Sacred Fire - Roerich

Sacred Fire: Panentheism in Nicholas Roerich’s Art and Philosophy

Sasha Chaitow BA Comm, MA Eng.Lit. MA Western Esotericism

Act I: A Kiss of the Earth The Augurs of Spring Ritual of Abduction Spring Rounds Ritual of the Two Rival Tribes Procession of the Oldest and Wisest One [the Sage] The Kiss of the Earth The Dance Overcoming the Earth Act II: The Exalted Sacrifice Mystic Circle of the Young Girls The Naming and Honoring of the Chosen One Evocation of the Ancestors OR Ancestral Spirits (Ritual Action of the Ancestors Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen One)

Joffrey Ballet reconstruction of the original choreography for “Rite of Spring”

Pantheism: God is the (living) universe

and is in the universe. God can affect the universe, but not vice versa.

Panentheism: the whole is more than a

sum of its parts: all is within God – but has its own identity , purpose, and will, and can effect change.

The Perennial Philosophy: “Divine Truth is one, timeless, and universal. The different religions are but different languages expressing that one Truth.”

William Stoddart

“The universe [is] the self-development of a primal, non-rational force that can only be grasped by the intuitive powers of men of imaginative genius.”

Isaiah Berlin

[The damage caused by the inherent duality of the universe] “was first noted by poets and artists, and in this way poetry and art or sculpting may have been invented.” “this striving after the primal inner aspiration of an Ideal […] should be the focus for all outwardly effective creations of poetry and art of man.”

Franz Xavier von Baader

The poet is: “the recipient and transmitter of revelation and a divine universal language” “a priest who will lead humanity to its eschatological fulfillment by relinking the world here below and divine transcendence.” “Poetry is the intuitive faculty of penetrating the essence of beings and things.” Antoine Fabre d’Olivet, La langue hebraïque restituée, (1815-1816) F. Schlegel, Novalis, Athenaeum (1798-1800)

Life thunders - be watchful Danger! The soul hearkens to its warning The world is in turmoil - strive for salvation In creation realise the happiness of life, and unto the desert turn thine eye Try to unfold the power of insight That you may perceive the future unity of mankind We possess the power to create and destroy obstacles Thought is lightning The spirit in revolt shatters the bolts of the prison

If a common myth haunts the minds of poets and initiates, it is the myth of Prometheus: the man who wins divine powers and achieves his own salvation, and the salvation of the entire universe, through his own efforts.

Albert Beguin – Robert G. Cohn

Above all, poiein (ποιείν), means to create.

Antoine Faivre

Sacred Fire: Panentheism in Nicholas Roerich’s Art and Philosophy

Sasha Chaitow BA Comm, MA Eng.Lit. MA Western Esotericism

[email protected] www.sashanonserviat.net