A Consideration of Esotericism & Theatre through the Theatre of Cruelty

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A Master’s Thesis in Western Esotericism

Religious Studies, University of Amsterdam

Emma Marie Graveson

Supervisor: Peter Forshaw

Second Reader: Sruti Bala

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INTRODUCTION Prologue to Introduction

From the depiction of magicians in Ancient Greek tragedies, to devils in Medieval miracle plays,

from bumbling alchemists on the Jacobean stage, from Shakespeare’s posthumous designation as

esoteric adept, to the directorial pursuits and play scripts of Golden Dawn member Florence Farr,

from the scripts and performances of Aleister Crowley and his assistance on Peter Brooke’s

production of Faust, and from Rudolf Steiner’s plays at the Goetheanum to the contemporary

Australian Metamorphic Ritual Theatre: the interactions of theatre and esotericism are thick and

varied. And this does not even include performances beyond the boundaries of both more

traditional and experimental theatre, boundaries which expand to encompass séance, rituals of

initiation, and ceremonial magic. Performance (including theatre) and esotericism find overlap

within the Western tradition alone for over 2500 years, in multiple, often simultaneous ways,

meaning there is a veritable juggernaut of ways to explore such an intersection.

What unfolds below will be an exploration of a space, as an actor warming up by walking

around the stage- feeling the boundaries and limits created by the curtains and walls, becoming

both acquainted with and a part of the space. Similarly, I will be feeling my way through some of

the ties between theatre and esotericism, without ever being able to fill the entire space. This

exploration will be tethered to the not-so-stable Theatre of Cruelty as expounded by Antonin

Artaud in The Theatre and its Double, not as a historical investigation of the theatrical practice,

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Etymologies

The semantic space in which this thesis operates may be of interest, beginning with the

etymological roots of theatre. The word is of Ancient Greek origin and meant something to the

effect of ‘seeing place’ or ‘place for viewing.’ Today theatre can be the physical space in which 1

a performance occurs, as well as the performance itself. It is also used more broadly, however, as

a location where anything, not just a dramatic performance, can become worthy of an audience’s

attention, such as a theatre of war. It is the location in which an audience bears witness. Theatre 2 3

is thus characterized by the space of a happening, and also a specifically dramatic type of

happening, which are brought together through the idea of being seen.

Performance

I have rather carelessly thrown around the word performance so far, so it is probably best to also

clarify what I mean by that before proceeding further. Researcher and sound designer

Christopher Wenn uses the words theatre and performance more or less interchangeably, which I

will take up (in certain cases). Following Alain Badiou, there is a ‘theatre-idea,’ an eternal, fixed

idea of a production, which manifests through the ‘theatre-act,’ the production, or the

‘performance’ (in a very specific sense). These two realms are not a continuation, or completion

Etymology Online, s.v. “theater,” accessed Aug. 18, 2019, https://www.etymonline.com/word/theater. 1

Merriam-Webster Online, s.v. “theater,” accessed Aug. 18, 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/ 2

dictionary/theater.

See Sruti Bala, “Rashomon: Diversifying Perspectives on Spectatorship in the Theatre of the 3

Oppressed.” Zbornik radova Fakulteta Dramskih Umetnosti 27 (2015): 31-41, and Sruti Bala, “Vectors of participation in contemporary theatre and performance.” Theatre Research International 37, no. 3 (2012): 236-248.

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of one another, but rather complement each other. The ‘theatre-act,’ or performance, can be 4

understood thus: “however the audience is constituted, however the audience has come to be in

that place of performance at that time of performance, the thing that occurs is of the

between-place which ‘watchers’ and ‘watched’ inhabit: a coming-together, an opening-up, a bringing-forth

and a turning-towards.” In one sense, I will take performance to mean a ‘theatre-act,’ a temporal 5

unfolding of an experience between the watchers and the watched, the audience and the actors,

and however those distinctions may blur.

But performance also has a much broader sense outside the theatre-act which colours and

informs this understanding, and each author has their own special definition of this sense. For

Helga Finter who studies theatre aesthetics, performance is “the manifestation of a subject’s

presence by his doing.” Experimental artist and scholar Lance Gharvi calls performance rather 6

broadly “a conjunction of doing and witnessing,” while ritualist Ronald L. Grimes refutes this 7

aspect of witnessing by making a clear distinction between theatrical and ritualistic performance

when he says, “I prefer to say that ritualists “enact” rituals, whereas actors “perform” plays.” 8

And performance studies pioneer Richard Schechner spends an entire chapter of his introduction

Christopher Wenn, “Sound Design: A Phenomenology,” in Performance Phenomenology: To The Thing 4

Itself, ed. Stuart Grant, Jodie McNeilly-Renaudie, and Matthew Wagner (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019), 270.

Christopher Wenn, “Sound Design,” 269. 5

Helga Finter, “Disclosure(s) of Re-Presentation: Performance hic et nunc,” REAL: Yearbook of Research 6

in English and American Literature 10 (Tübingen: Aesthetics and Contemporary Disources, 1994), 153-167, quoted in Helga Finter, “Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre: The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty,” trans. Matthew Griffin, TDR 41, no. 4 (Winter 1997), 17.

Lance Gharvi, Introduction to Religion, Theatre, and Performance: Acts of Faith, ed. Lance Gharvi 7

(New York: Routledge, 2012), 2.

Ronald L. Grimes, “Religion, Ritual, and Performance,” in Religion, Theatre, and Performance: Acts of 8

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to the field defining and un-defining the boundaries of performance, but I believe the key to his

multifaceted exploration is “Performances – of art, rituals, or ordinary life – are “restored

behaviors,” “twice-behaved behaviors,” performed actions that people train for and rehearse.” 9

Performance bleeds between the everyday and the demarcated, be it ritual, theatre, or other, and

is always embodied. When it comes closer to being understood as a theatre-act, it must be

witnessed, while at other times, this is not so much what performance is about.

Performance in Western Esotericism

Considering the close affiliation of performance and ritual- however you want to frame that

relationship- it is surprising that there is such a lack of application of performance theories

within the studies of ritual in Western Esotericism. This is not due to a lack of interest in 10

Western esoteric rituals. Among some of the better known scholars in the field, Henrik Bogdan

has contributed numerous works, including his book Western Esotericism and Rituals of

Initiation (2005). Hugh Urban has written about ritual through his explorations of sex magick in

several books including Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion (2003)

and Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (2006). These

are historical overviews which end in the contemporary world, while a more focused look at

contemporary ritual practice is given notably by Kennet Granholm’s work on Dragon Rouge in

Dark Enlightenment: The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric Magic (2014). What is notable about all these studies of ritual from within the discipline

Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, 3rd ed., media ed. Sara Bradly (New York: 9

Routledge, 2013), 28.

I will use the capitalization in ‘(Western) Esotericism’ when referring to the academic field, and no 10

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Western Esotericism, however, is that none of them thoroughly engage Ritual Studies or

Performance Studies. Bogdan and Urban are historians, while Granholm is an ethnographer. I

admire all of their work for what it is doing, but this still results in a notable lack of ritual studies

as performance in Western Esotericism (there is not even an entry for ritual in the extolled Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism!), making a study of theatre a potentially fruitful

interaction on a theoretical level.

This being said, this lack has not gone totally unacknowledged. Alison Rockbrand, a PhD

student at Exeter University currently completing her dissertation on emic perspectives of

contemporary esoteric theatre and performance art, complains of just this. Most research on

esoteric rituals, she observes, has been done through anthropological and ethnographic studies on

non-Western peoples, which “are limited in terms of insider perspectives and present a possibly

problematic western context onto non-western ritual and performance culture.” She likewise 11

comments that studies on Western rituals, some of which I named above, are mainly historical in

nature. Better than imposing a Western understanding on other cultures to bring back that

knowledge as a colonial import in order to gain a better understanding of ritual, or rather than

disregarding this entirely for purely historical research, she opts to focus on the experience of

ritual, through auto-ethnography and phenomenology. Following her, I too will use 12

phenomenological concepts applied to the idea of the Theatre of Cruelty in order to understand

potential audience experiences, rather than the historical conditions surrounding the practice.

Alison Rockbrand. “Boundaries of healing: insider perspectives on ritual and transgression in 11

contemporary esoteric theatre,” in Spaces of Spirituality, ed. Nadia Bartolini, Sara MacKian, and Steve Pile, (New York: Routledge, 2018), 261.

Alison Rockbrand, “Boundaries of Healing,” 261. 12

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There is also a lack of research on theatre, more strictly speaking, within the academic

networks for the discipline Western Esotericism. The arts have some recognition, such as through

Marco Pasi’s work on visual art, and Joscelyn Godwin’s studies of music, but research on theatre

is lacking (the same is also true of dance). Nevertheless, some scholarly work on esoteric theatre

does exist outside of Western Esotericism. If the search is expanded to include works on sacred,

spiritual, holy, or religious theatre, rather than the more limited category of esoteric, then the 13

amount of scholarship opens up infinitely. For example, the historical influences of esotericism

have been tracked in various theatre movements, particularly the Symbolist movement of the

20th_{-century. There is no shortage of work dealing with esoteric themes and influences in}14

theatre. 15

Western Esotericism in Performance

The scholars I am particularly interested in, however, are those who categorize their work as

focusing on explicitly esoteric theatre. This field is currently dominated by a single monograph,

The Theatre of the Occult Revival: Alternative Spiritual Performance from 1875 to the Present

(2014) by Edmund B. Lingan. This current thesis is largely inspired by, and builds upon the

! As used by Anita Hammer, spiritual performance is “That which takes place when humans perform in 13

order to call into being a spiritual presence.” (Anita Hammer, Between Play and Prayer: The Variety of Theatrical in Spiritual Performance (Amsterdam and New York: Ropodi, 2010).

Edmund B. Lingan, The Theatre of the Occult Revival: Alternative Spiritual Performance from 1875 to 14

the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 9-11. Lingan recommends especially the work of Daniel Gerould, Maria Carlson, Frantisek Deak, Jean-Pierre Laurant, and Lance Gharavi.

For a good database of articles, check out the online journal Performance and Spirituality, edited by 15

Edmund B. Lingan, https://www.utdl.edu/ojs/index.php/pas/index, which ran from 2009-2015, as well as his more recent collaborative online journal Performance, Religion, & Spirituality, https://www.utdl.edu/ ojs/index.php/prs/index, which began in 2017.

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foundations of, his book, as well as Lingan’s other related essays. In his book, Lingan presents 16

5 in depth case studies of both historical and contemporary ‘occult theatre.’ These are: Katherine

Tingley and the Theosophical Society’s theatrical endeavours under her leadership of the society,

Rudolf & Marie Steiner’s Anthroposophical theatre, Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic theatre, Alex

Mathew’s Rosicrucian theatre and its entwinements with Gardnerian Wicca, and Neo-Pagan

performance, focusing especially on the performer Serpentessa and the performance events

Occult and Occult II. These case studies present a diverse range of esoteric practitioners who

used theatre performance for a variety of ends in 20th_{-century Europe and America.}

According to Lingan, there are several purposes for which occultists have used theatre,

such as to teach essential lessons, or more practical reasons like “enhancing public image,

building community and solidarity among members, or raising funds.” But the real deal, 17

present in all his examples, is the concept of gnosis. Occult-artists, he claims, aim “to teach 18

specific occult principles or to induce gnosis (the experience of the divine in life) in performers

and/ or spectators.” This religious purpose is what distinguishes occult theatre from other non-19

“Reincarnation and Individuality: Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Mystery Dramas’ in the New Millennium” (2001); 16

“Beyond the Occult Revival: Contemporary Forms of Occult Theatre” (2006); “The Alchemical Marriage of Art, Performance, and Spirituality” (2009); “Plato and the Theatre of the Occult Revival: Edouard Schuré, Katherine Tingley, and Rudolf Steiner” (2010); “A Point of Transition: Broadened Research and New Directions in Performance and Spirituality” (2011); “Katherine Tingley’s Theosophical Theatre: Greek Revivalism and New Religion in Lomaland, USA” (2011); “Invocation” (2014); “The Nature Theatres of the Occult Revival: Nature, Performance, and Modern Esoteric Religions” (2015); “A Disturbing Mix of Religion and Politics: Aleister Crowley’s The Savior” (2016); “Spirtiuality and Theatre” (2019), as well as his editorial work for the journals Performance and Spirituality and Performance, Religion & Spirituality.

Edmund B. Lingan, The Theatre of the Occult Revival, 7. 17

For an in-depth discussion of this concept, refer to the section “Gnosis.” 18

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occult theatre, which may also use occult inspired themes and ideas, but is essentially secular in

nature. 20

Alison Rockbrand proposes a similar theory in her 2018 essay “Boundaries of Healing:

Insider perspectives on ritual and transgression in contemporary esoteric theatre.” In this essay,

she focuses on three case studies: UK collective Foolish People, performance artist Angela

Edwards, and the Metamorphic Ritual Theatre; all of these are contemporary Western esoteric

ritual performances which through transgression and experiences of liminality “can lead to

transformational healing experiences.” Rockbrand likens these ritual performances to rites of 21

passage, which “then leads to a liminal space wherein a new meaning, which can mean healing

or a new form of identity, or some type of permanent magical change, occurs.” And similarly to 22

Lingan, she differentiates this esoteric theatre from other contemporary theatre that on the

surface may look similar. It could be the case in the latter that “Ritual was done, but it was not

liminal, magickal or esoteric, meaning and identity were not permanently transcended, destroyed

or altered according to the generally accepted meanings of initiation or transmutation among

contemporary occult practitioners.” 23

Lingan and Rockbrand thus have slightly different views of what esoteric theatre is meant

to do to the audience: while Lingan focuses on an audience’s experience of gnosis, Rockbrand

emphasizes the healing potential within a liminal experience for both actors and audience.

Esotericism and theatre interact in such vast ways that there is no unified conception of the

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audience in esoteric theatre. However, Lingan and Rockbrand do agree on one major point,

namely, that esoteric performance is one whose telos is a transformational liminal experience for

the audience, and that this end effect on them is decided mainly by who is doing the performance

(ie an occultist versus a performance artist). This raises a number of questions: How can we

judge whether a performance creates a liminal space or not? How can we know whether this

space will lead to a transformational experience for the audience? Is a performance created by an

esotericist really more likely to create a transformational liminal space than that created by a

non-esotericist? Does claiming esotericists are the only creators of liminal theatre assume author

intentionality as the standard of final effect with no attention to how the audience might react

differently? And who is deciding how the audience is effected in what cases? Despite solid

foundational work, there are still many questions to be asked and discussed about the

transformative potential of esoteric theatre, as well as what really makes theatre so very esoteric

after all.

Perhaps part of this distinction is a need from an emic perspective to preserve the

integrity of the occultist. Rockbrand is a practicing occultist herself, as are all of the people she

works with and about whom she reports in her essay. One group she performed with, the

Metamorphic Ritual Theatre (MRT), a well documented contemporary esoteric theatre group

based in Australia, “urges the reader to recognize that the members of MRT are composed of

magicians who use theatre as magical ceremony, as opposed to dadaists, surrealists, and artists

from other modernist movements who used the occult for artistic inspiration.” This is a fair 24

observation, as there is a difference between self-declared adherents, often working within a

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recognizable historical tradition, and a creator drawing inspiration from these traditions without

adhering to them. But these are equally valid ways in which performances may overlap with

esotericism, and they are both esoteric theatre in their own way. Rather than using an emic

perspective as an exclusionary tool, the focus could instead be on individual experience,

regardless of who the individual is. It may very well be that a practitioner attracts an audience of

fellow practitioners who interact with a performance in a different way than someone using

occult-inspired themes who attracts a more general audience, which will effect the experience of

the performance; but this can be understood through observing individual experience in each

case rather than drawing arbitrary boundaries.

Lingan, in contrast, is not himself a self-identified occultist. He came to esotericism

through an interest in religious studies, so for him, the important distinction is whether someone

adheres to a specific, dogmatic tradition or not. Symbolist plays were occult-inspired and the

performances opened up vague questions regarding the mysteries of life; the Steiners, in contrast,

sought spiritual clarity, to solve spiritual mysteries, rather than opening them. From this

difference, Lingan concludes that while the former theatre is artistic in pursuit, the latter is

religious, making the former non-esoteric, and the latter esoteric. Again, he has observed a real 25

difference here, but assumes that gnosis can only be attained through religion, not spirituality. He

is working in a paradigm of ‘religious not spiritual’ while Western Esotericism is currently

working within the trend ‘spiritual not religious.’ Society is differentiating spiritual practices 26

from dogmatic religions, and tending towards the former, but this division does not make the

Edmund B. Lingan, The Theatre of the Occult Revival, 99-100. 25

Christopher Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, 26

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contemporary West any less religious- instead, it is differently religious. The separation of 27

dogmatic religion versus spirituality can be a helpful tool if you want to anaylse belief as

separated from- especially dominating- power structures, but this relationship is not really

fundamentally separable, and this does not make either- studied in isolation- inherently more or

less able to effect gnosis in an audience.

I should briefly mention one other work that specifically focuses on esoteric theatre,

Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theatre and Drama, written by Robert Lima in 2005. In

summary, “The book is intended as a representative, in-depth comparative study of Western

mythological, folkloric, and religious beliefs regarding evil as expressed in theater and drama

from classical times to the modern era.” The examples highlight particularly the manifestation 28

of evil as interactions between the natural and supernatural worlds, in a specifically Western

setting (in this context, Western refers to Europe and America). The book also includes an 29

extensive bibliography of plays, which in combination with the discussion, make this book a

valuable resource for tracking darker occult themes in Western theatre. However, I must agree

with Lingan here when he judges, “Unfortunately, Lima takes an uncritical stance toward the

popular association of the occult with evil.” More to my purpose, it focuses on thematics rather 30

than experiences, so I will not be engaging this work, but it could not go without mention in a

thesis on esoteric theatre.

Boaz Huss, “Spirituality: The Emergence of a New Cultural Category and its Challenge to the 27

Religious and the Secular,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 29, no. 1 (2014): 52. doi: 10.1080/13537903.2014.864803.

Robert Lima, Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theatre and Drama, (Kentucky: The University 28

Press of Kentucky, 2005), 6. Robert Lima, Stages of Evil, 9. 29

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In order to investigate the potential effect of a Theatre of Cruelty performance- as

described in The Theatre and Its Double- on an audience, which may or may not lead to a gnostic

transformative experience, I will use phenomenological tools, particularly à la Sara Ahmed in

Queer Phenomenology (2006). Using the work of Lingan, Rockbrand, and others as my

background, I hope to find a new angle of approach to understanding what makes theatre

esoteric, in order to redirect the trajectory of future research in this area. For interactions of

esotericism that are not based on audience reactions, I will ground my study in a historically

based close reading, in order to bring The Theatre and Its Double into dialogue with other

traditions, practices, and ideas that are present within the text. There are many other theatrical

practices that I could have chosen to focus on, which would have led this investigation in other

directions, but The Theatre and Its Double provides an incredibly rich and accessible case study,

because of the depth, variety, and even surface level mention of themes, techniques, and

historical conditions.

ESOTERICISM What is Esotericism?

Before diving into an investigation of esoteric theatre, perhaps it would be helpful to begin by

explaining what I mean by esotericism. As prefaced in innumerable discussions of the term, the

first occurrence of the adjective esoteric is found in the second century common era in the work

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esotericism, however, was not introduced until 1779 in German as esoterismus. The first 31

academic chair was created in 1964 through the initiative of Henry Corbin, and given to Francois

Secret (the perfect candidate for name alone!). He was succeeded in 1979 by Antoine Faivre, and

it is under Faivre that the academic study of Western Esotericism, as it exists now, really began

to take shape. 32

Within its fairly short history, Western Esotericism has been marked with an incredibly

lively and passionate debate about what it is that academics are actually studying within the field.

Each scholar provides their own competing opinion presented with great clarity and gusto, which

are matched by equally legitimate critiques. With such a thick stack of scholarship on how to

define the object and parameters of Esotericism as a field of study (let alone Western

Esotericism- we’ll get there), it seems almost absurd to offer yet one more definition to this

conversational space that is already close to bursting. Yet as a thesis in Esotericism, enter into

this debate I shall.

In his essay “Esotericism Theorized: Major Trends and Approaches to the Study of

Esotericism” Wouter Hanegraaff provides a succinct summary of five prominent positions, or

approaches to Esotericism, which can be found repeatedly throughout the literature. These are:

religionist perspectives, sociological/ social scientific perspectives, esotericism as secrecy and

concealment, esoteric discourse, and a historical approach. All of these definitions approach

Western Esotericism in a slightly different way, which shapes their field of study accordingly.

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Esotericism Theorized: Major Trends and Approaches to the Study of 31

Esotericism,” in Religion: Secret Religion, ed. April DeConick, (Farmington Hills: MacMillan, 2016), 162.

Michael Bergunder, “What is Esotericism? Cultural Studies Approaches and the Problems of Definition 32

in Religious Studies,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (2010): 11-12. Translated by Kenneth Fleming. doi: 10.1163/094330510X12604383550882.

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However, the theory of occulture provided by Christopher Partridge may prove most useful as a

framework for engaging esotericism, as it is perhaps the most flexible definition, and thus most

accommodating in its parameters.

Partridge and Occulture

Christopher Partridge first developed the idea of occulture (a neologism combing occult+culture)

in his two-volume work The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities,

Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture (2004 and 2005). Occulture was first coined by the

cultural engineer Genesis P-Orridge (b. 1950), but Partridge gives it his own academic

contextualization. Occulture is not a movement or current, not a religion or system, but instead

“the new spiritual environment in the West.” This new spiritual environment is “an essentially 33

non-Christian religio-cultural milieu, a milieu that both resources and is resourced by popular

culture.” And just what is the occult content of this occulture? Partridge chooses to “expand the 34

narrow, technical definition of the term ‘occult’ to include a vast spectrum of beliefs and

practices sourced by Eastern spirituality, Paganism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, alternative science

and medicine, popular psychology, and a range of beliefs emanating out of a general interest in 35

the paranormal.” A more succinct and oft-quoted definition of occulture comes from Partridge’s 36

2013 paper “Occulture is Ordinary.” There he explains that occulture “as a sociological term,

refers to the environment within which, and the social processes by which particular meanings

Christopher Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West, 4. 33

Especially Jungian, as qualified on page 70 of Re-Enchantment of the West, vol. 1. 35

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relating, typically, to spiritual, esoteric, paranormal and conspiratorial ideas emerge, are

disseminated, and become influential in societies and in the lives of individuals.” 37

One of the main benefits of using occulture as a framework for studying Esotericism is its

fluidity, which solves a two-fold problem of methodology and disciplinary boundaries. By and

far the majority of research in Western Esotericism right now comes from Religious Studies

departments, although there is little reason this need be the case. The subject of Esotericism can

be studied in many disciplines: History (especially History of Science and Technology),

Anthropology, Sociology, Theatre Studies, Philosophy, Cultural Studies- the list goes on. The

point is that the content of Esotericism is highly varied, and limiting it to Religious Studies is just

unnecessary. Occulture as a theory looks at occult content as it is disseminated throughout

society, so it can study this content in any case, rather than simply those proper to Religious

Studies.

Methodologically, none of the five main approaches Hanegraaff lists (religionism, social

sciences, esotericism as secrecy, discourse theory, and historical approach) are exclusive to

Religious Studies. Generally speaking, what these methodologies suffer from is defining

esotericism too narrowly, through demarcating strict historical currents or essences which draw

boundaries that not everyone can possibly be happy with; there are simply too many border

cases, and it often comes down to context. For example, within Western Esotericism, alchemy is

popularly viewed as an esoteric current. Within the history of chemistry, however, different

aspects of alchemical texts may be the focus, and the esoteric influences merely written off.

Esoteric text or early chemical treatise? It depends on context, which requires a flexible and

Christopher Partridge, “Occulture is Ordinary,” in Contemporary Esotericism, ed. Egil Asprem and 37

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interdisciplinary definition. Occulture can identify the esoteric aspects of the alchemical treatise

while acknowledging that there are other ways of studying the same text. Occulture is like a

mapping tool, which locates occult content within things (ideas, currents, objects, etc), and how

that changes over time.

Esotericism and Occultism

It would seem from the way that I am using ‘occult’ and ‘esoteric’ thus far that they are

synonymous; this is not quite the case. While esotericism is etymologically about what is within,

occultism is from the Latin occultus meaning ‘hidden.’ In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 38

occult qualities were features of the natural world that could be observed experimentally but

were inexplicable with the current natural philosophy (based largely upon Ancient texts,

especially Aristotle); these qualities included magnetism and the medical property of plants. 39

This found expression in the three occult sciences of astrology, alchemy, and magic, which were

distinct but related to the Renaissance development of occult philosophy, which itself integrated

occult qualities into a systematic religious worldview. In both instances, “the object of these 40

disciplines was the study and the use of those forces or properties of nature that had been

traditionally defined as ‘occult’ (qualitates occultae)…” 41

Marco Pasi, “Occultism,” in The Brill Dictionary of Religion Vol. 1-4, rev. ed., ed. Kocku von Stuckrad, 38

trans. Robert R. Barr (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1365.

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Occult/ Occultism,” in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. 39

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 885.

See Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Occult/ Occultism” and Marco Pasi, “Occultism.” 40

Marco Pasi, “Occultism,” 1365. 41

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In the 18th_-19th_{centuries, esotericism and occultism started to find more overlap.}

Occultists were largely concerned with solving the modern conflict between religion and science,

and through non-dogmatic readings of ancient texts, sought to show that there was an inner truth,

and that the ancient mysteries were compatible with modern science. Because occultists were 42

“claiming that all the hidden secrets of nature were already known to the initiates of ancient

mystery traditions, it was only logical that the terms esoteric(ism) and occult(ism) would come to

be used more or less interchangeably.” Other features of modern occultism were a distancing 43

from Christianity which resulted in a turn towards paganism and Eastern religions, as well as a

focus on individual spiritual progress. Choosing to emphasize occult rather than esoteric comes 44

with the baggage of being related specifically to any or all of: occult qualities originating in

ancient Greek natural philosophy, Medieval and Renaissance European occult philosophy and

occult sciences, and 18th-₁₉th_{century occultism.}

The emphasis on occult rather than esoteric is not a reason to dismiss occulture;

highlighting the difference is simply to show the contents and limitations occulture carries within

it. More limiting is the non-Christian context, which Partridge himself recognizes. This prompts

him to change his definition from a new spiritual environment in 2004 (The Re-Enchantment of

the West) to a sociological term in 2013 (“Occulture is Ordinary”). In his more recent work, he

says that “While we might think of periods when occultural life-worlds become particularly

conspicuous and influential in terms of re-enchantment, actually, occulture is never absent. It is,

See Marco Pasi, “Occultism” and Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Esotericism Theorized,” 162. 42

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Esotericism Theorized,” 162. 43

Marco Pasi, “Occultism,” 1366. 44

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historically, a feature of all societies.” To demonstrate this, he provides the example of the 45

Christian church in medieval society which permeated all aspects of life- occulture is the

spiritual environment, and the social processes within it, that effect society and individuals, in all

times and places. Here we see the beginning of a theory that is more amenable to historical 46

studies. What is left for me to discuss is what this occult content is or can be.

A New (And Historical) Occulture

Partridge defines occult content in an imprecise and atmospheric way, relating to a variety of

different currents. This amorphous definition is less problematic when limited to contemporary 47

Western culture, but as soon as it enters into varying historical and cultural currents, it becomes

less tenable, and we are slightly more confused what we’re actually talking about here. My

proposal to focus the space, while still leaving it relatively open, is to fill in the occult content

with Hanegraaff’s thesis of esotericism as rejected knowledge. He has explained and expanded

this theory in a large number of articles and books, but here I quote from his 2013 introduction to

the field, Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. He tells us that “What initially sets

[the field of Western Esotericism] apart is its modern status as ‘rejected knowledge’: it contains

precisely everything that has been consigned to the dustbin of history by Enlightenment

Christopher Partridge, “Occulture is Ordinary,” 119. 45

Christopher Partridge, “Occulture is Ordinary,” 120. 46

I have already quoted these above, but as a reminder: 47

The occult includes: “Eastern spirituality, Paganism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, alternative science and medicine, popular psychology, and a range of beliefs emanating out of a general interest in the paranormal.” (Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West, 4).

Or alternatively, the occult typically relates to “spiritual, esoteric, paranormal and conspiratorial ideas” (Partridge, Occulture is Ordinary, 116).

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ideologues and their intellectual heirs up to the present.” I’d like us to meditate upon the 48

concept of ‘rejected’ for a moment here, taking the example of astrology. In what sense can

astrology be said to be ‘rejected’ in contemporary Western society? While Western scientific

paradigms might not have a role for astrology, it certainly has a role in the lives of many people,

self-declared esoteric practitioners or not. And astrology certainly enjoyed popularity at various

times leading up to the Enlightenment. So this rejection is a defining feature of the

Enlightenment alone. It does not mean the practice was rejected before, nor that it is rejected

now. I will use the ‘historical dustbin’ category to mean those historical currents that contained

knowledge which was rejected during the Enlightenment, and how those currents of knowledge were viewed and used both before and after this period of rejection.

I would like to now place this rejected knowledge within the occultural framework. What

I mean is, when Partridge talks of that vague occultness permeating society, I would like to

specify that as Hanegraaff’s category of rejected knowledge, and what is associated with it. I do

not mean to limit the content of occulture to a series of specific historical currents. Rather, I want

to historically ground his project so that it is easier to use in historical research. This is why I

have delimited the occultural content as rejected knowledge and what is associated with it. This

includes all the interest areas Partridge has identified, but gives it more tangibility. So to take an

example, Partridge includes ‘popular psychology, especially Jungian’ as part of what the occult

includes and relates to. In the 1988 Canadian play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

by Ann-Marie MacDonald, the protagonist Constance undergoes a personal transformation

during a journey through her subconscious. The journey is grounded in a Jungian theory of the

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and New York: 48

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subconscious and her transformation is bolstered by alchemical imagery, as used by Jung. This is

not to say that the Shakespearean inspired comedy is about the historical current of alchemy, or

rigorously applying principles of Jungian psychology. It incorporates these ideas, so is related to

both alchemy and Jungian psychology, but not as part of a historically traceable current. The play

is occultural in that it uses ideas related to the currents of rejected knowledge. The content of any

play or theatre practice (including the Theatre of Cruelty) can be considered occultural if it is

related, even tangentially, to these currents.

What About This Whole Western Thing?

Perhaps the most grievous flaw with this conception of Esotericism is how inherently

Eurocentric it is. The adjective Western has come under serious critical debate in recent years

among scholars, and the historical approach is under particular scrutiny. Claiming that 49

esotericism is related to the knowledge rejected in the Enlightenment grounds it in a specifically

Western context (whatever that ‘Western’ may refer to). This Western grounding becomes 50

theoretically untenable in the context of globalization, where entanglement is the standard. Even

before globalization, there are certain subjects which would cleanly fall under the purview of

Esotericism, such as Chinese alchemy, Medieval Japanese Noh theatre, or North American

See especially Marco Pasi “Oriental Kabbalah and the Parting of East and West in the Early 49

Theosophical Society” (2010), Kennet Granholm “Locating the West: Problematizing the Western in Western Esotericism and Occultism (2013), Egil Asprem “Beyond the West: Towards a New

Comparativism in the Study of Esotericism (2014), and Wouter Hanegraaff “The Globalization of Esotericism” (2015).

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “The Globalization of Esotericism,” Correspondences 3 (2015): 82, http:// 50

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Indigenous rituals of initiation. Naming and demarcating boundaries is a political action, and

focusing on Western culture as a defining element is an exclusionary Eurocentric project.

The benefit of the occultural model is that it is so flexible, and can be redefined according

to each new temporal and cultural situation. The way I have defined occulture as a Western

historical model functions for a thesis focused on a French 20th_{-century theatre movement and its}

potential trajectories into present-day, predominantly French and English speaking, European

and North American countries, but the concept is in constant flux and will be reshaped for new

situations. So Western Esotericism is the study of Esotericism in the West (here defined as

historically rejected knowledge and what is associated with it), and this is but a subcategory of

the field Esotericism, which can reshape and redefine its occultural content according to context.

This thesis is operating in the specific subcategory of Western Esotericism.

Using rejected knowledge to fill in occulture gives form to esotericism, but it is not strict,

as the exact content will actively be shaped by context and the way the scholar engages the

material. So it does not limit what can become occultural content; rather, it creates a space in

which content can become occultural. So in sum, when I say esotericism, I mean knowledge

rejected during the Enlightenment as it was and is taken up and reformed within the occultural

matrix; it is the elements of culture that are directly, or even vaguely and tangentially, related to

those currents. By Western Esotericism I mean the field of study whose subject is specifically

these currents, ideas, and practices, but due to the fluid nature of esotericism thus defined, it

could be studied in any of a number of fields.

Religious studies professor Kocku von Stuckrad, who understands esotericism through

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part of Western history, the discipline Western Esotericism will no longer be necessary, as

questions of identity in relation to religious claims can be answered without the field. This is an

extreme historical approach to Western Esotericism, one which sees the role of the discipline as

to understand past developments which have brought us to where and how we are now. 51

Occulture is better equipped to look at contemporary esotericism as well, which I think makes it

a more useful tool, but von Stuckrad makes a significant point. If occulture is indeed ordinary,

why need there be a separate field dedicated to its study? Occulture is a mapping tool, a lens

through which to analyze, not a field of study itself; when occulture is recognized as ordinary, it

can become a truly interdisciplinary tool, and as von Stuckrad suggests, the associated field of

Esotericism will no longer be necessary.

Esoteric Theatre in Occulture

So bringing it back to theatre, occulture here defined is a mapping system which allows us to

trace knowledge which was rejected during the Enlightenment within the creation and

presentation of esoteric theatre performances. I continue to say esoteric theatre, despite using a

theory of occulture, because during the 20th_{century timeframe I am investigating, they are}

almost interchangeable, although before their entanglement in the 18th_-19th_{centuries, the occult}

would refer more specifically to occult qualities, philosophy, or sciences. This distinction 52

between occult and esoteric is made slightly more confusing when we engage with Theatre of the

See especially Chapter 3 of Kocku von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early 51

Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identity, (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

In order to refer to esotericism pre-18th_{-century it would be nice to have a phrase to the effect of} 52

esotericulture. Unfortunately, this is neither catchy nor memorable. If anyone comes up with a good neologism for esoteric+culture, please send it to me.

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Occult Revival, for there, Lingan says, “To be clear, in this book the term “occultism” refers to

the application of any esoteric “science” to the end of achieving gnosis or direct experience of

the spiritual realm.” In other words, for him, occultism is the application of esoteric practices. 53

Lingan is clear in his definitions and usage, but this is in stark contrast to the

differentiation I used above, as spiritual versus natural forces, rather than a practice as verb

versus a practice as noun. Lingan’s definition was largely inspired by Antoine Faivre’s book

Access to Western Esotericism (1994). This was written in the first decade and a half of Faivre’s

work in Western Esotericism, so was foundational and important, but also slightly outdated by

the time Lingan used it in 2014. As I explained above, Western Esotericism and Theatre Studies

are not in dialogue, which results in a misuse and misapplication of terms on both sides by the

other, rather than a fruitful collaboration. I hope to engage this collaboration for the remaining

pages.

THEATRE OF CRUELTY What Are We Doing Here?

For the remainder of this thesis, I will ground my exploration of esoteric theatre in Antonin

Artaud’s theoretical project the Theatre of Cruelty, as expounded in the 1938 anthology The

Theatre and Its Double, looking at some of the manifold ways in which the conceptual Theatre

of Cruelty can be considered to be esoteric. Artaud has received no recognition from scholars

within Western Esotericism, but various scholars working in other fields have written on the

subject. Most notably is Jane Goodall’s (no, not that one) 1994 book Artaud and the Gnostic

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Drama. In it she names several other scholars who consider an esoteric Artaud, including Susan

Sontag (“Approaching Artaud,” 1973), Naomi Greene (Poet Without Words, 1970), and Ann

Demaître (“Artaud and the Occult Tradition,” 1977 and “The Theatre of Cruelty and Alchemy:

Artaud and Le Grand Oeuvre,” 1972). More recently, Lingan in his essay “Invocation,” and

Rockbrand in “Boundaries of Healing” both reference Artaud as making esoteric theatre. 54

I should clarify who, or what, I mean when I say Artaud. Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) is a

historical person, but in the last century, has also become an idea. In fact, he has become an

industry. The abundance of writing on, about, and inspired by Artaud has caused him to 55

become one “of those great literary and philosophical institutions of the late nineteenth and

twentieth centuries that are founded on proper names…”. In what follows, I will become part 56

of this industry. I will sometimes make recourse to the historical person, to highlight embodied

experiences of the time period The Theatre and Its Double was written in that are present within

the text, but overall, this is almost completely irrelevant. I am not reading Artaud to find out what

he was ‘really saying,’ for there are as many interpretations of Artaud as there are interpreters,

evidenced by the often contradictory readings one can find that are equally well grounded in

sound exegesis and argumentation. Rex Butler theorizes that this is particularly true in the case 57

of Artaud, because he is never really saying anything at all, which is precisely why we can just

See Edmund B. Lingan, “Invocation,” 30-31 and Alison Rockbrand, “Boundaries of Healing,” 260, 54

273-4.

Rex Butler, “Non-Genital Thought,” in 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud, ed. Edward Scheer 55

(Marrickville: Southwood Press, 2000), 33, 47. Rex Butler, “Non-Genital Thought,” 47. 56

For example, Weber in “The Greatest Thing of All: the virtuality of theatre” comes to the opposite 57

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keep writing. So it remains a matter of hermeneutics to decode his work, leading to the infinity

of equally valid interpretations, which form the basis of the Artaud industry.

And write a lot Artaud did. His collected works comprise a prodigious 26 volumes, of

which his theatre writings comprise only a very small part, and The Theatre and Its Double a

fairly insignificant portion of that. My exegesis is limited only to this compilation of 13 essays

and collections of letters, as translated into English by Mary Caroline Richards in 1958. As this

work will be central, it is best I give a brief introduction to it now. The Theatre and Its Double is

the most famous and condensed explanation of the Theatre of Cruelty. At the core of this book is

a deep frustration with modernity and the mechanized, desacralized, bourgeois-ideal driven state

of early/mid-20th_{century France. In theatre, this depravity was reflected through the}

psychological theatre of the French stage, and indeed, of the entire Occident. The emphasis on

the psychology of individual characters, meant to mimic the life of the audience, was an

annoyance, and prevented theatre from fulfilling its true purpose. The Theatre and Its Double

advocates a movement away from this psychological theatre to the true metaphysical theatre, 58

which preserves the core of the Ancient tragedies and Mysteries of Eleusis. The metaphysical 59

theatre is a sacred theatre for the modern age, one which represents the sacred on stage, not

mimetically, but actually, an idea which will I will return to later. 60

Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, trans. Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 58

1958), 44.

Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, 30. 59

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This Is My Design

When discussing the metaphysical theatre and the Theatre of Cruelty, a point that should not be

overlooked is that Artaud uses ‘theatre’ in the double sense of both ‘performance’ (here in the

sense of theatre-act, as explained above ) and ‘essential drama.’ In the beginning there was a 61

single creator, unified in himself, but when he spilt himself into the creation of the material

world, he was divided. The essential drama is “associated with the second phase of Creation, that

of difficulty and of the Double, that of matter and materialization of the idea;” it is the cosmic 62

chaos of the immaterial God in a material world (it seems Madonna was right- we are indeed

living in a material world). The primordial necessity of theatre is “the materialization or rather

the exteriorization of a kind of essential drama.” So in true metaphysical (as opposed to 63

psychological) theatre, theatre as theatre-act performance will be the expression of the primordial

essential drama unfolding in reality.

The Double is a more enigmatic term than its titular predecessor; its meaning, definition,

and understanding is highly contested and ambiguous, although we do find one succinct (if not

clear) sense of the Double in the play between the two senses of theatre: “the theatre must also be

considered as the Double, not of this direct, everyday reality of which it is gradually being

reduced to a mere inert replica- as empty as it is sugar-coated- but of another archetypal and

dangerous reality, a reality of which the Principles, like dolphins, once they have shown their

But for a quick reminder: “a temporal unfolding of an experience between the watchers and the 61

watched, the audience and the actors, and however those distinctions may blur.” Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, 51.

62

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heads, hurry to dive back into the obscurity of the deep.” The theatre-act of performance is the 64

Double of a metaphysical reality, not a psychological portrayal of the sugar-coated mundane

everyday reality. Theatre is the Double of the deepest metaphysical reality underlying our limited

experience of everyday life. Through theatre, the audience and actors are able to catch a brief

glimpse of the dolphins’ heads, a messenger from the deep underlying structure of reality. But

this is but a temporary exposure, for humans suffocate if they travel to the darkest depths of the

ocean.

And finally we come to the Cruelty. Contrary to immediate connotation, cruelty is not

physically violent, it “is a matter of neither sadism nor bloodshed.” Rather, there is a “much 65

more terrible cruelty which things can exercise against us. We are not free.” What exercises this 66

cruelty is not specific, for “Everything that acts is a cruelty.” Cruelty is the necessity that while 67

living in the material world, we are continually confronted with the opposition of other material

beings; it is inescapable; it is synonymous with both life and necessity; cruelty is fundamentally 68

tied to the essential drama as the necessity of forces in the material world, the evil that is inherent

in matter. 69

The ultimate force of cruelty working against us is death. There is no cruelty at all

without consciousness, “since it is understood that life is always someone’s death.” Central to 70

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this understanding of cruelty is that it is fundamentally religious. The metaphysical theatre is a

sacred theatre, and is premised upon the existence of evil as a real cosmological force. Even the 71

hidden god, when he creates, “obeys the cruel necessity of creation which has been imposed on

himself by himself…”. To return to theatre as theatre-act performance, “theatre in the sense of 72

continuous creation, a wholly magical action, obeys this necessity,” and through this obedience 73

to the necessity and forces of the created world, is also inherently cruel. Jane Goodall in an

interview describes how this cosmology follows a gnostic logic, in which creation, indeed all

structure and formation, is evil, “so gnosticism could never have been compatible with a church

as an institution…”. It is for this reason that Gnosticism had to be labeled heretical by the early 74

Church, and it is due to this same impulse that Artaud seeks to do away with the conventional

theatre institution.

Artaud as Esoteric Practitioner

At one level, the author of The Theatre and Its Double is on a mission to revolutionize theatre. It

is in the sense of esoteric practitioner creator that Lingan and Rockbrand define esoteric theatre,

so the only proper investigation of the historical person Artaud will be to now discover him (very

briefly) as esotericist. Artaud saw himself as a sort of magician. He studied tarot and astrology 75

Sylvère Lotringer, Edward Scheer, and Jane Goodall, “Sick, Evil, and Violent,” interview, transcribed 71

by Jodie Cunningham, Sep. 13, 1996, in 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud, ed. Edward Scheer, (Marrickville: Southwood Press, 2000), 327.

Sylvère Lotringer, Edward Scheer, and Jane Goodall, “Sick, Evil, and Violent,” 328-329. 74

David A Shafer, Critical Lives: Antonin Artaud (London: Reaktion Books, 2016), 146. 75

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and sent curses to the Surrealist Lise Deharme; he believed in powers both beyond the logic of 76

science and the Christian Church, refusing to give people photos of himself lest they stick pins

into his image and perform voodoo on him. In 1936 he travelled to Mexico, where he hoped to 77

get in touch with an ancient magical culture; while there, he participated in a Peyote ritual with

the Tarahumara. Later, he sought this mystical culture among the Irish. After obtaining a cane 78

which he believed to have belonged to the daughter of a sorcerer, as mentioned in a prophecy of

Saint Patrick, he journeyed to Ireland on a mission to return it, which ended in his deportation 79

back to France, where he spent the next several years in mental institutions, during which time he

claimed to be plagued by harmful spells cast on him by a dark group called Les Initiés. 80

Artaud as Traditionalist

Beyond these brief anecdotal interludes, Artaud existed in the decidedly Western Esoteric current

of Traditionalism, which is attributed to the French intellectual René Guénon (1886-1951),

although he would argue against this attribution. The core of Traditionalism is the conviction in a

primordial divine wisdom, also referred to as metaphysics, which humans can receive if only

they open their eyes to it. But this is difficult, for the modern West is degraded and depraved.

David A Shafer, Critical Lives: Antonin Artaud, 150. 76

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Guénon himself converted to Islam, which he thought preserved some of the Traditional wisdom,

along with Hinduism and some Chinese religions. 81

Artaud had similar concerns, and turned to foreign cultures to seek an ancient magical

wisdom. His first notable introduction to the magical Orient in theatre was as a young actor in

the early 1920s, training under Charles Dullin. The director was highly influenced by East Asian

theatre practices, especially Japanese theatre, from which he drew elements for the

mise-en-scène, as well as actor training. While touring with Dullin’s company in the South of France in 82

1922, Artaud attended the Marseilles Colonial Exhibition, where the Cambodian Royal Ballet

was the 'must see event,' and which greatly impressed Artaud. But it is the Balinese Dancers at 83

the Dutch East Indies Company pavilion at the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931 who find their

way into The Theatre and Its Double, inspiring an entire chapter entitled "On the Balinese

Theatre." Artaud was fascinated with what he saw as a prelinguistic form of communication,

ushering forth from a primordial and ancient wisdom which Balinese culture had preserved, and

which the French had lost.

He despised the psychological theatre of the Occident, viewing it as symptomatic of the

depravity of the entire modern West. To explain this degradation, he cites an unnamed text by

Guénon as saying that this is due “to our purely Occidental way, our anti poetic and truncated

way of considering principles (apart from the massive and energetic spiritual state which

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Tradition,” in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. Wouter J. 81

Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1132-1134 and Marco Pasi, “René Guénon and Perennialism” (class lecture, Occult

Trajectories, Amsterdam, May 7, 2019).

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corresponds to them).” Lingan has noted that the appeal to a primordial tradition is a prominent 84

theme among esoteric theatre practitioners. Tingley, the Steiners, Crowley, and Gardner all

“related their theatrical practices to the dramatic mysteries of a primordial tradition” as either

bearing an affinity to the initiatory Mysteries of Eleusis, or otherwise “offered a new mode of

occult drama that promised to bestow Eleusinian illumination upon human beings living in the

modern era.” 85

Lingan focuses on mainly Greek (especially Eleusian) primordial traditions. The true

theatre Artaud sought to recover had been present in the ancient Eleusian mysteries, but he took 86

more inspiration from Oriental theatre which he believed had preserved the tradition into his

time. Artaud had a great respect for all those places which he collectively called the Orient, and

was disgusted by the colonial projects of France and Europe. Through an extreme reversal of 87

the colonialists’ position, Artaud advocated what Gerd Baumann dubs xenophiliac Orientalism,

or a positive orientalism, in his essay “Grammars of Identity/ Alterity.” Baumann proposes

Orientalism as one potential grammar to understand processes of selfing/ othering. This

particular grammar is “a binary opposition subject to reversal.” It can manifest as ‘we are good 88

and they are bad,’ but it can also be ‘what we lack they still have,’ which entails a strong feeling

of loss. It is not merely a good versus bad situation, but can also “implicate self-critique, albeit 89

See Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, 30 and 52. 86

David A Shafer, Critical Lives: Antonin Artaud, 128-129. 87

Gerd Baumann, “Grammars of Identity/ Alterity: A Structural Approach,” in Grammars of Identity/ 88

Alterity: A Structural Approach, ed. Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich, (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2004), 20.

Gerd Baumann, “Grammars of Identity/ Alterity,” 20. 89

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under the auspices of a self-invented other.” Given an uncomplicated view of the self (in the 90

case of Artaud, and Traditionalists, the West is in decline), the other is the opposite of that self

(the Orient has preserved the primordial tradition such that they are not in decline). What Artaud

saw in the Balinese theatre, and what he tried to capture in his theatre, was a critique of the self

inspired by the Orientalizing of an Eastern other.

Esoteric Themes in The Theatre and Its Double

Lingan makes it clear that Artaud as esoteric practitioner, and linked into esoteric discourse,

would qualify the Theatre of Cruelty as esoteric theatre, but he denies that any esoteric themes in

his work would make it esoteric. However, as explained above, this is simply too limiting and

constricting a definition; what makes the presence of an esoteric theme not make a work esoteric

in some sense? The presence of esoteric themes in The Theatre and Its Double, I would argue,

also makes the conceptual Theatre of Cruelty an esoteric theatre.

One of the most prominent examples of esoteric thematic influence is the essay entitled

“The Alchemical Theatre” which argues that “There is a mysterious identity of essence between

the principle of the theater and that of alchemy” which at a deep level “is that alchemy and the

theater are so to speak virtual arts, and do not carry their end- or their reality within

themselves.” In a script external to The Theatre and Its Double, “Le jet de sang,” (The Spurt of 91

Blood), alembics fall from the ceiling, along with a variety of other things such as body parts,

temples, and a toad. In his script for The Conquest of Mexico, which is published in The Theatre

Gerd Baumann, “Grammars of Identity/ Alterity,” 20. 90

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and Its Double, Artaud requires that “The Zodiac, which formerly roared with all it beasts in the

head of Montezuma, turns into a group of human passions made incarnate by the learned heads

of the official spokesmen, brilliant at disputation…”. These are a few surface level nods to 92

esotericism which I will not explore more in depth, but there are many more which run deeper.

LANGUAGE

Ride the Sound Wave

In the opening lines of his essay “Sound Design: A Phenomenology,” Christopher Wenn asks,

“What does it mean to design for theatre? Is it, in line with the history of theatrical craft, purely

technical and in service of the play itself?”. While this attitude prevailed into the 1980s, he 93

argues that this is to separate the design elements from a holistic artistic experience, and instead

advocates a phenomenological based model of designer-actor-audience experience which begins

in the design process and coalesces in performance. This is true for all technical elements, but 94

as his experience is as a sound designer, he focuses on that. He begins by recognizing the

universal availability of sound to people, including people with hearing difficulties; while

emphasizing the uniqueness of individual experience and interpretation, in our ownness, we

encounter Others, and so must integrate them into our world. By writing, he says, he must

imagine an Other who is able to interpret what he writes. So while acknowledging a plurality of 95

Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, 129-130. 92

Christopher Wenn, “Sound Design,” 262-263. 94

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views, and qualities of experience, he argues that we- at least must assume- we all share the

ability to experience.

But wait, how does this shared experience of sound apply to people with hearing

disabilities? Hearing, he argues, is as much somatic as it is auditory. Sound is primarily a

physical phenomenon. Hearing through the ears is the result of physical vibrations, but these

sound vibrations can be felt in the entire body (think of the feeling at a stadium concert), so in

this sense, hearing is done with the entire body. Eighty years before this article was written, 96

Artaud was advocating something similar in his development of a new language for the theatre,

which was comprised of the collective effect of the elements of the mise-en-scène, and which he

spends much of The Theatre and Its Double elaborating upon.

Poetry in Space

Artaud provides a single vague definition, saying, “This language cannot be defined except by its

possibilities for dynamic expression in space as opposed to the expressive possibilities of spoken

dialogue.” But he gratuitously expands this definition in multiple chapters. He criticizes the 97

Occidental theatre for being dialogue based, nothing more than a “performed text” in which the

performance is subordinated to the spoken word (here his criticism is of spoken word as

dialogue, so understood as heard through the ears and understood discursively, not experienced

through the body). But dialogue is the medium of books. The stage is a concrete physical space 98

and demands to be filled with its own language, which he calls alternately a concrete language,