The Astral Diaries. Botanical Explorations of the Cosmic Unseen

Artist Claire Williams assembles images and descriptions of female mediums, drawn, written and dictated during seances in the nineteenth century: ‘Not with telescopes or wires, but through “soul flight”, in a trance-like state, they would separate from their physical bodies, allowing their astral part to travel beyond Earth and drift into unknown worlds.’

Throughout the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century, humanity witnessed the rapid expansion of telecommunications networks and groundbreaking scientific discoveries that began to reveal the immenseness of hidden worlds of both the macro- and micro-realms – often referred to as the ‘ether’. During this period, both self-taught researchers and esteemed scientists speculated that Mars and other planets in our solar system could be inhabited by extraterrestrial beings and exolife forms. From his observatory, the French astronomer Camille Flammarion mapped the rivers and landscapes of Mars, while his friend Charles Cros devised an ambitious plan for interplanetary communication using an array of giant mirrors.

Meanwhile, in darkened parlors, female mediums were networking the ether with their celestial telegraph, to transmit messages between the living and the spirits communicating on the other end of the line. They embarked upon voyages of their own. Not with telescopes or wires, but through ‘soul flight’, in a trance-like state, they would separate from their physical bodies, allowing their astral part to travel beyond Earth and drift into unknown worlds.

Holding parts of meteorites in the palm of their hands, Elizabeth Denton, her son Sherman, and sister-in-law Annie, for example, became conduits for cosmic journeys. Through psychometry, they ventured into the heart of the Sun, across asteroids, and onto Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon. Under the pseudonym Hélène Smith, Elise Müller journeyed in trance to Mars, ‘Ultra-Mars’, Uranus, and the Moon. Guided by Esenale – a spirit said to have lived on both Earth and Mars – she conversed with Astané, a Martian being. Through her visions, she revealed the poetry, plants, creatures, language and architecture of these worlds.

When we delve into their accounts, we journey through extraterrestrial environments as if we were passengers in their spectral vessels. These mediums reported what no astronaut ever could: the sensations, the strange textures, radiant or unidentifiable colors, new smells, sounds, and tastes of alien worlds. Accompanied by spirit guides, they explored planets, moons and stars, relaying their perceptions back to Earth in real time. As their visions unfolded, collaborators on Earth transcribed their revelations; some mediums drew or wrote automatically, their hands moved by unseen forces, detailing encounters with extraterrestrial entities and species.

A botanic compilation bloomed from these journeys – a catalog of extraterrestrial flora, seen, beyond ordinary vision, on distant worlds.

‘At last I am on the planet. I find myself on a very high mountain, volcanic in origin, which ascends miles into the atmosphere. I thought that probably the foliage would be red, and that I should find red everywhere; but, on looking down into the valleys, I realize greenness and blueness, as well as the ever-pervading redness in the atmosphere. What a queer world this is!’
‘Mrs Cridge’s Third Examination’, in: Elizabeth M.F Denton & William Denton, The Soul of Things or, Psychometric Researches and Discoveries, Volume 3, 1874, p. 210

‘You have been informed that the Ento word “Loisa” stands for our words water, lake, pond, reservoir, stream and so on, and that the Kodel is the representative of the Ento lily family. Loisa micana is a diminutive relative of the true Eodel, and, with the Entoans, who are flower lovers, it is a universal favorite. […] This variety of the Eodel always is found by the margins of streams or in marshy localities. Its long, slender, crooked leaf and flower stalks convey the impression of a vining tendency, hence its name. See how the rivulet is bordered with this and other blooming plants whose white, red, blue and yellow tints present an endless array of floral beauties.’
Sara Weiss, Journeys to the Planet Mars, or, Our Mission to Ento, 1903, p. 83

‘To astral vision ether is a visible thing, and is seen permeating all substances and encircling every particle. A "solid" body is a body composed of a vast number of particles suspended in ether, each vibrating backwards and forwards in a particular field at a high rate of velocity; This method consisted of taking what is called an atom of gas, and breaking it up time after time, until what proved to be the ultimate physical atom was reached, the breaking up of this last resulting in the production of astral, and no longer physical matter.’
Annie Besant & C.W. Leadbeater, Occult Chemistry: Investigations by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of the Atoms of the Periodic Table and Some Compounds, 1908, p. xii

‘I am in a beautiful garden, something like gardens here, but so splendid! What singular fruits! One is full of cells, like sponge; and it is nearly as large round as a bushel-basket: two of them grow on a stalk. The leaf is like an umbrella, but not more than a foot across. The fruit is like a strawberry outside. It is delicious, – something like pine-apple. It is light for the size of it. There are scaly fruits here like cones, as large as my head. They rip off the layer of scales to get to the white, hard part inside, which looks like a potato before it is cooked, but does not smell or taste like it.’
‘Sherman’s twelfth examination’, in: Anne Denton Cridge, ‘Mrs Cridge’s Third Examination’, in: Elizabeth M.F Denton & William Denton, The Soul of Things or, Psychometric Researches and Discoveries, Volume 3, 1874, p. 193

‘These tables are adorned with flowers different from ours: some blue, with leaves in the shape of almonds; others starry, and as white as milk, scented like musk; others, again, the most beautiful, have the form of trumpets, either blue or fire colored, with large rounded leaves, with black figures.’
Hélène Smith [Élise Müller], Martian landscape, in: Théodore Flournoy, Des Indes à la Planete Mars: étude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie, 1900, p. 186