Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts and the American West

Sarah V. Turner, James Mansell and Christopher Sheer, editors 

It is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced. – MADAME BLAVATSKY

With these words, written in The Secret Doctrine in 1888, Helena Blavatsky drew a direct connection to the dynamic energy of nineteenth-century Americanism and the Theosophical Society. She and her successors would specify the American West as the site for a rebirth and re-enchantment of humanity, drawing those seeking spiritual fulfilment outside of organized religion to the dramatic landscapes of California, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The syncretic nature of Theosophy encouraged individualism in belief, fitting well the popular notions of freedom and personal agency used to characterize the American West.

In 2014, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum at Utah State University staged the first exhibition to explore artistic responses to the confluence of enchanted thought in the American West in the early twentieth century. Building on this research, Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts and the American West will be the first publication devoted to these relationships in art and music. Through a series of interlocked contextual essays, interviews, and interpretations of individual works by the exhibition’s curators and invited scholars, this publication will explore the role of Theosophical thought in fostering dynamic cultural networks in the region that redefine the relationship between enchantment and modernism.

PUBLICATION  DUE: LATE SUMMER 2017

Touch Me Not!

Compendium Rarissimum totius Artis Magicae
Merlin Cox and Hereward Tilton, editors

We are delighted to bring you a full colour facsimile of this unique manuscript, augmented by translations of the German and Latin texts by Merlin Cox and Hereward Tilton.

‘A Most Rare Compendium…‘ is a Höllenzwang manuscript (lit. treasure-hunting) that dates from around 1790 and is replete with magical lore, pacts and vividly erotic images of demons and the practitioners who summon them.

Currently held by the Wellcome Trust, this edition represents the first publication of this extraordinary work.

PUBLICATION DUE: JUNE 2017

Just as there are magic mirrors in white magic with which an innocent maiden or youngster – as also a man suitable and prepared for the operation, and hallowed by the Word of God – can see and read marvellous things, and answer every question, so too there are mirrors in nigromancy. However, their preparation, use and power are entirely different.

The Taro of Ithell Colquhoun

Ithell Colquhoun

Ithell Colquhoun (1906–88) has frequently been considered solely as a footnote to the history of British Surrealism, but her contributions to the development of twentieth-century esoteric art and theory are now being more widely recognized.

Following the publication of  the Decad of Intelligence, we are pleased to be working with the National Trust to bring you a publication dedicated to her Taro; developed as a series of enamels in the 1970s.

This work carries an introduction by Dr Amy Hale.

PUBLICATION DUE: WINTER 2017