Hilma af Klint was deeply interested in the idea

that there existed another layer of reality

that couldn't be directly perceived through the senses.

In 1896, she joined with four female friends

to form a spiritualist group that they called The Five.

Together the women conducted seances,

they studied esoteric texts,

and they also conducted experiments with

automatic drawing and automatic writing.

And in these works, they relinquished

conscious control over the movement of the pencil

over the sheet of paper.

So this represented quite a dramatic shift

from the academic training that Hilma af Klint had received

at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts,

and it also set the scene for the next very important phase of her practice,

'The paintings for the temple'.