Theosophical Jewels: The Amaranthine Dream

Philaletheians UK · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 1 page

A single-page plate from the Theosophical Jewels sequence, containing no text beyond its caption — the same form as the plates in Buddhas and Initiates and Constitution of Man. It is also linked from the section list a second time as a JPEG image, and that link has been left exactly as it is, following the decision made when the plates in Buddhas and Initiates were described.

The plate shows a string of beads and stones photographed against a soft grey-blue ground and arranged as an open curve that turns back on itself, so the eye is carried round rather than along. The upper arc is the denser half: faceted clear crystals set between gold-flecked spheres, a black bead, polished copper, then a run of amber, deep blue, green and white globes that taper away as the curve descends. At the lower right the curve is anchored by a dark blue bead and a long pale ellipse laid across the line — the one elongated form among the spheres, and the point at which the arrangement stops being a necklace and becomes a figure. From there a second, slighter strand runs off to the left through small orange, magenta and violet beads, a lapis cylinder and a speckled black-and-white bead, and simply ends: the string is not closed. The caption beneath reads that this is the Amaranthine Dream, the dream that never dies — the amaranth being the flower that in classical use never fades. Set against the surrounding material on devotion, the plate offers the same thought in another register: a sequence of distinct and differently coloured things held on one thread, curving back towards its own beginning without quite completing the circle.

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