Our Vision

Nora Jacobson

I have always been interested in the possibility of “other” realities– our dream life, the world of the mind, of the spirit, the nature of time. So when I read Greg Guma’s book, Spirits of Desire, I was intrigued.

As a filmmaker, I seek out interesting, odd, unusual people and events. Helena, Henry and William are perfect subjects for me.  I also love telling the stories of strong, unique women. I am amazed that Helena traveled alone to India and Tibet in the 1840s! And her looks—those eyes...

I wanted to understand what made Helena, and Henry eventually, mystics. What actually is a mystic?  How to portray one?

As a filmmaker, I am drawn to  iconoclastic cinematic forms. To me a great work of art pushes the boundaries of form. I never liked the distinctions between narrative, documentary, and experimental. I always was interested in mixing different genres.

When I began to explore Helena and Henry’s story, I felt that combining animation with live action and experimenting with narrative and time would be the right way to show Helena’s past, as well as the alternate realities that she and Henry were exploring. 

Greg Guma  

My interest in the potential of consciousness began in the early 1970s. While studying Buddhism, the history of spiritualism — in America and Vermont, and the emergence of psychical research, I began to focus on the Eddy family, whose “manifestations” and seances in the 1870s had captured the popular imagination.

It also attracted, I learned, the attention of Col. Henry Steel Olcott, an investigator who reported about the Eddy's, and Helena Blavatsky, an occultist who followed him to Vermont, and introduced him to new explanations and ancient wisdom, knowledge consistent with recent and, as it turned out, future scientific discoveries.

When I began, few people knew much about this fateful meeting, which launched a global movement and brought New Age knowledge to the west. Since then, I have continued my research and written feature stories, as well as a novel, Spirits of Desire, based on the Vermont events and early friendship of Blavatsky and Olcott.