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This is a review of Julie Chajes, Recycled Lives: A History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky's Theosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019. The book, which falls under the broader umbrella of the academic study of Western esotericism, is concerned with the Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), her doctrine of reincarnation, its development through the different phases of her literary work, and her sources, whether these be Indian philosophy, Ancient Greek philosophy, or nineteenth-century science. Blavatsky's project, which lies at the crossroads of spiritualism and comparative philology, was to uncover what she believed was a primeval wisdom, parts of which, she thought, had been preserved in diffuse forms in the mythologies, religions, philosophies, and science of ancient civilizations (Hindus, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, etc.). According to Blavatsky, one of the fundamental elements of this primitive wisdom-religion is the belief in reincarnation. But—and this is the main focus of the book—it so happens, or so the author claims, that Blavatsky defended two different theories of reincarnation at different stages of her literary career; in Isis Unveiled (1877) she defended the theory of metempsychosis, whereas in The Secret Doctrine (1888) she defended a theory of reincarnation simpliciter. In this review, I briefly present each of these two theories from the author's perspective before addressing the author's take on the Ancient Greek and nineteenth-century sources of Blavatsky. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review is of two art exhibitions: Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist, organized and circulated by the Phoenix Art Museum with additional exhibition sites at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Palm Springs Art Museum; and Agnes Pelton Landscapes exhibited at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Pelton, a contemporary of Georgia O'Keefe, C. G. Jung, and Hilma af Klint, gained recognition as an essential contributor to American modernism based on her transcendental-inspired abstract paintings. She was an avid student of Theosophy, astrology, alchemy, and Agni Yoga. Pelton traveled the world exhibiting her abstracts and landscapes, after which she decided to live the remainder of her adult life in solitude in a small cottage in the Colorado Desert located in the Coachella Valley, California. Over time, her work fell into obscurity. Now, interest in her abstract spiritual art has grown and again become available to the public through this four-museum exhibit. Nonrepresentational, biomorphic, and geometric forms are the centerpieces of her paintings. By employing symbolism using color, she captured a unique quality of light on the canvas to evoke an experience of transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marybeth Carter reviews the first extensive US solo exhibition of Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, with the cooperation of the Hilma af Klint Foundation, in Stockholm, Sweden. af Klint was a contemporary of C. G. Jung, and her works contain motifs and images that invoke a sense of familiarity due to their similarity to those found in The Red Book. In addition, they convey her interest and participation, like that of Jung, in the seances and spiritualism of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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