I’ve been pretty preoccupied posting about music lately and I haven’t touched on anything truly diabolical or bizarre since the release of the JFK files back in November. Luckily, there seems to be no end to tales of the otherworldly and just this weekend I stumbled across a story about a woman I’d never heard of before. Her tale involves antique alien encounters, elements of the supernatural, seance trances, automatic writing, a Martian named Leopold, and a bizarre-looking written language of seemingly-cosmic origin.
Here’s a bit about Helen Smith from the Wiki…
Hélène Smith (real name Catherine-Elise Müller, December 9, 1861, Martigny – June 10, 1929, Geneva) was a famous late-19th century French medium. She was known as “the Muse of Automatic Writing” by the Surrealists, who viewed Smith as evidence of the power of the surreal, and a symbol of surrealist knowledge.[1] Late in life, Smith claimed to communicate with Martians, and to be a reincarnation of a Hindu princess and Marie Antoinette.
In 1900, Élise Müller became famous with the publication of Des Indes à la Planete Mars (“From India to the Planet Mars”) by Théodore Flournoy, Professor of Psychology at the University of Geneva. The medium and the psychologist remained very close until 1899, when “Des Indes à la planète Mars” was first published. The book documented her various series of experiences in terms of romantic cycles: the “Martian” cycle, “Ultramartian” cycle, “Hindu”, “Oriental”, and “royal” cycles.
Here’s a sample of Smith’s Martian writing…
In 1900, a certain Mrs. Jackson, a rich American spiritualist who was impressed by Müller, offered her a salary which would permit her to quit her job and dedicate herself to pursuing and documenting her experiences. Müller accepted and was able to continue with further cycles. She also began to paint her visions and particular religious images of Christ.
According to Cabinet Magazine…
Over the course of the next two decades, Smith gave fewer séances and devoted much of her time to painting. Eventually, this work too attracted significant attention, including that of André Breton and the Surrealists. At her death in 1929, nine years after Flournoy’s own passing, the Geneva Art Museum sponsored a retrospective of her work.14 In some ways, the shift away from a verbal and toward a visual medium itself constituted a new language for Smith…
Here are a few of her works…
Detail from Ultra-Martian landscape painted by Hélène Smith.
From the seven-part series “The Materialization of the Girl of Jaïrus” by Hélène Smith.
Here’s a short video from my YouTube channel with some more information about Smith. Was this remarkable woman in possession of magical powers or just gifted with a remarkable creative imagination?
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