ABSTRACT
The image of the lone mystic producing highly personal works captures Pamela Colman Smith's practice of spiritual synaesthesia well but, at the same time, it encouraged a gendering of her work as feminine, untrained and thus less worthy of admiration. Smith's introduction to the Golden Dawn community also brought her within the forceful orbit of Theosophy. As Edward Lingan has demonstrated in the realm of drama, "the impact of occultism upon symbolist theatre was so profound that a deep understanding of symbolism is only possible with some knowledge of the trends of the Occult Revival". Smith's triptych for Yeats' work also emphasises the imagination's role in an individual's spiritual maturation. The knowing looks that Smith incorporates into the women's eyes signal that the "heart's desire" of the title refers to the sensual attraction inherent to the allure of the mystical and the desire for spiritual maturation.
