Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (19 October 1881 – 25 April 1962) was a Dutch spiritualist. She lived in Switzerland for most of her life, where she founded, in Ascona, the Eranos Conferences.

Early life Olga Kapteyn was born in London, the first child of Dutch parents Truus Muysken (1855–1920), a feminist and social activist, and Albertus Kapteyn (1848–1927), an engineer and inventor and older brother of astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn. Her father had moved to London in 1881 to work for the Westinghouse Air Brake Company and by 1887 was the Director-General of the London site. Her mother befriended like-minded people as Bernard Shaw and Peter Kropotkin. Olga attended the North London Collegiate School, where she was a close friend of Marie Stopes. She also studied at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich and the University of Zurich. At the end of the century the Kapteyn family moved to Zürich, Switzerland, where her mother became the center of a group of reform-minded intellectuals.

Studies

In 1920, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn and her father visited the Monte Verità Sanatorium in Ascona, 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 and meditation and to take an interest in theosophy. Among her friends and influences were German poet Ludwig Derleth and Richard Wilhelm, whose translation of the I Ching 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 in Darmstadt, 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, who would later contribute to the first Eranos meetings.

Eranos Conferences 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, which today continues to provide an opportunity for scholars of many different fields to meet and share their research and ideas on human spirituality. The name "Eranos" was suggested to her by religious historian Rudolf Otto, 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. 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". Since 1978, her works were included in a series of exhibitions, such as the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.

Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism

Olga found images to illustrate some annual lecture. .

Death Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn edited the first 30 Eranos Yearbooks (1933-1961) and died at her home in Casa Gabriella on April 25, 1962.