I N T R O D U C T I O N

The artist of the future isn't going to paint pictures, or dance, or sing, or write music or poetry primarily. He/she will be a wizard, a magician, a shaman who will use any and all media to transform the consciousness of this planet. What I intend here is a vision in words for a new type of artist, that is, for a new type of art. Art in the past has usually been "object," something which artists make. Art must now become the artist him/herself and thus the designation shaman or magician. As artists acquire greater personal power, they will find themselves in new cultural roles, as the creators and leaders of a dawning era whose spiritual and legal consciousness is the Earth. As they develop their minds, they will devise entirely new art forms based upon these intuitive abilities.

Social scientists in studying tribal life often take a similarly detached point of view. I attended a lecture once on 'the evil eye,' a phenomenon that is found in cultures from Scotland to India and across most of Africa--which is 'the belief that someone can project harm by looking at another's person or property.' The speaker, as a good anthropologist, was interested in 'theoretical positions,' 'behavioral explanations.' Some researchers, he reported, found the belief 'rooted in the ethos of the culture' while others said 'it symbolizes and expresses the conflict between independence and dependency in the individual.' 'A universally valid theory of envy,' he continued, 'seemed likely through cross-cultural study.' When he finished, he asked for questions. I waved my hand and asked, 'Do you believe in the evil eye, either as a practitioner or a victim, or both, and if you don't believe in it, how do you possibly think that you can understand it?' The speaker responded in a way so as to let me know that I was either a fool or a cracker. But, as somewhat of an evil-eyer myself, I must persist: if an artist is not a practitioner of magic, how can he/she possibly understand 'primitive' art?

How did art begin? What can religious studies teach us? What can we learn in the bones and caves of pre-history, at the dawn, when man was just separating from the apes in a glimmer of cold light? Originally, sorcerers and seers drew images of animals to attract their power. Certain natural objects of stone and feather were seen to emanate a force and so they were painted, decorated and glorified. Chants and runes were made up to speak to the Great Spirit. Songs were made to cause spells. Dramas and dances were performed to enter the spirit world and to act out events--healings, successful hunts--that the performances would bring about. Grave stone figures of gods and goddesses were carved, physical representations of those ones, as reminders and clarifiers of power.

Art began as magic. The power of the art object was deemed sufficient to bring about a real change in the material plane. It affected animals, crops, the weather, sicknesses, the tribe's well-being and one's enemies. Its highest form was the calendar wheel, or mandala, for this object controlled all of the events within a society and related them to the cosmos. In light of its origins, we can see how puny and irrelevant art has become: paid diversionists, living in the nether world of gallery, theater and concert hall. Art used to be powerful because the men and women who performed it were powerful. They were of the major fabric of life, its interpreters and intermediaries."

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DANCE: A TECHNIQUE SECTION
Dancing is a very powerful means of achieving a trance state. Or healing. Because it invokes and fuses the three planes: body, mind and spirit. Unlike sedentary meditation, our body movements become spirit, fused with our minds and the universe. In a dancing trance, one is completely aware of one's body and goes beyond dancing to the music and dances to, fuses with, the Natural Rhythm of the Universe--that is, it is auditory. Dance is thus a good practice for trance because it makes little use of the visual which is normally our strongest focus. To achieve a good trance, the energy of the music must be extremely high, not necessarily fast or violent, but of high energy. Very repetitive, percussive music and chanting is good.

The basic step is a very fast, rhythmic up and down movement of the feet. It would be very difficult for me to describe this movement without demonstrating it. But the movement is a very delicate bouncing up and down that is very fast, yet very easy and when you get into it, you will have the feeling that you can continue it indefinitely.

Gradually, as the dance begins and progresses, you must loosen every part of your body--that is, bring energy, vitality and life into the deadened parts. If you have a pain, don't tighten up your body to avoid it but rather modify your movement to accommodate the pain and then gradually dance into it. Be loose, but less forceful and, as the pain begins to transform, add more and more energy. This is the healing part of dance. And when the healing has been completed and the energy is flowing freely through every body part, the basic step will become less forceful, easy, and will come by itself. And you may begin to experience that you no longer exist, that the rhythm exists.

You may feel the urge to yell or scream while you dance. Usually, this is very advisable. Yelling, chanting, screaming relaxes the throat, neck and shoulder muscles--the parts of our bodies which normally carry the most tension--and allows energy to flow into them. It opens, as some would say, the Throat Chakra. Thus, when you scream, while it may seem that you are releasing energy from your body, you are really increasing its intensity and flow.

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N E W A R T
How would a shaman define art? How can we define art in a way that will best serve the evolution of human society and human beings? What has been lost in the art of modern western man that must be regained if we are to know ourselves better and live with more awareness and joyfulness on this planet? With these issues in mind, we come to two qualities of a New Art: first, it is spiritual and, second, it is closely integrated with nature and the earth.

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SPIRITUALITY
Gregory Bateson said, "I mean first that great art and religion and all the rest of it is about this secret." The "secret" that he means is "how to tell the difference between a sacrament and a metaphor... It's something that one cannot tell."

This is in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, in a "metalogue" about "Swan Lake" and the Catholic communion service. Is the dancer in the ballet a "sort of" swan or a "sort of" human? Referring to the communion, he says, "Many men have gone to the stake for the proposition that the bread and wine are not 'sort of' the body and the blood. ...for some people the bread and the wine are only a metaphor, while for others... the bread and wine are a sacrament..."

He then shifts this to a discussion of the ballet, as to whether it is a sacrament: "we might say that the swanlike costume and movements of the dancer are 'outward and visible signs of some inward and spiritual grace' of woman. But in Catholic language that would make the ballet into a mere metaphor and not a sacrament."

He then states, "You ask me how I tell the difference ... But my answer must deal with the person and not the message. (Italics mine).

Let us suppose I asked the dancer, "...is it for you a sacrament or a mere metaphor?"... She will perhaps put me off by saying, "You saw it--it is for you to decide... whether or not it is sacramental for you." Or she might say, "Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't." Or "How was I last night?"

The answer to Bateson's question is based upon something which usually won't be said in the performer's response or perhaps even implied. Apart from the artistic performance or creation, but very definitely connected to it at its base, is a visual-auditory image that is a feeling. This visual-auditory image that is a feeling is the intuitive knowledge of what a sacrament is. Without that knowing, it is impossible to make the judgement as to whether any particular performance, or any particular act of artistic creation, is a sacrament. Art that is a sacrament is art that is done with an awareness of one's intuitive knowledge. Yet, this knowledge is never expressed directly in art works themselves. Rather, it is shared implicitly. Art "talks about" it but is not it. Art is the indirect communication of this secret.

Perhaps another way to be aware of this secret is to talk about "art-throughout-our-history." Beginning with Stone Age cave paintings, then the Egyptians, the Bronze Age, the Greeks, medieval, the Renaissance, Old Masters, modern, and so forth, there has been a slow filtration and accumulation of lasting, enduring works. This is what we ultimately value as art, and the key word is "enduring." While it describes these objects, it really refers to the secret, to a deep need within the human consciousness, a need which they fulfill.

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I call the knowing and experiencing of this secret at any given moment in time a Religious Feeling State (a RFS). Art, then, is anything made for the purpose of affecting great numbers of people which, when they experience it, produces in them a Religious Feeling State. "Anything" refers to an event which is external, capable of being known through our five senses (and extra senses). "Great numbers" refers to a mass influence over time--to art's societal function--separating art from other possibly transcending "happenings" with limited audiences like church services, therapy groups, etc.

FROM OUR BOOK THE NEW ARTIST, FIRST PUBLISHED IN "QUEST" MAGAZINE