Heritage Craft, Reimagined. Complimentary Global Shipping. Free Trade Certified.
Musings
How the vibration acts
Meanings of the colors, forms produced in sands, and vague pure affection are just three lists of illustrations in Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater's book, Thought-Forms, originally published in 1901. With fantastical expressions of simple feeling, it's a heady read and a perfect pairing for Orpheu, a Fauvist collection of rugs.
Date
February 24th, 2025
Author
Beni
Scans
Internet Archive
“…to paint in earth’s dull colors the forms clothed in the living light of other worlds is a hard and thankless task; so much the more gratitude is due to those who have attempted it."
Thought Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation is a niche, 108 page study on how a person's thoughts and feelings produce literal patterns of colors and shapes that are then projected through a person's aura. It's a wild and heady resource of perception and reflection that baffles the mind and tickles the heart.
With these three styles from Orpheu — Echo, Horizonte, and Vermelho — though the "design" is light-handed, the construction of the rug itself is so complex that it calls for the expert hands of our master weavers due to the combination of knotted and flatwoven wool.
Its authors, Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, were leading members of a Theosophical Society in England when this book was first printed in 1901, each on a mission to map the realms of imagination through mystic insights. Ever since the title was published, its abstractly evocative illustrations have captivated all corners of the internet, often without the context of its wide-eyed meaning.
With the Fauvist shapes of Matisse fresh in the mind from Orpheu's release, we've been flipping through the pages of this book for the last few weeks, dreaming about how even the simplest gestures of a wobbly line or a looping sphere can prompt emotional reflexes with infinite ripple effects.
Beyond the eight styles of Orpheu, when you explore our best selling rugs you'll find that a pattern emerges from the diversity of design: every canvas of wool provokes a feeling that's entirely unique to the person who sees it.
Figure 8: Vague Pure Affection.
From the book: "Fig. 8 is a revolving cloud of pure affection, and except for its vagueness it represents a very good feeling. The person from whom it emanates is happy and at peace with the world, thinking dreamily of some friend whose very presence is a pleasure. There is nothing keen or strong about the feeling, yet it is one of gentle well-being, and of an unselfish delight in the proximity of those who are beloved. The feeling which gives birth to such a cloud is pure of its kind, but there is in it no force capable of producing definite results. An appearance by no means unlike this frequently surrounds a gently purring cat, and radiates slowly outward from the animal in a series of gradually enlarging concentric shells of rosy cloud, fading into invisibility at a distance of a few feet from their drowsily contented creator."
Related Stories
01/08/2025
Musings
Coined in 1938, the term "moodling" means to do things aimlessly, melding the relaxed actions of doodling and mindfulness into one perfect word.
01/15/2025
Orpheu
Dancing shadows, daisy chains, and forgotten dreams transmogrify with Orpheu, a new collection designed by Garcé & Dimofski.
02/19/2025
Conversations
Hans Zimmer, Monasteries and 18th-century Kyoto
On the heels of Orpheu, their first collection designed for Beni, we asked Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski what pulls at their heartstrings and what drives them to lead such creative lives. Their answers are as satisfying as a Pastel de Nata.