Theosophical Jewels: The Rainbow of Hope

Philaletheians UK · Living the Life Series · 1 page

A single-page plate from the Theosophical Jewels sequence, containing no text beyond its caption — the same form as the Amaranthine Dream plate in the Higher Ethics and Devotion series. It is also linked from the section list a second time as a JPEG image, and that link has been left untouched.

The plate shows a long double strand of beads photographed against a soft grey-gold ground and laid in a loose S-curve, so that the eye travels down the picture rather than round it as in the companion plates. Its distinguishing quality is variety rather than arrangement: where the other Jewels plates are built from a few repeated stones, this one sets scores of different beads side by side with no two quite alike — clear glass with silver foil, cobalt and violet swirls, a black-and-white spotted cube, orange and rose and turquoise globes, several millefiori beads carrying tiny flower faces, a yellow bead with black dots, and lower down a group of striped cylinders in blue, red and gold. Small dark beads and metal spacers punctuate the run, and a red-violet cord ties the two strands together at the lower left. The caption beneath reads that this is the Rainbow of Hope, commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the Theosophical Society in Peru — which accounts for the design: a rainbow made not of graded bands but of many separate and unmatched pieces gathered on one thread, standing for a society rather than for a doctrine.

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