Illustrations of the Akashic Records: Kunstkammern for the Antipodes of the Mind

By Sarah Koss

B.S. Biology, May 2007, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University B.S. Psychology, May 2007, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University B.A. Studio Art, May 2007, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of

Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts

August 31, 2010

Thesis directed by

Thom Brown Associate Professor of Painting

Siobhan Rigg Assistant Professor of New Media ABSTRACT

Illustrations of the Akashic Record: Kunstkammern for the Antipodes of the Mind

Shamanic journeying has been used over 10,000 years as a means of gaining information from alternate dimensions of reality. Through the use of rhythmic drumming,

I practice shamanic techniques in order to examine various ways of experiencing time.

My paintings are an attempt to embody the images that I encounter and the slippage of time that I experience during altered states of shamanic journeys.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii

Table of Contents iii

List of Figures iv

Illustrations of the Akashic Records 1-6

Installation Images 7-8

Bibliography 9-11

iii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 7

Figure 2 7

Figure 3 8

Figure 4 8

iv Illustrations of the Akashic Record

When one of his best friends died, Albert Einstein sent a consolation letter to the man’s family. He wrote that, although his friend had preceded him in death, it made little difference since “us [sic] physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one” 1 . Influential thinkers throughout history have made similar claims, from Antiphon of 5th Century Greece to contemporary physicist Steven Hawking. Hindu, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, and Occult doctrines all claim that time is an illusion created by the human mind.

The mathematician Alfred Korzybski elegantly categorized man as a time-binder, while plants for him represented energy-binders and animals were space-binders.

Korzybski recognized that humans adapt to their environment by binding time with clocks and calendars. Through the production of artwork, I strive to un-bind time and create a state for the viewer that is more akin to the animals’ experience of space-binding.

In order to enter this altered reality where time does not exist, I use shamanic journeying.

Images and feelings gathered while exploring and altering new spaces then make their way into my paintings, which serve to elicit a sense of timelessness within the framework of a time-based reality.

Shamanic practitioners use a wide variety of techniques for inducing an altered

______1 Gevin Giorbran, Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness. Enchanted Puzzle Publishing, 2006

1 state of consciousness in which time disintegrates. Dancing, singing, drumming, drugs like peyote and ayahuasca, fasting, meditating, and not sleeping can all catapult the shaman into a particular mind space called Non-Ordinary Reality (NOR). I most often make use of the drumming technique, a practice that has been used for over 20,000 years; a drumbeat of three to four beats per second allows the brain to produce high levels of theta waves, which normally occurs only during REM sleep 2 .Once in NOR, I encounter a myriad of symbolic objects, deities from various religious traditions throughout history, nature and animal spirits, and fantastical exotic landscapes.

The information that I gain while in this altered state is garnered through the

Akashic Records, a vast historical database. This information exists in a non-physical plane that can be accessed through astral travel, shamanic journeying, meditation, and the use of certain psychoactive compounds. Every human thought, action, intent, and experience that has occurred throughout history is imprinted in the Akashic field, and clairvoyants throughout history have claimed to have access to these Records — most recently medical intuitive Edgar Cayce and philosopher and architect Rudolph Steiner.

Use of the Akashic Records can be traced through many cultures throughout human history. It has been said that the Druid cultures of England and Wales demonstrated the ability to access the Akasha, and that those individuals who read the

Records in ancient Egypt were advisors to the pharaohs. Connections have also been made between the Akashic Records and the Book of Life of both the Old and New

Testaments of the Bible. The 7,000 year old Vedas of India, as well as the

______2 Drake, Michael. “Functions of the Shamanic Drum.” ShamanicDrumming.com. 2001. 20 June 2010. < http://www.shamanicdrumming.com/index.html>

2 language of Sanskrit itself, are claimed to have been extracted from the Akashic field. My own interaction with the Records often focuses on the history of dynastic Egypt. My most recent body of work draws heavily on interactions with the Egyptian deities Serqet and

Khepri. The patron of doctors, I first encountered the healing goddess Serqet in the form of a giant scorpion while journeying in the desert. The scarab-headed Khepri, a solar god of rebirth and resurrection, appeared at her side during a later journey. Both deities serve as important guides during my meditations, and their images appear often in my work.

While journeying to the Records in an altered state, time dilates, expands, and shifts in unexpected ways, much as it does in dreams. The images and feelings gathered during this experience form the basis for the imagery of my paintings. The challenge of transferring a sense of altered or non-present time from NOR into normal everyday awareness is not difficult for me as the artist. When the work is going well, time stops as

I work. Layer upon layer of paint is built up in a wide variety of hues, textures, shapes, and opacities. I apply paint in thick gobs with large brushes or in long sinewy lines with dripping paint. I use stencils, palette knives, feathers, spray cans, toothbrushes, and medicine droppers. Oil, acrylic, enamel, and craft paint all appear on the canvases, along with crayon, sharpie, and graphite.

This process requires many different physical movements. Some marks traverse wide areas of canvas and require sweeping gestures using my whole body, while other sections require long period of sitting nose to canvas fussing over small areas with tiny brushes. As in a shamanic journey, reality is highly unpredictable and somewhat out of control in the process of making the paintings. I can never exactly predict the outcome of any particular action, and a painting can fall apart or pull together into an ideal

3 composition over the period of only a few minutes. It is through the dance of movements and absorption of various hues and textures of materials that I am able to experience the slippage of time that is so important to my practice. The process of painting allows me to un-bind time and experience a reality that is not defined by the flow of a clock.

The real challenge of my work comes in the third component of the process. I can experience the dissolving of time easily with shamanic drumming, and again in the process of making the paintings — but the struggle consists of attempting to transfer this experience to the viewer who sees the finished work. While most formal decisions are made intuitively while working, decisions regarding the overall meaning and appearance of the work as it relates to timelessness are consciously addressed throughout the development of each piece. This process involves attempts to recreate sensations of my shamanic journeys that are extremely difficult to explain using language.

One of the most important decisions of this sort involves creating sections of canvas that either flow together harmoniously, or clash against one another in jarring and sometimes uncomfortable juxtapositions. Regardless of the specific feelings or forms being created, I always strive to create images that are extremely complex in order to discourage attempts to unravel the paintings in a logical, linear manner. In this way, the paintings become systems that embody simplexity — they simultaneously contain elements of both complexity and simplicity. Just as an overwhelming jumble of streets in a large city becomes a simple grid pattern when viewed from an airplane, or a single drop of clear pond water becomes a teeming ecosystem under a microscope, my paintings can seem simple or complex, depending on the viewer’s perspective. While one way of looking reveals chaos and complexity, a shift in perspective can reveal elements of

4 simplicity hidden within the system.

When the viewer looks at my work using the perspective usually associated with processing representational painting, he or she will quickly feel overwhelmed. The cacophony of forms on the canvas cannot be processed using the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in linear thought and logic. Instead, the viewer is encouraged to release the tight grip that the prefrontal cortex usually holds over the subconscious to allow the imagery to sink into their minds at a level below language and linear time. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex controls time perception, so as one is forced to focus with other areas of the brain, their perception of time also changes 3 .When this shift in attention takes places and the complexity experienced by the prefrontal cortex gives way to the simplicity experienced by the subconscious, the viewer experiences an altered state similar to the one that I experience as the creator of the work.

The nuances of the experience of timelessness are not easy to discuss. Of all the possible ways of communicating ideas about time, painting to me has become the most logical purveyor of information. Written language is completely a product of man’s time- binding, and so cannot (with the exception of some poetry for some readers) convey the flavor of altered time. Similarly, video and performance art also take place within the assumed logical flow of linear time. Sculpture also usually requires the viewer to move through space in a familiar way in order to take in a three-dimensional form, and so time in this case again takes on its traditional, familiar aspects. Photography, while able to seemingly freeze a single moment, still assumes

______3 Koch, et.al. Selective deficit of time perception in a patient with right prefrontal cortex lesion. Neurology. Vol. 59, Issue 10, 1658. November 26, 2002

5 strong ties to the idea of a moment that is surrounded by a past and a future, so it also is entrenched in traditional time.

A painting, though, contains many sorts of time within its frame. There is the evidence of passing time within a painting, since the viewer can see layers of marks that serve as evidence of repeated manipulation to the surface. At the same time, the viewer can stand before a painting and experience it as a complete object existing in one single present moment. In this way, painting begins to open up time, to twist it in ways that seems to move towards the altered states in which I am so interested. Painting for me represents an important intersection between time and timelessness.

6 INSTALLATION IMAGES

Illustrations of the Akashic Records: Kunstkammern for the Antipodes of the Mind Classroom 102, Smith Hall of Art June 19 - August 15, 2010

Figure 1

Figure 2 7 Figure 3

Figure 4

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