Invisible College is a study hall focused on poetry, sacred texts, and the arts. We examine the numinous dimension of life on Earth through the singular artworks that have borne witness to it. We are interested in direct experience over received commentary; we approach the mystical with an ecumenical curiosity. Our studies are oriented toward the divine as it has been testified to and as it manifests through the practice of poetry— but we have no religious affiliation. We do our work in service of the soul of the world.

I was a Divinity student at Harvard when the pandemic hit. Like other students on the Ministry track, I was hungry to engage directly with people-- medical professionals, sick people, people dealing with the pain and extremity of isolation-- but all of our studies and work in pastoral care were halted by Harvard's administration-- we ministers-in-training had to shelter in place like everybody else.

So I decided to close-read Rilke's Duino Elegies on Instagram Live. I figured I might be able to interest 30 people or so in this endeavor, and in the process get over my dread and loathing of appearing on camera in any form ever.

There was a lot of idealism at the start of the pandemic. I’ve come to understand that times of illness, personal upheaval, and social chaos are excellent times for learning.  Necessity really is the mother of invention.

We didn't have a name at the start, but Rilking led seamlessly to other adventures in text study-- I found myself sharing my personal pharmacopeia of poetic and sacred texts-- energies that had redeemed and transformed me during the most wretched and dispossessed crossroads in my own life.

Ancient medicine always involved language and incantation, and I have always preferred to teach poetry as magic than as literature.

My studies at Invisible College have taught me that poetry -- the very existence of poetry on the planet Earth-- testifies to the reality of exalted and numinous experience, and has the power to carry the human soul through tribulation and despair.

Invisible College didn’t have a name at the start. I’m not even sure I remember how or when it became necessary to name it.  It was just me, sitting on the floor next to a geranium in my hovel on Mount Auburn Street, learning how to talk into my phone.  I didn’t even know what zoom was.  But I’ve always been inspired by the rumors and stories about the Rosicrucian manifestos, and I like the idea of a quiet fellowship of colleague-initiates dedicated to love and the redemption of the human soul.

We grew to become a community of about two thousand people– not gigantic, not miniscule.  Artists, musicians, curators, diplomats, journalists, farmers, MFA students, undergraduates, astrologers, composers, grandmothers, booksellers, and rock stars & celebrities too.  The brilliance in one single chat log of one single session put whole years at university to shame. 

Poetry is not only a democratic, but a miraculous artform.  I depend on miracles.

Welcome,

Ariana