Zero Equals Two is a blog on magical news and culture sponsored by U.S. Grand Lodge, O.T.O. A diverse collective of contributors comb the worlds of magick, art, science, history, philosophy, and more every day for articles and events of interest to Thelemites and other modern free-thinkers and explorers, collecting them on this blog for your enjoyment.
Recent posts
- Spiritualist Drawings that Open Portals to Other Dimensions
2019/04/23
Emma Kunz (1892-1963), “Drawing No. 020” (c. 1939) (© Emma Kunz Zentrum)Spiritualist Drawings that Open Portals to Other Dimensions
Often compared to the work of Hilma af Klint, dozens of rarely-seen drawings by the late Swiss healer and Spiritualist are on view at the Serpentine Gallery.
Maria Cynkier for HYPERALLERGIC
The exhibition, Visionary Drawings, tells the story of Emma Kunz (1892–1963), a Swiss healer and spiritualist. Her works were only exhibited after her death, and she herself believed that her art was destined to be viewed by later generations. In the last few years, her drawings have been shown alongside the works of artists such as Hilma af Klint and Agnes Martin; however, Kunz’s practice does not easily fit into the history of the development of abstraction. Perhaps this is because art in itself was not her primary occupation; she considered it a means for the exploration of the astral plane.
Emma-Kunz-Visionary-Drawings-at-the-Serpentine-Gallery-2019-Installation-view-Image-courtesy-the-Serpentine-Gallery
Just over 40 drawings are displayed in the show, which constitutes a small portion of Kunz’s legacy. Although she didn’t incorporate art-making into her spiritual practice until her forties, she managed to produce hundreds of works. Each one acts as a portal between the earthly realm and the transcendent realm. Spreading out on checkered sheets of graph paper, these “energy field” drawings have an intricate but technical look to them. They were made with a technique called radiesthesia, in which the artist used a divining pendulum to plot the compositions. At times, Kunz would work on them continuously for almost 24 hours, and she considered them to have the potential to give different readings at different times.
Emma-Kunz-Visionary-Drawings-at-the-Serpentine-Gallery-2019-Installation-view-Image-courtesy-Serpentine-Gallery
See Details @ SERPENTINE GALLERY
Emma Kunz – Visionary Drawings: An exhibition conceived with Chritodoulos Panaviotou, curated by Melissa Blanchflower and Natalia Grabowska, is on view at the Serpentine Gallery (Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA) through May 19, 2019.
- Strange Angel Returns June 13
2019/04/22Season 2 of “Strange Angel” premieres June 13 on CBS All Access. Produced by Ridley Scott, this series explores the life of John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons, rocket scientist, Thelemite, and magician. Deadline reports:
At the end of season one, Parsons and his team from Caltech made a scientific breakthrough that secured the military’s interest as the country neared the brink of war. In season two, the US is fully engaged in World War II, transforming the Parsons rocketry work into a lucrative business and further entrenching him in the military-industrial complex.
‘Strange Angel’ Season 2 Trailer: Science-Occult Mash-Up Continues
- Reading of John Gower’s Poem – Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone
2019/04/22Poetry reading of Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone by John Gower. John Gower (c. 1330 – October 1408) was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirour de l’Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.
- Hilma af Klint, Guggenheim’s Most-Visited Exhibition Ever
2019/04/20
Installation view of Hilma af Klint’s “The Ten Largest.” Image courtesy of Ben Davis.
Here’s How the Hilma af Klint Show Played Perfectly Into the Current Zeitgeist to Become the Guggenheim’s Most-Visited Exhibition Ever
The show made history with more than 600,000 visitors.
With four days to go until the closing of “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future” at the Guggenheim, the New York museum has announced that the show has already become its most-attended exhibition of all time. More than 600,000 visitors have come to see the Tracey Bashkoff-curated survey of the Swedish mystic painter….
Still, the record-smashing attendance numbers are a remarkable feat for an artist who until very recently was an outsider to the mainstream canon of art. Just six years ago, af Klint’s prescient abstract art was not even mentioned in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925.” So what accounts for the show’s popularity?
AF Klint Altarpieces 1915. image courtesy of Stephen Romano
- Ancient Crusaders: Lovers as well as Fighters?
2019/04/19
Newsweek reports that DNA analysis of remains compared to modern populations show that some Crusaders didn’t just wage war in the Holy Land, but also mixed genetically. The study, reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics, notes that “armies intermixed with people living in the Near East, had families, and recruited them to their cause. But despite this intermixing, their genetic impact did not last in the long-term.”It appears that there is some Crusader y-chromosome lineage evident in Lebanese populations today, but other than that the modern Lebanese genetic makeup does not indicate a significant impacted. More study will be necessary to draw broad conclusions, but it’s interesting to know that DNA changes may reflect part of documented history!
