Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn
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Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (19 October 1881 – 1962) was a Dutch
spiritualist Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at least ...
,
theosophist Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neo ...
, and scholar who gained recognition in the 1920s. She lived in Switzerland for most of her life.


Early life

Olga was born in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, the first child of Dutch parents Truus Muysken (1855–1920), a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
and social activist, and Albertus Kapteyn (1848–1927), an engineer and inventor and older brother of astronomer
Jacobus Kapteyn Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (19 January 1851 – 18 June 1922) was a Dutch astronomy, astronomer. He carried out extensive studies of the Milky Way. He found that the apparent movement of stars was not randomly distributed but had two preferentia ...
. Her father had moved to London in 1881 to work for the
Westinghouse Air Brake Company The Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (WABCO) was an American company founded on September 28, 1869 by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Earlier in the year he had invented the railway air brake in New York state. A ...
and by 1887 was the Director-General of the London site. Her mother befriended like-minded people as
Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
and
Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later s ...
.P.J. Meertens, Annemarie Kloosterman
Biography of Geertruida Agneta Muysken
(in Dutch)
Olga attended the
North London Collegiate School North London Collegiate School (NLCS) is a private day school for girls in England. Founded in Camden Town, it is now located in Edgware, in the London Borough of Harrow. Associate schools are located in South Korea, Jeju Island, Dubai, Vietnam ...
, where she was a close friend of
Marie Stopes Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for Eugenic feminism, eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and co ...
. She also studied at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich and the
University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
. At the end of the century the Kapteyn family moved to
Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, where her mother became the center of a group of reform-minded intellectuals. There, Olga studied art history, became an avid skier and mountaineer, and in 1909 married the Croatian-Austrian flutist and conductor Iwan Hermann Fröbe, who shared deep interest in aviation and photography with her father. Iwan had been flutist of the local
Tonhalle Orchestra Tonhalle is a German word meaning "tone hall", a concert hall. It may refer to: *Tonhalle Düsseldorf *Tonhalle Orchester Zürich *Tonhalle, Zürich The Tonhalle is a concert hall in Zurich, home to the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, one of Switzer ...
since 1908, but his conducting career took the couple to
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
,
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
and by late 1910 to
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. At the outbreak of World War I they relocated from Berlin back to Zurich, where Olga had a
literary salon A salon is a gathering of people held by a host. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" (Latin: ''aut delectare aut prodesse''). Salons in the tradition of the Fren ...
known as the "Table Ronde" (round table). They had twin daughters in May 1915, but Iwan died shortly after in a plane crash in September 1915 in
Fischamend Fischamend () is a town in the district of Bruck an der Leitha District, Bruck an der Leitha in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It belonged to Wien-Umgebung District which was dissolved in 2016. Population Geography Fischamend lies in th ...
near Vienna.


Studies

In 1920, Olga and her father visited the
Monte Verità Monte Verità (Italian; German 'Berg Wahrheit', meaning "Mount Truth" or "Mountain of Truth") is a hill standing 321 Metres above the Sea (Switzerland), metres above sea level and a cultural-historical ensemble in the Swiss canton of Ticino. The ...
Sanatorium in
Ascona 300px, Ascona Ascona ( ) is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a popular tourist destination and holds the yearly Ascona Jazz Festival. ...
, Switzerland, and a few years later her father bought the Casa Gabriella, an ancient farmhouse nearby. Here Olga spent the rest of her life. She began to study
Indian philosophy Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana meaning, "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśan ...
and
meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
and to take an interest in
theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...
. Among her friends and influences were German poet Ludwig Derleth and Richard Wilhelm, whose translation of the
I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...
made it accessible to her. She also knew many members of the Ecumenical Circle in Marburg, as well as members of the School of Wisdom (Schule der Weisheit), run by Count
Hermann Graf Keyserling Hermann Alexander Graf von Keyserling ( – 26 April 1946) was a Baltic German philosopher from the Keyserlingk family. His grandfather, Alexander von Keyserling, was a notable geologist of Imperial Russia. Life Keyserling was born to a wealth ...
in
Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
, whose members were engrossed in investigating the common root of all religions. The School of Wisdom is where it is believed that Olga met psychologist
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...
, who would later contribute to the first Eranos meetings.


Eranos foundation

In 1928, with as yet no clear purpose in mind, she built a conference room near her home. Carl Jung suggested that she use the conference room as a "meeting place between East and West" (Begegnungsstätte zwischen Ost und West). This gave birth to the annual meeting of intellectual minds known as
Eranos Eranos is an intellectual discussion group dedicated to humanistic and religious studies, as well as to the natural sciences which has met annually in Moscia (Lago Maggiore), the Collegio Papio and on the Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland sin ...
, which today continues to provide an opportunity for
scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...
s of many different fields to meet and share their research and ideas on human
spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
. The name "Eranos" was suggested to her by religious historian
Rudolf Otto Rudolf Otto (25 September 1869 – 7 March 1937) was a German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known fo ...
, whose human-centered concept of religion had a deep impact on the origins and evolution of Eranos. Carl Jung also remained a significant participant in the organization of the Eranos conferences. Although the symposia were not specifically Jungian in focus or concept, they did employ the idea of
archetypes The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...
. This annual lecture program began in August 1933. The "Eranos Tagungen" invited intellectuals to give scholarly lectures, published as the ''Eranos Jahrbuch'' (Eranos year book). Fröbe-Kapteyn studied symbols, and also created a series of "meditation plates". Her work was included in the 2021 exhibition ''
Women in Abstraction Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century or ''Elles font l'abstraction. Une autre histoire de l'abstraction au XXe siècle'' was a major exhibition of 20th century abstract art created by women. It was curated by ...
'' at the
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
.


Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism

Olga found images to illustrate each annual lecture.Gronning, Torben, Patricia Sohl, and Thomas Singer. “ARAS: Archetypal Symbolism and Images.” ''Visual Resources'' 23, no. 3 (2007): 245–67. In the 1930s and 1940s, Olga's ongoing research in archetypes took her to major libraries in Europe and America, including the
Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...
, the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, the
Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum (originally known as the Pierpont Morgan Library and colloquially known the Morgan) is a museum and research library in New York City, New York, U.S. Completed in 1906 as the private library of the banker J. P. Morg ...
in New York City, the
Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...
in Paris and the
National Archaeological Museum of Athens The National Archaeological Museum () in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and ...
. Her diverse and intensive studies provided her with material for her
Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) is an encyclopedic collection of archetypal images consisting of photographs of works of art, ritual images, and artifacts of sacred traditions and contemporary art from around the world. Th ...
which contains more than six thousand images and assisted the research of many Eranos lecturers and other scholars over the years.


Death

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn died at her home in Casa Gabriella in 1962.


External links


Theosophical images from Europe, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, 1930's.

Archive for Research in Archetypal SymbolismEranos Foundation


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frobe-Kapteyn, Olga 1881 births 1962 deaths Dutch Theosophists Mythographers People educated at North London Collegiate School Academics from Zurich Dutch salon-holders