Visionary Arts and Esoteric Spirituality at the Quinta de São Bento: Lady Carrick’s Seasons in Sintra (1931–1946)

Abstract

Lady Carrick, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat forgotten by official historiography, was a central figure in international esotericism and in the cultural life of interwar Sintra. Residing at the Quinta de São Bento from 1931 until her death in 1946, she created together with Elisabeth Pierce a unique space of spirituality, clairvoyant art, and alternative sociability. She travelled to India to meet Meher Baba, became involved in the British Poetry Society, and was honoured with a poem by Regina Miriam Bloch, a prominent occultist writer. In Sintra, she hosted mystical gatherings and welcomed writers such as Isherwood and Auden, both fascinated by her mediumistic world. As Pierce’s patron, she actively supported the dissemination of her work, and the two travelled to London to present Pierce’s visionary paintings, which included spectral portraits of Stephen Spender and Charles Williams. Her tomb, now abandoned in the São Marçal cemetery in Sintra, is at risk of disappearing, a reflection of institutional neglect toward figures who, like her, transcended the cultural conventions of their time, bringing a thoroughly heterodox aesthetic and spiritual sensibility.