Journeys by our predecessor species to Otherworlds are thought to date to the Paleolithic.
Mediums of all kinds: shamans, yogis, members of priestly orders; witches, wizards, artists. These have long offered contact with Otherworlds for the purpose of individual and societal renewal.
Portrait of a Man at Prayer with Saint John the Baptist. c. 1475.
Hugo van der Goes, active 1440-1482, Netherlandish. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
John the Baptist in prayer-trance – his eyes tell it – in the process of instructing a disciple of Jesus.
These journeys were in trance form. They were bounded in time. They were surrounded by protective and prayerful ritual. Their purposes were various:
healing of fractured communities; healing from disease;
homage to and guidance from ancestors;
protection against the wrath of the god(s); or the deeds of evil-doers.
Prayers for a change in weather; prayers for the birth of a child; prayers for forgiveness for trespasses against the gods;
atonement; at-one-ment;
preparation for the life beyond death.
People entered Otherworlds to draw from them in order to give to their world(s).
Today millions of people, turning on their mobile or stationary screens every day, every day, enter a form of trance.
Mood Ring, 2022, oil on canvas
Sasha Gordon, American born 1998. Baltimore Museum of Art
A portrait of the artist’s doppelganger.
There they spend the greater part of their waking hours.
Fall with Me for a Million Days (My Sweet Waterfall), 2016, oil on canvas.
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, American born 1979. Whitney Biennial, NY, 2017
Unplug, oil on linen, 2017. Maria Christina Jimenez (no other information).
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
These trances are mediated and completely controlled by man-made technology.
Cables and Wires, screenprint.
Artist TBD. 2018 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
These masters of technology have no context of the old trance order or of encompassing ritual or safeguards. They do not know -or may not care- that trance entails danger which the mediums knew how to contain.
There is no containment now.
Detail of App Addiction, charcoal, 2017.
Maria Christina Jimenez (no other information). Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Our masters of technology are making money by luring us into passive interaction with more and more fantastic Otherworlds whose only reference point are our addictive egos.
Our desire, craving, our need for entertainment, titillation and horror. Our fear of silence and of being bored. Of being without the latest news.
We do not need the light of day to use these screens. They have their own light.
La Pesadilla (The Nightmare). “The light clouded their minds”, oil on canvas, 2020
Esai Alfredo Figuero Ruiz, BFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2020. (No other information)
iPhone (Jay), 2013, ink and pencil on paper.
Mia Rosenthal, unknown details, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
We absorb this light and think we become the light of the (our own tiny) world. We believe we become smart(er). Meanwhile our minds become more and more cloudy.
The Illuminated Man, 1968, gelatin silver print inscribed in ink. Duane Michals, American born 1932. On exhibit at the Morgan Library, NY in 2019/2020
The photographer overexposed the face of his friend in an underpass in New York in order “to dissolve his head in light”.
Arms outstretched in embrace of our keyboards, our bodies are immobile; and we reflect the colours of our screens.
We are in trance.
Transparent Self-Portrait, 1987, oil on canvas.
Maria Lassnig, 1919-2014, Austrian. Promised gift to MOMA, NY
Only our fingers are moving.
Dopamine Chemical Code CBH11NC2, and detail, oil on linen, 2017.
Maria Christina Jimenez. (No other information). Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
We gratify ourselves alone. In these technological Otherworlds, other people are there to serve our needs.
What is lost is every human attribute or practice which requires community.
The (progress of a) spiritual life is lost because none can exist except in expression with other sentient beings including the earth herself.
The soul, which may be described as an attribute of every human being to the end of healthy physical survival and spiritual flourishing, goes to deep intrabody ground: the soul is thought of as a wild animal, not socialized in the terms of most of our civilizations.
Souls do not like noise and speak only after the inner ear has acknowledged its approaching footfall.
It is the soul which has remedies for this addiction to trance, as to any addiction. Reverse-engineering to incorporate in our daily routines some of the old protections against soul-diminishing behaviours of all kinds.
Freedom is lost because you cannot be free alone. With this loss, human autonomy is gone.
Widespread loneliness results.
Subway Ride, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 2016.
Josias Figueirido, a student in 2016 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia (no other information)
What results can be seen all around: grave individual and communal disorders. Violence. Xenophobia.
Drowning, oil on linen, 2017.
Maria Christina Jimenez. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
What remains:
The human spirit remains. This some describe as an attribute of our whole species always seeking adventurous, creative ascension.
It was the spirit which created this technology as it created the first of our technologies:
the beautiful, useful and murderous Acheulean hand axe and tool:
Paleolithic hand axes and hand tools, 700,000-200,000 BCE; flint or quartzite. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
The human spirit is not defined by or imprisoned in its gifts; nor in their use and abuse by our species. It will climb until our species dies out.
If it dies out.
Our sense of smell remains. Smell cannot be (has not yet been) digitized.
The natural world remains and, more complex than any of our trances, may outlive our species, which, entranced or not, is but its dust.
A swallow tail butterfly feeding on a Turk’s Cap lily in mid-summer, Delaware
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Such a poignant and profound essay on the current state of us, Sarah. Your words and chosen images chime with my current foray into poet, priest, philosopher, John O’ Donohue’s CD collection on the Wisdom of the Celtic World. We have such need of deep healing.
John O’Donohue! Yes, he was a poet guide and courageous for leaving the priesthood to reach so many more of us.
And yesterday when I was reading your 4th piece, the Irishman who studied the wisdom in the Gaelic tradition, John Moriarty, came to me; specifically for his autobiography, ‘Nostos’ (Homecoming). Martin Shaw has spoken and written about his work which is not the easiest to access. He and John O’Donohue travelled in the same quadrant of the universe, because they both draw from the Celtic tradition.
The healing traditions are in and around us and so generous to us. I have hope for us. I am looking at ‘the young people’ especially!
Many thanks for this new to me source. Tx
I found your artiche truly touching and profound.
Thank you so much for sharing your fabulous musings and these stunning images
Thank you for your appreciation, as always, Luisa!
I am the one who thanks you for all the wonderful posts you share. They are never less than fascinating🙏❣️🙏