The versions of the researchers of the life and scientific work of the Italian teacher are presented regarding the time frame of the appearance of the term «space education», the formation and generalization of the material, which took shape in a separate educational course. The meaning of the concept of «space education» is revealed. It was found out that the work on the formation of the theory took place in stages and lasted for a long time. The influence of the Indian period of M. Montessori's life on the formation of her philosophical and pedagogical views in the last years of her life was studied. The closeness of the ideas and worldview of M. Montessori with the representatives of the Indian intelligentsia of those times – J. Arundale, A. Besant, M. Gandhi, J. Nehru, R. Tagore is traced. They admired her method, were like-minded and belonged to the Theosophical Society, which, as it turned out, actively helped M. Montessori during his stay in India. Attention is focused on a detailed analysis of the philosophical and pedagogical views of A. Besant, M. Gandhi, and R. Tagore. Three conditions are named that contributed to the creation of the concept of «space education» during his stay in India. The indisputable role of Mario Montessori's son and Lena Wickramaratne's student in creating a class of children of various ages (6-12 years old), selection and production of didactic materials, implementation of Maria Montessori's theory of «space education» in practice is emphasized. The publication outlines a topic that needs further research. Key words: M. Montessori's method, humanistic pedagogy, theosophy, cosmic education, preschool age, Indian period.

Yoga studies have inaugurated a vast amount of possible research areas that transcend the regional and the disciplinary. This paper probes into the history and reception of yoga in Latin America. In particular, it discusses the ways in which a post-revolutionary Mexican intellectual, José Vasconcelos, understood yoga in the 1920s. This early understanding of yoga was a combination of both socio-political discourses worldwide and the nationalist enterprise of building a modern nation, where notions of race, identity, and cleanliness were paramount. Through different writings, Vasconcelos interpreted both South Asian religions and the Americas as beneficial influences for the betterment of humanity. By noting the influence of different ideologies popular in Latin America (such as nationalisms, Social Darwinism, or Theosophy), this paper analyses the cultural context against which Vasconcelos outlined his understanding of yoga, India, national culture and progress.

The multi-talented Johanna Eleanor Ferguson (1900-1982), born in Shanghai but trained at the Delft Institute of Technology, was one of the first female architects in the Netherlands. From her self-designed flat-roofed house near Breda she obtained her engineer’s degree in 1926 as an already married woman. Subsequently she designed the reed-covered house De Huif in Wageningen for her mother (1927) and two almost identical flat-roofed houses near Utrecht for her father (1928 and 1935). Meanwhile she had given birth to two children and divorced her first husband, and in late 1932 she relocated to the Gooi region to join a theosophist community. It was while here that she married her second husband. Looking for better perspectives, the young family emigrated to Johannesburg at the end of 1935. One year later, Eleanor Ferguson was formally registered as an architect in South Africa. In 1938, after another divorce, she started a joint practice together with a local architect, Stakesby-Lewis who became her third husband and shared her interest in theosophy. She worked under her maiden name as the principal designer and he as the builder. The firm was responsible not only for various ‘Wrightian’ cottages and houses in the suburbs (for example, for A.J. Du Plessis at Cottesloe), but also for typically modern commercial buildings in the business districts, such as August House with its conical mushroom columns. In 1948 Conrad Sayce became a partner in the practice, which was based in Washington House. The expansion of the firm was presumably prompted by Eleanor’s increasing social activities alongside the design work. Following in the footsteps of Clara Codd and Jan Kruisheer, she was appointed National President of the Theosophical Society in southern Africa (1946–53) in which capacity she lectured widely. She also made an elaborate pro bono design for a new Lodge in Johannesburg, but this was never executed. Instead, the Stakesby-Lewises converted an existing villa into a ‘theosophical temple’, inaugurated in 1951. Two years later, they migrated to Salisbury (now Harare) in former Rhodesia to start a new joint practice, mainly focused on building private bungalows, and to extend the theosophical network. In mid-1961, in response to the growing political and economic uncertainty, the couple finally settled in England where they lived amongst a theosophist community on the Tekels Park Estate in Camberley. The estate was accordingly expanded by two neighbouring houses designed by Ferguson, one for herself and her husband, the other for her eldest daughter’s family (Loveday). In 1972 the Stakesby-Lewises moved to another self-designed bungalow on the estate (further away from the motorway) where Eleanor passed away in 1982 after a long and eventful life. Until the very end she remained proud on her Delft engineer’s title.