Theosophical Bodies: Colour, Shape and Emotion from Modern Aesthetics to Healing Therapies

Abstract

Although appearing initially as disparate phenomena, this chapter illustrates that the concept of the body and self developed by the Theosophical Society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provided the foundation for the development of a specific type of Modernist non-objective aesthetics and the concept of the self that underpins many contemporary alternative health therapies. All these cultural beliefs, products, and practices are based on a energetic concept of the self that extends beyond the corporeal and presupposes capacities for very particular perceptual sensitivities. Theories of emotion, shape, and colour played a central role in the communication of this concept of self, spirit, and world. Keywords:cultural beliefs; health therapies; theories of colour; theories of emotion; theories of shape; Theosophical Society