Ithell Colquhoun and The Vital Energies of Land and Body

Like most occultists of the twentieth century, occultist and surrealist Ithell Colquhoun was deeply interested in the intersections of spirituality and science, believing that the scientific advancements relating to the invisible world (X rays, radio waves, atomic theory) would prove the existence of spiritual planes and dimensions. From 1939-1942, as World War Two was raging, Colquhoun’s own magical and artistic practice was focused on an animistic notion of vitality, theorizing about the ways in which bodies and the earth held, and transferred energy. Through her wildly colorful landscape studies and a bold series of works devoted to sacred sexuality, Colquhoun explored how humans could connect to the divine through learning to direct the energy currents in their own bodies and through engaging with ancient sacred sites. Perhaps she believed that society could overcome its divisions through an integration with the sacred, fueled by energy from the portals of sacred landscapes and individuals’ elevated connections with one another as they embraced the potential to access dimensions more peaceful and enlightened than the unstable world around them.

This richly illustrated talk unpacks the occultural context and the embrace of empiricism that informed Colquhoun’s ideas about vital energies, followed by the ways in which Colquhoun explored union with the divine through sex magic and encounters with sacred sites. This explicit and revealing body of work theorizes the operationalization of women’s pleasure, the transcendence of gender and the activation of prehistoric megalithic monuments, all powered by the ability to harness and direct the electromagnetic currents that were the keys to ancient spiritual technologies, and that Colquhoun believed had the potential to heal humanity.

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