Visionary artwork goals to transcend the boundaries of the bodily realm to painting a wider view of consciousness by way of mystical and religious themes. Visionary artist Allyson Grey is a conceptual summary painter whose work is impressed by these themes, and believes parallels between modern visionary artwork and historical artwork might be discovered in every single place.
Allyson Gray has spent a long time exploring her work as a visionary artist, which stems from a life altering LSD journey the place she first skilled “secret writing.” Alongside together with her husband and fellow visionary artist Alex Gray, she co-founded the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a transdenominational church and nonprofit group primarily based in New York state.
From Previous to Current
Historic artwork infuses psychedelic, primordial parts that trickle into the framework of latest artwork, together with Allyson Gray’s work, which includes parts of sacred geometry, symbols, illuminated manuscripts, and what she calls “secret writing.”
Allyson Gray’s recurring motifs embrace pictures of the realms of heaven and hell, summary visions and portrayals of inside realms, cosmograms and mandalas, and sacred geometry, which she describes as “visions of worlds within worlds and charts of the cosmos.”
One instance of historical artwork with these themes might be seen within the Tassili cave portray (c. 7,000–5,000 B.C.E.). The portray was present in a Neolithic web site in modern-day Algeria and depicts an animal-human hybrid with a feathered headdress (or probably horns or antennae) sprouting mushrooms and holding extra mushrooms with a hive-like patterned floor. Allyson Gray describes this noteworthy piece as “an animal-human hybrid involved with a mystic image when involved with a psychedelic fungi.”
Visionary artwork additionally progressed by way of the Center Ages, notably with feminine mystics akin to Hildegard of Bingen, who created the “Common Man” illustration (c. 1165 C.E.), which is cosmic and geometric in nature and shares many similarities with Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” (c. 1490 C.E.), however predates it by tons of of years.
“Hildegard of Bingen had visions and had others paint them to her specs and underneath her instruction,” Allyson Gray says. “Artworks by Hildegard are a few of the most beautiful that exist from her time. Hildegard von Bingen described ‘fingers of fireplace’ that got here from heaven, coursing by way of her and into her thoughts’s eye. Descriptions have been then portrayed by monastery and convent artists.”
Allyson Gray additionally admires the work of Catherine of Bologna (c. 1413-1463 C.E.) who was a follower of St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226 C.E.). She was a author, instructor, mystic, and artist who was canonized, or declared a saint, 250 years after her loss of life. She is now referred to as the patron saint of artists and towards temptations.
All through intervals in historical past, girls with mystical strengths have been forged as witches and visions have been declared demonic, whereas a double commonplace developed with regard to males who made comparable claims. The divine female, however, is the concept that a celestial female counterpart exists to the standard patriarchal order in faith. It’s a theme that may be interpreted in Allyson Gray’s work.
“Divine female spirituality has solely ever been demonized by males, which is, in fact, abhorrent,” she says. “God is One. God isn’t two. God has no gender or face. God is inside.”
An Awakening
Throughout the centuries, numerous artists have explored the themes of psychedelic artwork although exploring their inside selves and depicting religious realms. For Allyson Gray and her artwork, the recurring ingredient of “secret writing” is rooted in deep that means.
Allyson Gray skilled her first psychedelic journey in 1969 and spent three years afterward dropping acid. In 1971, she learn Be Right here Now by Ram Dass, which impressed her to expertise the results of LSD whereas in a darkish room. The expertise altered the course of her life as she bore witness to a religious awakening.
“Mendacity on my mattress, I witnessed secret writing washing over my physique, over the floor of the mattress and the spare furnishings,” Allyson Gray recollects. “Secret writing wafted by way of the air in ribbons and streamed over the ceiling and down the partitions. Infinite letters made of sunshine outlined the fabric world of ‘issues.’ It spoke to me in an unpronounceable language.”
She continues, “The thought that first got here to me once I noticed secret writing was, ‘That is what individuals name God.’ Till then, by no means having recognized God, I may need thought of myself a Jewish agnostic. After that journey, I couldn’t deny God. It precipitated an existential shift that I couldn’t share with my Marxist revolutionary pals who would have been cynical towards this religious awakening. From Ram Dass’s e book, I heard the advice to discover a place to learn to meditate and I did. Nonetheless a scholar, I grew to become a vegetarian, labored in an Indian restaurant, did yoga, went to meditate with the Yogi Bhajan group on the weekends and sought out a brand new group of pals. Alex and I nonetheless do yoga and meditate day by day.”
Throughout psychedelic experiences—most notably LSD—some individuals describe how characters and phrases of their native language all of a sudden look overseas or say that they see them from a wholly new perspective.
“Secret writing has been reported by many psychonauts,” Allyson Gray says. “Of the infinite number of symbols I witnessed, I made artwork and finally chosen an alphabet of 20 letters and organized them in a selected mantric order. Secret writing in my artwork is supposed to be untranslatable and unpronounceable. Their that means is ineffable. Symbols are how we understand and interpret all issues. Our minds translate that means by way of our distinctive life expertise.”
It’s tough to clarify a psychedelic expertise inside the restrict of language.
“Phrases and artwork level to profound increased consciousness,” Allyson Gray says. “[Greek poet] Sappho and [French writer] Anaïs Nin wrote stunning interpretations. Psychedelic experiences, nonetheless, are ineffable and each distinctive and relational. All polarities dissolve in a mystical religious episode.”
Church of the Sacred Mirrors
CoSM has grown over the previous a number of a long time. On June 3, 1976, the Greys shared an LSD expertise that they perceived as a simultaneous shared imaginative and prescient seen from two separate views.
“It modified our artwork, which grew to become dedicated to portraying that imaginative and prescient and subsequent journeys,” Allyson Gray says.
In 1978, the Greys organized a public efficiency occasion known as Life Power. As part of the efficiency Alex Gray drew two life-sized charts with black ink on heavy paper. One represented the nervous system of a person, the opposite portrayed the metaphysical techniques of the physique—together with acupuncture factors, meridian strains, auras, and chakras. These attending the efficiency have been then invited to face earlier than these drawings and mirror their life power system in these two methods, to really feel the resonance of the invisible forces inside.
“On our stroll residence from the efficiency, we evaluated the general success of the night and I stated to Alex, ‘Individuals actually beloved the charts. You need to make a sequence of oil work of the physique, thoughts and spirit of a person,’” Allyson Gray says. “Alex concluded that he ought to embark on the undertaking and embrace the techniques of the physique, the races, and the religious archetypes of world religions. The identify ‘Sacred Mirrors,’ Alex has usually stated, was what I named them.”
In 1985, a Chicago collector provided them cash, “more cash than we’d ever conceived of,” Allyson Gray remembers, to buy the sequence which, at the moment, included about 17 to 18 work. The Greys agreed to promote them, they usually signed a contract.
“The collector additionally provided us our first dose of MDMA—pharmaceutical grade,” Allyson Gray says. “MDMA was authorized and he had gotten the doses from his psychiatrist. Three days later, we took the medication and had a imaginative and prescient of a Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, realizing that we couldn’t promote the sequence and broke our settlement with the collector. In our Brooklyn basement, we instantly launched into sculpting the 21 10-and-a-half-foot-tall frames.”
The sequence was first exhibited at The New Museum in Manhattan in February 1986. In 1996, the Chicago collector’s daughter funded the authorized work for CoSM to turn out to be a nonprofit with the mission to “construct an everlasting sanctuary of visionary artwork to uplift a world group.”
In December 2003, a shaman instructed the Greys they need to begin full moon ceremonies to hope for the CoSM to be manifested. In April 2004, the membership proprietor of Spirit New York gifted them a flooring in his constructing on twenty seventh avenue, which was crammed with particles and was residence to nothing however scrap metallic and vehicles in disrepair. There, they rented a 12,000-square-foot flooring, and constructed the primary CoSM NYC. After 5 years of success, their block grew to become crowded with golf equipment, cafes, and galleries.
“When the five-year lease ended, our hire would quintuple,” Allyson Gray says.
To construct a sanctuary that may final, they needed to buy land. By looking out findthedivine.com, Alex Gray recognized the one retreat middle on the market on the time on the East Coast—65 miles north of Manhattan, 1,500 toes from the Hudson River, and strolling distance from a MetroNorth station. It got here with six rundown buildings and a barn, they usually managed to get a mortgage and started rebuilding.
“After sur-thriving for 13 years, COVID blessed us with the time to lastly full all that was required to obtain a certificates of occupancy on reworking the 1882 carriage home right into a 12,000-square-foot exhibition area we known as Entheon, the CoSM and three flooring of visionary artwork,” Allyson Gray says.
Throughout the pandemic, CoSM continued an unbroken chain of full moon ceremonies by broadcasting on-line and on the complete moon, June 3, 2023, CoSM reopened after three years of getting had no guests. Over 130 on-line packages later, with CoSM memberships growing worldwide fivefold the dimensions previous to COVID, CoSM is now celebrating in particular person CoSM full moon ceremonies in Entheon.
Each Allyson and Alex Gray educate a course on sacred geometry (the research of the religious that means of shapes) at CoSM masking the golden proportion and different sides of sacred geometry, generally shared by way of a digital stream. It’s additionally a typical ingredient in lots of their work.
“There have to be perceptual mechanics that plot the material of area,” says Allyson Gray, talking of sacred geometry. “In our deepest states of bliss, we intuit cosmic constructions. That’s how Pythagoras and Plato, who each had psychedelic experiences within the Eleusinian mysteries as a result of they noticed them in visionary worlds.”
The Energy of Psychedelics
Allyson Gray believes that LSD modified the course of American historical past and relishes the truth that psychedelics at the moment are changing into extra socially acceptable.
“When Alex and I have been in faculty there was barely a university or college that provided a course in ecology, in girls’s research, Black American historical past, and Native American historical past,” she says. “Now, the vast majority of colleges and even public colleges in lots of states supply these programs of research and extra ahead considering, open-minded topics. All of us want transformation moved quicker, however we’re grateful to have been in a position to stay lengthy sufficient to see psychedelic science changing into extra acceptable, therapies provided for lots of the psychological and emotional ills that we all the time knew can be benefitted by these substances.”
Hashish can be a recurring theme in Allyson Gray’s curriculum. On her weblog, she studies that she sees hashish as a sacrament that’s greatest used to extend spirituality, and to a lesser extent, creativity. She welcomes the modifications in world coverage surrounding hashish.
“To see hashish legalized in so many states and nations may be very heartening,” Allyson Gray says. “Many people have been outlaws for many of our lives. Aid is in sight to finish the Battle on Medicine.”
This text was initially Up to date within the November 2023 challenge of Excessive Instances Journal.