Art
Art Plays a Role in Visualization,
Processing, & Symbolic Penetration
The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense - he is "collective man," a vehicle and molder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind.
~Carl Jung; Psychology and Literature
To give body to one's thoughts means that one can speak them, paint them, show them, make them appear clearly before the eyes of everybody.… ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 193-194.
~Carl Jung; Psychology and Literature
To give body to one's thoughts means that one can speak them, paint them, show them, make them appear clearly before the eyes of everybody.… ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 193-194.
Et in Arcadia ego (Guercino) Et in Arcadia ego (also known as The Arcadian Shepherds) is a painting by the Italian Baroque artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino), from c. 1618–1622. It is now on display in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica of Rome.
The painting shows two young shepherds staring at a skull, with a mouse and a blowfly, placed onto a cippus with the words Et in Arcadia ego ("I too [was] in Arcadia"). The latter is a moral reference to Death. The phrase appears for the first time in art and architecture in this work. The iconography of the memento mori theme symbolised in art by the skull was rather popular in Rome and Venice since Renaissance times.
Elias L. Rivers suggested the phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego" is derived from a line from Daphnis' funeral in Virgil's Fifth Eclogue Daphnis ego in silvis ("Daphnis was I amid the woods"), and that it referred to the dead shepherd within the tomb, rather than Death itself.
Mentioned for the first time in the collection of Antonio Barberini in 1644, the painting was later acquired by Colonna of Sciarra (1812), being attributed to Bartolomeo Schedoni until 1911. Nicolas Poussin also made two paintings on the topic of Et in Arcadia Ego, less than two decades later.
The painting is connected with Guercino's Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti (1618), where the same group of shepherds is present. more from Wikipedia
The work of art has its own specific psychology which is sometimes notably different from the psychology of the artist. Were it not so, the work of art would not be autonomous.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 388-389.
The painting shows two young shepherds staring at a skull, with a mouse and a blowfly, placed onto a cippus with the words Et in Arcadia ego ("I too [was] in Arcadia"). The latter is a moral reference to Death. The phrase appears for the first time in art and architecture in this work. The iconography of the memento mori theme symbolised in art by the skull was rather popular in Rome and Venice since Renaissance times.
Elias L. Rivers suggested the phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego" is derived from a line from Daphnis' funeral in Virgil's Fifth Eclogue Daphnis ego in silvis ("Daphnis was I amid the woods"), and that it referred to the dead shepherd within the tomb, rather than Death itself.
Mentioned for the first time in the collection of Antonio Barberini in 1644, the painting was later acquired by Colonna of Sciarra (1812), being attributed to Bartolomeo Schedoni until 1911. Nicolas Poussin also made two paintings on the topic of Et in Arcadia Ego, less than two decades later.
The painting is connected with Guercino's Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti (1618), where the same group of shepherds is present. more from Wikipedia
The work of art has its own specific psychology which is sometimes notably different from the psychology of the artist. Were it not so, the work of art would not be autonomous.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 388-389.
What a thinker does not think he believes does not exist, and what one who feels does not feel he believes does not exist. You begin to have a presentiment of the whole when you embrace your opposite principle, since the whole belongs to both principles, which grow from one root. ~ Jung and Elijah, Liber Novus, Page 248.
McLuhan said - "The artist is engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only one living in the present". Ordinary people
live thirty years back in a state of motivated somnambulism.
TS Eliot - Burnt Norton I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden.
My words echo Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know.
Other echoes Inhabit the garden.
Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner.
Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
II Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchantment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
III Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy.
Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate.
Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
Descend lower, descend only Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation And destitution of all property,
Dessication of the world of sense, Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit; This is the one way, and the other Is the same, not in movement But abstention from movement; while the world moves In appentency, on its metalled ways Of time past and time future.
IV Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill Fingers of yew be curled Down on us?
After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
V Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence.
Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now.
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
Shrieking voices Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.
The Word in the desert Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
he detail of the pattern is movement, As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always - Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
McLuhan said - "The artist is engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only one living in the present". Ordinary people
live thirty years back in a state of motivated somnambulism.
TS Eliot - Burnt Norton I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden.
My words echo Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know.
Other echoes Inhabit the garden.
Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner.
Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
II Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchantment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
III Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy.
Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate.
Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
Descend lower, descend only Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation And destitution of all property,
Dessication of the world of sense, Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit; This is the one way, and the other Is the same, not in movement But abstention from movement; while the world moves In appentency, on its metalled ways Of time past and time future.
IV Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill Fingers of yew be curled Down on us?
After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
V Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence.
Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now.
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
Shrieking voices Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.
The Word in the desert Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
he detail of the pattern is movement, As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always - Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
…a “creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work by giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life. Therein lies the social significance of art: it is constantly at work educating the spirit of age, conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking” (p. 82). The Spirit in Man, Art, & Literature (Collected Works of Jung Vol. 15) by C. G. Jung (Author) , Gerhard Adler (Translator) , R. F.C. Hull (Translator)
"The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure--be it a daemon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. . . . In each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history. . . ." ("On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (CW 15: §127)
"The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure--be it a daemon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. . . . In each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history. . . ." ("On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (CW 15: §127)
How am I to be creative? Nature knows only one answer to that: Through a
child (the gift of love).
~Carl Jung; Symbols of Transformation; para 76.
Value of working with Images
“..everything seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often I felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down on me. . my enduring these storms was a question of brute strength…
To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images– that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions– I was inwardly calmed and reassured. Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.
There is a chance that I might have succeeded in splitting them off; but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them.
As a result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images which lie behind the emotions.” ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 177.
http://majohnston.wordpress.com/carl-jung/
Man unconsciously transforms objects or forms into symbols and expresses them in both his religion and visual arts. The intertwined history of religion and art, reaching back to prehistoric times, is the record that our ancestors have left of the symbols that were meaningful and moving to them. Even today, as modern painting and sculpture show, the interplay of religion and art is still alive. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections.
The recurring motifs which illustrate the presence and nature of symbolism in art are symbols of stone, the animal, the circle and the spiral. Each of these has had an enduring psychological significance from the earliest expressions of
human consciousness to the most sophisticated form of 20th century art. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections
The emphasis on the 'spirit' in much sculpture is one indication of the shifting, indefinable borderline between religion and art. Sometimes one cannot be separated from the other as it appears in age-old works of art: the symbol of the animal.
~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections.
~Carl Jung; Symbols of Transformation; para 76.
Value of working with Images
“..everything seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often I felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down on me. . my enduring these storms was a question of brute strength…
To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images– that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions– I was inwardly calmed and reassured. Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.
There is a chance that I might have succeeded in splitting them off; but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them.
As a result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images which lie behind the emotions.” ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 177.
http://majohnston.wordpress.com/carl-jung/
Man unconsciously transforms objects or forms into symbols and expresses them in both his religion and visual arts. The intertwined history of religion and art, reaching back to prehistoric times, is the record that our ancestors have left of the symbols that were meaningful and moving to them. Even today, as modern painting and sculpture show, the interplay of religion and art is still alive. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections.
The recurring motifs which illustrate the presence and nature of symbolism in art are symbols of stone, the animal, the circle and the spiral. Each of these has had an enduring psychological significance from the earliest expressions of
human consciousness to the most sophisticated form of 20th century art. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections
The emphasis on the 'spirit' in much sculpture is one indication of the shifting, indefinable borderline between religion and art. Sometimes one cannot be separated from the other as it appears in age-old works of art: the symbol of the animal.
~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections.
http://jungcurrents.com/carl-jung-great-work-art-dream/
In this way the work of the poet comes to meet the spiritual need of the society in which he lives, and for this reason his work means more to him than his personal fate, whether he is aware of this or not. Being essentially the instrument for his work, he is subordinate to it, and we have no reason for expecting him to interpret it for us. He has done the best that in him lies in giving it form, and he must leave the interpretation to others and to the future. A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says: “You ought”, or “This is the truth..”
It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions. If a person has a nightmare, it means either that he is too much given to fear, or else that he is too exempt from it; and if he dreams of the old wise man it may mean that he is too pedagogical, as also that he stands in need of a teacher. In a subtle way both meanings come to the same thing, as we perceive when we are able to let the work of art act upon us as it acted upon the artist.
To grasp its meaning, we must allow it to shape us as it once shaped him. Then we understand the nature of his experience. We see that he has drawn upon the healing and redeeming forces of the collected psyche that underlies consciousness with its isolation and its painful errors; that he has penetrated to that matrix of life in which all men are embedded, which imparts a common rhythm to all human existence, and allows the individual to communicate his feeling and his striving to mankind as a whole.
--Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness.
The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.
--Jung, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (1930)
It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions. If a person has a nightmare, it means either that he is too much given to fear, or else that he is too exempt from it; and if he dreams of the old wise man it may mean that he is too pedagogical, as also that he stands in need of a teacher. In a subtle way both meanings come to the same thing, as we perceive when we are able to let the work of art act upon us as it acted upon the artist.
To grasp its meaning, we must allow it to shape us as it once shaped him. Then we understand the nature of his experience. We see that he has drawn upon the healing and redeeming forces of the collected psyche that underlies consciousness with its isolation and its painful errors; that he has penetrated to that matrix of life in which all men are embedded, which imparts a common rhythm to all human existence, and allows the individual to communicate his feeling and his striving to mankind as a whole.
--Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness.
The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.
--Jung, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (1930)
If we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round.
Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments.
"Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.737
We shall start from the creative function of the unconscious, which produces its forms spontaneously, in a manner analogous to nature, which—-from atom and crystal through organic life to the world of the stars and planets—spontaneously creates forms susceptible of impressing man as beautiful. Because this substratum and background of the psycho-physical world is forever bringing forth forms, we call it creative. And to the unknown in nature which engenders its forms of the external world there corresponds another unknown, the collective unconscious, which is the source of all psychic creation: religion and rite, social organization, consciousness, and finally art.
The archetypes of the collective unconscious are intrinsically formless psychic structures which become visible in art. The archetypes are varied by the media through which they pass—that is, their form changes according to the time, the place, and the psychological constellation of the individual in whom they are manifested.
Thus, for example, the mother archetype, as a dynamic entity in the psychic substratum, always retains its identity, but it takes on different styles—different aspects or emotional color—depending on whether it is manifested in Egypt, Mexico, or Spain, or in ancient, medieval or modern times.
The paradoxical multiplicity of its eternal presence, which makes possible an infinite variety of forms of expression, is crystallized in its realization by man in time; its archetypal eternity enters into a unique synthesis with a specific historical situation.
Today we shall neither inquire into the development of specific archetypes in one culture, nor follow the different forms of the same archetype in diverse cultures. Anyone wishing to convince himself of the reality of this overwhelming phenomenon need only consult the Eranos Archive, a pioneer effort in this direction.
Nor shall we take up the aesthetic aspect, the history of styles, which enquires into the forms assumed by the archetypes in the various periods, although it would be exceedingly interesting to show, for example, how the archetypal world of Egypt was shaped by a static conception of eternity and time, while in Central America the same archetypal world is almost submerged in a jungle of ornament because here the all-devouring aspect of the Terrible Mother is dominant. Our effort will begin and end with the question of what art means for mankind and what position it occupies in human development.
At the beginning of the development of human consciousness the original psychic situation prevails: unconscious, collective, and transpersonal factors are more significant and evident than conscious and individual factors. Art is at this stage a collective phenomenon, which cannot be isolated from the context of collective existence but is integrated with the life of the group. Each individual is artist, dancer, singer, poet, painter, and sculptor; everything he does and his way of doing it, even where a recognized individual possession is involved, remains an expression of the group's collective situation.
Although from the very outset the collective receives its primary impulse from "Great Individuals," even they themselves, in accordance with the dialectic of their relation to the group, never give themselves as individuals I credit for what they have done but impute it to their inspiring predecessors, to the spirits of their ancestors, to the totem, or to whatever aspect of the collective spirit has inspired them individually.
Not only is the creative situation numinous, it is also experienced as such, for all existence was originally shaped by experience of the transpersonal. The festivals and rites are the nodal points of the numinosum, which shapes everything that comes into contact with its sacral sphere: cult implement and mask, figure and image, vessel and ornament, song and dance, myth and poetry. The original integration of all these into life and the numinous context as a whole is shown by the fact that a certain "style" is Oceanic or African, Indian or Nordic, and that it is manifested in the kinship between ornamented door post and ritual vessel, between tattoo motif and mask, fetish and spear shaft.
This unity is a symptom of the individual's immersion in a group context that transcends him; however, when we say that the group is unconsciously directed by the collective psyche, we do not mean that it is directed by urges or instincts. True, the individual's consciousness is almost blind to the underlying forces: his reaction to the creative impulse of the psyche is not to reflect, it is to obey and execute its commands.
But the psychic undercurrents which determine man's feeling and image of the world are manifested through colors and forms, tones and words, which crystallize into symbolic spiritual figures expressing man's relation both to the archetypal world and to the world in which he lives.
Thus from the very outset man is a creator of symbols; he constructs his characteristic spiritual-psychic world from the symbols in which he speaks and thinks of the world around him, but also from the forms and images which his numinous experience arouses in him.
In the original situation man's emotion in the presence of the numinosum leads to expression, for the unconscious, as part of its creative function, carries with it its own expression. But the emotional drives which move the group and the individual within it must not be conceived as a dynamic without content. For every symbol, like every archetype, has a specific content, and when the whole of a man is seized by the collective unconscious, his consciousness is included. Consequently we find from the very start that the creative function of the psyche is accompanied by a reaction of consciousness, which seeks, at first in slight degree but then increasingly, to understand, to interpret, and to assimilate the thing by which it was at first overwhelmed. Thus at a very early stage there is a relative fixation of expression and style, and so definite traditions arise.
In our time, with its developed or overdeveloped consciousness, feeling and emotion seem to be bound up with an artistic nature; for an undeveloped consciousness this is by no means the case. For primitive and early cultures, the creative force of the numinosum supports or even engenders consciousness; it brings differentiation and order into an indeterminate world driven by chaotic powers and enables man to orient himself.
In the creative sphere of the psyche, which we call the unconscious, significant differentiations have been effected in the direction which will be characteristic of subsequent elaborations by the consciousness. The very appearance of a psychic image represents a synthetic interpretation of the world, and the same is true of artistic creation in the period of origination.
Artistic creation has magic power, it is experience and perception, insight and differentiation in one. Whether the image is naturalistic or not is immaterial; even the extremely naturalistic animal paintings of the Ice Age are, in our sense, symbols. For a primitive, magical conception of the world, each of these painted animals is a numinosum; it is the embodiment and essence of the animal species.
The individual bison, for example, is a spiritual-psychic symbol; he is in a sense the "father of the bison," the idea of the bison, the "bison as such," and this is why he is an object of ritual. The subjugation and killing, the conciliation and fertilization of the animal, which are enacted in the psychic sphere between the human group and the image which symbolically represents the animal group, have a reality-transforming—that is, magical—significance, because this image-symbol encompasses the numinous heart and center of the animal living in the world, whose symbolic figuration constitutes an authentic manifestation of the numinous animal.
In the period of origination, the forms of expression and driving archetypal contents of a culture remain unconscious; but with the development and systematization of consciousness and the reinforcement of the individual ego there arises a collective consciousness, a cultural canon characteristic for each culture and cultural epoch.
There arises, in other words, a configuration of definite archetypes, symbols, values, and attitudes, upon which the unconscious archetypal contents are projected and which, fixated as myth and cult, becomes the dogmatic heritage of the group. No longer do unconscious and unknown powers determine the life of the group; instead, transpersonal figures and contents, known to the group, direct the life of the community as well as the conscious behavior of the individual in festival and cult, religion and usage.
This does not mean that man suspects a connection between this transpersonal world and the depths of his own human psyche, although the transpersonal can express itself only through the medium of man and takes form in him through creative processes.
But even when the cultural canon develops, art in all its forms remains at first integrated with the whole of the group life, and when the cultural canon is observed in religious festival, all creative activity is articulated with this integral event. As expressions of archetypal reality, the art and music, dance and poetry of the cult are inner possessions of the collective.
Whether the epiphany of the numinosum occurs in a drawing scratched on bone, in a sculptured stone, in a medieval cathedral centuries in the building, or in a mask, fashioned for one festival and burned after it, in every case the epiphany of the numinosum, the rapture of those who give it form, and the rapture of the group celebrating the epiphany constitute an indivisible unit.
But the breakdown of this original situation in the course of history is revealed also by the phenomenon of the individual creator in art. With the growth of individuality and the relative independence of consciousness, the integral situation in which the creative element in art is one with the life of the group disintegrates.
An extensive differentiation occurs; poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, actors, architects, etc. become professional groups, practicing particular functions of artistic expression. The majority of the group, it would appear, preserves only a receptive relation, if any, to the creative achievement of the artist.
But neither is the individual so isolated—nor are art and the artist so far separated—from the collective as first appears. We have learned to see the consciousness of the individual as the high voice in a polyphony whose lower voice, the collective unconscious, does not merely accompany but actually determines the theme. And this reorientation is not limited to the
psychic structure of the individual: it also necessitates a new approach to the relations between men. ~Erich Neumann; “Art and Time;” Pages 1-6; Eranos Yearbooks; “Man and Time.”
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/bspey.html
yijingnotes.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/man_and_time_c.pdf
Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments.
"Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.737
We shall start from the creative function of the unconscious, which produces its forms spontaneously, in a manner analogous to nature, which—-from atom and crystal through organic life to the world of the stars and planets—spontaneously creates forms susceptible of impressing man as beautiful. Because this substratum and background of the psycho-physical world is forever bringing forth forms, we call it creative. And to the unknown in nature which engenders its forms of the external world there corresponds another unknown, the collective unconscious, which is the source of all psychic creation: religion and rite, social organization, consciousness, and finally art.
The archetypes of the collective unconscious are intrinsically formless psychic structures which become visible in art. The archetypes are varied by the media through which they pass—that is, their form changes according to the time, the place, and the psychological constellation of the individual in whom they are manifested.
Thus, for example, the mother archetype, as a dynamic entity in the psychic substratum, always retains its identity, but it takes on different styles—different aspects or emotional color—depending on whether it is manifested in Egypt, Mexico, or Spain, or in ancient, medieval or modern times.
The paradoxical multiplicity of its eternal presence, which makes possible an infinite variety of forms of expression, is crystallized in its realization by man in time; its archetypal eternity enters into a unique synthesis with a specific historical situation.
Today we shall neither inquire into the development of specific archetypes in one culture, nor follow the different forms of the same archetype in diverse cultures. Anyone wishing to convince himself of the reality of this overwhelming phenomenon need only consult the Eranos Archive, a pioneer effort in this direction.
Nor shall we take up the aesthetic aspect, the history of styles, which enquires into the forms assumed by the archetypes in the various periods, although it would be exceedingly interesting to show, for example, how the archetypal world of Egypt was shaped by a static conception of eternity and time, while in Central America the same archetypal world is almost submerged in a jungle of ornament because here the all-devouring aspect of the Terrible Mother is dominant. Our effort will begin and end with the question of what art means for mankind and what position it occupies in human development.
At the beginning of the development of human consciousness the original psychic situation prevails: unconscious, collective, and transpersonal factors are more significant and evident than conscious and individual factors. Art is at this stage a collective phenomenon, which cannot be isolated from the context of collective existence but is integrated with the life of the group. Each individual is artist, dancer, singer, poet, painter, and sculptor; everything he does and his way of doing it, even where a recognized individual possession is involved, remains an expression of the group's collective situation.
Although from the very outset the collective receives its primary impulse from "Great Individuals," even they themselves, in accordance with the dialectic of their relation to the group, never give themselves as individuals I credit for what they have done but impute it to their inspiring predecessors, to the spirits of their ancestors, to the totem, or to whatever aspect of the collective spirit has inspired them individually.
Not only is the creative situation numinous, it is also experienced as such, for all existence was originally shaped by experience of the transpersonal. The festivals and rites are the nodal points of the numinosum, which shapes everything that comes into contact with its sacral sphere: cult implement and mask, figure and image, vessel and ornament, song and dance, myth and poetry. The original integration of all these into life and the numinous context as a whole is shown by the fact that a certain "style" is Oceanic or African, Indian or Nordic, and that it is manifested in the kinship between ornamented door post and ritual vessel, between tattoo motif and mask, fetish and spear shaft.
This unity is a symptom of the individual's immersion in a group context that transcends him; however, when we say that the group is unconsciously directed by the collective psyche, we do not mean that it is directed by urges or instincts. True, the individual's consciousness is almost blind to the underlying forces: his reaction to the creative impulse of the psyche is not to reflect, it is to obey and execute its commands.
But the psychic undercurrents which determine man's feeling and image of the world are manifested through colors and forms, tones and words, which crystallize into symbolic spiritual figures expressing man's relation both to the archetypal world and to the world in which he lives.
Thus from the very outset man is a creator of symbols; he constructs his characteristic spiritual-psychic world from the symbols in which he speaks and thinks of the world around him, but also from the forms and images which his numinous experience arouses in him.
In the original situation man's emotion in the presence of the numinosum leads to expression, for the unconscious, as part of its creative function, carries with it its own expression. But the emotional drives which move the group and the individual within it must not be conceived as a dynamic without content. For every symbol, like every archetype, has a specific content, and when the whole of a man is seized by the collective unconscious, his consciousness is included. Consequently we find from the very start that the creative function of the psyche is accompanied by a reaction of consciousness, which seeks, at first in slight degree but then increasingly, to understand, to interpret, and to assimilate the thing by which it was at first overwhelmed. Thus at a very early stage there is a relative fixation of expression and style, and so definite traditions arise.
In our time, with its developed or overdeveloped consciousness, feeling and emotion seem to be bound up with an artistic nature; for an undeveloped consciousness this is by no means the case. For primitive and early cultures, the creative force of the numinosum supports or even engenders consciousness; it brings differentiation and order into an indeterminate world driven by chaotic powers and enables man to orient himself.
In the creative sphere of the psyche, which we call the unconscious, significant differentiations have been effected in the direction which will be characteristic of subsequent elaborations by the consciousness. The very appearance of a psychic image represents a synthetic interpretation of the world, and the same is true of artistic creation in the period of origination.
Artistic creation has magic power, it is experience and perception, insight and differentiation in one. Whether the image is naturalistic or not is immaterial; even the extremely naturalistic animal paintings of the Ice Age are, in our sense, symbols. For a primitive, magical conception of the world, each of these painted animals is a numinosum; it is the embodiment and essence of the animal species.
The individual bison, for example, is a spiritual-psychic symbol; he is in a sense the "father of the bison," the idea of the bison, the "bison as such," and this is why he is an object of ritual. The subjugation and killing, the conciliation and fertilization of the animal, which are enacted in the psychic sphere between the human group and the image which symbolically represents the animal group, have a reality-transforming—that is, magical—significance, because this image-symbol encompasses the numinous heart and center of the animal living in the world, whose symbolic figuration constitutes an authentic manifestation of the numinous animal.
In the period of origination, the forms of expression and driving archetypal contents of a culture remain unconscious; but with the development and systematization of consciousness and the reinforcement of the individual ego there arises a collective consciousness, a cultural canon characteristic for each culture and cultural epoch.
There arises, in other words, a configuration of definite archetypes, symbols, values, and attitudes, upon which the unconscious archetypal contents are projected and which, fixated as myth and cult, becomes the dogmatic heritage of the group. No longer do unconscious and unknown powers determine the life of the group; instead, transpersonal figures and contents, known to the group, direct the life of the community as well as the conscious behavior of the individual in festival and cult, religion and usage.
This does not mean that man suspects a connection between this transpersonal world and the depths of his own human psyche, although the transpersonal can express itself only through the medium of man and takes form in him through creative processes.
But even when the cultural canon develops, art in all its forms remains at first integrated with the whole of the group life, and when the cultural canon is observed in religious festival, all creative activity is articulated with this integral event. As expressions of archetypal reality, the art and music, dance and poetry of the cult are inner possessions of the collective.
Whether the epiphany of the numinosum occurs in a drawing scratched on bone, in a sculptured stone, in a medieval cathedral centuries in the building, or in a mask, fashioned for one festival and burned after it, in every case the epiphany of the numinosum, the rapture of those who give it form, and the rapture of the group celebrating the epiphany constitute an indivisible unit.
But the breakdown of this original situation in the course of history is revealed also by the phenomenon of the individual creator in art. With the growth of individuality and the relative independence of consciousness, the integral situation in which the creative element in art is one with the life of the group disintegrates.
An extensive differentiation occurs; poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, actors, architects, etc. become professional groups, practicing particular functions of artistic expression. The majority of the group, it would appear, preserves only a receptive relation, if any, to the creative achievement of the artist.
But neither is the individual so isolated—nor are art and the artist so far separated—from the collective as first appears. We have learned to see the consciousness of the individual as the high voice in a polyphony whose lower voice, the collective unconscious, does not merely accompany but actually determines the theme. And this reorientation is not limited to the
psychic structure of the individual: it also necessitates a new approach to the relations between men. ~Erich Neumann; “Art and Time;” Pages 1-6; Eranos Yearbooks; “Man and Time.”
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/bspey.html
yijingnotes.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/man_and_time_c.pdf
Bruneel, Art of Transformation
"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is” man" in a higher sense -- he is 'collective man' -- one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind.” –C. G. Jung
All means (in painting) are sacred when they are dictated by inner necessity. All means are reprehensible when they do not spring from the fountain of inner necessity.. ..The artist must be blind to ‘recognized’ and ‘unrecognized’ form, deaf to the teachings and desires of his time. His open eyes must be directed to his inner life and his ears must be constantly attuned to the voice of inner necessity. -- Wassily Kandinsky
All means (in painting) are sacred when they are dictated by inner necessity. All means are reprehensible when they do not spring from the fountain of inner necessity.. ..The artist must be blind to ‘recognized’ and ‘unrecognized’ form, deaf to the teachings and desires of his time. His open eyes must be directed to his inner life and his ears must be constantly attuned to the voice of inner necessity. -- Wassily Kandinsky
Art of Wizard, Gynoid
Most traditional art forms are an expression of the spiritual dimension of a culture’s cosmology. Religious artand iconography often reveal the hidden aspects of spirit as glimpsed through the filter of cultural significance.Moreover, traditional art, although highly abstract, may actually describe sensory experiences derived in alternativestates of consciousness. -Charles Laughlin, Art & Transpersonal Experience, http://paranthropologyjournal.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/5/3/7753171/paranthropology_vol4no4.pdf
Laughlin claims,
"The linkage between abstract art and transpersonal experience is often direct and fundamental in the everyday lives of people. Thus any attempt to understand the inner meaning of traditional art—for that matter, any attempt to understand much of modern art in our own society—is futile without some grasp of people’s range of transpersonal experience, as well as the cosmology which is both expressed by the art’s iconic form and within the context of which the art is interpreted. Traditions of art are in fact systems of symbols that are part of a much greater cultural and experiential context, a context that must be entered experientially and intimately by the student if he or she is going to be able to critique the art from within a local tradition."
This universality is explained as being mediated by an essentially artistic brain. The brain
recognizes and experiences beauty, just as it imposes significance and initiates purposeful action in the world (Donald, 1991). When these three semiosomatic processes intersect in material objects or in cultural events, we in modern technocratic society will tend to recognize “art.”
Moreover, there is a universal recognition among peoples that there is a hidden dimension to nature, a dimension containing the animated and powerful, but normally unseen forces that shape events in the world (see Laughlin and Throop 2001). Even if we take a strictly psychodynamic view of spirit—that is, that spirit is the projection of our own inner and largely unconscious and archetypal nature upon extramental reality4—the loss of the sense of the sacred and the spiritual in modern society has been accompanied by an interruption of an essential process in spiritual discovery, maturation and expression.
As those who have actively followed paths of transpersonal discovery may attest, dialog with the depths of the psyche is generally carried out by way of imagery encountered in the hypnagogic, fantasy, ritual practice, drug trips, visualization techniques and various apperception methods such as the esoteric tarot. What may be accessed by way of these techniques is a panoply of extraordinary (or “anomalous;” see Cardeña, Lynn and Krippner 2000) experiences; numinous encounters that may be interpreted by the individual or the society as living spirit.
The dialog between the conscious self and either the unconscious or the spiritual dimension of reality (depending upon one’s point of view) remains intact for many traditional peoples, especially those cultures whose core symbolism derives from shamanic imageryand practices (Winkelman, 2010). This dialogue means that the core symbolism within their cultural heritage remains pregnant (Cassirer, 1957) with cosmological meaning, and much of this symbolism gets coded as “traditional” or “folk” art in the eyes of people raised in technocratic societies.
Sublimity and Abstraction
Ethnologists have long recognized that nearly all traditional art (see Redfield, 1971), as well as all modern art (Kreitler and Kreitler, 1972:302), is abstract in style This provides an important clue to understanding the power of art to penetrate into, evoke and express the transpersonal domain of the human psyche. I have discussed the relation between abstraction and spirit in great depth elsewhere (see Laughlin 2001, 2004).
Art products may be placed along a continuum from representative abstraction at one extreme to associative abstraction at the other extreme. All art is abstract, but what determines the position of an object or performance on the continuum is their principal focus within the overall process of apperception.
In other words, what part of the overall process of apperception is being objectified or
“bracketed.” Is the main intention of the piece the description of sensed objects (like in a landscape by Winslow Homer)? Or is the focus upon some adumbrated property of the act of perception itself (as in a pointillist painting by Seurat)? Or is it an expression of an internal emotion, an intuition, an idea, or an eidetic image spontaneously arising from the unconscious depths (as with impressionist imagery of Van Gogh or Cezanne)?
The more the focus of the art is upon internal processes within the psyche or spirit, the more “abstract” the art product will appear to be (in modern parlance). As most of traditional art is on about spirit, then it is by necessity abstract. In other words, the more sublime we perceive the art to be, the more abstract it will appear relative to external reality.
1. Injunction: Any transpersonal exploration begins with the injunction, "If you want to know
this, do this." The presumption is that there is something to find out about the host’s way of
life that must be lived to find out.
2. Apprehension: The work is done, the "thick participation" carried out, and cognitive apprehension and illumination of "object domain" addressed by the injunction are attained. In other words, once we do it enough, we come to understand it more fully.
3. Communal confirmation: The experiences attained are checked with those members of
the host culture who have adequately completed the injunction and apprehension procedures.
We chat with folks and find out if what we experienced is similar to what they experienced.
"The linkage between abstract art and transpersonal experience is often direct and fundamental in the everyday lives of people. Thus any attempt to understand the inner meaning of traditional art—for that matter, any attempt to understand much of modern art in our own society—is futile without some grasp of people’s range of transpersonal experience, as well as the cosmology which is both expressed by the art’s iconic form and within the context of which the art is interpreted. Traditions of art are in fact systems of symbols that are part of a much greater cultural and experiential context, a context that must be entered experientially and intimately by the student if he or she is going to be able to critique the art from within a local tradition."
This universality is explained as being mediated by an essentially artistic brain. The brain
recognizes and experiences beauty, just as it imposes significance and initiates purposeful action in the world (Donald, 1991). When these three semiosomatic processes intersect in material objects or in cultural events, we in modern technocratic society will tend to recognize “art.”
Moreover, there is a universal recognition among peoples that there is a hidden dimension to nature, a dimension containing the animated and powerful, but normally unseen forces that shape events in the world (see Laughlin and Throop 2001). Even if we take a strictly psychodynamic view of spirit—that is, that spirit is the projection of our own inner and largely unconscious and archetypal nature upon extramental reality4—the loss of the sense of the sacred and the spiritual in modern society has been accompanied by an interruption of an essential process in spiritual discovery, maturation and expression.
As those who have actively followed paths of transpersonal discovery may attest, dialog with the depths of the psyche is generally carried out by way of imagery encountered in the hypnagogic, fantasy, ritual practice, drug trips, visualization techniques and various apperception methods such as the esoteric tarot. What may be accessed by way of these techniques is a panoply of extraordinary (or “anomalous;” see Cardeña, Lynn and Krippner 2000) experiences; numinous encounters that may be interpreted by the individual or the society as living spirit.
The dialog between the conscious self and either the unconscious or the spiritual dimension of reality (depending upon one’s point of view) remains intact for many traditional peoples, especially those cultures whose core symbolism derives from shamanic imageryand practices (Winkelman, 2010). This dialogue means that the core symbolism within their cultural heritage remains pregnant (Cassirer, 1957) with cosmological meaning, and much of this symbolism gets coded as “traditional” or “folk” art in the eyes of people raised in technocratic societies.
Sublimity and Abstraction
Ethnologists have long recognized that nearly all traditional art (see Redfield, 1971), as well as all modern art (Kreitler and Kreitler, 1972:302), is abstract in style This provides an important clue to understanding the power of art to penetrate into, evoke and express the transpersonal domain of the human psyche. I have discussed the relation between abstraction and spirit in great depth elsewhere (see Laughlin 2001, 2004).
Art products may be placed along a continuum from representative abstraction at one extreme to associative abstraction at the other extreme. All art is abstract, but what determines the position of an object or performance on the continuum is their principal focus within the overall process of apperception.
In other words, what part of the overall process of apperception is being objectified or
“bracketed.” Is the main intention of the piece the description of sensed objects (like in a landscape by Winslow Homer)? Or is the focus upon some adumbrated property of the act of perception itself (as in a pointillist painting by Seurat)? Or is it an expression of an internal emotion, an intuition, an idea, or an eidetic image spontaneously arising from the unconscious depths (as with impressionist imagery of Van Gogh or Cezanne)?
The more the focus of the art is upon internal processes within the psyche or spirit, the more “abstract” the art product will appear to be (in modern parlance). As most of traditional art is on about spirit, then it is by necessity abstract. In other words, the more sublime we perceive the art to be, the more abstract it will appear relative to external reality.
1. Injunction: Any transpersonal exploration begins with the injunction, "If you want to know
this, do this." The presumption is that there is something to find out about the host’s way of
life that must be lived to find out.
2. Apprehension: The work is done, the "thick participation" carried out, and cognitive apprehension and illumination of "object domain" addressed by the injunction are attained. In other words, once we do it enough, we come to understand it more fully.
3. Communal confirmation: The experiences attained are checked with those members of
the host culture who have adequately completed the injunction and apprehension procedures.
We chat with folks and find out if what we experienced is similar to what they experienced.
Symbolic penetration is ritualized in Tibetan tantric Buddhism which involves:
1. Preparation. The meditation generally begins with a set of ritualized preparations, including purification (clearing and calming the mind, quieting the stream of chatter that is considered normal thought and that so easily distracts the mind, reminding himself that his
body is an empty vessel, that all things are impermanent, and perhaps dedicating the
practice to someone ill or to the awakening of beings.
2. Constructing the image. Generating the visualization by gazing at an external image or
text (in Buddhist terminology, the parikammanimitta, the term nimitta meaning “sign,”
“mark” or attribute of the parikamma, or initial exercise). The external image may be a
picture of the deity, or the description of the deity in a text. The deity may be internalized
either in toto or piece by piece, depending upon the skill of the adept. The intention of
the practice is to internalize the image of the deity as an eidetic image (in Buddhism, the
uggahanimitta, or “sign of grasping” or learning the image) constructed before the
mind’s “eye,” independent of the external reference.
3. Concentration on the eidetic image. Once the meditator is able to hold all or a portion
of the external image as an eidetic image, the eidetic image becomes the focus of concentration, and the external image is ignored. If the meditator loses the eidetic image, then he may return to the external image to refresh the internal image.
4. Identification with the deity. The eidetic image is first constructed as if it were in front of
and distinct from the meditator. But once the image is stabilized, the meditator imagines
that the deity enters his body and becomes one with the meditator. The meditator imagines
his body has been transformed into the insubstantial and radiant body of the deity.
5. Inner yoga. When sufficient skill has been developed in stabilizing and internalizing the eidetic image, the meditator may be instructed to shift his meditation to the internal energy
flow within his transformed radiant body. This focus is aided by imagining various symbols
(such as flowers, colored disks, spheres, spinning wheels, fountains, etc.) placed in the
heart or other energy centers of the body.
6. Dissolution of the image. The meditator is instructed to end his meditation by dissolving
the imagery into a point of light and then watch the point of light vanish. The last
meditation is upon the formlessness of the Void. At first glance, this staged process seems very neat and crisp, but real practice is often far more complex, fuzzy and even downright sloppy than this schematic implies. For instance, some meditators are poor visualizers.
When one concentrates with sufficient intensity upon the internal image is that things begin to happen, whether the image itself is clear or not. Summarizing such transpersonal research:
1. Perfection of the image. During the process of stabilizing the eidetic image, the image perfects itself. This is automatic and no conscious intention is required; all that is required is sufficient concentration upon the eidetic image. If there are flaws in the scroll painting or other kasina (imperfect line or dirt on the picture, crack in the ceramic bowl, filth in the patch of light in the forest, so forth), they tend to disappear, and the geometry of the forms take on an archetypal perfection. This is similar to the perfection of gods and goddesses encountered
in visions and in dream life where they may exude a perfection and beauty unmatched by
any real person encountered in waking consciousness.
2. Image comes alive. Sooner or later in this work, the image comes alive and begins to
move and do things independent of the meditator’s intention. The deity for instance may
begin dancing in flames, or flying through a cloud-filled sky. If the eidetic image is a two
dimensional mandala, the mandala may become a tunnel and one may find oneself
whizzing down the tunnel into other perceptual experiences. Depending upon the instructions one is given by one’s teacher, one may drop trying to stabilize the eidetic image and just watch what transpires with the living imagery. Depending upon the intensity of concentration, one may become totally absorbed in the moving imagery and lose the sense of a separate Watcher. Some teachers will consider this a hindrance to the intent of the practice. This is one type of “secret sign” (in Buddhist terms, the patibhaganimitta, the “conceptual” or “counterpart” sign) that may arise during meditation.
3. Other Secret signs. Other kinds of “secret signs” may arise as a consequence of concentration upon the eidetic imagery. The critical thing to note here is that there is no logical connection between a particular eidetic image and the “secret signs” that arise as a consequence of meditating upon it, but the relationship is nonetheless lawful and inevitable.
Indeed, teachers may evaluate the development of a student’s work by the “secret signs”
reported back to him. Meditation upon the breath for instance may result in visual forms
appearing like skeins of beads or bubbles. Meditation upon a body of still water may
produce the image of steam or mist or bubbles arising from a mirror surface. In point of
fact, sufficient concentration upon any eidetic image will lead to “secret signs.” Such “secret
signs” are the real answers of zen koans for instance. And when these “secret signs” arise
during meditation, they may in turn become the object of concentration, and with sufficient
concentration upon them, full ecstatic absorption may occur.
4. Simplification of the image. Not only may concentration upon the eidetic image cause it
to perfect itself and to give rise to “secret signs,” the image itself may become radically
altered and simplified, and this altered image may thereafter automatically replace the eidetic image at any attempt to reconstruct it. In other words, every time one tries to reconstitute, say, the deity in the mind’s eye, that image is automatically replaced by the simplified image.
1. Preparation. The meditation generally begins with a set of ritualized preparations, including purification (clearing and calming the mind, quieting the stream of chatter that is considered normal thought and that so easily distracts the mind, reminding himself that his
body is an empty vessel, that all things are impermanent, and perhaps dedicating the
practice to someone ill or to the awakening of beings.
2. Constructing the image. Generating the visualization by gazing at an external image or
text (in Buddhist terminology, the parikammanimitta, the term nimitta meaning “sign,”
“mark” or attribute of the parikamma, or initial exercise). The external image may be a
picture of the deity, or the description of the deity in a text. The deity may be internalized
either in toto or piece by piece, depending upon the skill of the adept. The intention of
the practice is to internalize the image of the deity as an eidetic image (in Buddhism, the
uggahanimitta, or “sign of grasping” or learning the image) constructed before the
mind’s “eye,” independent of the external reference.
3. Concentration on the eidetic image. Once the meditator is able to hold all or a portion
of the external image as an eidetic image, the eidetic image becomes the focus of concentration, and the external image is ignored. If the meditator loses the eidetic image, then he may return to the external image to refresh the internal image.
4. Identification with the deity. The eidetic image is first constructed as if it were in front of
and distinct from the meditator. But once the image is stabilized, the meditator imagines
that the deity enters his body and becomes one with the meditator. The meditator imagines
his body has been transformed into the insubstantial and radiant body of the deity.
5. Inner yoga. When sufficient skill has been developed in stabilizing and internalizing the eidetic image, the meditator may be instructed to shift his meditation to the internal energy
flow within his transformed radiant body. This focus is aided by imagining various symbols
(such as flowers, colored disks, spheres, spinning wheels, fountains, etc.) placed in the
heart or other energy centers of the body.
6. Dissolution of the image. The meditator is instructed to end his meditation by dissolving
the imagery into a point of light and then watch the point of light vanish. The last
meditation is upon the formlessness of the Void. At first glance, this staged process seems very neat and crisp, but real practice is often far more complex, fuzzy and even downright sloppy than this schematic implies. For instance, some meditators are poor visualizers.
When one concentrates with sufficient intensity upon the internal image is that things begin to happen, whether the image itself is clear or not. Summarizing such transpersonal research:
1. Perfection of the image. During the process of stabilizing the eidetic image, the image perfects itself. This is automatic and no conscious intention is required; all that is required is sufficient concentration upon the eidetic image. If there are flaws in the scroll painting or other kasina (imperfect line or dirt on the picture, crack in the ceramic bowl, filth in the patch of light in the forest, so forth), they tend to disappear, and the geometry of the forms take on an archetypal perfection. This is similar to the perfection of gods and goddesses encountered
in visions and in dream life where they may exude a perfection and beauty unmatched by
any real person encountered in waking consciousness.
2. Image comes alive. Sooner or later in this work, the image comes alive and begins to
move and do things independent of the meditator’s intention. The deity for instance may
begin dancing in flames, or flying through a cloud-filled sky. If the eidetic image is a two
dimensional mandala, the mandala may become a tunnel and one may find oneself
whizzing down the tunnel into other perceptual experiences. Depending upon the instructions one is given by one’s teacher, one may drop trying to stabilize the eidetic image and just watch what transpires with the living imagery. Depending upon the intensity of concentration, one may become totally absorbed in the moving imagery and lose the sense of a separate Watcher. Some teachers will consider this a hindrance to the intent of the practice. This is one type of “secret sign” (in Buddhist terms, the patibhaganimitta, the “conceptual” or “counterpart” sign) that may arise during meditation.
3. Other Secret signs. Other kinds of “secret signs” may arise as a consequence of concentration upon the eidetic imagery. The critical thing to note here is that there is no logical connection between a particular eidetic image and the “secret signs” that arise as a consequence of meditating upon it, but the relationship is nonetheless lawful and inevitable.
Indeed, teachers may evaluate the development of a student’s work by the “secret signs”
reported back to him. Meditation upon the breath for instance may result in visual forms
appearing like skeins of beads or bubbles. Meditation upon a body of still water may
produce the image of steam or mist or bubbles arising from a mirror surface. In point of
fact, sufficient concentration upon any eidetic image will lead to “secret signs.” Such “secret
signs” are the real answers of zen koans for instance. And when these “secret signs” arise
during meditation, they may in turn become the object of concentration, and with sufficient
concentration upon them, full ecstatic absorption may occur.
4. Simplification of the image. Not only may concentration upon the eidetic image cause it
to perfect itself and to give rise to “secret signs,” the image itself may become radically
altered and simplified, and this altered image may thereafter automatically replace the eidetic image at any attempt to reconstruct it. In other words, every time one tries to reconstitute, say, the deity in the mind’s eye, that image is automatically replaced by the simplified image.
Gowan proposed three modes of cognition: prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic, which he amplified as trance, art, and creativity. They indicate the styles and degree of immersion or cooperation betwen the ego and the preconscious. They range from dissociation, to propitiation, to conscious contact with the irrational and numinous element--from unconscious instinctual response, to (usually symbolic) self-conscious ego processes, tto inner, paranormal "uncanny" aspects.
"Art," the parataxic mode, as expressed through gesture, body language, art, myth, ritual, dream, and archetypes. With greater experience an understanding of the inner world, a relationship develops which allows the ego to glimpse and participate with transpersonal forces.
Art expresses feelings and understanding. It is the fulfillment of sensation in an audible or visual form. It is an expression of an archetypal process in relationship with life. Art is philosophy expressed in symbols and imagery. For the sensation function, art serves the same purpose that science does for thinking. Other analogies for art include philosophy and psychology for the intuitive function, and the emotions of human society for feelings.
The characteristic procedures of the Parataxic Mode include archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and art. Art forms include dance, drama, music, painting, ceremonial magick, alchemy, perfumery, sculpture, poetics, etc. This is the realm of metaphorms, where our brain images reality and the universe in its own structural terms.
Art embodies a rhythmic flux of the psyche through a process, performance or a "product." The artist combines his technical skill or craftsmanship with the constraints of his artform. Thus, the creation is not merely the production of his free will, but also reflects the discipline imposed by training and materials.
As such, art is the result of a unique combination of consciousness, or cognitive abilities, and subconscious drives or inspiration. The motivating force or drive behind the process of art is the unconscious animation of an archetype, seeking expression. The archetype seeks manifestation in some 'form,' and seemingly manipulates the artist into producing this form. How often are artists surprised by their own creations, considering them a gift of God, their muse or perhaps even an angel?
The artistic process combine sinner and outer life. It is a reconciliation of opposites in a transcendental, paradoxical symbols whose purpose is unification. The content expressed by the symbol is as-yet-unknown, or pre-cognitive. The artist receives the inspiration through intuition and feeling, is motivated by the drive of the archetype and the will to create, and executes the process through sensory and motor functions.
As the contents of the unconscious become more clearly defined, there is a transitional phase from the awe and dread of the Prototaxic Mode to the relatively benign nature of Syntaxic Experience. Art is an expression of the PARATAXIC MODE, which mediates between these extremes through archetypes, dreams, mythopoesis, ritual, teaching tales and all forms of artistic expression.
In a cursory examination of the history of art (from a metaphysical viewpoint), we might associate primitive art with the Prototaxic Mode; Impressionism (from Chagall onwards) with the Parataxic Mode; and abstract or geometrical art with the Syntaxic Mode. These classifications are not absolute, obviously, but offer some guidelines for your own attributions.
In the Parataxic Mode, there is progressive replacement of dread with creativity in the service of archetypal patterns. If the artist has talent, his works also take on collective, as well as personal value, and reflect the transformative process in society. It frequently happens that artists are "ahead of their time", in that their work receives no wide recognition in their own lifetimes. Yet, great art has an ageless quality. Images, symbols, and ritual enactment provide a means of crystallizing ideas which still remain below the threshold of conscious awareness.
Ideally, they fulfill their function when either the artist or observer is later able to consciously integrate the "meaning" which they embody, at least to some extent. This is precisely the function of the pictorial Tarot Keys: one gains a greater cognitive awareness of the archetypal processes they encode, as time goes on. The distinction between decorative and symbolic art lies in the fact that symbols portray a higher level of abstraction, whereas decorative art is a "just-so" story. It has no inherent meaning, and is merely ornamental. Visionary art gives us the ability to create our own reality, even if it is only in images, and this has a great transforming power on the psyche.
Jung distinguished between two types of artistic creation. He termed one of these psychological and the other visionary. The psychological mode draws its inspiration from the phenomena and lessons of life, or human experience (such as life drawing). The visionary mode, on the other hand, contains something of the Divine, and its subject matter is definitely out-of-the-ordinary. Terrific modern examples include the work of Mati Klarwein, H. R. Giger, Alex Grey, Gilbert Williams, and Robert Venosa.
One distinction between the two lies in the degree of psychological activity or passivity of the participant. In the first mode, the artist "thinks up" and develops the forms pretty much on his own, even it is emergent. But in the visionary mode his own will seems to defer to an apparently foreign inspiration, and it can feel like it simply comes through of its own will. There may be an element of passivity in both modes, but in a visionary experience it is more pronounced. Visionary art is also generally considered more profound.
Great art is perceived by what the visionary artist Michaelangelo termed "the eye of the soul." It may be considered the Parataxic counterpart of the shamanic trance, or the mystic's ecstasy. It is the pure joy of the creative flow state. The evocative power of art or music is embodied in the rhythm which is the underlying matrix of an art piece. The power of art is intimately connected with perception.
Some would argue that consciousness itself is simply pure perception -- certainly there is no consciousness without it. The symbolic value attributed to any given work, and how it moves us, depends on how we look at it. Thus, the art critic has developed tastes different from the "common man." Nevertheless, the greatest art stands the test of time, and has great appeal for the masses and connoisseur, alike.
The pleasure of a psychological work is largely aesthetic in nature, whereas the symbolic work strikes a deeper chord. Visionary experience carries even more impact than human passion. Its psychic reality may include or unite physical and metaphysical qualities. It is more effective when it conveys a transparent variation on an archetypal theme. For example, note the persistence of revivals of classical style and mythological themes among the 'great masters" in painting and sculpture.
Art serves a therapeutic function for society. It may even predict the future, as when the Cubist movement and later abstract art preceded a cultural fragmentation of unprecedented magnitude. "Art" is most properly considered as a process, not a product, though it results in artifacts often valued by society. The transformative process can be as strong during the creation of an unskilled or underappreciated piece as for a master-work. It is all relative. Even the performing arts, which were previously exempt, may now be preserved through recordings and film.
John Gowan has classified the arts in a scale of increasing order from performing arts, to visual arts, to compositions in mathematics and music (which are Syntaxic in nature), and finally verbal creativity. This does not imply that one form is better or "more advanced" than another. But it is an aid in determining nuances of the creative process, which we deal with more fully under Tiphareth.
It is difficult to maintain much objectivity about one's creative effort when the physical body is intimately involved, as in dance. Dance, for instance, is closer to the automatism of the trance state, where the body is responding to training automatically, but there is still a large component of concentration. In the visionary mode, on the other hand, there is a temporary withdrawl from the sense organs and the constraints of the physical world.
Beethoven said, "music is the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life."
"Art" is the culmination of five procedures of the parataxic Mode which includes archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and finally art. The Parataxic Mode exemplifies non-verbal creativity. It represents the development of an enhanced relationship with the subconscious. It is a transcendence over man's minimalistic, instinctual nature to a flowering humanity with individual, unique qualities.
...Art has two aspects, one for the artist and the other for the beholder...For the artist, the meaning of art lies in the apprehension of a perceptive context that is clarified and fulfilled in the work, and at the base of the whole process lies the biological purpose of attaining a higher level of consciousness, thus annulling a participation mystique...the new discovery comes to the beholder by wa of the unconscious; he takes it in like the air he breathes. --M.C. Cammerloher/"Art in the Psychology of Our Time"
According to Jung's theory of psychological types (see Book 4, Hod), man possesses four different possibilities of reacting to his environment. These are represented as the functions sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling. The realm of Art consists of a). the representative or imitative arts (such as dance, drama, and ceremonial magick), which portray or reproduce a psycho-physical relationship and convey "meaning"; and b). plastic arts where visual perception is the central experience.
In the Greek language, the conjunction of concrete sensation, psychic image, and spiritual meaning is termed aisthesis. It conveys both the notion of breathing in (or smelling) and perceiving. The imitative arts, and ceremonial magick, in particular, create an atmosphere which is breathed in by the participant or observer alike. The meaning is inherent in the engagement with psychic reality.
Cammerloher attributes representative arts to the function intuition; plastic arts are the product of sensation. In the past, mystical man, guided by his favorite function, intuition, could attain redemption or illumination.
Application of the mysteries has broadened, and mankind has reached the stage where all the functions may be developed and serve as a key to the mysteries. In a holistic viewpoint, the total person possesses balanced activation and can use a function at will. The great artist Eugene Delacroix expressed his opinion in his journal:
When I have painted a fine picture, I haven't expressed a thought. Or so they say. What fools they are! They deprive painting of all its advantages. The writer says nearly everything to be understood. In painting a mysterious bond is established between the souls of the sitters and those of the spectator. He sees the faces, external nature; but he thinks inwardly the thought that is common to all people, in which some give body in writing, yet altering its fragile essence.
Art embodies or lends a visible and demonstrable form to perception and image. As the image becomes "fleshed out," there is an experience of fulfillment for artist or beholder alike which transcends the merely aesthetic. The art-experience enables man to consciously experience his particular perceptions and images by formative effort.
Thus nature becomes both subject and object. Man as nature, becomes reflective, self-aware and perceptive. The dichotomy of the subject-object, or I-It relationship is harmonized. This enables the artist to annul his unconscious identification with the environment, which is known in psychology as participation mystique.
The Art of Painting:
Everyone possesses the ability to produce some visual representation of his perceptions, with or without formal training. Cammerloher states: "The varying simplicity or development of the form then provides an absolutely unmistakable picture of the level his perceptions have attained."
The three basic stages of artistic knowledge of the world are categorized as delimitation, direction and variability of boundaries and direction.
Art is the language for the communication of perceptions. Therefore, artistic statements are relative to the degree of knowledge attained. One who knows the language of art transmits more information. This does not refer to technical training, but to the ability to state perceptions clearly and consciously, on a precise level. In this manner, the artist produces "the only possible demonstration of the stage of development attained by his images."
In other words, he has an ability to reproduce that which he sees with his inner eye. As a means of removing the artist from participation mystique, the artistic act is a way of illumination. Anyone is capable of this experience at any level of technical ability. Technical art may be corresponded to the left lobe of the brain and is the product of logic (or thinking). An objective experience is reproduced, for example a photographic-type portrait or external landscape.
Imaginal art, however, seems to emerge from the right brain, and is a grace or gift from the soul. We could hardly expect the artist to work without a model, and in this instance the model is internal reality. he still paints that which is "seen."
But, the subjective experience is concretized in a communicative form, and he is able to share the quality of his vision with others. Delimitation implies a sharp boundary; there is now an inside and outside (the magic circle is formed). With the drawing of the boundary, the force of creative action is acquired.
The artist uses the canvas to focus his vision, which is executed using the magic wand of the brush (or knife). When one becomes able to differentiate detail within the boundary, dimensionality is established. Complex contours and their mutual relationships are established with precision. The variable boundary stage may be characterized by the three-quarter profile, and utilizes the principle known as fore-shortening.
Foreshortening gives the illusion of proper relative size. At this stage of perception-knowledge, space acquires a meaning of its own; static vision becomes dynamic; relativity becomes the prevailing view. Foreshortening, or perspective drawing, combined with the technique of mixing paints known as chiaroscuro, creates the illusion of depth in a painting.
The great masters of the Italian Renaissance developed this treatment of light and shade in painting, and this advance in technique made their work remarkably life-like. For the painter, the world is revealed by illumination. Any painting (other than simple graphic arts) either contains a light source within itself, or one is depicted as illuminating the scene from an assumed point outside the picture. It is the painter's aim to capture as accurately as possible the effects of light on visual perception.
Light and color are intimately related. Most people realize that color variation is the result of absorption patterns when an object is hit by white light. The variations of the spectrum which aren't absorbed are reflected back to the eye. Color is not only important in paining, but in psychology.
Much ado has been made in recent years of various color therapies. However, these techniques ar inconsistent in their attributions of the various properties of color in respect to emotional response. On this point the Qabalah furnishes an extensive, cohesive theory worthy of individual testing. Colors are defined in terms of hue, value and chroma. Hue distinguishes one color from another, such as red from green.
Value indicates lightness or brightness, and is represented by ten shades of gray ranging from black to white. Chroma means intensity or saturation of color; is it relatively pure or grayish? Colors are combined in painting according to the elements of harmony. Colors emerge from a spectrum, and so they group in sequences. These sequences may be used as a tool for determining what is attractive to the eye, to convey just the right signals to produce the desired effect. Contrary signals to the eye disturb the effect, whether they are noticed consciously, or not.
There are different types of harmonies. Analogous harmony comes from adjacent hues which lie next to each other in the spectrum, such as blue with its adjacents turquoise and violet. Complementary harmonies mix colors which are inherently opposites, like yellow and violet, or orange and turquoise, and red and green.
In a balanced harmony the entire color spectrum is exploited. A primary triad includes magenta, yellow and turquoise. A four color harmony, or tetrad, could include red, yellow, blue-green and violet, for example. In a dominant harmony one color is glorified and its influence extends over the entire design. Harmony is assured by bringing all colors into a consistent relationship.
Control of the Field
Another important aspect of painting is the law of field size, or control of the field. An expert in this is able to create unique and startling color illusions. Control of the field is achieved through producing a quality which pervades the entire canvas. It is an illumination quality -- bright, dark, grayish.
The artist then adds touches of hue to make the canvas come alive, create a world of its own. Details in the canvas may appear lustrous, iridescent, luminous. Other qualities are transparency, texture, and solidity.
To make a lustrous effect, requires mixing the background in shades by adding black. Then, pure intense color in small amounts appears lustrous. Luster depends upon black contrast. The iridescent effect, like opal or mother-of-pearl, requires a background of a gray field. The predominance of soft gray creates an illusion of mistiness.
The luminous effect is complex and subtle. Purity contrast, not value or hue, yields the desired effect. The luminous effect was brought to perfection by Rembrandt. The effect is seen in paintings where the light source is internal, such as a candle or fire-glow. Also, light shining into the eyes blurs vision, so this diffuseness must be accounted for in the painting. Highlights and shadows add the finishing touches. A delicate transition from normal color into shadow, with a diffuse edge simulates "reality."
"Art," the parataxic mode, as expressed through gesture, body language, art, myth, ritual, dream, and archetypes. With greater experience an understanding of the inner world, a relationship develops which allows the ego to glimpse and participate with transpersonal forces.
Art expresses feelings and understanding. It is the fulfillment of sensation in an audible or visual form. It is an expression of an archetypal process in relationship with life. Art is philosophy expressed in symbols and imagery. For the sensation function, art serves the same purpose that science does for thinking. Other analogies for art include philosophy and psychology for the intuitive function, and the emotions of human society for feelings.
The characteristic procedures of the Parataxic Mode include archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and art. Art forms include dance, drama, music, painting, ceremonial magick, alchemy, perfumery, sculpture, poetics, etc. This is the realm of metaphorms, where our brain images reality and the universe in its own structural terms.
Art embodies a rhythmic flux of the psyche through a process, performance or a "product." The artist combines his technical skill or craftsmanship with the constraints of his artform. Thus, the creation is not merely the production of his free will, but also reflects the discipline imposed by training and materials.
As such, art is the result of a unique combination of consciousness, or cognitive abilities, and subconscious drives or inspiration. The motivating force or drive behind the process of art is the unconscious animation of an archetype, seeking expression. The archetype seeks manifestation in some 'form,' and seemingly manipulates the artist into producing this form. How often are artists surprised by their own creations, considering them a gift of God, their muse or perhaps even an angel?
The artistic process combine sinner and outer life. It is a reconciliation of opposites in a transcendental, paradoxical symbols whose purpose is unification. The content expressed by the symbol is as-yet-unknown, or pre-cognitive. The artist receives the inspiration through intuition and feeling, is motivated by the drive of the archetype and the will to create, and executes the process through sensory and motor functions.
As the contents of the unconscious become more clearly defined, there is a transitional phase from the awe and dread of the Prototaxic Mode to the relatively benign nature of Syntaxic Experience. Art is an expression of the PARATAXIC MODE, which mediates between these extremes through archetypes, dreams, mythopoesis, ritual, teaching tales and all forms of artistic expression.
In a cursory examination of the history of art (from a metaphysical viewpoint), we might associate primitive art with the Prototaxic Mode; Impressionism (from Chagall onwards) with the Parataxic Mode; and abstract or geometrical art with the Syntaxic Mode. These classifications are not absolute, obviously, but offer some guidelines for your own attributions.
In the Parataxic Mode, there is progressive replacement of dread with creativity in the service of archetypal patterns. If the artist has talent, his works also take on collective, as well as personal value, and reflect the transformative process in society. It frequently happens that artists are "ahead of their time", in that their work receives no wide recognition in their own lifetimes. Yet, great art has an ageless quality. Images, symbols, and ritual enactment provide a means of crystallizing ideas which still remain below the threshold of conscious awareness.
Ideally, they fulfill their function when either the artist or observer is later able to consciously integrate the "meaning" which they embody, at least to some extent. This is precisely the function of the pictorial Tarot Keys: one gains a greater cognitive awareness of the archetypal processes they encode, as time goes on. The distinction between decorative and symbolic art lies in the fact that symbols portray a higher level of abstraction, whereas decorative art is a "just-so" story. It has no inherent meaning, and is merely ornamental. Visionary art gives us the ability to create our own reality, even if it is only in images, and this has a great transforming power on the psyche.
Jung distinguished between two types of artistic creation. He termed one of these psychological and the other visionary. The psychological mode draws its inspiration from the phenomena and lessons of life, or human experience (such as life drawing). The visionary mode, on the other hand, contains something of the Divine, and its subject matter is definitely out-of-the-ordinary. Terrific modern examples include the work of Mati Klarwein, H. R. Giger, Alex Grey, Gilbert Williams, and Robert Venosa.
One distinction between the two lies in the degree of psychological activity or passivity of the participant. In the first mode, the artist "thinks up" and develops the forms pretty much on his own, even it is emergent. But in the visionary mode his own will seems to defer to an apparently foreign inspiration, and it can feel like it simply comes through of its own will. There may be an element of passivity in both modes, but in a visionary experience it is more pronounced. Visionary art is also generally considered more profound.
Great art is perceived by what the visionary artist Michaelangelo termed "the eye of the soul." It may be considered the Parataxic counterpart of the shamanic trance, or the mystic's ecstasy. It is the pure joy of the creative flow state. The evocative power of art or music is embodied in the rhythm which is the underlying matrix of an art piece. The power of art is intimately connected with perception.
Some would argue that consciousness itself is simply pure perception -- certainly there is no consciousness without it. The symbolic value attributed to any given work, and how it moves us, depends on how we look at it. Thus, the art critic has developed tastes different from the "common man." Nevertheless, the greatest art stands the test of time, and has great appeal for the masses and connoisseur, alike.
The pleasure of a psychological work is largely aesthetic in nature, whereas the symbolic work strikes a deeper chord. Visionary experience carries even more impact than human passion. Its psychic reality may include or unite physical and metaphysical qualities. It is more effective when it conveys a transparent variation on an archetypal theme. For example, note the persistence of revivals of classical style and mythological themes among the 'great masters" in painting and sculpture.
Art serves a therapeutic function for society. It may even predict the future, as when the Cubist movement and later abstract art preceded a cultural fragmentation of unprecedented magnitude. "Art" is most properly considered as a process, not a product, though it results in artifacts often valued by society. The transformative process can be as strong during the creation of an unskilled or underappreciated piece as for a master-work. It is all relative. Even the performing arts, which were previously exempt, may now be preserved through recordings and film.
John Gowan has classified the arts in a scale of increasing order from performing arts, to visual arts, to compositions in mathematics and music (which are Syntaxic in nature), and finally verbal creativity. This does not imply that one form is better or "more advanced" than another. But it is an aid in determining nuances of the creative process, which we deal with more fully under Tiphareth.
It is difficult to maintain much objectivity about one's creative effort when the physical body is intimately involved, as in dance. Dance, for instance, is closer to the automatism of the trance state, where the body is responding to training automatically, but there is still a large component of concentration. In the visionary mode, on the other hand, there is a temporary withdrawl from the sense organs and the constraints of the physical world.
Beethoven said, "music is the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life."
"Art" is the culmination of five procedures of the parataxic Mode which includes archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and finally art. The Parataxic Mode exemplifies non-verbal creativity. It represents the development of an enhanced relationship with the subconscious. It is a transcendence over man's minimalistic, instinctual nature to a flowering humanity with individual, unique qualities.
...Art has two aspects, one for the artist and the other for the beholder...For the artist, the meaning of art lies in the apprehension of a perceptive context that is clarified and fulfilled in the work, and at the base of the whole process lies the biological purpose of attaining a higher level of consciousness, thus annulling a participation mystique...the new discovery comes to the beholder by wa of the unconscious; he takes it in like the air he breathes. --M.C. Cammerloher/"Art in the Psychology of Our Time"
According to Jung's theory of psychological types (see Book 4, Hod), man possesses four different possibilities of reacting to his environment. These are represented as the functions sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling. The realm of Art consists of a). the representative or imitative arts (such as dance, drama, and ceremonial magick), which portray or reproduce a psycho-physical relationship and convey "meaning"; and b). plastic arts where visual perception is the central experience.
In the Greek language, the conjunction of concrete sensation, psychic image, and spiritual meaning is termed aisthesis. It conveys both the notion of breathing in (or smelling) and perceiving. The imitative arts, and ceremonial magick, in particular, create an atmosphere which is breathed in by the participant or observer alike. The meaning is inherent in the engagement with psychic reality.
Cammerloher attributes representative arts to the function intuition; plastic arts are the product of sensation. In the past, mystical man, guided by his favorite function, intuition, could attain redemption or illumination.
Application of the mysteries has broadened, and mankind has reached the stage where all the functions may be developed and serve as a key to the mysteries. In a holistic viewpoint, the total person possesses balanced activation and can use a function at will. The great artist Eugene Delacroix expressed his opinion in his journal:
When I have painted a fine picture, I haven't expressed a thought. Or so they say. What fools they are! They deprive painting of all its advantages. The writer says nearly everything to be understood. In painting a mysterious bond is established between the souls of the sitters and those of the spectator. He sees the faces, external nature; but he thinks inwardly the thought that is common to all people, in which some give body in writing, yet altering its fragile essence.
Art embodies or lends a visible and demonstrable form to perception and image. As the image becomes "fleshed out," there is an experience of fulfillment for artist or beholder alike which transcends the merely aesthetic. The art-experience enables man to consciously experience his particular perceptions and images by formative effort.
Thus nature becomes both subject and object. Man as nature, becomes reflective, self-aware and perceptive. The dichotomy of the subject-object, or I-It relationship is harmonized. This enables the artist to annul his unconscious identification with the environment, which is known in psychology as participation mystique.
The Art of Painting:
Everyone possesses the ability to produce some visual representation of his perceptions, with or without formal training. Cammerloher states: "The varying simplicity or development of the form then provides an absolutely unmistakable picture of the level his perceptions have attained."
The three basic stages of artistic knowledge of the world are categorized as delimitation, direction and variability of boundaries and direction.
Art is the language for the communication of perceptions. Therefore, artistic statements are relative to the degree of knowledge attained. One who knows the language of art transmits more information. This does not refer to technical training, but to the ability to state perceptions clearly and consciously, on a precise level. In this manner, the artist produces "the only possible demonstration of the stage of development attained by his images."
In other words, he has an ability to reproduce that which he sees with his inner eye. As a means of removing the artist from participation mystique, the artistic act is a way of illumination. Anyone is capable of this experience at any level of technical ability. Technical art may be corresponded to the left lobe of the brain and is the product of logic (or thinking). An objective experience is reproduced, for example a photographic-type portrait or external landscape.
Imaginal art, however, seems to emerge from the right brain, and is a grace or gift from the soul. We could hardly expect the artist to work without a model, and in this instance the model is internal reality. he still paints that which is "seen."
But, the subjective experience is concretized in a communicative form, and he is able to share the quality of his vision with others. Delimitation implies a sharp boundary; there is now an inside and outside (the magic circle is formed). With the drawing of the boundary, the force of creative action is acquired.
The artist uses the canvas to focus his vision, which is executed using the magic wand of the brush (or knife). When one becomes able to differentiate detail within the boundary, dimensionality is established. Complex contours and their mutual relationships are established with precision. The variable boundary stage may be characterized by the three-quarter profile, and utilizes the principle known as fore-shortening.
Foreshortening gives the illusion of proper relative size. At this stage of perception-knowledge, space acquires a meaning of its own; static vision becomes dynamic; relativity becomes the prevailing view. Foreshortening, or perspective drawing, combined with the technique of mixing paints known as chiaroscuro, creates the illusion of depth in a painting.
The great masters of the Italian Renaissance developed this treatment of light and shade in painting, and this advance in technique made their work remarkably life-like. For the painter, the world is revealed by illumination. Any painting (other than simple graphic arts) either contains a light source within itself, or one is depicted as illuminating the scene from an assumed point outside the picture. It is the painter's aim to capture as accurately as possible the effects of light on visual perception.
Light and color are intimately related. Most people realize that color variation is the result of absorption patterns when an object is hit by white light. The variations of the spectrum which aren't absorbed are reflected back to the eye. Color is not only important in paining, but in psychology.
Much ado has been made in recent years of various color therapies. However, these techniques ar inconsistent in their attributions of the various properties of color in respect to emotional response. On this point the Qabalah furnishes an extensive, cohesive theory worthy of individual testing. Colors are defined in terms of hue, value and chroma. Hue distinguishes one color from another, such as red from green.
Value indicates lightness or brightness, and is represented by ten shades of gray ranging from black to white. Chroma means intensity or saturation of color; is it relatively pure or grayish? Colors are combined in painting according to the elements of harmony. Colors emerge from a spectrum, and so they group in sequences. These sequences may be used as a tool for determining what is attractive to the eye, to convey just the right signals to produce the desired effect. Contrary signals to the eye disturb the effect, whether they are noticed consciously, or not.
There are different types of harmonies. Analogous harmony comes from adjacent hues which lie next to each other in the spectrum, such as blue with its adjacents turquoise and violet. Complementary harmonies mix colors which are inherently opposites, like yellow and violet, or orange and turquoise, and red and green.
In a balanced harmony the entire color spectrum is exploited. A primary triad includes magenta, yellow and turquoise. A four color harmony, or tetrad, could include red, yellow, blue-green and violet, for example. In a dominant harmony one color is glorified and its influence extends over the entire design. Harmony is assured by bringing all colors into a consistent relationship.
Control of the Field
Another important aspect of painting is the law of field size, or control of the field. An expert in this is able to create unique and startling color illusions. Control of the field is achieved through producing a quality which pervades the entire canvas. It is an illumination quality -- bright, dark, grayish.
The artist then adds touches of hue to make the canvas come alive, create a world of its own. Details in the canvas may appear lustrous, iridescent, luminous. Other qualities are transparency, texture, and solidity.
To make a lustrous effect, requires mixing the background in shades by adding black. Then, pure intense color in small amounts appears lustrous. Luster depends upon black contrast. The iridescent effect, like opal or mother-of-pearl, requires a background of a gray field. The predominance of soft gray creates an illusion of mistiness.
The luminous effect is complex and subtle. Purity contrast, not value or hue, yields the desired effect. The luminous effect was brought to perfection by Rembrandt. The effect is seen in paintings where the light source is internal, such as a candle or fire-glow. Also, light shining into the eyes blurs vision, so this diffuseness must be accounted for in the painting. Highlights and shadows add the finishing touches. A delicate transition from normal color into shadow, with a diffuse edge simulates "reality."
The Art of Magic
There is magic in art, and art in Magick. The magic of art is its expression of symbol or prototype. Art is the symbolic forming of archetypes working in time. In the creative process, the artist becomes seized or fascinated; the archetype rises up in him and he creates the images in his personal form. He shapes them into a "work" because he has been sufficiently aroused to call forth his creative powers.
This process is analogous to that produced through ceremonial magick. At the culmination of the rite comes the assumption of the godform, where the aspirant is seized by the archetypal power he has called up. The creative power of this form subsumes him. His "work" is in fact the Opus of the Great Work, the process of Self-transformation. Drama and dance are closely related in origin to ceremonial magic. So is the art of perfumery, through the development of incenses and fumigations. These scents were designed as psycho-sensory evocations. They call forth certain psychological states.
Rhythmic swaying and dancing, and circumambulations are fundamental in ritual. Modern forms of dance have their origins in rites of the past. According to Julian Jaynes, in The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, ballet is intimately linked with the goddess Artemis, which corresponds with path 25, ART. The golden oracle at Ephesus, famous for its enormous wealth, had trained eunuchs as mouthpieces for the goddess Artemis...and the abnormal dancing on the tips of the toes of modern ballerinas is though to derive from the dances before the altar of the goddess.
There is magic in art, and art in Magick. The magic of art is its expression of symbol or prototype. Art is the symbolic forming of archetypes working in time. In the creative process, the artist becomes seized or fascinated; the archetype rises up in him and he creates the images in his personal form. He shapes them into a "work" because he has been sufficiently aroused to call forth his creative powers.
This process is analogous to that produced through ceremonial magick. At the culmination of the rite comes the assumption of the godform, where the aspirant is seized by the archetypal power he has called up. The creative power of this form subsumes him. His "work" is in fact the Opus of the Great Work, the process of Self-transformation. Drama and dance are closely related in origin to ceremonial magic. So is the art of perfumery, through the development of incenses and fumigations. These scents were designed as psycho-sensory evocations. They call forth certain psychological states.
Rhythmic swaying and dancing, and circumambulations are fundamental in ritual. Modern forms of dance have their origins in rites of the past. According to Julian Jaynes, in The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, ballet is intimately linked with the goddess Artemis, which corresponds with path 25, ART. The golden oracle at Ephesus, famous for its enormous wealth, had trained eunuchs as mouthpieces for the goddess Artemis...and the abnormal dancing on the tips of the toes of modern ballerinas is though to derive from the dances before the altar of the goddess.
La Liberté ou la Mort (1795) by Jean-Baptiste Regnault. - See more at: http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/04/02/darkness-over-all-john-robison-and-the-birth-of-the-illuminati-conspiracy/#sthash.DKxnJKvd.dpuf
(c)2015-2016; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
[email protected]
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
[email protected]
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.