David...

I spent some time yesterday going through your site and having my eyes widened.
Thanks for the experience. If you are familiar with my work, then you'll know
that I'm always on the look out for works that play with symbols in interesting
ways. Or, to be more precise, I'm looking for those artists who have managed to
tap into 'the ancient image language' which underlies our myth, dreams, and art.
I could see this in your work. You have the poet's touch for arranging images in
such a way that they resonate deeply with one another.

The area of your site that interested me the most (we all have our
preferences...) was your digital rendering of the Tarot Arcana. This was GOOD.
As a matter of fact, it was great, grand, deep and mind-sweeping. I'll have to
return again to examine the works more closely.

Your Dark Moon series also requires another look. At first glance, it doesn't
come together in a way that makes sense to me immediately. But, there's enough
there to invite a second viewing in the attempt to penetrate deeper into the
imagery. The net is great for exposing work to the world. But, our tv habits
keep encouraging us to click the mouse (change channels), to rove and scan with
our eyes onto something new. Meanwhile, the works of art which you and I produce
require meditation and prolonged concentration. So, difficult experiences
underlying those works will require more effort on my part, the viewer, before
they may be extricated. Each painting is a mirror to experiences that lie deep
in the viewer. Not all these may rise to the surface immediately.

Like you, I've had the strange experience of finding myself, unexpectedly, in
some very dark areas in my soul. To be honest, I don't want to go back there.
Producing art from those experiences is also quite a task. It took me years of
emotional distance before I decided to go back (maybe that's just me). The work
that shows this on my site is the underworld of The Pearl painting (which is
still being painted - adding more smoke and atmosphere to the underworld). So, I
understand that what you've done is no easy task.

And I have more respect for Giger everyday...

I also found the Childhood series interesting (not to mention hilarious), the
Holocaust images moving (I've read quite a few accounts by survivors and visited
Auschwitz), and your paintings very accomplished. But, sorry, your daughter's
work is far superior to anything you or I could produce...

Thanks again for opening my eyes to your images.

Laurence Caruana

Hi Laurence. Thank you so much for your letter. It was wonderful to hear from someone who really understands what my work is all about and who can articulate their understanding so well. Would it be alright to quote parts of the letter in the future? I enjoyed your work quite a bit also. I see that you studied with Ernst Fuchs. That must have been incredible--he is one of my artistic heroes. When I first discovered his work about 15 years ago, it was a revelation and really opened some doors for me. Thanks again for your letter--it really made my day.
Sincerely,
David Aronson

David...

If you want to quote parts of my letter - go ahead. (I didn't know my words were
worth quoting...)

Of course, nothing comes without a price. I need something from you -
information.

Here's the story. At present, I'm writing a series of articles on the painter
Johfra for the next issue of the Visionary Revue. You may know his work - he's
the Dutch painter who did the twelve images of the Zodiac that were diffused
everywhere as postcard, posters, and can be found on the web. In fact, he did
much more than that. He died in 1998, and since then some people in Holland have
been publishing and promoting his lesser known works. I know them and, through
me and the Visionary Revue, a lot of this will get onto the web for the first
time.

After the Zodiac Series, Johfra started pursuing darker themes - portraits of
witches, large canvases of witches' sabbaths, and a huge triptych of thousands
of figures swirling around the god Pan. In the sabbath pictures and the Pan
triptych, he has used the iconography of Baphomet. Now, I want to write about
all these pictures, but I am not well-informed about Magick, sabbaths, and the
occult. I think I know the background to all these traditions, as I'm very
familiar with the Corpus Hermeticum, ancient Mystery and Fertility cults. But
the European paganism and occult stuff - magick, wicca - has not, until now,
been on my reading list.

So, can you direct me to some good, intelligent, informative areas on the web
where I can do my research? And can you yourself suggest what these paintings
display, in a deeper, philosophical sense? Sorry I haven't gotten around to
scanning the images, otherwise I'd send them. But, basically, the important
painting shows the Sabbath as naked women kneeling round a cauldron on the fire,
hands raised in worship. Above them is an older bearded male, also naked, with a
red cape and Bishop's hat with the cross inverted. And from there, hundreds of
naked figures are taking flight from the earth and swirling through the darkened
heavens, in a kind of walpurgisnacht. At the centre of these swirling multitudes
is Baphomet - cross-legged, arms out-stretched and pointing downwards, goat's
head and horns, woman's breasts and a phallus-caduceus. Between his horns blazes
a torch that offers the only light in this cloudy dark landscape. From Giger's
Necronomicon, I have Eliphas Levi's interpretation of the iconography of
Baphomet.

What I'm looking for really is a deeper understanding of the witches sabbath,
walpurgisnacht, and the sources and function of Baphomet. Was this an orgiastic
'union' to promote fertility? Something more? What can you tell me? I know
that Johfra abandoned Hermeticism at this time (resolving duality through a
transcendent unity) in favour of Pantheism (all is here). But the deeper
implications of that movement elude me.

As thanks, I put a small surprise in the mail this morning. Hopefully you'll get
it soon.

Whenever I scan the Johfra images, I'll send them. In the meantime, if you could
help me, I'd be most grateful.

Oh, by the way - the year I spent with Fuchs was difficult (he's a slavedriver)
but amazing. We spent a lot of time together and had many enriching
conversations. Over the last year, I've had to distance myself from him
somewhat, to concentrate on my own vision as an artist. But, I saw him again
last week in Holland - the same old magic is there between us. As fate would
have it, we were brought together by Johfra's widow, Ellen Lorien.

Follow where your heart leads you...

Laurence

Hi Laurence. Wow! There has been so much written on what you want to know about, I
don't know where to start. I'll try to put what I know in a nutshell and answer all your
questions. Witchcraft in Christian Europe is generally believed to have been a
continuation or the surviving remnants of the pre-christian, pre-historic, pagan religions
of Europe. This idea is based on the work of anthropologist Dr. Margaret Murray. These
religions were nature-based and saw divinity inherent in nature and symbolized as male
and female, the God and Goddess. Being matriarchal, the emphasis was placed on the
Goddess. Her consort was the dying and resurrected God. This god was often a horned
god and was connected with animals and hunting. A very good book on the pre-christian
matriarchal religions that I reccomend is "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone.
The witches' sabbaths or "sabbats" were celebrations which coincided with the solstices
and equinoxes. They marked transitions in the natural and agricultural cycle of the year.
Walpurgisnacht was the German name for Beltaine, the spring equinox celebration which
usually included fertility rituals. These rituals often included group sex magick, both real
and symbolic. The maypole is a remnant of this. The word witch comes from the old
anglo-saxon "wicca" which means "wise" or "to bend." Witchcraft involves the practice
of magick, defined by Aleister Crowley as "the art and science of causing change in
conformity with will." In witchcraft, one generally tries to align oneself with natural
forces. When Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, it sought to destroy
the earlier pagan religions. The horned god became the devil and the sabbats became
orgies of murder and sex with demons. If you're interested in the witch-hunts of the
middle ages as I am, much has been written on that. Black masses (which are an
inversion of the catholic mass) and satanism are purely christian inventions. The figure
in the painting you described with the bishop's hat and inverted cross belongs to this
christian subversion of paganism, which leads me to wonder just which perspective
Johfra was viewing witchcraft from. Pan was a Greek horned god representing man's
instinctual nature, specifically lust and fear. Baphomet is a deity (or a demon depending
on your point of view) that was worshipped by the Knights Templar. I don't know much
about baphomet but you can get some information on him at
www.templarhistory.com/baphomet.html and www.templarhistory.com/levi.html
Modern Wicca or neo-paganism is basically a 20th century reconstruction. You can read
a brief essay about the history of Wicca at
www.monmouth.com/~equinoxbook/wicca3.html and
www.religioustolerance.org/wic_hist.htm A good site about the different manifestations
of the horned god is Shrine of the Horned Gods at
www.lugodoc.demon.co.uk/welcome.htm You can read about the different sabbats and
their meanings at www.quillandunicorn.org/issues/3/sabbats.html and
www.antipope.org/feorag/wheel.html I don't know if these are the best links on the web,
but they were the best ones I could find. As far as the deeper meanings of the witches'
sabbath, I am not really a scholar of the occult and I'm sure you can find much written on
this. I can tell you what my own take on it is. If you're looking at it from a pagan
perspective, the sabbat is a celebration of man's oneness with nature. Physical sexuality
is seen as a manifestation of an energetic and spiritual sexuality that pervades all of
creation. All created things exist in duality, and these dualities are all in a continual state
of dancing/lovemaking. Thus sex is sacred to the Goddess and a sacrament. The ancient
pagans also used the energy of sex to help the crops to grow, based on the "like attracts
like" or "as above, so below" idea. This has actually been scientifically proven to be
more than "primitive superstition." Plants are affected by human energy. To my way of thinking, there is really no contradiction between "transcendent unity" and "all is here." It all depends on what perspective you're looking at it from. Magicians and mystics eventually reach the same place coming from different directions. The "truth" that the one is in many and the many in one is something that can't be grasped with the intellect. In fact, all of existence is a dichotomy when you start to examine it on different levels, but the rational mind is not designed to perceive in ways other than dualistically. If you look at the witches' sabbath from a christian perspective, what you see is a projection of the collective "shadow." All the dark, repressed aspects of the European mind were denied and placed onto "the witches," just as later they were placed onto the Jews during the Holocaust. The Burning Times, as the period of the witch-hunts is known, was a multi-faceted psychological and political phenomenon. A good site with info on this is
members.aol.com/runes3/burn.htm An artistic site covering this is
www.crescentmagazine.com/rites/burningtimes/index.html
Hope you find this helpful. I'd love to see the Johfra paintings when you get them
scanned.
David

David...

Thanks for your most intelligent answer, which gave me all the clues I was
looking for, and the paths to follow. This whole area, thanks to Johfra and to
you, is becoming a new area of research for me, with lots of images and ideas to
intrigue me further.

I checked out all the sites you mentioned, and copied the info for more indepth
reading later on. Alas, since unusual books in English are hard to come by in
Paris (and I can't afford them anyway), the net is increasingly becoming a
source of info. Of course, it doesn't go in depth, but the immediate
presentation of basic ideas is irresistible and mind-boggling.

I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind clarifying one point in your answer,
regarding multiplicity, duality, and unity. In my own experience thus far, I've
had the undeniable experience of 'awakening to unity'. This came about through
an intense concentration on the sacred imagery in my own paintings,
(primarily, though also through Fuchs' work and more traditional sacred images).
In part, I was aided by entheogens (hashish), but I now find I can get there
without it. This 'unity' is very much like the 'the One' described in
Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism, and even Gnosticism. The sacred images become
transparent to their source, and I feel myself once more in a timeless state of
belonging and unity with the Sacred One from whence I came and to which, one
day, I will return. Images are memory-clues to remembering all this.

Now, the images themselves and the techniques that bring me there may, in some
sense, influence the type of mystical experience I'm having. My experience could
be labeled 'Deity mysticism', whereas there also exists 'Nature mysticism' and
even 'formless mysticism'. I'm thinking that if I went further into the imagery
and practices of wicca, magick, and so on, it would lead me more to an
experience of 'Nature mysticism'. The impetus to follow that path is purely
personal. I made a painting called The Sacrifice not long ago which uses imagery
from my Maltese roots, imagery that centers the sacred experience on growth,
fertility, and the Goddess. I'm now in the process of deciphering that imagery
(which means, I meditate, contemplate, and even 'enter through' the image to the
sacred experience 'on the other side' of the painting's doorway). The stuff I'm
reading and researching now about pagan fertility rites gives me some of the
keys I need to open the doorways of those more ancient images.

And then, Johfra comes into all of this. Now that his life's work as an artist
has been published, it becomes clear that he went from Hermeticism to Pantheism.
Or, if you wish, from Deity mysticism to Nature mysticism. He stopped painting
canvases with sacred and esoteric imagery (the Zodiac, Unio Mystica), and
started painting portraits of witches, witches' sabbats, and large paintings of
Pan, Cernnunos, and Pluto. In conversation with his widow, Ellen Lorien, she
told me that he became fed up with the dualism in Hermeticism - body/soul,
above/below - and found the solution to their unity in Pantheism. But, she never
really elaborated on that statement.

So, now the big question I have to ask you (sorry for so much preamble...). In
your letter you said "All created things exist in duality, and these dualities
are all in a continual state of dancing/lovemaking." Meanwhile, "the sabbat is
a celebration of man's oneness with nature. Physical sexuality is seen as a
manifestation of an energetic and spiritual sexuality that pervades all of
creation." The duality that exists in paganism - is it the duality of male /
female - and the orgiastic union is manifesting their unity? Or is it 'the many
and the One'? And the many find themselves to be manifestations of growth, all
entwined and interlaced in the creeping vine or ever-spreading web of life? All
of this is something that, thus far, I've grasped intuitively but not
experienced with full-blown awareness.

I don't expect absolute answers. But your own experiences in this regard would
interest me. As well (if you have the time), I'd be interested in knowing how
you use the images you've created. Have you stared at them for a long period of
time (as a kind of contemplation, with or without drugs). I'm wondering if other
artists have experienced some of the things I have.

Once again, thanks for your last letter, which spoke both to my intelligence and
intuition.

Stay creative,

Laurence

Hi Laurence. I'm glad you found my information useful. I'll jump right into trying to
answer your question. The dichotomies of unity/duality and "many/one" are based on
perception. When incarnated in physical bodies we perceive the universe as consisting of
separate things and tend to classify them in terms of duality. This is normal and what our
brains were designed to do. We could not survive in the physical world otherwise.
(Have you ever read "The Doors of perception" by Aldous Huxley?) When we perceive
things from a soul perspective (the mystical experience) then we see the unity of all
things and how the unity expresses itself in diversity. A good analogy is drops of water
in an ocean. Each drop is individual and unique yet is part of the larger whole. When
you step back, you don't see each individual drop, just the ocean. Also, from a soul
perspective, one can accept paradoxes and contradictions, because one sees that existence
is full of them and that all positions and points of view are valid. People tend to get
confused because they confuse these two states of mind. Have you ever read any of the
"Don Juan" books by Carlos Castaneda? A good example of this confusion is in the very
first book "The Teachings of Don Juan" when Don Juan gives Castaneda a
hallucinogenic drug and Castaneda experiences himself as a crow flying around and
seeing everything through a crow's eyes. When he returns to "normal" he is confused and
wants Don Juan to tell him if he "really" became a crow. Don Juan replies that of course
he did. Castaneda wants to know what someone else would have seen if they were
watching him while under the influence of the drug. After much discussion and
misunderstanding, Don Juan sees what castaneda's problem is and tells him that if
someone else had taken the drug, they would have seen him become a crow. If they had
not taken the drug, they would see his human body sitting there. To Don Juan, the
experience of becoming a crow was just as real as the experience of being human. Only
the point of view, of perception, had shifted.
I can relate to Johfra's being fed up with the soul/body duality. That is one of the
reasons I was drawn to paganism myself. All Western religions (barring their mystical
sects) contain this soul/body split and usually the body is denigrated--made "dirty" or at
best, less important. In paganism, you take your body with you. God is right here and
now in your body, in other's bodies, in the grass, trees, wind, water, etc. Each woman is
the Goddess and each man the God. Sex is a joyful sacrament--a reminder of the unity of
all things and a way to experience divinity. All things have their own intelligence which
can be communicated with. We are an integral part of our environment, not separate,
alienated conquerors of nature as we have become in the modern western world. In
paganism, one personifies the intangible forces of nature, of the human mind and spirit,
and of the universe as deities. Thus you have gods, goddesses and spirits that personify
just about every force and natural phenomenon known to man and all can be called upon
and worked with.
My own mystical experiences have come from many sources. Psychedelic drugs,
surely, but they are not the main source. I've had many experiences through the practice
of yoga, some from magick ritual, and many were simply spontaneous.
Hope you find this helpful.

David

Hello hello...

I had a deeper look into your website last night, and enjoyed much of what I
saw. In particular, I read a sampling of poems related to the Holocaust (in all
its forms), and went a bit deeper into the Holocaust images. Then, I chanced
upon the Dialogue on the Holocaust and read it through with much interest.

The whole subject is, at one and the same time, fascinating and dangerous.
Fascinating, because the threat to life, and even to the life of an entire
people or culture, makes us want to pay attention, be on our guard, be prepared.
But it is also dangerous, because the evil manifest in those events emerges from
a bottomless abyss. Our fascination can easily draw us down, ever further, into
that dark and infinite expanse. Imagining the pain and suffering, the cruelty
and survival. Navigating the way through those regions in our mind and soul is
no easy task.

I can only say that, in my case, I was more fascinated by the tales of survival
than the accounts of brutality and suffering. Most meaningless of all, in a way,
are the statistics. What numbers could possibly account for infinite pain and
humiliation suffered by even one individual?

I better stop here. But I'll add, as perhaps something of interest to you, a
couple of short poems that came to me during my visit to Auschwitz in 1987.

Have you received the Manifesto yet? If so, I hope it offers you at least one
person's view onto Visionary art, sustained with quotations from others.

You mentioned yoga in your last e-mail, saying that it, along with psychedelics,
magick, etc brought you to certain mystical experiences. I pick up on that
because I've been having my own experiences and doing my own research in those
areas. In sources like Heinrich Zimmer (Artistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred
Images of India) and Eliade (Yoga: Immortality and Freedom), I am learning more
about ekagrata - concentration on a fixed point - both in our seeing and our
meditation. This helps describe the experiences I've had while meditating on
images. My gaze remains fixed on one point, and gradually my focus expands to
include all the images on the periphery. A new way of focusing the eyes is
achieved. At first, a white haze intervenes. But then, things become three
dimensional, acquire great presence, and the symbols become transparent to their
source. The painting becomes a doorway and I enter through it. Not only new ways
of seeing, but of understanding are then experienced. The images bring us there.

It's strange to find confirmation of these experiences in my reading of Zimmer,
but not with any other Visionary artist I've met. We've all experienced amazing
things, but not necessarily 'the same' amazing things. How many modalities of
perception are there? Have you had the above experience? And, if not, what
meaningful visionary experiences have you had - that you can articulate? I'd
like to think dialogue is possible in this realm (aside from the dialogue of
images...)

By the way, I've read a few of the Castaneda books. I'm immensely intrigued, but
not a devotee. My feeling is that much of his presentation is a hoax (Castaneda
the stumbling anthropologist apprenticing himself to don Juan). BUT, beyond the
'surface' presentation are a series of really fascinating insights which
couldn't be presented in any other way. He's using this means of presentation to
express alternative insight and experiences he's had - some 'real', some
'imaginary'. It's like alchemy in way, when the adept may think that the goal is
to really produce gold. Once 'the hoax' is overcome, the real task begins. Same
with Castaneda and his version of shamanism. But, he sometimes goes too far for
me. Doubt creeps back in, and 'the hoax' emerges once more. Well, the shaman was
always the trickster - half fakery, half real magick...

OK, enough for today. By the way, I updated my website and mentioned your site
on my opening page, as well as adding a link. I'd be happy to introduce other
people to your work.

I'll append the poems at the end....

Keep your fingers busy,

Laurence

***********************************

FROM AUSCHWITZ

His wounded feet fall upon painful stones
As the tattered figures traverse the path
Dug between dark buildings.
In his solitude,
He screams silently from throbs of pain.
His is a private pain
Which, with his thoughts
Of torment, cruelty, and past joy
Are among his few possessions.
Shoes:
Worn, gaping, torn,
Lined with rags and stitched with wire,
Shoes are the temporary shelter
Wherein he hopes to dwell,
The brief reprieve from painful rock.
Tonight,
As the blood red sun rolls
Under distant, darkened skies,
A corpse hangs, gently,
From the gallows.
Supper.
The piece of bread carefully torn
And dipped in thin soup.
The bowl, holding merely his sustenance,
emptied.
In dreams that night
He searches foreign languages for words
To give these atrocities
Their testament.

.........................................

BIRKENAU

The sunset
Burning bright, furious and red
Through a haze of smoke and human ash.
The sunset of Mankind.

Hi Laurence. Yes, I did get your manifesto and have read most of it. It is really
wonderful. It is the first intelligent and articulate treatise on visionary art that I've read
that doesn't degenerate into psuedo-mystical gobbledy-gook. It is very comprehensive.
Also, thanks for the wonderful inscription and for including my name in future drafts.
That was quite flattering. (Please send me a copy when you do the next draft). The
manifesto really pulled everything together for me. It connected various ideas,
experiences and artists (all of which I've studied or which interest me) which I would not
have thought of as falling under the heading "visionary art." I thought only people who
made pictures of "dolphins and pyramids" called themselves "visionary." As a result, I
have added the word visionary to my website description. All the artists you mention in
the book are ones that I love and that have influenced me tremendously. It's really great--
thanks for sending it to me.

(Laurence's Manifesto of Visionary Art can be seen at http://VisionaryRevue.tripod.com)

I agree with you that it may be psychologically dangerous to become fascinated
with pain and suffering and get drawn into dark spaces. This has not been a problem for
me because my intention has always been to heal. I moved through the Holocaust project
and released whatever needed to be released in myself. I hardly ever think about it now.
The first major mystical experience I had was in my early 20s. I was working at a
summer camp as a counselor and arts and crafts teacher. I had been doing yoga regularly
for a while. One day after I got done my routine, I suddenly felt as if I had taken some
powerful lsd. I had the experience of feeling as one with all people and all of life. This
profound, blissful state of mind lasted for several hours. After this, I started to
experience "information" coming into my mind from a seeming outside source. I realized
that I had created all the situations I found myself in and that I had the power to change
them and create whatever I wanted. Shortly after this, I was laying in bed reading Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I had a sudden flash of illumination in which I
"understood," in a non-linear, non-verbal way, the "meaning" of life, the universe and
everything. This illumination lasted about a minute or two and then faded. I anxiously
tried to find the passage in the book that had triggered it but was unable.
I am including below a "poem" about my role as an artist which I found echoed in
your manifesto and an essay about an lsd experience I had.
Feel free to introduce my work to anyone you wish...
David

Artist's Statement

Art has chosen me.
I have not chosen it.
It has chosen me
in order to make the invisible visible
To make the intangible tangible.
The role an artist plays
emerges from the human experience
as naturally as plants emerge
from the earth,
independent of any notions of
"practicality."
It's value can not and need not
be grasped by the intellect.
I have not chosen art.
It has chosen me.

David Aronson
July, 2000

The Trip
David Aronson

As my cousin Joe and I walked along the luminous, green-dappled forest path, the
sunlight's warmth on my skin rejuvenated me and imbued me with a feeling of peace and
well-being.
Thirty minutes had passed since I swallowed the tiny piece of blotter paper
soaked in LSD. Joe, in order to be my guide, had not dropped any acid.
Joe had been my unofficial mentor in metaphysics ever since we ran into each
other in an occult bookstore. We hadn't seen each other since art school, five years
earlier, and we discovered that we shared a mutual interest in Magick-the art and science
of causing change (in consciousness and the environment) to occur in conformity with
will. Joe belonged to a secret lodge which practiced high ritual Magick in the Western
tradition and I eagerly absorbed all the information he was willing to impart.
Recently, I had been given some acid and Joe had agreed to be my guide-to stay
straight and facilitate the trip. My intentions were to break through old psychological
barriers of pain and trauma and reach healthier, more enlightened levels of awareness.

Now, striding buoyantly down the dirt path, everything around me, the trees,
grass, rocks, even the very air, shimmered and vibrated as if revealing previously hidden
animation. The environment took on a hyper-clarity-every detail was sharp and precise.
Solid objects became fluid and shifted and swirled. I sensed an immense, swelling
presence-an omnipresent intelligence-behind the thin facade of my physical surroundings.
Joy and exhilaration accompanied these perceptions, yet, at the same time, I felt
anxiety creeping into my psyche. Walking rigidly, I tried to ignore my escalating panic.
Joe made conversation, but I found it difficult to respond. I would have to deal with my
fear if I wanted to have a good trip.
"Joe...I'm afraid," I said.
"I know," he said.
"What should I do?"
"Just be with the fear."
I immediately began to relax. Joe had given me permission to just experience
whatever I happened to be experiencing in the moment. In the past, when I tripped with
other people, I never allowed myself to just go with whatever was happening to me
internally for fear of my companions ridiculing or abandoning me. On the few occasions
when I tripped alone, the anxiety and self-hatred that manifested were overwhelming and
I resisted them, thus, never moving through them into the states of bliss and ecstatic
oneness with the universe which I had read about but never experienced. I was
determined that this time would be different.
I picked up a tiny, green, translucent inchworm and balanced it on the tip of my
finger. Marveling at it's fragility, I remarked, "You know...I could squash this inchworm
right now...or...I could let it live; it's all up to me."
"Yes...it is," said Joe. He understood the profundity of my seemingly inane
statement. In that moment, I recognized that possessing free will was an immense and
overwhelming responsibility.
Articulating the thoughts and perceptions I experienced during the acid trip is
difficult; the nonlinear modes of consciousness I found myself in are very different from
everyday states of mind and don't lend themselves well to being strung out in linear
sentences. While under the influence of LSD, information flowed into my brain in big
chunks of holistic, all-at-once knowing. Some of it is now lost forever because, not being
in the state of mind I was in when I received the information, I can't access it.
The illumination triggered by the inchworm had facets and nuances to it that just
can not be put into words. It was as if the entire phenomenon of free will with all it's
meaning and implications was contained within a single non-verbal cognition.
After we had discussed free will for a while, Joe and I continued along the sunlit
forest trail. To one side of us, a wire fence revealed beautiful, grassy, gently sloping
meadows which rolled away towards a farm in the distance. I could make out the tiny
figure of a farmer riding his tractor. This idyllic scene was in sharp contrast with my still
considerable anxiety.
At some point, I decided that I needed to stop walking and we sat down on the
edge of the path. A nun came walking down the path towards us. I couldn't tell how much
of my inner turmoil was visible on my face and was afraid that the nun would react
unfavorably towards me, so I lowered my head.
"Hi," she said and smiled at us as she passed by. I managed a feeble "Hi" of my
own. I must not have looked as fucked-up as I felt.
Insights about the crucifixion of Jesus, which, unfortunately, are now forgotten,
suddenly flooded my mind and words came spewing out of my mouth. I didn't have to
think; the information was just there and I was a conduit for it.
"That's the true, inner, esoteric meaning of the crucifixion," Joe said, "Of which,
that nun probably doesn't have a clue."
He then went into a diatribe about the sterility of organized religion and the
ignorance and shallowness of the clergy.
Although normally I tended to agree with Joe, I was now seeing things from a
different perspective. I said, "You don't know what that nun is like. Maybe she's really
spiritual; maybe she has mystical experiences."
"You're right," he said after a pause. "I'm sorry."
Joe had been pretty malicious and I had criticized him for it, yet I was guilty of
the same thing.
"You know what, Joe? I don't say shit about people like you do, but I think it-all
the time."
Being honest felt good. I was no longer hiding from my own reality. The way
through my fear was to tell the truth.
A bizarre state of mind then ensued. It was as if I had been hypnotized and age-
regressed to various points in my childhood, but the points were experienced
simultaneously. I was twelve, seven, and three years old, an infant, and my present self,
all at the same time. Each of these child-selves alternately spoke of their pain, anger, and
confusion in an age-appropriate voice, except for the infant, whose pre-verbal thought
processes I experienced as inchoate, primitive ebbs and flows of emotion, desire, and
frustration.
I, or rather, my youthful selves, screamed and cried and rambled on for what
seemed like hours. Each child's pain had a distinctive quality. The twelve-year-old was
resigned to his suffering; apathetic and despairing, he had already begun to numb
himself. The seven-year-old was still in touch with the immediacy of his emotions, but
was overwhelmed by them. He felt powerless and crushed by the forces that oppressed
him and caused him pain. The three-year-old was angry and threw a tantrum. He wanted
to know why. Why do mommy and daddy yell at each other all the time? Why does he
feel like it's his fault-like he's bad? The infant contributed a pervasive survival anxiety.
Eventually, the whirlpool of grief and anguish subsided and my mind became
clear.
My hands were radiating a palpable energy. I tried to bring them together and
found that I could not; it was like trying to bring together two powerful magnets whose
poles were aligned to resist each other.
"Oh my god, Joe," I gasped, "this is incredible."
"You're lit up like a Christmas tree," said Joe, who was adept at seeing auras.
I played with the energy in amazement for awhile, then I wanted to walk some
more. When I stood up, I suddenly had the sensation of falling and had to sit down again.
"You're in the abyss," said Joe. "It's the space between paradigms. You might
have to stay in it for a while."
As I sat on the ground, waiting for the dizziness to pass, another profound
illumination came to me.
"Joe, we're all mirrors for each other; everything in the universe is a mirror for
everything else."
Again, words cannot adequately describe the enormity or complexity of this
realization. It was as if it actually took up space; as if the very air around us was filled
with this knowledge.
Everything is everything; all parts contain the whole; as above, so below; I am he
as you are he as you are me and we are all together. I was quite familiar with this concept
from my reading, but this was more than a surface intellectual understanding; it was a
deep knowing in the very core of my psyche.
After this peak, I started to gradually come down. Joe and I sat in a field and I
shifted into another interesting state of consciousness which, again, was akin to
something I had read about: the Zen concept of "no-mind." I wasn't thinking about
anything and I wasn't dwelling on the past or the future; I was just being-totally in the
moment. I was completely at peace-more so than I had ever been in my entire life. Yet I
wasn't drowsy or lethargic. I was dynamically and exquisitely awake and aware. I was
simply existing and it was alright. Everything was alright. I, the world, the universe, was
perfect and just as it should be.

King David

I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord (but
you don't really care for music, do ya?) Well, it goes like this - the fourth,
the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift - the baffled king composing
Halleluja.

Those lines are from a Leonard Cohen song, Halleluja, which I hope you're
familiar with. Jeff Buckley does an amazing version on one of his albums. The
lyrics move into a sexual mysticism which is just incredible...

Thanks for the commentary on my Manifesto. I'm glad it brought things together
for you - which is pretty much why I wrote it for myself. I needed to bring
together various sources that, I knew deep down, constituted a whole. The
'invisible landscape' is something which, I'm convinced, exists. Your account of
your acid trip confirms that. Through psychedelics and other means, alternative
states of consciousness are revealing structures of world and mind which, until
now, have not been understood or expressed in language. The role of the artist,
as I see it, is not only to lead his life in such a way as to have those
experiences, but to be able to articulate them, through words, music or images -
the more eloquently, the better. Representing these states is one aspect,
creating images that can evoke them is another.

I read through your account of your trip a number of times, appreciating it in
different ways. The struggle to describe the experience through our everyday
language - that struggle I understand deeply, and is there, in your account. Two
events in particular struck me as familiar. One, the sudden awareness of free
choice. In my case, I became acutely aware how, each day, we 'intend' a thousand
different tasks. And yet, we could also turn our will toward a higher spiritual
purpose, and 'intend' something much more sacred and holy. The paths of the
saints and great spiritual healers show us the way through life when we begin to
'will' in this manner. In your case, willing not to thoughtlessly destroy life
(the inchworm), brings us along a spiritual path that recognizes animal and plant
life - all life - as sacred.

The second event was your sudden ability to experience yourself from different
ages simultaneously. I don't know if I had that quite as intensely as you did,
but I was amazed at how clearly I could remember and 'speak in' my earlier
ego-formations. They could even speak to each other. This aspect of 'regression'
is quite amazing. Eliade described the stages of the alchemical opus, with their
repeated imagery of death and rebirth, as 'a regression to the pre-natal state'.
That's why the alchemical child appears in the vas at the end of the opus. I read
that when I was trying to figure out the imagery of my painting Christ Alchemist,
which came to me in a dream. Reading that blew my mind, because it brought
together the dream, the painting, and certain hashish-assisted meditations on the
painting, where I experienced just such a regression.

Stanislav Grof writes about that - the healing that can be felt through life
regression. I can't say I've gone that far myself - complete natal regression,
culminating in an experience of death and rebirth. But, enough people have
related those experiences to me that I regard it as a part of the 'invisible
landscape' which I could journey into one day. Overcoming fear - that's another
big one. The fear of losing it, and going insane. I don't underestimate the
danger of these experiments, as well as the possible rewards. Ah, the hero's
journey....

If you've read other material, or come across other artists, whose insights or
works you think should be in the manifesto, please tell me. I'm not really
looking to go 'broader' - into whole areas of art that parallel it (eg - a lot of
the West Coast stuff I see in Juxtapoz). I want to go 'deeper' - into those
territories of the mind that I may have only touched on the surface. Of course,
the mind's topography is infinite, but you have to start laying out your map
somewhere...

It's been good talkin' to ya...

Center yourself in joy.

Laurence