FRED TOMASELLI: Untitled • 84 x 120 in • 2000 • Photocollage • God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your

ur eyes shall be opened, and ye

Acrylic, leaves, pills, insects, resin on wood panel shall be as gods... the serpent, Genesis 3
 The Kingdom of Heaven lies within you. Jesus Christ, Luke 17:20-21
CONTENTS
6. St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution
11. Lizbeth Rymland
Entheo Art is any creation intended to awaken the God or Spirit within. 
The sacred art of prior cultures brought visionary symbolism into the service of 25. Interview with Jan Kounen
religion.  What’s fascinating, given our access to world culture, is that angel
iconography of wings, brilliant color and luminosity is common to the archetypal 36. Avatar The Gathering
spirit-beings in the collective divine imagination. For many artists presented in this issue
42. Tool: Sonic Visionaries
the use of entheogens, vision producing sacraments, has been a catalyst for their art. 
For an artist like Fred Tomaselli the drugs have literally been part of making the art, by 57. Entheo Art by Higher Glyphiks
using actual pills and cannabis in his resin coated collages.  Tomaselli’s art, which has been
exhibited at the most renown museums of the world, incorporates illegal substances as art
59. The New Eye: Visionary Art and Tradition
materials, creating works that are not only visually arresting but also politically challenging.  by Erik Davis
We are grateful to Kevin Sachs for bringing the article and remarkable artwork of 65. Blair MacKenzie Blake
Dr. Stanislav Grof to the journal.  Grof is the world’s leading LSD researcher and the author 67. The Psychedelic Art and Science of Stanislav Grof by Kevin Sachs
of numerous books that map the human spectrum of consciousness.
   73. Live Painting with the Disco Biscuits
The underground classic film “Renegade” by Jan Kounen is CoSM’s favorite
film.  This writer, director, filmmaker, and artist answers a few questions about his brilliant 75. Entheocentric Salon at CoSM
visioning of the true old-time religion of the American West. 77. Guide to “St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution”
Grateful thanks to our two poet laureate entheogenic freestylers, Lizbeth Rymland
and Blair MacKenzie Blake.    
   ENTHEO ART GALLERY
   Artists that dare to depict positive visionary and mystical experiences and declare
that those experiences occurred through substance-induced altered states are defying the
politically repressive and “soul-phobic” response to these substances in our current culture. 
10. Fred Tomaselli
Artists of our past like Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Keith Haring and R. Crumb;  scientists 13. Maura Holden
like Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick; spiritual leaders like Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi
and Ram Dass; the brave souls who dare to identify a substance as the access to their valu- 15. Xavi
able inspiration, these people are heroes.  Entheo points to the intelligent sacramental and 17. Luke Brown
shamanic use of mind-altering substances.  We want to be very clear that we do not rec-
ommend the use of drugs to anyone.  Entheogenic substances may cause ontological panic 19. Naoto Hattori­
in people who have not yet experienced their own infinitude.  Some people may become 21. Allyson Grey
mentally unbalanced after using drugs both legal and illegal.  Heightened and altered states
can be achieved through meditation, deprivation, near death experiences. Finally, this issue 23. Guy Atchinson
is dedicated to Dr. Albert Hofmann who celebrated his 100th birthday this year.  Without
his discovery of LSD this issue would not exist, our art would not exist, the Chapel would
33. Martina Hoffman
not exist. 47. Michele Wortman
Love, 49. Eli Morgan
51. Trenton Doyle Hancock
Alex and Allyson Grey
53. Erial
P.S.  Last, but certainly the most, our thanks goes to Eli Morgan and Marisa Scirocco for
55. Carey Thompson
masterfully creating this mind blowing double issue #4.
63. Robert Venosa
 Published by
Cosm Press
Contributing Artists:
Alex Grey Chief Editors:
Allyson Grey Alex Grey, Allyson Grey
Brandon Herman
Christopher P.H. Krapek Creative Directors,
Eli Morgan Graphic Design,
Fred Harwin Production
Justin Cohen Marisa Scirocco, Eli Morgan
Marisa Scirocco
Phong Advertising:
Sequoia Emmanuelle Marisa Scirocco, Eli Morgan
Sijay James
Stan Grof Contributing Writers:
­William Radacinski Alex Grey
Allyson Grey
Web Master: Delvin Solkinson
Peter Terezakis Eli Morgan
­­­­ Eve Bradford
Mac Technical Erik Davis
Director Jan Kounen
Joe Saponare Kevin Sachs
Lizbeth Rymland
Website: www.cosm.org Marisa Scirocco
Email: journal@cosm.org
Phone: 212.564.4253 CoSM Press
46 Deer Hill Road
Wappinger Falls,NY
12590

Cover Art: Still from Jan Kounen’s Renegade

Back Cover Art: Detail: Net of Being, Alex Grey

CoSM Journal, published by the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors,

provides a forum for the emergence of Visionary Culture.
CoSM Journal shares with it’s readers the work and stories of
artists, thinkers, and community builders who are dedicated to
transformative living, and committed to the integration of
wisdom and the arts. CoSM Journal is offered to inform,
connect, and inspire this evolving global awareness.
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), was located at
542 W. 27th St., 4th floor, it was a sanctuary in New York City
for contemplation and a center for events encouraging the
creative spirit. The Sacred Mirrors, on display in the Chapel, are
a series of paintings that allow us to see ourselves and each other
as reflections of the divine. CoSM provides a public exhibition of
the Sacred Mirrors and the most outstanding works of mystical art
by Alex Grey. The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is a 501(c)(3)
organization, supported solely by charitable
donations from the community.

If you would like to make a contribution to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors,

please send checks to COSM, 46 Deer Hill Road,
Wappinger Falls,NY, 12590 ALEX GREY • 2006 • 24 x 36 in • Oil on wood panel
www.cosm.org
­­­­
p.6

by Alex Grey
On January 11th, 2006, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD,
Dr. Albert Hofmann, turned 100 years old.  The birthday celebration
was an elegant gathering of family, friends and colleagues held in Basel,
Switzerland at the Museum of Cultures.   My wife Allyson and I were
invited because of our association with psychedelic culture and
participation in a Symposium later that week.  Distinguished guests at the
birthday gathering spoke in German, but even monolinguistic Americans
could understand the reverence and enthusiasm shown in speeches
praising Dr. Hofmann as a scientist and a sage.  A reception followed where
invited guests mingled and toasted.   Allyson and I greeted many old friends
and made some new ones.  I was intrigued to learn that none of the members
of Dr. Hofmann’s large family or any of his relatives, except for his wife, had
ever tried LSD. The good doctor has always steered away from advocacy, yet
has come to feel that some kind of divine intervention or destiny did play a role
in his discovery.    of the elements, like turning lead into gold and the identification of the soul of the
I was especially glad to see Stan Grof and H.R. Giger because they
could not be in attendance at the Symposium. Stanislav Grof is the leading psy-
chedelic researcher, having led over 4,000 LSD psychotherapeutic sessions, and
premier cartographer of the spectrum of consciousness that LSD gives a person
access to.  Grof has commented that LSD is a tool for exploring the mind in
the same way that the telescope gives one access to the celestial realms and the
microscope gives one access to the world of the cellular, molecular and atomic.  LSD brought psyche back, front and
He has also included in all his research some amazing drawings and paintings
by LSD patients and fine artists that help describe the various altered states of
awareness.  Grof has used Giger’s work in many of his books, such as, Realms
of the Human Unconscious, and Beyond the Brain. 
p.7
To honor Dr. Hofmann’s centennial, a three-
day LSD symposium was held January 14, 15, 16 in Basel,
Switzerland.  Leading scientific, psychiatric, pharmaceutical, legal,
artistic, mystical voices spoke on the various physiological, personal,
social and spiritual impacts of LSD.  Dr. Albert Hofmann spoke the first and
last evening and was showered with praise and applause by over two thousand
attendees (we also sang, “Happy Birthday to you…”).   Hofmann was swarmed with
fans wherever he went, and one of the Symposium announcers said, Dr. Hofmann
apologizes that he will not be able to sign everyone’s book, because he explained, “I’m
no longer 90.”
Dr. Hofmann first synthesized the compound LSD-25 in 1938, while research-
ing ergot derivatives as a chemist for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel. The substance
was tested on lab animals with no interesting results, so like hundreds of similar test
compounds, investigation of this drug was abandoned.
Yet, in 1943, at the horrific height of WWII and shortly after Fermi made
his discovery that led to the atomic bomb, Hofmann had a “peculiar presenti-
ment” to re-synthesize LSD.  These were dark days in 1943, I imagine the smoke
of the ovens of Auschwitz psychically wafting over Switzerland.  Hofmann said
that never before or since had he any similar “presentiment.”  His remix of LSD-
25 in April of 1943 was when he discovered the psychological vortex of acid.  He
experienced overwhelming fear of dying and feelings of having left his body and
later, heavenly kaleidoscopic visions.  The first LSD trip, April 19, 1943, is also
widely known as “bicycle day” because of Hofmann’s wild bike ride from his lab to his
home through the streets of Basel, full of perceptual distortions, not knowing whether
he would ever return from his madness.  The last element I painted on the portrait
was a little bike riding Hofmann, and in honor of the good doctor, I was on LSD as I
painted it.
In my portrait of Dr. Hofmann, the eye of transcendental spirit in the upper
left hand corner of the painting releases spiralic streams of primordial rainbow spheres
of potential, one of which becomes a compassionate alchemical angel, whose tears drip
down to anoint or “create” the LSD molecule that the doctor holds in his hands, and
a demon, here identified with Nazi power tugs or pushes at it.  LSD opens a visionary
gateway to the heart, as shown by the spiral of fractally infinitizing eyes resembling
the stripey eye-spheres of the molecule, swirling into the center of the chest.  On St.
Albert’s shoulder blade is a portrait of Paracelsus, the Alchemist of Basel, 500 years ago,
who is credited with founding modern Chemistry, yet his alchemical goal was to dis-
cover the Philosopher’s Stone.  Alchemy was the art and science of the transmutation
alchemist with the chemical transfor-
mations as a metaphor of their journey
to enlightenment.  Modern Chemistry
took the psyche and mystery out of the
material weighed and measured world,
reducing the world to a heap of atoms. 
center to the chemical material world.
H.R. Giger, Stanislav­Grof, Alex Grey p.8
 That is partly why I believe that
LSD is the Philosopher’s Stone, the discovery
of which, also in the town of Basel, is the result of an
alchemical process put in motion by the great Paracelsus.
In the portrait, I painted a lot of LSD personalities and sym-
bolism in the aura of Dr. Hofmann.  Some of these people were Dr.
Hofmann’s friends, like Aldous Huxley, Gordon Wasson, Maria
Sabina and Richard Evans Schultes. Each of these people had a special
connection to psychedelics. Huxley wrote fearlessly about the psychedelic expe-
rience in The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, which also talks about
Visionary states and works of art.
The LSD Symposium could be a turning point in the story of this amaz-
ing molecule, as the subtitle of the conference, “from Problem Child to Wonder
Drug” suggests.   Thousands of people from all over the world came together to
discuss the proven possibilities of LSD in psychotherapy, spirituality, the arts, for
creative problem-solving in all fields. LSD was misused and abused by the CIA,
and also by many people who catalyzed their own latent psychoses by seeking a
recreational high .   
Yet, as has been proven in the Good Friday Experiment and in follow-up
studies, that psychedelics can evoke a mystical experience and bring a person
closer to God.  Even if only a glimpse of the infinite, a person never forgets that
encounter.  The hope is that such a vision of unity can help bring people to care
more for themselves, each other and our world.  I believe that taken in the proper
set and setting, LSD can be the right medicine for humanities ailing and alienated
soul.  God, please help sacramental substances find a fair, legal and spiritual status
around the world in the 21st century.
One of the most intensely beautiful moments from the trip to
Basel came when Dr. Hofmann generously signed the back of my portrait
of him, adding also the date of his birthday and the LSD formula.  He
wagged his finger at me and in Germanic sounding English, said, “You’ve US AND THEM • 2003 • 60 x 80 in • Photocollage, leaves, gouache, acrylic,
got the eye!”  He agreed to sign an edition of 50 prints to help fund scien- resin on wood
tific psychedelic research through MAPS and to assist our cultural center in
New York City, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. St. Albert and the LSD Revelation
Revolution will be on display in the Chapel.  Please come visit. Tomaselli is known for exquisitely crafted works that combine pigment with
highly unorthodox materials--most notoriously, drugs of various kinds. In the
past he has made landscapes with trees fashioned from pasted-down marijuana
leaves, a stellar sky “blazing” with hundreds of tablets, intricately patterned designs
that employ hundreds of multicolored pills laid into wood panels, and minimalist
paintings consisting of columns of pills sealed beneath layers of transparent, highly
polished resin. Although drugs still appear in some of his recent works, it’s often in
a more discreet manner, with other eclectic materials--parts of plants, real insects,
mass-media cutouts--now supplying the visual dazzle. Tomaselli first emerged as an
artist from the underground punk-rock scene in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and
early ‘80s. That subcultural milieu, which had more than its share of substance abuse,
provides one reason for the drugs that you find in his work. What’s more important is
the way that drugs--with their mind-altering and body-changing capabilities, with their
promise of an alternative consciousness that has both an ecstatic and a dark side--have
become a complex reference point through which Tomaselli explores his main themes:
Dr. Hofmann autographs and draws the LSD utopianism and its failure, and the contest of nature and technology. As shown in Art in
molecule on the back of the painting. America, July 1999 by Gregory Volk.
For a brief description of personalities surrounding Dr. Hofmann, turn to page 73.
www.jamescohan.com p.10
p.9

Springtime 1985 in the Cuyamaca Wilderness, somewhere East
of San Diego. An Indian burial ground, a spirit-bustling ancestral
city that lives hidden within a vast field triangulated by three sacred
mountains, including Mount Cuchama. I’m with my old companion, the
bioacoustic composer and philosopher David Dunn. He is making field
recordings to analyze later. To know the language of the forest, he will
score the creature sounds in time, mathematically study these complex
patterns to know the natural cadence of forestspeak, and play it back to
this forest later to see what phenomena and music may be conjured this
way. We’ve eaten sacred mushrooms, dear David with cocked eyeglass-
es and dirt-smudged nose disappears down a deer path summoned by
a Roebuck and its family and I’m alone. I feel myself taken by the large
spirit of a little fairy, a gracious host who will ride me for hours on a tour
of regions and species in this stretch of the Cuyamacas, she’ll show me
what She wants to see. We’re moving quickly sometimes, other times
slowly through many ecozones, dropping to our knees, or climbing up
and under, introducing plant and animal species that have something
sacred to show us. We’re finding animal dwellings, paper wasps, heron
nests, an oak grove with three massive grandmother oak trees who each
invite me to play in three distinct ways according to mutual delight...
The first tree invites me to climb to an accessible bough, lets me walk
skyward on this bough that lowers gently to the ground as my weight
gradually bends its length. The second grandmother tree offers a throne
of woven roots for me to sit upon. There’s a hole in the seat of the throne,
just in time to pee, the throne holds my posture upright and in line with a
surprising view; as the sun sets on the peak of Mt. Cuchama, I pee a gold-
en stream. The third tree is sexier, seems to emit some kind of palpable
come-hither wafting chthonic wave and “Please lie on my bough”, she gets
pleasure in giving me pleasure... I lie face down on the bough as it ema-
nates strong waves that erupt in ecstatic gales of the fairy’s own laughter
streaming through me.
p.11
Later as night falls I recognize that I am sitting smack in the
middle of an ancient Indian path that is busily trafficked by the
ghosts of Indian women. See, boulders rising from the grassland are
pocked by matate bowls, depressions worn over centuries by Indian
housewives grinding millions of nuts. The women spirits still moved
to grind etheric nuts, and just as I realized that my sitting in their
pathway
disturbed their ease of movement, the fairy pops me upright and
sidewards to clear their pathway. Night is dark even the milk is black
with no moonlight to guide me back, and she, feeling my anxiety, or
stirring it, begins to take me for a loping run that begins accelerating
as soon as we hit the woodland path. I don’t know where David is, I’m
moving swiftly now, so fast on a path through ­­deep darkness which
rims a sheer cliff on one side. And my teeth are clenched with awe-in-
spired terror like the ancient Aztec dreadhead of Teonanacatl after
imbibing a vision-inducing concoction of tryptamines. Now the dark
is webbed by starry, diaphanous veils and they’re parting for me, I’m
running streaking light through these veils, faster than I will run again
in human form, until I come upon and realize the crouching of dear
David who’s been elsewhere all day, now he’s awestruck and humble,
kneeling before a shimmering object, whispering to it.
And there we gazed upon an upthrust rock slatted with openings
like windows, fully illumined from within glowing with a steady and
welcoming light like an old fairy home. I knew then that my fairy had
jumped off, she had ridden me like her horse the entire day and all the
way to her cairn where she would spend the night with her people.
Eleven years later I met a fairy expert while visiting the Egyptian
wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This woman, Karen
Ralls, was a doctoral student writing her second book on fairy music
at the University of Edinburgh. When I told her my tale she let me
know that this kind of encounter was classic hundreds of years ago
though unheard of in modern times. And she told me that this kind
of encounter, this lengthy fairy-guided tour that ends with a visit to
the cairn, was considered an honor amongst the fairies, given only to
their human friends. Mushroom eating people have always been the
scholars of things like that.
Lizbeth Rymland, 2002
p.12
 THE BATTLE OF FALLOPIA • 1997-99 •48 X 26 in • Egg tempera and oil on panel

THANATOS WAVE • 1999-2000 • 38 x 38 in • Oil on panel

“Born in 1967, when the air was thick with visions, I have always been
­mesmerized by a desire to slip through the veil between worlds, and to paint
pictures of the numinous realms of the interior. The ancient mysteries of life and
time lie hidden inside the stones of the palaces of the human mind, and simply to
paint the palaces for those who would like to go inside is my delight as an artist.”

MAURAHOLDENARTWORKS.COM

back image: MY BIRTH IN A CITY OF STRANGE MONUMENTS

p.13 1998-99 • 22 x 19 in • Pencil and india ink on paper p.14
 GABRIELL’S HEART • 2003 •10 X 18 in • Mix media

LIGHT BEING • 2005 • 60 x 60 in • Acrylic on canvas

“I feel Art has the power to heal. I believe healing occurs within us when
we are set back to center, or back into proper alignment with our natu-
ral state. My intent is to create harmonious, colorful flowing forms and
spaces that all interact with each other through a geometric language of
creation formulas. These formulas are evident in cell structure, snow
flakes, bubbles, honey combs, atoms, molecules, and beyond. Seeing large
luminous paintings, depicting our source structural intention can help
set us back into alignment. I see Art through the eyes that see the world
around me. It is a world of unfathomable creation and magnitude. So, I
see the creation of Art that attempts to reflect the true power and beauty
of its­own source. My ultimate goal is to create large scale works of art
that blow open the new visionary horizons and remind people of how
much beauty there is deep inside our battered hearts.”

p.15 xavidesigns.com p.16


SALVIA DALINORUM • 2003 • 13 x 13 in • Oil on paper
Luke Brown is an intrepid explorer, part of a new generation of visionaries
reconstructing the templates of culture as we know it. His art speaks of the
spiritual mysteries in the human imagination. Mystical experiences, dreams,
medicine journeys, and channeled lucid dialogues with the source of creativ-
ity itself, seem to guide and be guided by the colorful symmetries and living
surfaces of his art. Much of his work emerges from a graceful synthesis of
VAJRAVISION • 2005 • 30 x 46 in • Multimedia
digital and painting mediums. Developing his work through mix and remix
technologies, Luke is constantly redefining his style as a spiritual medium for
growth. He is intent on mapping his hyperspatial experiences with utmost
accuracy, with whichever medium seems best suited, as a form of
multidimensional cartography.
SPECTRALEYES.COM p.18
 MULTIFORM • 2004 • 6 x 7.4 in • Acrylic on board

SKINLESS • 2003 • 16 x 20 in • Acrylic on canvas

Naoto Hattori was born in Yokohama, Japan and studied Graphic Design at an
art college in Tokyo. “ I was always interested in art.... I used to make little draw- I use this knowledge within my artwork to achieve a lifelike interpretation
ings in all my schoolbooks and tagged graffiti under the bridge. I studied light of my dream world.
and shadow, hue and texture and anatomy. Mastering classical knowledge is still WWW.WWWCOMCOM.COM
the best way to improve your skills.

p.19 p.20
 CHAOS• 1987 • 24 x 24 in • Oil on wood
” Intending to create spiritual art, I feel naturally attracted to abstraction
and to a written sacred language. Every known religion reveres its holy writ-
ing.    Sacred writing of all faiths, however, come into conflict through human
interpretation as the written word defines the differences of philosophy
and traditions, when truly the basis of all religion is unity and infinite love.  spectral system to fall apart in a unique way. The three elements used in my work,
In 1975, I began writing automatically in an invented or transmitted
language. I do not give meaning to the symbols in my art as it is meaning that sep-
arates experience from expression.  The alphabet that I use points to the notion of
a sacred language beyond meaning.  Some of the works call to mind the experience
of seeing an illuminated text in a foreign language and religion.
p.21
SQUARE ROOT • 1987 • 48 x 48 in • Oil on Wood
In recent work, I combine the icons of perfection (the Jewel Net) with the secret
language, and images of chaos.  Chaos in my art is the entropy of the systems of
spectrally arranged squares. Using a system of ’planned randomness,’ allows each
Chaos, Order and Secret Writing, are symbols of the sacred, non-literal represen-
tations of a cosmology.”
ALLYSONGREY.COM
Back Image: Allyson Grey’s Secret Writing p.22
 LIGHTFORM 6: THE CHAMBER • 2003 • 60 x 72 in • Acrylic on canvas
“My work tends to focus on natural geometry and organic structure. I
have keen interests in science, science fiction, religion and religious art
& architecture, and all types of psychedelic & transcendental art, which
all filter down into my personal vision. I tend to avoid recognizable
icons in favor of focusing on the underlying flow of ideas.
p.23
LIGHTFORM 6: SOLAR MEDITATION • 2005 • 50 x 64 in • Oil on canvas
I believe that there exists a family of archetypal forms, non-icono-
graphic images which nonetheless convey their meaning to the view-
er simply & directly, at a level possibly deeper and more universal
than that accessible through cultural iconography.”
HYPERSPACESTUDIOS.COM p.24
 The movie “Renegade” is the greatest psychedelic film of all time. 
Using the mythic genre of the American “Western,” the director,
Jan Kounen, weaves a tale of transformation and healing through access to high-
er and deeper states of awareness.  The film acknowledges the indigenous use of
shamanic visionary plant medicines as a pathway to greater truth and wisdom,
a quality that all entheogen users recognize and appreciate.  Though the critical
reception of this masterpiece was predictably mixed, it is the opinion of CoSM
Journal that history was made when this outstanding director and writer created
the most visually authentic entheogenic feature within a story of redemption, the
kind that only a visionary encounter with the divine can provide.
Alex Grey: In your film “Renegade”, what were you aiming for that was unique
to your experience of CGI?  Can you describe how you communicated that?

Jan Kounen: It was very special, I remember one of the two visual effect
supervisors complaining about my explanation in the beginning of the work,
“O.K., you speak about levels of consciousness, but please be more clear!”  So at
the very first I had to explain the meaning, the different stages of the entheogenic
experience.   Then came the moment where we needed to create visualizations.
So I did drawings, but they were not good enough.   Then during the shoot in
Mexico an artist came and started to draw with my directions: “It’s a cathedral of
snakes.  Here is a photo of the ceiling of Notre Dame.  Here is a Tibetan mandala. 
This part, or that part is what I’m looking for but do the same with snakes.”

It’s interesting to see that you can find many references for the visions in existing
art, architecture and of course, nature.  I was facing an undiscovered language
that mirrors external realities, so it was a puzzle of references to access the
representation of the visions.

When the drawings of the spiritual beings were made, we showed them to
Kestembetsa, the Shipibo shaman, on the set.  He was naming the beings, also
giving details to modify, and the artist was stunned.  So basically, after the shoot,
the post production computer graphic sequences were a major work.  It took a
year with 40 persons.
p.25 p.26
 Alex Grey: When it came to crafting CGI for the trip sequences, what
kind of input did you have as the director?  Did you create the story-
boards or work with Moebius or some other artists?  (I apologize for
asking what might be already answered in your amazing book, Visions.)

Jan Kounen: I had a hundred books of references on religions,

symbolism, crafts, art and comic books. I had drawings by Moebius, and
for the final sequences, at the higher levels of vision and awareness, when
you see the organs, skeletal and subtle energetic systems, the paintings of
Alex Grey were a great help.  You are almost the only one to depict, those
“high shamanic stages” where Kestembetsa guided me, and your work
was the reference for the final “ship” that the shaman is in, guided by the
spirit for the soul reintegration of the hero.  Along with the references,
I made a storyboard, then animatic, then we started the work, but some-
times we had to restart eveything. It was like a documentary shoot of a new
world, like developing a new language through trial and error with lots
of experiments.  That is the reason why it took a year to create the vision
sequences of the film.

Alex Grey: Besides yourself, how many other folks working on the
visuals had experience with the tea?

Jan Kounen: A few, but the most important persons, Vincent Cassel and
Rodolphe Chabrier, the special effects supervisor took the tea around a
dozen times, and had strong experiences.

Alex Grey: Did you even consider the paradox of creating what would
look “weird and fantastic” to some viewers but would look quite
objectively real to others, given their own experiences?

Jan Kounen: That was very strange -- to film a fictional story where,
when you enter into the visionary part, you create a sort of internal doc-
umentary.  But it was not only my own very personal and unique expe-
rience that was being revealed, the inner realms are shared with others,
mainly the indigenous shamans.  That’s what made the film very special,
what seems to be fantasy, is in fact creating and sharing real information
with an efficient media, “ the cinema.”   What was funny was that after
some screenings people came up to me saying that I captured their own
internal journey, their own visions that they thought they would never
be able to share with others.  So then I discovered that those realms of
experience were shared with many people, not only the shamans.

p.27 p.28
Alex Grey: The genre of the Western can be very reactionary, and very gritty and
realistic. But it also has a mythic dreamy dimension, especially with the empha-
sis on landscapes, solitude, and the confrontation--often violent--with nature-
worshipping “pagans.”  Lots of westerns from the late 60’s and early 70’s are
pretty trippy, including Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand and Monte Hellman’s
The Shooting.  Dead Man is a later, revisionist example. Is there something
about the Western form that makes room for visionary wisdom?
Jan Kounen: I could have put the action in the 1600’s, at the time when the
Spanish enter the jungle and meet the natives.  I could have set the action today
as well.  I chose the story of Blueberry as the context for the visionary encounter
with shamanic realities.  I chose the Western because it’s the last “mythic time”
in the collective unconscious, created mainly by the cinema.  The Western pres-
ents a period of time when there was still a balance betwen two worlds, the indig-
enous people and us, the Europeans.  history of ayahuasca there.  I had filmed the explanation of how the Shipibo of
Nature is a character in the film,
like in the film, Jeremiah Johnson.  had a vision that he needed to become the guardian of a secret sacred ancient
Westerns are also political propa-
ganda, they have been a way to re-
interpret history.  Remember that the
myth and story of America is based
on the biggest genocide in human
history.  In the 70’s a film like “Little
Big Man” started to invert the political
use of the Western genre.   And finally,
all directors want to make a Western,
so I did an “Indian” Western.
p.29
Alex Grey: Looking at one of the more obvious psychedelic questions, is it valid to
mix Amazonian shamanism with shamanism of the American West, where one
of the most popular hallucinogens was the seriously delirious datura and where
Peruvian icaros (healing songs of the ayahuasca shamans) were certainly not
present.  How do you feel about this historical geographical dislocation?  Do you
think there is a deeper connection between the two indigenous traditions?
Jan Kounen: There is a deeper connection, you can even link Shipibo shamanism
to the Mysteries of Egypt and the Tibetan tantric traditions, and of course, the
use of peyote in Mexico.  My film points to shamanic realities that are common
to many cultures.   I cover this subject in the “Other Worlds” collectors edition
which will be released in September in the interview of Ananda Bosman.
But, of course, the film is set at the American/Mexican border, and there is no
Peru came out of the jungle from a long journey.  The heroic Shipibo shaman
sanctuary, and he brought the plants with him.  In the last stages of the editing
process, I cut the sequence because it seemed more confusing than anything else. 
So now I have to face those comments which are correct.   Some people even
say that to put ayahuasca in mexico showed my poor knowledge of entheogenic
phenomena. Truly it was a matter of doing the film or not, and that’s the liberty
I took, in part, creating fiction.
p.30
Alex Grey: “Renegade” was thoroughly entheogenic and mystically grounded. 
The spiritual subjects of your movies, “Other Worlds” and “Darshan,” impress
me as the focus of a personal quest to unveil the transcendental world through the
medium of cinema.  I definitely relate to that as a painter. Do you feel that this
mission is part of what guides your work?

Jan Kounen: To take your own words from your interview in my documentary,
“Other Worlds,”  “Once you’ve had a mystical experience, there is no choice. 
Your work has to reference it.”  Bringing my entheogenic experiences together
with my capacity to make films, turned me to the subject matter of higher
levels of awareness.  I went to the jungle and had more than a hundred ayahuasca
experiences that, in retrospect, seemed like a coherent long term experiment
on my being and identity.  So for me, there is a powerful healing science in the
entheogenic mystical experiences.  Your perception of reality has shifted, and
you have to testify.  It’s a human basic mechanism. There is transcendental
knowledge that we have no idea of,  a spiritual healing science that is very far
advanced.  That’s what I discovered in my journeys.  Why will that not be the
case in other parts of the earth, in the ancient wisdom of different traditions? 
“Darshan” is the journey continued.  To have a larger understanding of reality,
you have to look into other cultures, and not only study their ideas and concepts,
but look for the core sacred experience.
At the same time, there is no pre-programmed
mission, it has to be a natural progression, and as a
filmaker and artist I will also do films that have no
direct link to the mystical experience, a social comedy,
for example.  

For me, it’s important to work in very diverse domains,

because in the end, all is connected.  There is only the
boundaries that we decide to put on any experience. 
Sullivan’s Travels from Preston Sturges is always a
film that I keep in mind.

Now, If you find a generous maecenas, I’ll be working

tomorrow on a Omnimax presentation of a mapping
of the “Other Realms.”

Ride the snake of life,

tsss tsssss
friendly,
Jan
Special thanks to Erik Davis for
p.31 collaboration on interview questions p.32
 THE MESSENGER • 44 x 30 in • Oil on canvas

CAUGHT IN THE WEB • 2003 • 20 x 24 in • Oil on canvas Martina is also a Reiki-master, studies western herbalism and is
continuously broadening her understanding of how the universal energy
As a painter and sculptor, Martina intersperses her life of creating art with giving
moves in, through and around us. Martina Hoffmann’s work has been
painting technique workshops with Robert Venosa. Her early paintings were
exhibited internationally as well as being published in books, calendars
influenced by her interest in how much of the human persona is reflected in
and magazines.
the face, so portraiture, in particular of women, became her first main subject
matter.
MARTINAHOFFMANN.COM
p.33 p.34
 Avatar was a gathering held at the Chapel of Sacred
Mirrors in NYC, that engaged art, prayformance,
celebration and independent commerce in the
exploration of our collective potential to
transcend the mundane into an activated
magical space in which to grow and create.
This event was one more node in the
emerging lineage of gatherings based on
the premise that every aspect of our
lives is a part of our art, and that
by collectively activating and
evolving our personal,
collective, linguistic and
aesthetic representations,
we are activating and
evolving the culture.

The
following
pages
feature the
Avatar selves the
prayformers tapped
into through a unique
collaborative process.
They incarnated at this
event, inviting and inspiring
everyone present to make contact
with their own personal Avatar...

p.36
p.37 p.38
 AVATAR CREDITS
pg. 36: Written by Eve Bradford TOOL is tirelessly inventive industrial strength hard-core rock and roll, striking
and Delvin Solkinson and powerful, psychedelic in the original sense, as in mind-expanding, soul-man-
top photo: Kayla Jo Berley ifesting, putting one in touch with the mysterium tremendum. A tool is “anything
in Alien Ambassador Designs used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose.” Music and art are the most pro-
photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle
found tools humanity has for plumbing and expressing the heights and depths of the
Bottom photo: Eve Bradford
in RavenCreations- Wear’able-Art soul.  The rock group, Tool, continually challenges and pushes their creative edge with
photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle each new album, summoning the Zeitgeist into a disturbing and truthful sonic mirror.  
Their new record, 10,000 Days, is symphonic.  The title track is the heart of the album,
page 37-38: with some of Maynard’s most poetic and passionate lyrics, an elegy to his mother who was
Words written by each Avatar: wheelchair-bound for 27 years until her death.  His powerful words blend with Adam Jones’
Gaiana: Marisa Scirocco in her own and Justin Chancellor’s haunting and redemptive guitar work that builds to a stunning
Alien Ambassador designs, crescendo. Both pain and purpose are unavoidable and seem palpable in this work, the
photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle music conveying that even a life of suffering can bring the wings and forces of higher
Oeso: Isis Indriya in her own designs, worlds.  Danny Carey’s strength and restraint magically structures the beats of each song. 
photo by Luke Brown Although there are references in at least three songs to angels, 10,000 Days differs from the
Kalila: La Laurrien in her own designs,
healing and mystical character of Lateralus and feels more like a witness to human folly:
photo by William Radacinski
Isadora and Mateo: Jessica and Isaac the callous alienation in
in their own Phoenix Rising Designs “Vicarious”, and our pathetically
Mateo’s Vest, design by Isaac made by Asli Kent, self-destructive nature in “Right
Isadora’s pants designed by Melodia, In Two”. To craft their music,
photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle band members Adam Jones, lead
Geomanesse: Lynzee Dava Lynx in her own designs, guitar, Justin Chancellor, bass,
photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle and drum-master, Danny Carey,
Limina: Eve Bradford in RavenCreations-
fully develop the rhythms and
Wear’able-Art, photo by Sequoia Emmanuelle
progressions of the songs before
page 39 -40: inviting Maynard to bring his
Written by La Laurrien and Eve Bradford,
voice into the mix. Surprising
photos by Christopher P.H. Krapek
page 40 top: Xavi in his own designs, to hear that the music is
Ananya in her own designs, created before the words, as the
Isaac in his own designs impression is of two elements,
page 41 Top: inseparable.
Eli Morgan in Alien Ambassador Designs,
Thanks to Adam Jones inven-
Meaghan Fearless in her own designs,
Marisa Scirocco and Kaylo Jo Berley tive genius, the packag-
Net of Being(detail) by Alex Grey 2002-Oil on linen
in Alien Ambassador Designs, ing of the 10,000 Days  CD is
David Heskin in designs by Lynzee Dava Lynx historic.  Adam has been taking stereoscopic 3-d photographs for over a decade, and devel-
Layout and Design by Marisa Scirocco oped a way to make the CD package itself into a stereoptoscope.  Using my painting, “Net
of Being”,  10,000 Days went on sale May 2, 2006.  By the end of the week nearly 600,000
Marisa Scirocco
CDs had been sold, making it the #1 selling album.  CoSM hosted a listening party the week
Eve Bradford, Isis Indriya
Sequoia Emmanuelle of the release where I gave an “illustrated” talk about my collaborations with Tool.  
Delvin Solkinson
Eli Morgan, David Heskin
Jessica and Isaac
Luke Brown, Xavi
Melodia, Asli Kent My
p.41 p.42
 relationship with Tool began through meeting Adam, one of the world’s great
rock musicians and an amazing graphic artist.  Adam’s drawings of mutant
humans are both frightening and hilarious. In addition, Adam is a filmmaker
who directs and designs music videos for Tool, recreating his bizarre dreams.
I met Adam in 1999, at one of my art exhibitions in Los Angeles where he
approached me with an anatomically based concept for the Lateralus CD cover.  Being a
big fan of Tool’s intense music, I agreed. Response to the CD insert booklet was terrific.
Then, Adam called one day inviting me to contribute a one-minute transformative con-
clusion to his epic surreal music video for Parabol/Parabola. My imagination was stretched Alex Grey & Adam Jones, 2006
in new ways preparing storyboards and collaborating with talented animators to complete
the project. Shortly before Tool went on their Summer/Fall tour in 2002, Adam called
asking for stage set ideas.  I offered the use of numerous images for backdrops and banners
which were reproduced at a stunning scale into the concert spectacle. The giant screen
projections, unfurling banners and hallucinogenically lit artwork reinforced the message
in the music.  Spin Magazine has called Tool a “Hammer of the Gods” and the magazine
Revolver calls them “the world’s biggest cult band.”  It is a thrill to be working with Adam
again on a music video, this time, “Vicarious”. 

Maynard James Keenan & Alex Grey, 2002

In 2002, Adam expressed
interest in  early drawings for
the painting,   “Net of Being”.    I’ve
been working on this major 7.5 foot
by 15 foot painting for several years
now.   Related to my series of painted and
sculpted “universal beings” created since
1999, “Net of Being” establishes an order of
infinite space composed of and continuous
with infinite consciousness.  A fiery web of eyes
and galaxies form a realm of total interconnect-
edness in an x-y-z axis grid of Godheads, imply-
ing mirror-like inter-reflectivity throughout
space.  The viewer peers up into the necks of the
next higher level of Godheads.  The shared heart
of each four-faced Quad God sheds an eerie
underlight, as a  ball of white light inside each
head sources luminosity for a level above
and beyond sight.  Through light, the head
and heart are merged in a mesh evocative
of the mythic Jewel Net of Indra or
Buddhafields from the Vatamsaka
Sutra.

Adam Jones Maynard James Keenan Danny Carey Justin Chancellor

NET OF BEING (detail)
p.43
 Working with one of the greatest rock
bands of all times has been a rare privi-
lege -- the thrill of a lifetime -- twice.  
Tool has been very generous to
CoSM, offering tickets for a raf-
fle, and loaning CoSM the 20
foot Sacred Mirrors banners
from their Lateralus tour to
decorate our 60 foot dome
at Burning Man, 2006.  

toolband.com

Lateralus Concert photography shot by Eli Morgan at Fleet Center, Boston, Massachusetts, 8/16/02 & the New Haven
p.45 album art (detail) Coliseum, New Haven, Connecticut, 8/20/02. No photo manipulation was used.
 SPRING • 2006 • 24 X 36 in. • Oil on canvas

“I enjoy working in many mediums. Photography, tattooing,

painting and writing music are large parts of my artistic focus
and output. As varied as they may seem, they all spawn from the
creative force within me. I find that being versatile in how I apply
COSMIC GRID • 2006 • Photography myself artistically helps me to maintain a fresh perspective as well as
to visualize and express composition on many levels.”
HYPERSPACESTUDIOS.COM
p.47 p.48
 ...IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS • 2005 • Digital photographic design
SOULBIRTH • 2000 • Digital photographic design

The camera and the computer are my main tools. With them I
can capture reality and manipulate it . The digital canvas gives
me the freedom to revisit and remix images.”

“My artwork represents a search for a forgotten truth. I use metaphor Eli graduated from the School of Visual Arts, New York City
and symbolism to penetrate the human psyche and project what is felt in 1999. As an international art director, photographer and
and thought onto what is seen. I look to the universal consciousness to graphic designer, he is committed to world transformation,
strike a cord of truth in the viewer, to create images that are original, yet through awareness, art and design.
hauntingly familiar.­­
p.49 elimorgancreative.com
p.50
 MORSEL • 2006 • 24 x 24 in • Mixed media on c anvas
Trenton Doyle
Hancock, a Texas-based artist whose
work, in its wackiness, approaches that of unbuttoned cartooniacs
like R. Crumb, Peter Saul, Carroll Dunham and Harvey Kurtzman, the father
of Mad magazine. Mr. Hancock, the son of a Baptist minister, has been pre-
occupied for some time with an outsize epic, the vegans vs. the meat-eating
“mounds,” whose characters are of animal, vegetal and mineral persuasion.
IN THE BLESTIAN ROOM, Installation View, They participate in cosmic struggles that rage on like the Thirty Years’ War.
Using pigment, collage and fragments of street junk, Mr. Hancock depicts
JAMESCOHAN.COM them in energetically obsessive paintings that often
incorporate writing as part of their graphic appeal.
PICTUREBOXINC.COM
As seen in The New York Times written by Grace Glueck April 2006 p.52
p.51
 GAIAN OVERLORD • 1989, 2005 • 24 x 36 in • Airbrush, Computer ELF GEOMETRY INTERIOR • 2005 • Air brush, Computer
Erial Ali was born Eric Joseph Brock, in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. Robert Bly at alternative Institutions like Esalen and The Ojai Foundation. Combining
He took the name Erial through a series of synchronistic events during an import- investigations into Dream Theory, Vision Questing, Mythology, Transpersonal
ant phase of his artistic development. His first major series of paintings was entitled Psychology, Spirituality, and related disciplines, he began the development of a
“Aboriginal Peoples of the World,” done in a “Sum-I style” with ink on rice paper.  Grand Storyline to contain the other-worldly Beings and Realms he was receiving
Although he majored in Design and Illustration in College, Erial is mostly self taught, vital visual information from. His work has been seen on event posters, CD’s, book
by observing natural objects, and the inside of his own mind during Dreams, Visions covers and other media.
and other Encounters with the Numinous.  He went on to study and work with people
like Terence Mckenna, Jose Arguellas and http://iasos.com/artists/erial/ p.54
OSO ESSENCE • Guache
Exploring countless natural power spots and Mesoamerican sacred
sites, Carey developed a keen interest in ancient cultures and their
expression through the arts and cosmology. Carey describes his work
as holomorphic transmission vision crystals. The imagery channels
through, sourced from the universal matrix, and crystallizes into form
onto templates based on sacred geometry and other patterns of nature.
back image: LOOP: ink drawing
SINGULARITY • 54 x 72 in • Oil on canvas
Beginning usually with only a seed of intention, the color
and form evolve unconsciously to create the finished art.
Revealing the interconnectedness of all things is the primary
intention of Carey’s artwork.
GALACTIVATION.COM
p.56
 http://www.onbeyondmetamedia.com
p.57
 T From the perspective of planetary culture, we might broaden Corbin’s defini-
he sad truth about descrip- tion to include the visionary domains that are associated with cultural traditions and
tive categories like “visionary holy paths throughout (and perhaps beyond) human history. The worlds visited by
art” is that they are both useful and the shaman, the seer, the sibyl, and the prophet are all outposts of the mundus imagi-
lame. Especially in the art world, the nalis. But this imaginal world is also produced through the labor of traditional sacred
language of genres and styles often has artists, who have incarnated these visions in the mythic maps, sacred geometries,
more to do with galleries and critics and iconographies of tribes and cultures the world over. When contemporary vision-
than with making and enjoying art. But ary artists appropriate and sample aspects of these different cultural traditions, these
reflecting about categories can also be fruit- different domains begin to appear, for all their differences, as a single space of the transper-
ful, because it shapes the context of our sonal imagination, an immense vibrating network of sacred zones and forms. That’s how
seeing—and more importantly, the way we the mundus imaginalis grows truly global.
share and talk about our seeing. So here is my
seed crystal: visionary art is art that resonates with visionary experiences, those undeni-
ably powerful eruptions of numinous and multidimensional perception that suggest other
orders of reality. Certain individuals have a predilection for visionary experiences, but
these luminous glimpses bless us all at some point in our lives—sometimes through
intentionally induced trance states or psychoactive raptures, and sometimes through
the gratuitous grace of deep dreams or the demented funhouse of a quasi-schizophrenic
break. But we also understand and experience visionary experience through visionary
culture, those artifacts of human culture with its eyes agog.

From the perspective of the mainstream art system, howev-
er, visionary art could be seen as an attempt to broaden and extend the notion
of the outsider artist—those creative madmen, religious eccentrics, and poor folk
considered to be outside the boundaries of conventional art history. The American
Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, for example, describes its collection as “art
produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works
arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself.”
That’s all fine and well, and the museum is cool, but many visionary artists—by
my definition—are and have been formally educated. More importantly, many
visionary artists self-consciously locate their work within a lineage of inspired
image-makers that stretches back through generations of Surrealist dreamers,

Eye by Fred Harwin

mystic minimalists, and medieval icon painters. Abstract art, the most exalted and intel-
lectualized gesture of the modernist avant-garde, actually emerged from a lotus pond of
theosophy, spiritualism, and occult meditation practices.
The historical lineage of visionary artists masks a deeper and
more commanding claim that sets the genre apart from the marvelous idiosyncra-
sies 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. Far from being outside, this world lies within. Henry
Corbin, the brilliant twentieth century scholar of Sufism, coined the term mundus
imaginalis to describe the ‘alam al-mithal, the visionary realm where prophetic experi-
ence is said to literally take place. It is a realm of the imagination, but a true imagi-
nation that has a claim on reality because it mediates between the sensual world
and the higher abstract realms of angelic or cosmic intelligences. The mundus
imaginalis is a place of encounter and transformation. “Is it possible to
see without being in the place where one sees?” asks Corbin, throwing
down the gambit of visionary experience. “Theophanic visions, mental
visions, ecstatic visions in a state or dream or of waking are in them
selves penetrations into the world they see.”
p.59
Of course, the meaning and function of visionary art in the traditional
cultures of the premodern world is vastly different than contemporary art practices—
something the more romantic proponents of today’s visionary art sometimes forget. The
“visions” captured in the premodern era are, with some exceptions (Bosch and Hildegard
of Bingen come to mind), collective constructs, rendered by artists working anonymously
within highly conservative cultural codes, and with little conception of “art” as we know it.
Even in the individualistic West, artists were constrained by strict conventions and ecclesi-
astic expectations. Here the example of the Orthodox icon painter looms large: though the
theology of the icon is one of the most powerful and sophisticated models of visionary art
the world spirit has yet devised, the artists who crafted these numinous contemplative por-
tals—even geniuses like Andrei Rublev—were deeply ensconced within formal restrictions
concerning color, iconography, and technique.
p.60
 Today’s visionary artist has been released from the strictures of tradition, and
must discover her own peculiar perspective on the mundus imaginalis, often
drawing inspiration and insight—and frequently cliché—from the store
of traditional art. In other words, rather than rely on a specific religious or
metaphysical tradition to ground their visions, today’s visionary artist often looks
to the cross-cultural lineage of visionary art itself. Texts like Alex Grey’s The
Mission of Art and Laurence Caruana’s vital online manifesto have helped define
a visionary canon through and beyond western art history. But this canon, which
ties together petroglyphs, tangkas, and Salvador Dali, is more than a genealogy,
because—and this is the crucial (and heretical) point—visionary art is not a pure-
ly historical form. Visionary art insists on a transpersonal, transtemporal field
of resonance, an ever-present origin of spiritual connections and hidden harmo-
nies that shape image-making outside of mundane historical time. The visionary
artist invokes her own ancestors, who only demand that she discover the way anew.
In his writings, Henry Corbin is at pains to distinguish the “authentic” mundus
imaginalis from the muddier waters of the personal unconscious. Corbin wants
to divide true imagination from mere fantasy, or, in more modern terms, the
Jungian from the Freudian dimensions of dreamspace. Similarly, some old-
school proponents of visionary art want to keep the pure sacred geome-
tries free from the sometimes cloying dreck of psychedelic cliché.
But one of the most powerful and confounding aspects of modern
psychedelic culture is the erasure of such clear distinctions
between high and low; instead we find ourselves in a Dionysian
conflation and confounding of sacred and profane, where
Islamic architecture and aboriginal glyphs encounter the
“low-brow” world of comic books, skateboard stickers,
concert fliers, and SciFi paperback covers.
Unlike Corbin, the contemporary visionary artist
is rarely grounded in solid metaphysical claims based
on tradition. Instead they are feeling their way through
the dimensions, and they derive authenticity, when they
need to, from their own experience. The most audacious
claim of visionary art lies beyond genre or technique or
school; it lies in the glittering possibility that artists can
capture and communicate forms of cosmic conscious-
ness and traces of otherworldly light that have arisen in
their ownstreams of consciousness. Looking at the swirl-
ing mythopoetic gumbos of Luke Brown or the blobular
frequencies of Vibrata Chromodoris, it is amazing to
consider that these works are, in some sense, documents.
In this sense, the quest to capture and reflect visionary
phenomena might paradoxically be considered a new
naturalism. And while it can be reductive and literalistic to
spend too much time arguing about whether or not specific works
are directly inspired by particularly visionary experiences, it is a
vital question nonetheless, because it grounds the artifact in
a ­­living process.
p.61
This biographical dimension deepens the sense of the artist as a mediator, and the
artwork as a transmission rather than an object. Ultimately, the meaning or reality of
the visions perceived may be less important than the organ that perceives them.
Discussing Moses’ famous theophany, Corbin writes that “the Burning
Bush is only a brushwood fire if it is merely perceived by the sensory
organs. In order that Moses may perceive the Burning Bush and
hear the Voice calling him…an organ of trans-sensory perception
is needed.” In the visionary encounter, a new eye is born, a syn-
aesthetic vector of sound and light, tuning to new frequencies,
drawing patterns out of chaos and apocalyptic madness.
As Delvin Solkinson and Eve Bradford wrote in a recent
self-published catalog, “Visionary art is evidence of a world
that does not yet fully exist; a world that we are calling into
being through the very act of creating and participating in
the Work.” This is where the vast inheritance of the vision-
ary tradition fuses with the intense and restless self-overcom-
ing of the avant-garde: the imaginal world is still virtual, still
ahead.
At her most idealistic, the visionary artist insists on an
integral connection between the work of transforming con-
sciousness and the work of fashioning the artifact. For many
practitioners and fans, this doubled work restores a healing
and even shamanic dimension to art, although the shamanic
journeys in question may, in the case Giger or Daniel Oullette,
dive into the demonic. But slimy copulating aliens are not the
nastiest demons that threaten contemporary visionary artists.
The real threats lie with the temptations of kitsch, of complacent
self-mythologizing, of the rote clichés and easy iconography of
most fantasy illustration and New Age pop. Like a good guru,
visionary artists should challenge and baffle as well as encourage
and amaze. At the same time, the idea of the solitary artist as a
modern shaman is also an old and rather tired story. What authenticates
the visionary now may be the meanings that emerge through them, as they
circulate through communities of perception. Today’s visionary artist is less
important than the visionary culture they seed, an expanding planetary web with
art as one of its many nodes.
Erik Davis is the author of the forthcoming
book, The Visionary State: A Journey through
California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle),
with photographs by Michael Rauner.
http://techgnosis.com
p.62
 PRANA EXHILATION • 1975 • 22 x 28 in • Oil on canvas

New York City born, Venosa was transported into the world of fine art in the
late 60’s after having experimented with psychedelics and having seen the work
CASTOR • 1999 • 26 x 39 in • Oil on canvas
of the Fantastic Realists - Ernst Fuchs and Mati Klarwein in particular - both of
whom he eventually met and studied under. Of his apprenticeship with Klarwein,
Venosa says, “What a time (Autumn, 1970) that turned out to be! Not only did www.venosa.com
I get started in proper technique, but at various times I had Jimi Hendrix, Miles
Davis, Jackie Kennedy and the good doctor Tim Leary himself peering over my p.64
shoulder to see what I was up to.”
 93 light years from earth winks the famous eclipsing
binary star Algol (Beta Persei). It has been called “the most evil, violent, and
dangerous star in the heavens” and was known in ancient star lore as the
Arabic Ra’s al Ghul (The Demon’s Head), as Caput Larvae (The Specter’s
Head), as the Hebrew’s Rosh ha Shaitan (Satan’s Head) and by the Chinese
as Tseih-She (The Heaped-Up Corpses). During the mid 1990s, Algol was
the focus of an experimental ritual of ceremonial magick designed to ‘trick’,
if you Will, one’s pineal gland into releasing trace amounts of a particu-
lar endogenous substance (by overriding what Rick Strassman calls “ the
supremely efficient pineal security system”). Unique to this ritual was that
the aspirant/Operator projected himself/herself into the astronomical con-
stellation “Triangulum” where he/she allowed the ‘spirit’ (or khu) of Algol to
manifest within. A key factor of the ritual was imagining the serpent-headed
Medusa being decapitated by Perseus from which springs the winged horse
Pegasus. This was strictly timed to coincide with the variable star while
its brightness was dimmed (symbolically killed) during the primary
eclipse. For students of ritual magick, the verses to be recited
by the aspirant also contain the key (or instructions*)
required to by-pass the pineal’s natural safeguards
(thus simulating the biochemistry released at
the moment of death).
* There is a piece of ‘fiction’ by
Aleister Crowley entitled “The
Stratagem” which is considered to
be one of the author’s most popular
works, in part because it is not nearly
as difficult to understand as his more
esoteric treatises on ritual magick.
For this reason, it is even found in
school libraries. But, as with most
of Crowley’s writings, “nothing is
as it seems.” This is especially true
when it comes to the ALleGOricaL
Stratagem. In the story, which con-
cerns a daring escape during an
eclipse from (ostensibly) Devil’s
Island, Crowley mentions some-
thing called “Dodium” which he
says is the rarest of known elements
in the universe, and which exists
only in the star Pegasi. Here is a
valuable clue as to the identity of
true strata-gem that was ‘mined’ by
the ancient Atlanteans (or civiliza-
tion X if you’d prefer) - that which
was known as the jewel of sacred
cannibalism.
p.65
I wander
in black
perfumes among the
ungolden lamps of Abydos As
winks the specter’s head o’er Umm
el Ka’ab. I trod the purplish serpent’s
hiss in a cenotaph of star-arched Abjdu,
Breathing the pallid luster that
shrouds those reposed in painted
tombs, Immortal souls projected into the
night whose glittering infinity blooms.
With winged-sandals and leathern kibisis, I seize the
trophy of gleaming Qa’a, Hetepsekhemwy seated in
the orange-gold Triangulum (Aegyptus, Nilus, Nili
Domum). Yea! The solar barque of the Osireion,
green whispers of royal Pharaohs Joining the eaters
of the Opal of Zra’d as the terrifying demon blinks,
And riseth with glory inherited from the bread of the
mastabas.
I wander amid faded vignettes into fields of cold
spangled brilliance, Shedding bandages of fine linen
and gold cartonnage mask. I pass alabaster jar-seals in
shadowy torch, papyrus-rolls of the
jeweled dead,Gilding my scarab amulet with the light
of the kings of Sakkara, Death’s treasure-rain in dusty
turquoise pots from the variegated crypts of
el-Amra. With kyphi and myrrh for the
double, I perceive its scenes with ribbons of flame,
Strong of tongue from text and
formulae as worms feast on the rubric.
Hail! The iridescent gluttony of
carrion-hawk & prismatic emerald
beetle rolling dung, Incorruptible
the germ of the deceased,
mummified in the parching heat,
Joining the lords of sparkling
eternity in the horizon of
Khepera.
Blair Mackenzie Blake is the author of IJYNX
and the writer for TOOLBAND.COM
p.66

More than forty years ago, a powerful expe-
rience lasting only several hours of clock-time
profoundly changed my
personal and professional life...
This session...awakened in me an
intense lifelong interest in nonordinary states
of consciousness. Since that time, most of my
clinical and research activities have consisted of
systematic exploration of the therapeutic, trans-
formative, and evolutionary potential of these
states.
With these words, Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D.
begins his book Psychology of the Future:
Lessons from Modern Consciousness
Research, in which he summarizes the results
of forty-plus (now more than fifty) years of
scientific and personal exploration of nonor-
dinary states of consciousness.
His pioneering work with psychedelic
psychotherapy began in his native
Czechoslovakia at the Psychiatric Research Institute in
Prague and continued in the United States, where he was Chief of
Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center
and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University.
After LSD and similar medicines became illegal in the United States
and elsewhere, and research opportunities with psychedelics slow-
ly disappeared, Grof was appointed scholar-in-residence at the
Esalen Institute, where he and his wife Christina developed a
non-drug method of inducing nonordinary states that they
called Holotropic Breathwork™.
Grof is a scientist in the truest sense of the word. From his
observations of thousands of subjects in clinical research with
nonordinary states, as well as from extensive personal self-
exploration, he inventoried the many types of experiences he
observed, found patterns therein, and from those patterns developed a
cartography of the human psyche; in short, he mapped consciousness.
What was innovative in Grof’s theories was that he took the experi-
ences of his subjects as valid manifestations of the human (and collective)
psyche and did not consider them to be symptoms of drug-induced
p.67
psychopathology. Early on, researchers considered LSD to be a drug that mimicked
psychotic symptoms. Not so, said Grof. Rather, “these substances function as
unspecific amplifiers that increase the energetic niveau [level] in the psyche and
make the deep unconscious dynamics available for conscious processing.”
The importance of this insight to Grof’s work was monumental. For one thing,
theories of the human psyche needed to be radically altered to include the myriad
experiences Grof observed in his work. Thus, in his cartography, psychological
models based on biographical events expand to include perinatal (around birth) events
and transpersonal experiences and themes. Further, Grof hypothesized
systems of condensed experience or COEX systems —clusters of memories of events
tied together experientially or thematically that span the biographical, perinatal and
transpersonal realms. In this way, his system suggests that healing can and often does
take place on multiple levels.
Another significant implication of Grof’s insight that psychedelics are unspecific ampli-
fiers is the importance of “set” and “setting” to the psychedelic experience and to its
ability to effect healing and/or growth. Set is the intention, mindset, mood, expectations,
knowledge, personal history, etc. we bring to the psychedelic experience. Setting refers
to the quality of the physical and psychic environment. If psychedelics are unspecific
amplifiers of unconscious mental and emotional processes, then the therapeutic poten-
tial of the experience depends more on the set and setting —the “container” for the
experience—than on the substance or dosage taken. If set and setting could be opti-
mized to bring about the most therapeutic experience -- the most holotropic experience,
as Grof would call it (a word combination from the Greek meaning “moving towards
wholeness”)—then psychedelic substances would revolutionize psychology. In fact, Grof
said that these substances could be for
psychology what the microscope was
for biology or the telescope for
astronomy. Grof’s findings about
set and setting and the therapeutic
techniques he designed to optimize
them are described in his books LSD
Psychotherapy and The Adventure of
Self-Discovery.
Phoenix
symbolizes the universal themes of death and rebirth that frequently
unfold in nonordinary states of consciousness. Such experiences can
involve biographical, perinatal or transpersonal elements.
p.68
Grof understood that along with set and setting, proper BPMII
integration of the experience is essential for the subject to get the Toxic Womb
most benefit. Tools for integrating the experience are an important depicts the hostile
component of Grof’s protocol, and central among these tools is the environment of the
creation of art at the conclusion of the session. womb that has been
poisoned by toxic
The art projects range from mandala drawing to collage to journal chemicals,
writing -- really, any creative expression could serve the purpose. thoughts and
The objective is to help the experiencer bring his or her experience emotions. The imagery
from nonordinary reality back into consensus reality. The works can be is of a
symbolic or abstract, can convey actual visions or themes brought up in the “diabolical
experience, or can just represent feelings. After the art project there is a period for the sub- laboratory full of
ject to share the experience and the art piece, either with the therapist or facilitator, in the
insidious demons.”
case of individual therapy, or with the group if in a group session. What is amazing about
these art projects is that they are often wonderfulillustrations of the experiences outlined
in Grof’s theories. What’s more, many of these pieces are quite good in their own right.
BPMII
Onset of Birth shows
It turns out that one of the more talented individuals to artistically depict
the beginning of labor.
his inner experiences was Dr. Grof himself. When he was young, and before he
The cervix is not yet
decided to pursue psychology, Stan Grof had planned to go to art school to be a
dilated and the fetus is
cartoonist.
trapped in a claustro-
Fortunately for the world of psychology, he skipped art school, but
phobic,
continued making wonderful artwork inspired by his early psychedelic experiences.
“no-exit” hell. The boat
with the skeleton sug-
For Grof the birth gests that the birth pro-
process is an cess is also an encounter
archetypal with death.
journey
recapitulated at
various times of
our lives when we
struggle and trans- BPMIII
form, in essence
In Carnival, the
are reborn. Grof
fetus has found
maps four primary
its strength to
stages to the birth
overcome obsta-
process, the
cles and move
Birth Perinatal
towards its goal.
Matrix (BPM).
BPM I
BPM II
BPM III BPM I
BPM IV
Amniotic Universe shows the blissful world of the womb before
labor begins. Note that the galaxy is shaped like a breast, tying this
perinatal experience to the early biographical experience of blissful
p.69 nursing. p.70
 In Peacock Heaven , the
fetus makes its way through the
birth canal and dies as it crowns,
consumed by flames. Just beyond
lies (re)birth and freedom. Note the
symbolism of the crown chakra.
A parallel is implied between the peri-
natal journey through the birth canal
towards birth and the transpersonal
journey through the chakras towards
enlightenment.

We are also pleased to announce the

publication of two new books by
Stanislav Grof!

Grof, Stanislav, When the Impossible

Happens: Adventures in Non-
Ordinary Realities. Sounds True, 2006.
www.soundstrue.com

BPMIII Grof, Stanislav, The Ultimate Journey:

Consciousness and the Mystery
of Death.
MAPS, 2006. www.maps.org

Kevin D. Sachs, Ph.D. teaches accounting at Baruch College in New York City. He has a
consulting business, “The Visionary Accountant, LLC” where he offers accounting, financial
and management consulting services for nonprofit organizations, artists, and businesses in
the business of transformation. He is currently enrolled in Grof Transpersonal Training to
certify as a Holotropic Breathwork™ practitioner. He calls himself “econoshamanic” to honor the
two sides of his life - the rational accountant and the shaman - and to hold space for their integra- THE VISIONARY
tion. He is married and has three incredible feline teachers.
ACCOUNTANT, LLC
Suggested readings:

Grof, Stanislav, Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research,
SUNY Press, 2000. Best general introduction to all aspects of Grof’s work.

Grof, Stanislav, LSD Psychotherapy: Exploring the Frontiers of the Hidden Mind, MAPS;
2001. The definitive manual, even twenty-six years after its original publication.
Accounting, financial and management services
Grof, Stanislav, The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New for non-profits, artists, & healing professionals
Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. SUNY Press, 1988. Excellent coverage of
the Grof maps of consciousness and a great introduction to Holotropic Breathwork™.
The appendix on “Psychedelics in Psychotherapy and Self-Exploration” is excellent. Kevin D. Sachs, Ph.D.
718-751-6181
econoshamanic@nyc.rr.com
p.71
 On December 30th 2005 at Hammerstein
Ballroom in New York City, Alex Grey’s
paint brush moved to the music of the
Disco Biscuits.

The ballroom was sold out and thousands

of people watched as the band and Alex
performed their magic.

Photography by Justin Cohen

p.73 Third Force. Acyclic on wood panel 36 x 84 inches 2005 p.74

 A monthly fusion of art, music and performance.
Psychotropic video projection, dance, live painting & trance
grooves, combine to make unforgettable experiences.

To everyone that helps make it happen

Thank you...and see you soon!

p.75

ALDOUS HUXLEY 1894 - 1963
Huxley became well known in the 1950’s for his interest in
mind-expanding drugs like mescaline and LSD. His views on drugs and
consciousness are recorded in numerous books. Doors of Perception and
Heaven and Hell, both nonfiction, were based on his experiences with mes-
caline. Island (1962) is a utopian novel about a society in which mind expanding drugs
are integral. At his request, Huxley’s wife Laura assisted his death by administering LSD
just prior to his passing.
LAURA HUXLEY 1911 - present
Mrs. Huxley began her career as a violinist, a child prodigy who
made her first performance at Carnegie Hall while still in her teens.
She produced documentary films, played in a major symphony
orchestra, was assistant film editor at RKO. Through self-directed study,
Laura became an expert on health, nutrition, and psychology. Together , the Huxley’s
explored ways of opening the mind to new levels of consciousness.
R. GORDON WASSON 1898-1986
An international banker, amateur mycologist and author, Wasson and
his wife Valentina Pavlovna Guercken integrated data exploring all
aspects of mushrooms, from history, linguistics, comparative religion,
mythology, art and archaeology, . Beginning in 1953, their investigations
led to expeditions in Mexico to research the magico-religious use of mushrooms. In
1955, the couple became the first outsiders to participate the Mazatec Indians’ sacred
mushroom rituals. Wasson’s well known 1957 article in Life Magazine recounting
this experience led to a nationwide search for Maria Sabina and the Magic Mushroom.
MARIA SABINA 1896-1985
Curandera, Shaman of the Mazatec Indians, Sabinais remembered
for introducing to the world, the sacred mushroom ritual, velada. By
invited the ethnomycologists Gordon and Valentina Pavlovna Wasson
to participate in religious ceremonies, her ideas and traditions were
well-documented in various books and articles.
TIMOTHY LEARY 1920 -1996
Professor of psychology at U.C. Berkeley and Harvard in the 60’s ,
Leary later became a spokesman for LSD and the psychedelic move-
ment, encouraging people to “tune in, turn on, and drop out”. In 1963,
Leary and Alpert (later named Ram Das) were fired from their positions
at Harvard. They continued to work with psychedelics both
therapeutically and recreationally, interacting with cultural heroes Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman and Aldous Huxley.
p.77
RICHARD ALPERT (RAM DASS) 1931 - present
A professor of psychology at Harvard University, Alpert became well
known for his controversial research program on the effects of LSD.
Working closely with Dr. Timothy Leary at Harvard, the two con-
ducted many experiments on the effects of LSD . They were dismissed
from the university and relocated to continue their experiments. In 1967,
Alpert travelled to India, where he immersed himself in meditative practice and yoga,
becoming a prominent spiritual teacher and leader of the American Hindu movement .
RALPH METZNER 1925 - present
Ralph Metzer has studied the transformations of consciousness since
his work with Leary and Alpert on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects.
He recieved a Ph.D. with a B.A. in philosophy and psychology from
Oxford and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard. Metzner
co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience, was editor of The Psychedelic
Review, andauthored Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest comparative cartogra-
phies of consciousness. Academic Dean for ten years, Metzner is currently a Professor
at the California Institute of Integral Studies, teaching courses in “Altered States of
Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.”
STANISLOV GROF 1931 - present
Grof, founder of the field of transpersonal psychology, is a pioneering
researcher into the use of altered states of consciousness for purposes of
healing, growth, and insights. During the 60s, he administered LSD to
patients, conducting more than 4,000 sessions of psychedelic therapy.
In 1973, Grof developed Holotropic Breathwork (with his wife Christina)
at Esalen Institute . He has written a number of books, first about LSD and its use in
psychotherapy and later about other methods of conducting deep psycho-spiritual work;
Realms of the Human Unconscious, LSD Psychotherapy, Beyond the Brain, Cosmic
Game.
TERENCE MCKENNA 1946 - 2000
McKenna, a psychedelic author and explorer, graduated from Berkeley
in 1975 with a degree in ecology, resource conservation and shaman-
ism. He and brother, Dennis, published one of the earliest psilocybin
mushroom growing guides. Terence farmed psilocybin mushrooms
in the 1980s. In the 90s, he wrote and lectured widely about shamanism,
ethnopharmacology, and psychoactive plants and chemicals, especially psilocybin and
DMT. Terrence died in 2000 of a highly aggressive form of brain cancer.
JONATHAN OTT 1946 - 2000
Ott was a prolific and highly regarded writer, translator,
publisher, reviewer and pundit on virtually every aspect of entheogen
botany, chemistry, pharmacology, bioassay, culture, and history. The
term entheogen itself is most closely attributed to Ott, who used the
word in his books. Ott translated Albert Hofmann’s important 1979 book
on LSD, Mein Sorgenkind (LSD: My Problem Child), and produced an English transla-
tion of On Aztec Botanical Names by Blas Pablo Reko.
p.78
 RICHARD SCHULTES 1915 - 2001
One of the great botanical explorers of Amazonia, Schultes was also a
founder of modern ethno-botany and ethno-pharmacology. He researched
the many uses of plants and documented the medicinal application of
more than 2,000 native cultures. In the 50s and 60s, Schultes influenced
Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, and the drug culture they birthed.
He also gathered over 24,000 Amazonian plant specimens, of which 120 now carry his
name.
STEVE JOBS 1955 - 2011
Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple Computer and one of the leading
figures in the computer and entertainment industries. Along with
Steve Wozniak, Jobs co-founded Apple Computer Corporation and
became a multimillionaire before the age of 30. In the 2005 book
What the Dormouse Said, New York Times reporter John Markoff
quotes Jobs describing his LSD experience as “one of the two or three most
important things he has done in his life.” Wishing to surround himself with
people of a similar mindset, Jobs would often ask interviewers how many times they
have taken LSD.
JEAN HOUSTON 1937 - present
Jean Houston is a leading figure in the cross-cultural study of spirituality and
ritual processes. With her husband Robert Masters, Jean worked extensively
with LSD in the early sixties, culminating in their books The Varieties of
Psychedelic Experience and Psychedelic Art. Together Houston and Masters
head the Foundation for Mind Research in New York, and co-direct the Human
Capacities Training Program. Jean is also the founder of The Possible Society, The Mystery
School, and The International Institute for Social Artistry. As a spiritual counselor, Houston
used LSD when it was legal and hypnosis currently, to help clients, including Hillary Clinto,
to converse with great personages of the past.
ROBERT MASTERS 1947 - present
Dr. Robert Masters began researching mescaline in 1954, and in the
60’s conducted extensive LSD research in collaboration with his wife,
Jean Houston. Influenced by the work of Alexander, Feldenkrais, and Milton
Erickson, Robert Masters developed a technique of neural and sensory reeduca-
tion known as the Masters Psychophysical Method, an innovation that integrates
the trance state with bodywork. Maters suggests a combination of bodywork with psychedelics
as a promising direction for future research. His most recent books include Neurospeak and
The Way to Awaken.
REB ZALMAN SCHACTER SHALOMI 1924 - 2014
An innovative leader in ecumenical dialogue and founder of the Jewish
Renewal and Spiritual Eldering movements, Reb Zalman is one of the world’s
foremost authorities on Hasidism. Author of Wrapped in a Holy Flame:
Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters, Reb Zalman is an advocate of
LSD and has written about his first LSD experiment in a memoir recorded and
edited by Netanel Miles-Yepez. First experiencing LSD administered by Dr. Timothy Leary,
Reb Zalman reports, “Before long I was dancing through several sides of the Hasidic records
and wasn’t winded a bit....I usually danced only with my feet, but then, I felt as if I was dancing
with my very bones, and I kept saying, ‘It’s better than schnapps!’ ”
DOCK ELLIS 1945 - present
According to Michael Horowitz in an article which was printed in the
magazine Lysergic World, (San Francisco, 4/93), former Pittsburgh
Pirates’ pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego
Padres while under the influence of LSD. Ellis said he didn’t know until six
hours before his June 12th no hitter that he was going to pitch. The Pirates
won the game, 2-0. A highpoint in the baseball career of one of the finer pitchers of his
time, the feat was arguably one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports.
FRANCIS CRICK 1916 - 2004
Crick, a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist, is
most noted for being a co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA
molecule in 1953. In an article written by Alun Rees, appeareing in
The Mail (London) Sunday, August 8, 2004, Crick, The Nobel Prize-
winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD
when he first deduced the double-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years
ago. Crick later told a fellow scientist that he often used small doses of LSD to boost
his powers of thought. He said it was LSD, not the Eagle’s warm beer, that helped
him to unravel the structure of DNA, the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize.
KARY MULIS 1916 - 2004
Mullis won the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a now
commonly used technique called the “polymerase chain reaction,” which
allows scientists to quickly and easily duplicate segments of DNA and detect
even the smallest amount of DNA in ancient materials. In his 1998 autobiog-
raphy Mullis claimed “I think I might have been stupid in some respects, if it weren’t for
my psychedelic experiences.” Mullis also describes his first LSD trip in 1966, “..... that everything
I knew was based on a false premise. I fell down through the couch into another world. Would
I have invented PCR if I hadn’t taken LSD? I seriously doubt it,” he says. “I could sit on a DNA
molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs.”
SASHA SHULGIN 1925 - 2014
Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Ph.D., is a pharmacologist and chemist
known for his creation of new psychoactive chemicals. In 1960 he
experimented with synthesizing chemical structures similar to mesca-
line such as DOM. In 1967, Sasha was introduced to the possibilities of
MDMA at a time when very few people had tried the drug. Though
Shulgin didn’t invent the chemical, he did create a new synthesis process in 1976 and
introduced the material to Leo Zeff, an Oakland psychologist who worked with psyche-
delics in his therapy practice.
ANN SHULGIN 1931 - present
Ann Shulgin conducted psychedelic therapy sessions with MDMA
before it was became a scheduled substance in 1985. Since that time,
the Shulgin’s synthesized and bioassayed (self-tested) hundreds of psy-
choactive chemicals, recording their work in four books and more than
two hundred papers. Pillars of the psychedelic community, both the Shulgins speak at
conferences, grant frequent interviews, and instill a sense of rational scientific thought
into the world of self-experimentation and psychoactive ingestion.
p.80
 PARACELSUS 1493 - 1541
Paracelsus, who lived in Basel 500 years ago, is credited with founding
modern Chemistry. His alchemical goal was to discover the Philosopher’s
Stone.  Alchemy was the art and science of transmuting elements, like
turning lead into gold. His studies sought to identify the soul, with chem-
ical transformation as a metaphor for the journey to enlightenment.  Modern
Chemistry took the psyche and mystery out of the material measured world, which
reduced the universe to a heap of atoms.  LSD, formulated one-half a millenia after the
inception of modern chemistry, brought psyche back, front and center to the chemical
material world. Perhaps LSD is the Philosophers Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone, the
discovery of which, also in the town of Basel, is the result of an alchemical process put in
motion by the great Paracelsus.
J. EDGAR HOOVER 1895 - 1972
J. Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI from 1924 until his death
in 1972. As FBI Director, Hoover is remembered for persecut-
ing alleged communists and notables such as John Lennon, and
Robert J. Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Hoover oversaw
undercover operations designed to disrupt, neutralize, and counter the
influence of the New Left, Black Power proponents, and the sixties youth
culture. With Nixon, Hoover demonized and criminalized the use of LSD.
RICHARD NIXON 1913 - 1994
The 37th president of the United States, Nixon perpetrated
the Watergate scandal which brought fresh divisions to the coun-
try ultimately leading to his resignation. Nixon demonized and
criminalized psychedelic drugs, calling Timothy Leary “the most
dangerous man in America”. Nixon instigated a more militant
strategy against drug usage.
CHARLES MANSON 1913 - 1994
Charles Manson, a musician and cult leader, spent much of his
life incarcerated. After being released from prison at age 34, he
became the leader of a group known as “The Family”, and mas-
terminded several brutal murders, most notably the wife of
movie director Roman Polanski, actress Sharon Tate, who was eight
and one-half months pregnant at the time. Manson’s “family” was made up
of troubled young women whom he manipulated with religion and regular LSD. Some
family members allegedly took over 300 acid trips.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS 1914 - 1997
Burroughs, hero of the beat era, was an American writer of experimental
novels. Incorporating homosexual themes and his own experiences as a
drug addict in Naked Lunch (1959) sparked the last major obscenity trial in
U.S., but won him a following among writers, musicians, and film makers. When
asked about LSD in an interview, Burroughs said, “ “I’ve tried it. I just hate it. I don’t like
the feeling.... It makes me nervous. My coordination isn’t good and there’s a metallic taste
in my mouth and there’s nothing I like about it. I’ve taken mescaline, psilocybin. The only
one I’ve been able to use with consistency is cannabis.”
p.81
JEAN PAUL SARTRE 1905 - 1980
French novelist, playwright, existentialist philosopher, and literary
critic, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964,
but declined the award in protest of the values of bourgeois
society. In 1935, Sartre experimented with mescaline. He persisted in the
impression that he was being pursued by a giant lobster. The hallucinations lasted
for some time - some sources say almost a year - and were a cause of concern to the
budding existentialist. Sartre’s first novel, Nausea (1938) expressing the
overwhelming meaninglessness of life, the existentialist philosophy was surely
intensified by his bad trip.
ANAIS NIN 1903 - 1977
Anais Nin was a French author who became famous for her
self-published diaries, which spanned forty years, beginning at age twelve.
Her writing pioneered erotica written by women. After taking LSD in Oscar
Janiger’s office, Nin developed a theory about the drug’s effect on the creative
impulse. Her account of the drug experience is ncluded in her rough notes, and in The Diary
of Anais Nin: “I felt, the chemical did not reveal an unknown world. What it did was to shut
out the quotidian world as an interference and leave you alone with your dreams and fantasies
and memories. In this way it made it easier to gain access to the subconscious life.” 
ROBERT CRUMB 1943 - present
Underground comic book artist and one of the most influential
cartoonists of the last 40 years, Crumb never studied art but began
drawing homemade comic books and greeting cards from an early age.
In 1967, he invented some of his most enduring LSD-inspired characters, including Fritz
the Cat, Mr. Natural, Schuman the Human, and Flakey Foont. Crumb became a count-
er-cultural icon whose sexually explicit satirical cartoons provided a visual expression of
the time. His output since 1967 has been colossal, with the LSD-inspired work of the
1960s giving way to relatively sober, introspective dialogues and biting indictments of
American culture.
JOHN LENNON 1940 - 1980
Lennon had a profound influence on rock and roll, expanding the
genre’s boundaries during the 1960s. Along with songwriting partner Paul
McCartney, Lennon is considered among the most influential singer-song-
writer-musicians of the 20th century. Lennon started experimenting with LSD
in 1964 “ ...after A dentist in London laid it on George, me and the wives without telling us, at
a dinner party at his house. During an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine he spoke of how
LSD affected the conception of his music: “ It was only another mirror. It wasn’t a miracle. It was
more of a visual thing and a therapy, looking at yourself a bit. It did all that. You know, I don’t
quite remember. But it didn’t write the music. I write the music in the circumstances in which
I’m in, whether it’s on acid or in the water.”
GEORGE HARRISON 1943 - 2001
Harrison’s lead guitar underpinned the early Beatles hits. His style
forged the psychedelic sound of the late 60s. “For me, 1966 was the time
when the whole world opened up and had a greater meaning. But that
was a direct result of LSD. It was like opening the door... I had such an overwhelming
feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass.
It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience within twelve hours. It changed me,
and there was no way back to what I was before.” - Rolling Stone Interview 1987
 ALLEN GINSBERG 1926 - 1997
Ginsberg was one of America’s preeminent poets and leading apostle
of the beat generation. His first published work, Howl and Other Poems
(1956), sparked the San Francisco Renaissance. In May 1959, Allen signed
on as a test subject for an LSD-25 study at Stanford University’s Mental
Research Institute. He and Timothy Leary worked together to publicize the psy-
chedelic drug LSD, and Ginsberg attempted to turn on every famous cultural figure in
his address book, including Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius
Monk, Robert Lowell and Jack Kerouac.
THE GRATEFUL DEAD
The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band.
Formed in 1965 in San Francisco, the Grateful Dead was known for their
unique and eclectic songwriting style—which fused elements of rock, folk
music, bluegrass, blues, country, and jazz—and for live jams performances.
The Grateful Dead became the de facto resident band of Ken Kesey’s Merry
Pranksters, with the early sound heavily influenced by Kesey’s LSD-soaked Acid Tests.
JIMI HENDRIX 1942 - 1970
American musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Hendrix was widely
hailed by music fans and critics alike and considered to be the greatest
electric guitarist in his genre. In an excerpt from Room Full of Mirrors
by Charles R. Cross, Jimi described his first acid trip,”[I} looked into the
mirror and thought I was Marilyn Monroe.” Jimi insisted to close inti-
mates that he played colors, not notes, and that he “saw” the music in his
head as he played it. His description of his creative process has an eerie similarity to what
Dr. Hoffman wrote about his own first acid trip: “Every acoustic perception . . . became
transformed into optical perceptions.”
BOB DYLAN 1942 - present
The legendary folk singer dropped acid and went electric in the mid-1960s,
influencing a generation of rolling stones in search of a new America. Dylan
expanded the vocabulary of popular music by incorporating politics, social
commentary, philosophy and literary influences into his lyrics. He created a
style which defied pop music convention and appealing widely to the counter-
cul- ture of the time. Dylan clearly anticipated the formal, aesthetic, and tonal limitations
of folk music, even as, by way of LSD experimentation, he explored the myriad possibilities of
bending music as one bends one’s mind, toward the surreal, the fantastic, the phantasmagoric.
-excerpt from Joyce Carol Oats
KEITH HARING 1958 - 1990
Haring, one of the most celebrated artists of the 1980s,
credited LSD with stylistic breakthroughs that brought him to his
own unique work. Haring grew up with comics and cartoons, with the
glittering phenomena of mass culture. He experimented with LSD and
h a d the vision of a newly structured universe – a vision that is present through-
out his whole life and manifested in his entire body of work. The success of his
work rested in its simplicity. To illustrate the messages that have been of great
importance to Haring, he invented striking signs for all sorts of social topics such as
violence, money, sex, religion, racism or AIDS. -2.16.90 NY, Stilrichtungen.­­­­
p.83
SHPONGLE
Comprised of Simon Posford and Raja Ram, Shpongle is a unique
musical collaboration weaving in layers and textures of electronic
and classic instruments. The listener can hear short snips of lec-
tures by Terrence Mckenna or clips of Alice In Wonderland, usually
referencing the psychedelic experience. Shpongle can be categorized as
psychedelic trance, where fans and club-goers enjoy taking LSD, MDMA and psilocybin
and dancing through the night.
TOOL
Tool is a progressive rock band that formed in the early 90’s out
of Los Angles, California. Band members include singer Maynard
James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and
drummer Danny Carey. The band uses music as a theraputic tool
to heal people from the construct of reality. Their music is a win-
dow into the abstract, which gives way into self relfection and an all
seeing eye of the divine…..Tools. Prodigious sound structures mirror the
astronomical symphonies of the inner realms, both psychological and emotional.
Their psychedelic videos and shows set the participant on a journey to explore the many
perceptions of the human psyche.
BURNING MAN
An experimental art festival that is held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada
once a year, The Burning Man project has grown from a small group of
people gathering spontaneously, to a community of over 25,000 people.
An experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-re-
liance, the climatic point of the festival is the burning of a large effigy of
a man. This culminates at the end of the ten-day gathering signifies the illusiveness of
the material world. One of the concepts of the festival is “Leave No Trace”urging the
community to leave the land as it was before they arrived. In 2003, the Bureau of Land
Management declared Burning Man the largest Leave-No-Trace event in the world.
THE BICYCLE RIDE
While working towards isolation of the active principles
of known medicinal plants, Albert Hofmann studied Claviceps
purpurea (ergot) and ergot alkaloids. Over the next few years, he
worked his way through the lysergic acid derivatives, eventually syn-
thesizing LSD-25 for the first time in 1938. After minimal testing, LSD-25 was set
aside as he continued with other derivatives. Four years later, on April 16, 1943,
Hofmann heard a voice that told him to re-synthesized LSD-25, that he might have
missed something the first time around. That day, he became the first human to
experience the effects of LSD after accidentally ingesting a minute amount. Three
days later, on April 19, 1943, he decided to verify his results by intentionally
ingesting 250 mg of LSD. This day has become known as “Bicycle Day” as
Hofmann experienced a famous and unforgettable bicycle ride on his way
home from the lab.
Most of the information here was gathered from the website Wikipedia.org, the free
encyclopedia where information can be added and edited by any user.
p.84
 CoSM Journal represents a culture that creates from the source.
Light or dark, that source is divine creativity.

We are very blessed to bring together so many amazing people in

this truly historic issue and creating it has been an entheogenic
labor of love. We would like to acknowledge the many friends and
unique artists who are not represented here. The visionary art
movement includes a vast and growing number of people who are
expressing spirit through their art, and we at CoSM honor and
support this process.

Thank you once again for reading CoSM Journal.

Please continue and share your dreams and visions.
See you next time!

Eli Morgan & Marisa Scirocco