Carman Barnes’ vision of the esoteric school ‘of living’ for young Americans: The influence of Peter Ouspensky’s esoteric teaching on American cultural landscape in the second part of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate Carman Barnes’ initiative to create a study group for young, artistic, well-to-do women in New York City that was based on Claude Bragdon’s lectures and Peter Ouspensky’s philosophy. Although ultimately focused on spiritual health and the evolution of consciousness, Barnes included a strict fitness routine in her groups. Surveying Barnes’ unpublished archival material, her preparatory notes for the study groups and her correspondence with Bragdon and Ouspensky, the author investigates Barnes’ unique contribution to the New York cultural scene in the 1940s and the promotion of Bragdon’s and Ouspensky’s core belief in the evolution of consciousness and based it on ideas of well-being and the harmonious development of spirit and body. Furthermore, this article aims to locate the effect of Barnes’ effort to bring education in spiritual well-being to the American public.