“Immanence refers to those philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence in which the divine encompasses or is manifested in the material world. Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane.” Wikipedia
I went to a lecture once about “immanence” and stones. I looked up the notes in my sketch book to see who gave the lecture – it was Susanne Kuechler, Professor of Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology at UCL. I decided to Google “Immanence” and “Susanne Kuechler” to see if I could find a transcript of the lecture, but instead what came up at the top of the search page was a link to my previous a-n blog in which I had already written about this on the 6th December 2013. Ha! I think I have mentioned before that there are some things which just won’t go away. Here’s what I wrote in 2013 in an entry about The Stone (the same Stone that I posted an image of only last week):
“I’ve been searching for The Stone for some time now and yesterday it presented itself to me. It’s a difficult size – bigger than a heart, smaller than a brain. I can carry it in one hand, just. It is heavy. It is a Flint. According to my ageing Observer’s Book of Geology, “Most chalkpits contain nodules of Flint… a form of the very common mineral silica (silicon dioxide). Like the chalk, it is derived from material in the bodies of sea-living creatures.” Interesting (though perhaps not so surprising) that it has already had a life. Look at it – with its scars and gashes – this Stone has seen some action. I carried it home and looked at it and photographed it. Now I have carefully packed The Stone away until everything is ready. It is in a glass vitrine, wrapped in a double layer of black lining material, covered in foil and sealed in polythene. It is dormant.
I went to a talk once by Professor Susan Kuechler in which she talked about immanence and stones which take on a sort of metaphysical life of their own. I didn’t really understand it but it’s in my mind.”
I still don’t really understand, but it is still in my mind. I’ve also been remembering the Trovants of Romania – stones which appear to grow and change shape responding to changes in the weather. I don’t know whether the stories of these stones are true or fake.
Last week I took a small collection of my other stones to my friend Axel to be photographed. Properly. Now I’ll have some more images to print and I’m thinking again about a change in scale and removing any references, so that the stones might appear as rocks, or planets, or monoliths when there is nothing to allow comparison with other objects or bodies.
