In 1903, at the age of fifty-three, Gustave Le Goarant de Tromelin—naval officer, physicist, and member of the Academy of Sciences entered into what he described as a pact with spirits and devoted himself entirely to spiritualism. He began producing drawings he termed “semi-mediumistic,” works he believed emerged from an exchange between his own hand and invisible forces.
In 1907, he recounted his occult experiences in Les Mystères de l’univers, describing the various spirits he felt surrounded him: some constructive, gigantic, aerial, or benevolent; others distinctly malevolent.
The drawings created around 1902–1903 were automatic and uncontrolled, revealing hidden specters as if emerging from the secrecy of the paper itself. Over time, however, Tromelin’s style grew more deliberate. Working in India ink, he produced highly detailed compositions that sought not merely to reveal the spirit world, but to document and describe it with meticulous precision.The initial drawings — the two drawings in the abcd collection date from 1903 — were made automatically, without any control, revealing hidden specters. Later on Tromelin began drawing the occult world in a perfectly mastered style which no longer fit in with the randomness of automatism but would be more in line with its traditional representations.