The archive
Library // archive
Dear reader, welcome to the library, a resource relating to visionary and sacred art, psychology and culture. The study inter-relates on many profound levels of world history, consciousness, science & technology, botany, evolution and culture. Where possible we endevour to cite and reference sources. We hope this library will help artists, researchers, authors and students understand the historical, traditional, psychological and spiritual contexts to the world of visionary art and culture.
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Anadenanthera
By Neil Logan December 1999 Plants containing entheogenic tryptamines are known around the world and are represented in nearly every Family. These plants commonly have an abundance of folk and medicinal history…
Jul 2026
Shamanism Versus Capitalism
By Martin A. Lee Wander long enough through the bustling passageways of any crowded village marketplace in the northwest Amazon river basin and youll come upon herbalist stands with dried plants, hanging…
Jul 2026
Cybernetics & Entheogenics
Peter Lamborn Wilson From Cyberspace to Neurospace 1996 The term “Neurospace” I learned from the Kiev artist Vladimir Muzehesky, through Geert Lovink. What I immediately thought he meant by it was a…
Jul 2026
Psychology of the Future : Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
Holotropic Experiences and Their Healing and Heuristic Potential. The source of observations explored in this article has been long-term systematic study of what academic psychiatry calls ‘altered’ or ‘non-ordinary states of consciousness.’…
Jul 2026
Body Signs : Body Decoration and Sensory Symbolism in South America
By : David Howes Sociology and Anthropology Concordia University Montreal . Quebec CANADA H3G 1M8 Westerners are accustomed to seeing photographs of native South Americans with elaborately painted bodies or with lips…
Jul 2026
Wise Mind – A Case for the Integration of Subjective Experience with Objective Reality in the Age of Fragmentation
By: Flore Singer Aaslid (flore.aaslid@svt.ntnu.no) Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Abstract The manner in which reality is perceived and conceptualized has profound implications for many levels of human existence. From…
Jul 2026
Ritual
By : The Bricoleur Ritual can be described in various ways. Here are the most accurate descriptions I can think of: Mircea Eliade, a pioneer in the study of religion and spirituality,…
Jul 2026
Red K Elders Interview
Red K Elders has honoured us with her time and energy to give an interview into the nature of her skillful, potent and aesthetic imagery that invokes powerful principle archetypes, energies and entities of pan-European and Mediterranean mythologies. We hope dear reader you will enjoy this conversation which seeks to explore deep into the practice of this remarkable artist.
Nov 2023
PSYCHOSIS: “Experimental” and Real
It is not difficult to see how insights, whether into oneself or the outside world, can precipitate "psychotic" episodes, and why from that point onward the individual is likely to find it difficult to articulate with the culture. There are at least two ways in which an "insight" can trigger a neurological "jam session": (1) by arousing an intense emotion and thus altering the chemical composition of the blood and consequently the functioning of the brain, and (2) by a sudden collapse of boundaries between two or more cognitive structures previously kept separated from each other, within that particular individual's total set of cognitive structures.
Oct 2023
Elisabeth Landgraf Interview – Trancing the Sacred
Elisabeth Landgraf is a remarkable artist whose life journey weaves from the mountainous landscapes of South Korea to the bustling streets of Paris and the picturesque vistas of Scotland. A journey not just across continents, but through the realms of self-discovery
Sep 2023
An Introduction to Ernst Fuchs
Ernst Fuchs was an extraordinarily talented and multifaceted Austrian artist born on February 13, 1930. He was a master of several mediums including painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, and he also ventured into architecture, stage designing, poetry, and singing. Fuchs was a pivotal figure in the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, a movement he co-founded. His legacy places him as one of the pivotal founders of contemporary visionary art and one of the great preservers and reinvigorators of the timeless legacy of sacred art.
Sep 2023
Hesiod, Theogony, Part 1 – Hymn to the Muses
A reading of 'Hymn to the Muses' from Hesiods Theogony. Read by Daniel Mirante and accompanied by high-res closeups of 'Parnassus', by Andrea Mantegna, oil and egg tempera painting.
Aug 2023
Igor Volos Interview
Igor Volos stands as a bridge between the past and the present. His artworks embody a deep reverence for the traditional forms and artistic techniques of various cultures, while infusing them with his own unique vision and contemporary interpretation, inviting viewers to contemplate the intertwining threads of history, culture, and the ever-evolving nature of artistic expression.
Jun 2023
Hymn to Proserpine
“Hymn to Proserpine” is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in Poems and Ballads in 1866. The poem is addressed to the goddess Proserpina, the Roman equivalent of Persephone, but laments the rise of Christianity for displacing the pagan goddess and the pantheon.
Jun 2023
Brief History of Transpersonal Psychology
The renaissance of interest in Eastern spiritual philosophies, various mystical traditions, meditation, ancient and aboriginal wisdom, as well as the widespread psychedelic experimentation during the stormy 1960s, made it absolutely clear that a comprehensive and cross- culturally valid psychology had to include observations from such areas as mystical states, cosmic consciousness, psychedelic experiences, trance phenomena, creativity, and religious, artistic, and scientific inspiration.
Mar 2023
Novalis: Hymns to the Night (Part I)
Novalis, pseudonym of Friedrich Leopold, Freiherr von (baron of) Hardenberg, (born May 2, 1772, Oberwiederstedt, Prussian Saxony [Germany]—died March 25, 1801, Weissenfels, Saxony [Germany]), early German Romantic poet and theorist who greatly influenced later Romantic thought. Seven…
Feb 2023
The Subcreation Theory of J.R.R. Tolkien
A discussion delving deep into J.R.R Tolkiens' personal philosophy of the creative process- 'subcreation' and how it was informed by his spirituality.
Feb 2023
Kuba Ambrose – An Interview (2022)
The paintings of Kuba Ambrose explore the timeless and ongoing relationship between humankind and the Creator. We are very grateful to Kuba Ambrose for taking time from his paintings to participate in an interview about his thoughts on art, history and prayer.
Oct 2022
The Art of Summer Gillett
Summer Gillett is an Australian artist practicing in Northern Rivers, New South Wales Australia. Her work is strikingly beautiful and resonates with aesthetic sensibilities that are pre-modern and to a certain extent traditional, but not provincial - imbued with an esoteric dimension that reflects on contemporary spiritual concerns about the role of the priestess figure or oracle in the contemporary world.
Aug 2022
The Kafno Ikon – An Exploration
Biblical and Historical Explanation for the First Original Monumental KAFNO Icon painted by Tanya Maria Semaan who generously provided this exegesis of the Ikon.
Jun 2022
The Mistress of Vision by Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson's poem 'The Mistress of Vision' was written and worked on c.1895‒6 while FT was living at Pantasaph, and it was first published in New Poems (1897) in a section titled 'Sight and Insight'.
Jun 2022
On Raglan Road by Kavanaugh Paul
The attested story is that Patrick Kavanagh personally gave Luke the poem.
The setting of the ballad to the air of the older song 'The Breaking of the Day', which Kavanagh himself desired, is in no way straightforward; in fact it's a work of musical genius.
That's why Kavanagh probably thought "I can't fit the words and music quite right, I've tried; if anyone can, this man can do it."
Jun 2022
Moses and the Burning Bush by Rick Jacobi
Contemporary painter Rick Jacobi describes the coming about of the biblical symbolism 'Moses and the Burning Bush' painting
May 2022
Protected: 21st Century Visionaries : Oleg Korolev
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Oct 2021
Goddess of the Jewelled Web – The Transmission of the Transpersonal in Visionary Art
Art striving for an existential veracity or 'truth' will be put upon a difficult and confusing road, forking and branching pathways; between on one hand positivist and nominalist systems tending toward rationality (as in 'ratio', to measure), and on the other extreme something akin to pure aesthetics, decor, and the enjoyment of a sensoric object. What we wish to seek here is a deeper meaning for the Arts which put Sacred Art upon a respectable and integral foundation.
Sep 2021
Yearning, Sorrow & Desire – The Capriccio of Monsu Desiderio and Descendents
Ruins hold an enigma for artists concerned with the psycho-archeology of culture. Capricci is a yearning for the archaic, it is also a kind of solace for the broken-hearted who feel they are born to times where the ruins are not physical, but symbolic.
Jul 2021
Thomas Cole’s The Course Of Empire (in his own words)
Thomas Cole’s importance and influence as an American artist exploded during the mid‐1830s and his career flourished in the early 1840s. He deeply influenced his immediate peers and successive generations of American artists. He transformed the landscape genre from a reflective art to a medium of expressing historical, social, and political theory.
Jul 2021
Psychedelia & Visionary Art
This essay investigates the poetics of visionary art as a result of interactions between local cultures and non-ordinary states of consciousness. We seek, through brief examples, to draw a parallel between images produced in the past, images produced by Amazonian tribes, and the production of contemporary artists and to point out series of
meaningful coincidences between them.
Apr 2021
Remaking Cultural Sense – The Symbolist World of Peladan
Symbolism is a forerunner of contemporary visionary art. It prefigures the transformation from classical and traditional premodern forms into a more dynamic, idiosyncratic personal vision. It is with great pleasure that Era Of Visions can share this original interview with Sasha Chaitow, who generously shared her expertise. Sasha is a contemporary scholar of the Symbolist Movement, who has focussed her research on the enigmatic, influential figure known as Peladan.
Mar 2021
Psychedelic-Visionary Art: Possible Kitch Incursions?
This paper aims to make a brief reflection on kitsch and psychedelic-visionary artistic production. The words psychedelic-visionary here are being used together representing the same concept.
Jan 2021
Peresvet, Oslyabya, Divine Gloom
The key to understanding the symbolism of the painting's composition is found in the interpretations of the "Mystical Theology" of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. As you maybe aware, the most Luminous Darkness, of the Divine Gloom is a theological term from the Orthodox Apophatic theology, which is based on the" negative" way of perception on it's way of the search for the Ultimate truth through the denial of everything that which is not It.
Jan 2021
Psychegnosis
The altruistic and compassionate instinct in humanity seeks for the wellbeing of the entire community if not all sentient beings, and so the reason for application of spiritual effort is not only driven by the individuals longing for Union but also for the spiritual enlightenment of humanity and for the reduction of suffering wherever possible. We can call this collective effort 'The Great Work'. As its heart or centre is the individual communion with the Divine, which we have described as autopsychegnosia.
Jan 2021
Gustave Moreau’s “Archeological Allegory”
Against the supposed claims of such work to historical authenticity, Moreau formulated a principle of "archeological allegory," which entailed the use of archeological source material in highly eccentric, deliberately anachronistic ways in his compositions.
Dec 2020
Some general properties of self-regulating open hierarchic order (SOHO)
The regenerative potential of organisms and societies manifests itself in fluctuations from the highest level of integration down to earlier, more primitive levels, and up again to a new, modified pattern. Processes of this type seem to play a major part in biological and mental evolution, and are symbolized in the universal death-and-rebirth motive in mythology.
Dec 2020
H. R. Giger and the Zeitgeist of the Twentieth Century
A penetrating and groundbreaking analysis of the biomechanical, transhuman, mystical and perinatal imagery in the artistic oeuvre of Han Rudi Giger.
Nov 2020
A Cosmological Hypothesis
The following pages by Dr. A. Kafkalides have been taken from his book (in Greek) Beyond the Boundaries of the Womb which was left unfinished in 1987 due to his death. We thank John Alevizos , Nicholas Biniaris and Jody Morgan for the translation of the pages into English.
Nov 2020
Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal
A seminal text introducing the terms Imaginal and Mundus Imaginalis, and their distinction from the merely imaginary or utopian.
Nov 2020
To See a World: Art and the I of the Beholder
Like huge successive waves crashing ashore, worldviews succeed one another, and the avant-garde, at its best, were the great surfers of these waves. And now that the postmodem wave is washing on the shore of its own demise, what new waves are forthcoming? What new worldviews surge from the ocean of the soul to announce a new perception?
Oct 2020
An Interview with Pablo Amaringo
The late Pablo Amaringo trained as a curandero in the Amazon, healing himself and others from the age of ten, but gave this up in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher at his Usko-Ayar school. Pablo left us this November 2009, and this interview is posted in homage to this great Artist and great Man.
Oct 2020
Flowing Light – The Art of A. Andrew Gonzalez
A. Andrew Gonzalez, of San Antonio, Texas, has been depicting the human form "as temple and vessel sublimed by transformative forces" for over 15 years. Empowered by an artistic mission to "transform the collective imagination",
Oct 2020
On Visionary Art
The Visionary lineage predates religion, and has informed sacred art across the millennia. The Visionary artist is the eternal poet – ‘ein verschollener Stil’ is the grammar through which they speak. The lineage from these founding fathers is subtle but true. From the shaman’s etchings, this artistic spirit continues into the carvings of the ancients.
Oct 2020
Beyond Mind – Steps to a Meta-transpersonal Psychology
Though broadening the scope of consciousness may give access to the transpersonal realm and the experiences of cosmic unity, and so on, that are characteristic of it, this does not necessarily amount to the transcendence of ego-delusion.
Jul 2020
Introduction to Transpersonal Perinatal Psychology
The symbolism of regression to the womb can be found in shamanism, myths of great heroes, fairy tales, and initiation rites. Recurring patterns of symbolic regression and rebirth appears to be a fundamental way in which pre- and perinatal experience influences postnatal consciousness.
Jun 2020
The Function Of Art
One of the essential characteristics of art, which consists in a certain intrinsic ‘affinity’ of art with religion, which in certain ways renders artists interpreters of the infinite perfections of God, and particularly of the beauty and harmony of God’s creation.
May 2020
Interview with Brigid Marlin for the “Science and Religion” magazine
Interview with Brigid Marlin for the “Science and Religion” magazine; Moscow, Russiaby by Oleg Korolev, and prepared by Dmitry Zhukov.
May 2020
Principles and Criteria of Art
Man by his theomorphism is at the same time a work of art and also an artist; a work of art because he is an “image'', and an artist because this image is that of the Divine Artist.
May 2020
The Universality of Sacred Art
It must be borne in mind that a sacred symbol is not merely a conventional sign; it manifests its archetype by virtue of a certain ontological law. As Ananda Coomaraswamy has observed, a sacred symbol is, in a sense, that which it expresses. For this very reason, traditional symbolism is never devoid of beauty.
May 2020
The New Eye – Visionary Art and Tradition
The historical lineage of visionary artists masks a deeper and more commanding claim that sets the genre apart from the marvelous idiosyncrasies of outsider art. The claim is that the visionary artist gives personal expression to a transpersonal dimension, a cosmic plane that uncovers the nature that lies beyond naturalism, and that reveals, not an individual imagination, but an imaginal world, a mundus imaginalis.
Apr 2020
The Man With The Golden Coin
Oleg Korolev, magical realism painter, takes us on a journey through the past 150 years of art history and development, exploring the tensions between modernism and the traditional and sacred.
Nov 2019
Ana Suromai by Amanda Sage
On a rainy night in downtown Los Angles, I was invited to the studio of Amanda Sage. Amanda pulls something out that had been tucked away. Unrolling the large linen surface, there was something quite unlike any of her other spiritual, psychedelic work
Nov 2019
Toward a Bio-Ethic in Painting – Part 1
Developing an understanding of eco-friendly materials, and how to make a holistic assessment of their impacts and potentially less impactful materials in our studio practice.
Nov 2019
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RecommendedChosen by the editors
H. R. Giger and the Zeitgeist of the Twentieth Century
An essay full of insight into the nature of H.R Giger's enigmatic art.