Awecawec
Awecawec
Awecawec
shape what one writer in 1909 termed "the New Spiritual America
Emerging."'"
Theosophy, as is well known, attracted a number of European
artists, writers, and composers in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries." It also appealed to American artists and
composers, although its currency is less documented in American
music history.'" Theosophy as an organized religion was in fact a
Transatlantic phenomenon, founded in New York in I875 by the
Russian-born 6migr6 Helena Blavatsky, its major theorist, and her
colleague, Colonel William Olcott. The movement, led in the 920os
by the magnetic Englishwoman Annie Besant, reached its high point
around 1927-1928, claiming 45,000 members in the world and 7,000
in the United States.' 3
New York and Los Angeles had substantial branches of Theo-
sophical societies, as did Chicago, where Ruth Crawford lived from
1921 through i929. Chicago had become receptive to esoteric philos-