Late, Late Lecture; Visionary Experiences

I don't propose to talk about reason exactly tonight- a what I want to talk about is visionary experience, which is a subject which has interested me for some time and which continues to interest me and I'm going to begin this fall by one of those questions which uh children ask their parents, which embarrass their parents so much because they don't know what to answer. Questions like why is grass green? Very difficult question to answer. This question is, why a precious stones precious? well there's obvious- an obvious erm economic answer that precious stones are extremely rare, they have a scarcity value. But this doesn't the question at all, because they wouldn't have a scarcity value unless there was a pre existing demand for them and why is there a demand for them? And why should human beings have spent so much time, so much energy, and so much money in collecting and cutting and setting colored pebbles? This is a

very strange um peculiar trait of the human race. Well I was interested to find the other day that Santayana had asked this question, and it had answered it in one of his books in this way, he said that, human beings value gems because gems are t- the objects here in this world of perpetual perishing which seem to be most nearly eternal and unchanging. Well I think there may be something in this, but I'm quite sure this is not a complete answer. I'm quite sure that they're beyond this century psychological answer. There is a deeper psychological answer that the the reason why [clears throat] precious stones are precious, lies hidden in the human mind, but on a- on a profounder level even in there to which Santayana suggested. And I think one can begin to divine the reason if one looks

into the writings of some of the ancient philosophers. No I was very much struck for example to find- in the work of Plotinus, the great neoplatonic philosopher, a very strange statement he says everything in the intelligible world, the world of pure ideas. Everything in the intelligible world shines, for this reason the most beautiful thing on this earth is fire. And in the ?fine dome? of Plato one finds another veryw curious passage. We're talking about what he calls the other earth, which is a sort of mixture between a posthumous paradise and the ideal world. He says that every stone in this other world- uh eh earth is like one of our precious stones indeed our precious stones are merely fragments of the stones which exist in this other earth, this ideal world and he ends up with a

passage by saying that this world is a vision of blessed beholders. Well both these passages are extremely interesting and as much as they made quite clear I think that the- what these two philosophers were talking about was not something metaphorical and abstract but a a quasi sensuous experience that there was some experience of luminous jeweled brightness somewhere in the mind. And in turn the- maybe that this is why uh precious stones are precious. It may be that it is precisely because they remind us of something which is here at the back of our heads that they sa- and to which seems to us very important. Even though we're not often aware of it. It may be that precisely for this reason that they are regarded as precious and uh we find for example in the old

testament to the curious um statements about precious stones. For example, in the description in the garden of- [microphone feedback sound] garden of Eden given by Ezekiel, he speaks about the garden being garnished with precious stones which he calls those the stones of fire. And uh we see then that that there is something extremely [paper rustling] um b- b- b- basically a psychological I think in the reason why precious stones are are precious. [Clears throat]. Now if this is the case if precious stones are precious because they remind us of something which is present so to speak inside us ?all? is a world of of light of uh of self luminous objects. Let us first begin by asking who are the people who have access to this world? Well to start with, I think without any doubt that a great many children have

quite normal access to this world I think a great many children live in a in a luminous world a world where with the visions within they they have their own fantasies have this uh shining brightness and where the external world is also uh felt as extremely luminous and bright where the external world is as we shall to occasion to come back to later on. Resembles the word descri- world described by Wordsworth in his famous ode on the ?intimations? of the mortality in childhood, my belief is as confirmed by a great deal of observations, that large numbers of children have access to this world, but they do see uh the external world transfigured into a bright and luminous place and they- as they grow up and as an analytical education proceeds they they lose this thing that the bright

the glory and the freshness of the dream which Wordsworth describes, fades into the light of common day I think this is a a quite frequent experience nevertheless there are a certain number of people who uh preserve this child-like capacity for living in the, what I may now call the visionary world. Into oh into adult life. Well, I could easily think of uh of people who've done this are some of the poets. I mean quite clearly, Blake had this capacity for moving back and forth between the ordinary world the world where- where the light common day prevails and common sense prevails and the world of visionary experience Blake, himself, was lifted on record that uh he had this capacity from moving from one world to the other during most of his

life he lost it for a period in his middle but recovered it later on. And as I say, moved back and forth quite easily and one has [cough] another more recent poet who was a given us very beautiful descriptions of his experiences in this other world. As the Irish poet George Russell, who wrote under the name of A.E. whose account of this world it is extremely vivid and uh makes one understand very clearly that this childhood experience described by Wordsworth can persist into adult life and can be of extraordinary significance and importance there. Then another ma- man who I think preserved this power into adult life was uh the french poet Arthur Rimbaud -baud. Well Rimbaud had this capacity but to deliberately suppressed it. He didn't want to continue to be a poet and one sees this

this tragic and very strange life of his, that he shut down on this visionary experience in which he had lived. Uh were up to the age of 20 or so and then which was the source of his most vivid most extraordinary effects hitting his poetry and then another class of people who have access to this visionary world are the dying there is a- I think quite true to say that had quite a large proportion of the people when they're approaching death uh do do have luminous visionary experiences. This is being recorded of course in in many literary examples, I mean perhaps the most celebrated of these is the the example given by Tolstoy in that marvelous story The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Where at the end of his life, this uh perfectly ordinary man whose life is

is tragic precisely because he is perfectly ordinary he has himself been forced into a black sack and struggles violently against it and then suddenly at the end of the ?sect?- sees this light and then permits himself to and uh within the last year or two interesting monograph has been published by Doctor ?Kylieosis?, who are investigated this problem and sent out questionnaires to a large number of doctors and nurses asking them what their experience was in- uh- with patients in the last stages of life at a very considerable number gave answers to this effect that uh- the proportion of the dying probably between 10 and 15 percent seem regularly to have this kind of luminous experienced just before the end [paper rustling] so that uh- we see then that the there these several classes of people. Children, the

visionaries who go on having this experience in spite of analytical education, and the dying do spontaneously enter this- this world which Plotinus and uh Plato talked about. Now what seems to be quite clear from the history of uh of religion is that this kind of experience has always been regarded as a very great intrinsic value and that because it has been so regarding the many methods have been developed for inducing and encouraging it and let us can go into these methods which have been used in the course of uh of the centuries in- by- people all over the world. Uh, first of all let us consider what is known in modern laboratory pollens as the restricted environment or sensory deprivation. A

number of experiments have been made over the last few years by- for example by ?Heb? canada by John Lilly at the national institute of health here on sincerity deprivation that people have cut themselves off completely from uh stimulation from the outside world and 'ave observed the results. Well, the results are very curious and very interesting what happens to virtually everybody if sensory experiences of morris completely cut off is that suddenly visionary experiences will supervene and these experiences either for- on the negative side. Very often in unpleasant nature or else of a kind of celestial nature are quite common among the laboratory subjects who have been subjected to this kind of uh sensory deprivation and the interesting fact is that here we have a laboratory confirmation of

something which is well known in the- in the history of religion in every part of the world that um in all the great religious traditions we have this- uh these methods often solitude- of of of cultivating solitude of cutting oneself off completely from sensory experience precisely for the purpose of entering this other kind of uh of of of world which comes to us spontaneously when the outside stimulations are cut off. It's as though the mind, when it is not being bombarded by sense impressions from without produces this material from some strange area at the back of the skull and brings it up into consciousness and of course we have endless examples of this in mind primitive peoples we have the example of the plains Indians in this country who sent there young man out into the solitude

e- for the express purpose of getting vision and for knowing their own personal relationship with the higher powers and of course within all the great world religions we have to take the cases of hermits and uh uh aesthetics who have done exactly the same thing have cut themselves off from the world uh precisely f- in order to be able to get these visionary experiences. And uh spontaneously people who have done this and and not in voluntary way but because they happened to have uh found themselves completely alone. This has happened to them spontaneously, for example, arctic explorers have often recorded as when they were left alone in the arctic night um visionary experiences would come to them quite soon of people who've done these strange single handed voyages across oceans frequently record the same thing and [clears throat] um

prisoners in solitary confinement are often recorded at the same phenomenon. Well what is interesting in this particular context is that the visionary experience which it always entails uh a measure of of light uh uh which we shall go into a little later t- these expenses have been either a negative of of what may be called an infernal nature. Or a positive of a- a celestial nature. Uh take for example one of the classic uh cases w-within the christian tradition, the case of Saint Anthony in the desert. Uh uh you cannot enter a picture gallery in the world without finding paintings of the temptations of Saint Anthony see this unfortunate old gentleman surrounded by devils who are bombarding him with with the most horrible visions of every kind. And now this is a particularly interesting in view of the nature of the evidence which has

come up in modern laboratory experience. The great majority are evidently of Saint Anthony's experiences were exceedingly unpleasant, but he had enough, I think, genuine celestial and mystical experiences to make it well worthwhile to undergo the very disagreeable things which happened to him and this uh uh confirms uh uh uh exactly what has happened to many of the- of the modern laboratory workers in the same field of doctor Lilly for example [clears throat] has told me that when he submitted to a complete uh um course of sensory deprivation which he did in an extraordinarily thorough way by immersing himself in a bath at a temperature about 96 where he was breathing through a snor-kel [audience laughs] and where he was- he was fastened in by a ha- harness which didn't permit him to move more than a tenth of an inch

so that there was this even temperature within his body so that there was no contrast which gave any healing to his body, in a room which was perfectly dark and perfectly soundproof and and within two or three hours he was having visionary experiences. [Audience laughs] And the great majority of these were extremely unpleasant I asked him once what was their nature, but he refused to talk about it, so they must've been very unpleasant and a great many people have had very unpleasant experiences of this kind, but also have- a few of them have had m- m - m- very beautiful and celestial experiences. So we see that uh this this device which is being used to, as I say I think, in all religious traditions and virtually all religious traditions both advanced and primitive is a very effective way of eliciting visionary experience. Well then, there are various other methods um two of the methods I can talk about.

Definitely I think related to sensory deprivation, one of the methods is hypnosis. A certain proportion of people when they are brought down to a pretty deep hypnotic trance will spontaneously develop uh very vivid visionary experiences. They will have internal divisions of of extreme brightness in precision [clears throat] and this I one can see quite clearly is related to this deprivation of sensory experience 'cause after all what hypnosis does is by direct suggestion and to cut you off from virtually every part of the u- universe except your own mind and possibly the- the voice of the, you know, the hypnotist. So that this is in a sense a kind of um psychological hermitage in which you are enclosed in hypnosis and um simulate the

process of one pointed concentration which is characteristic of a so much oriental um cultivation spiritual- spiritual life, in which frequently leads, I mean, all text- Indian text textbooks for example on yoga, uh point out um that one ?one pointed? concentration will lead almost inevitably at one point too uh visionary experience and t- that it uh beyond that it really lead to some kind of purely mystical experience but here again once he's ?deceased? in a kind of psychological deprivation of uh of stimuli. You you cut off deliberately -berately everything except the one point on which you're meditating and uh and the result of this is um is like what happens if you shut yourself up in a cave such as Saint Anthony did or as ?Miraripa? Tibetan tradition did in the Himalayas. But here your cave is

is a psychological factor not a- not a material thing but it it its effect is much the same as the material isolation and you do get the same kinds of of uh experiences now um over about these psychological methods there are a number of physiological methods for inducing the same experiences. Now it wash- it was worth recording that a what uh- technically known as spiritual exercises are in the main psyche of physical exercises and that um many of these uh do result undoubtedly in uh a visionary experience and ultimately in some kind of mystical experience and now let us quickly consider a few these uh uh physiological ?psycho? physical exercises a- the best known in the orient and certainly- and also in the eastern orthodox church were breathing

exercises. The uh ?whole yoga? system is connected with- with a graduated series of breathing exercises and you can find as I say similar descriptions of breathing exercises in the mystical literature of of the eastern church [clears throat]. Now the purpose of all these- the end product of all these these um breathing exercises was prolonged suspension of breath, but what happens if you have a prolonged suspension of breath? Several minutes is apparently it does occur quite frequently, well obviously you get a- a higher concentration than normal of carbon dioxide in the blood and now as is well known by laboratory experiments, uh a- e- an undo of concentration of C O 2 in the blood, it leads to very curious psychological results and precisely in this field it will produce a very curious a

visionary experiences of every kind and [clears throat] [papers rustle] then another method, of course, which has been used in both in primitive and in advanced religions is the method of fasting this again of course changes the blood chemistry and its results uh uh have been confirmed throughout the long history of religion and they were confirmed again by long series of tests which were done I think in the university of Wisconsin during the war. The results of which were published in a- an interesting book called the Biology of Hunger, which uh indicates very clearly that after a certain point of fasting it's quite normal and ordinary for subjects to have strange visionary experiences. Assimilate- [coughs] lack of sleep which is a one of the essential aesthetic practices in almost any of the great religions. The

least the same results. I was very much interested recently in talking to uh doctor ?Jody West? whose the uh professor of psychiatry at the university of Oklahoma who was um presided over one of these curious stunts which was done two or three years ago were the disc jockey decided to remain awake for I don't know how long remained awake for about 150 hours but by the end of it- I mean, um long before the end of it, he was living in a visionary world of the very extravagant nature and uh here again once these why this- these procedures have always been recommended to you in the traditions of the various religions which have value value and um a vision of different kinds. Um another uh thing- aesthetic procedure

which undoubtedly has helped to um produce visions is the beheaded creatures for one candidate current within the christian tradition and has been going to elsewhere of self punishment fletcher- of self flagellation. Now again if one examines the the reasons why this should produce um visions. It's pretty clear, I mean, this this this violent beating of oneself first of all releases large quantities of adrenaline and of histamine both of which have known effects upon the upon the mind and of course course in the middle ages when this was a practiced, virtually every wound suppurated well this was the day- age before soap. [Audience chuckles] And um breakdown products of uh of suppuration got into the bloodstream and also produced uh uh visionary experiences. And its very curious in this context that a great uh 19th century french aesthetic

and mystical who was recently been canonized as ?Senjion vione? ?the curadar? as he was called during his lifetime as left or didn't do is a strange and interesting reports this he was s- eh in his youth he was accustomed to treat himself in the most ferocious man and he would beat himself continuously and his bishop finally forbade him to undertake these awful ?austerities? and he complained very much that he wasn't allowed to do these use it in the old days when I was allowed to do what I like, God could refuse me nothing meaning that he got uh extraordinary visionary and maybe purely mystical experience was when he was doing this and therefore altering his normal biochemical condition in this extremely violent and ferocious way. Well, needless to say they're also as well as these indirect ways of changing the blood chemistry of the

direct chemical ways and these have been used in a great many religious traditions to anybody who was interested in this subject should read uh a most interesting french book by the anthropologist uh uh ?Phillip de Feliz? which is called is called ?puaso sacre?, sacred poisons in which he gives a description of all the chemical means used within primitive and more advanced religions for the purpose of inducing um these visionary conditions and great many of these mind changing drugs having factor [paper rustling] being used from from time immemorial uh I suppose the most um earliest reference in the great religious tradition is the reference in the ?vetas?, Indian ?vetas? to ?Montezuma? which is a a name which I borrowed to describe the drug in

brave new world with which uh nobody knows exactly what 'zuma was, it produced evidently visionary experiences of a kind but was also very dangerous drug as we are told that not merely human beings died of it but that even the great god Indra when he took too much of it was in considerable danger um what it was as I say we we do not know what it did- it was used for this purpose of inducing visionary states [clears throat] and [clears throat] as a as I say it was a very dangerous drug and this of course it resembled the great majority of the classical mind changes most of them have been extremely dangerous. Opium is a dangerous drug. Co- ca, in which cocaine is dervied is a dangerous drug. Hashish rather dangerous drug and uh so on. ?Benesteria? and so on which is used in south america is also dangerous. Uh uh of the naturally occuring vision producers probably the least dangerous are the

Peyote cactus which grows in the southwest in this country and in northern mexico and the so called sacred mushroom of mexico which uh grows in a southeastern areas of that country in the damper climates but on the whole these various chemical means for transporting people out of their normal consciousness into the visionary consciousness have been dangerous and what has happened in recent years is a quiet but probably very significant revolution from in the last 15 years a number of substances- at least three substances have been produced which uh permit the voyage into this uh visionary world where the minimum of effect upon the physiology the first of these uh substances to

be studied and synthesized- finally synthesized about 25 years ago it was mescaline which is the active principal of peyote the next which was discovered accidentally by professor Albert Hoffman of Basel in Switzerland in I think 1944 four- was LSD 25, lysergic acid which was uh extraordinarily powerful in minuet homeopathic doses and the third was a- also synthesized by Hoffman in a- only two years ago [paper rustling] and um is called psilocybin and uh is the the active principal of the sacred mushroom of mexico and this has a rather curious and interesting history um it was- um the use of the mushroom was to describe by the early Spaniards uh, Montezuma

when he was crowned was suppose to have an immense mushroom feast, which all his cultures indulged in, and the odd thing is was that supposed to of- recent ethnologists regarded this as a kind of myth. They doubt it very much whether it ever existed and thought that the Spaniards must have been mixing up the mushroom with a peyote but um but six years ago um Gordon ?Wasson? who is a banker in New York, a partner in JP Morgan but whose hobbies is mushrooms [audience laughter] um went down into mexico and found in southern mexico that there was a flourishing ?cults? to using this mushroom and that there were curanderos and curanderas, these um m- men and women, witch doctors, lady which doctors and men witch doctors who were using this thing in a kind of kind of a religious cult and as a means of uh

of um getting themselves into an oracular state so that they could pronounce about the future and give advice to people who came to them. And um ?Wasson? was accompanied on his next expedition by professor ?Heim Paris? who was a very imminent mycologist and ?Heim? collected a number of the spores of the this mushroom and brought them back to Paris, cultivated them in his labratory, and sent the material down to doctor Hoffman and in- in ?Brazil? who first extracted the the active principle and synthesized it as I say two years ago. And um uh ?Heim?- uh I know him slightly he's a friend of my brothers and he wrote to my brother the other day saying, triumph, I have just returned from a recent trip to Mexico where I took some um of Hoffman's capsules with me and I gave it to

to our old- gave some to our old curandera who was absolutely delighted cause the effects would just as good as the mushrooms and she said, well I can have my magic all year round I don't have to wait for the mushroom season. [Audience laughter] So that uh who says the science is useless I mean she will be able to, able to Hoffman does by saying please send a 100 capsules by return mail, have important magic to do next week and [audience laughter] but there it is I mean that uh, here this this substance exists and it's now being experimented with you know on a large scale both in Europe and in this country. A whole group in Harvard or working with it in Berkeley and many other places and these are very strange and curious substances the most remarkable fact about them I say is that they can produce this immense revolution in the mind.They can do- transform the ordinary state of waking consciousness which as William James remarked years ago is by no means the only form of

consciousness it's the most utilitarian and biologically valuable form of consciousness but there are other forms of consciousness which although, not of great utilitarian value may yet be of great aesthetic or spiritual value and and uh um in this context it's truly interested to read an interview not long ago of a journalist with uh Mister Seaborg whose now I think the head of the atomic energy commission I think, who was asked what he thought the most significant discoveries of the last few years to be and he listed among them the discovery of these mind changing drugs which uh could open up other areas of the mine without doing any harm to the body and I think he's probably right that uh these will turn out to be extremely important um uh important [paper rustle] a-gents to our

knowledge of the world. Now [clears throat] let us uh now having discuss who are the people who have access to this world and how is access obtained to it. Let us now discuss the nature of the visionary world. Now I think the highest common factor of all visionary experiences whether positive or negative whether infernal or celestial is the phenomenon of light. Light can be experienced in two main forms. I- it can be experienced either in what may be- as what may be called undifferentiated light it's just an enormous illumination or else has differentiated light as light embodied in particular objects- shining out of particular objects. Well the um differentiated light or the

records of religious history show is the almost invariable concomitant of uh significant religious above all mystical experiences. I think it's worthwhile to suspend a moment or two discussing what is the nature of the mystical experience. Well, I think the very very briefly I can sum up the mystical experiences in this way one can say that, that is an experience in which ordinary subject object relationship has transcended it's an experience in which the person who has it feels an intense sense of his own solidarity with other human beings in with the essential nature of the cosmos at large uh it is an experience finally in which [cough] the experience uh feels that in spite of, in spite of everything, in spite of

pain, in spite of death that the universe is somehow all right capital A capital R that uh the- a phrase for example such as is found in the Book of Job, "Ye, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." This phrase becomes perfectly comprehensible certain is not as comprehensible as ordinary level but it- for the mystic it becomes perfectly comprehensible means it has a real meaning for him. And finally, I think uh the experience uh is rounded out by an intense sense of gratitude uh gratitude for the privilege of being alive in this extraordinary universe and if uh having been part of this particular kind of of grace in this context it is very significant to read a phrase of William Blake's which I must say,I found very difficult to

understand when I first read it but I think I understand it now. Where Blake says um "Gratitude is heaven itself," and this again is something which is very difficult to understand on an ordinary level of [clears throat] self conscious experience with which becomes perfectly comprehensible and experiencable on this- on the level of mystical experience well now let us return to this question of the light [person in audience coughs] if you look at the records of a- the great of people of of of great religious experiences, you will find again and again this account of the light which accompanied the experience which of the classical cases ?Paul? on the road to Damascus Muhammad was uh struck downed by an overwhelming splendor of light which came to him one night. Plotinus experience the light several times in the course of his career. Saint John

the cross when he was confined in prison was overwhelmed by light which was to say that even though his jailers were able to see it as well as himself the great 17th century protestant mystic Jakob Böhme frequently had the light experience in the course of his career and in a large collection of such cases can be found in any cortex book on the history of mysticism and you can find great many cases of people who were sort of- what may be called halfway mystics um places described in that very interesting book by Dr. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness there's many of them brought uh brought out there and it should be emphasized that these experiences an undifferentiated light are not confined to the exceptional religious geniuses

professor Raynor Johnson published in a very valuable book to a few years ago called The Watcher on the Hills, in which he brought together a large number of case histories of quite ordinary people who were- have had these mystical experiences very frequently accompanied by intense ?photisms? or light experiences and that um this is a I think an important point that uh that many people are susceptible of having these experiences but uh who as I say are not talented for expression as the great mystics of the past generally have been but nevertheless their experiences are perfectly genuine and an immense value to them- selves I mean, what I think is very important always to remember is that enormously more people are capable of intense impressions that are capable of of artistic expression

and the t- the impressions of those who unlock the artistic expression may be just as valuable intrinsically valuable as valuable as to themsel- to the experiences as the experiences of those who can because they have a special gift for expression who can talk about these things. And um [clears throat] similar experiences are describing in some of professor ?Mazlore's? books on- in regard to what he calls the peak experiences and I think there's a growing interest present in what may be called the school of humanist psychology in this kind of phenomenon which is that a real and for the people who have undergone it a very important phenomenon now what emerges from all of this I think is that the constant reference to light in all the religious traditions is not merely metaphorical this isn't

just a figure of speech it is actually the statement of the facts this is a quasi sense- sensuous fact. People experience this light, I would think that- I read a paper recently about a German philosopher who maintained and I think it may be perfectly true that the opening words of the gospel of Saint John were referred to actual experiences and were not merely metaphorical it says that the ?logus? became the life of man and the the life and the life became the light of man and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness encompasses it not that this is not simply a metaphor this is an actual account of the of the kind of visionary and mystical facts which

with which humanity has always said being aware of even those who've not had its uh explicitly or somehow implicitly are aware that there is this potentiality in the back of their mind and the- this is why there has always been this uh curious and passionate interest I think my- my- almost everybody in this kind of visionary experience and I think in the light of uh what has been said one can understand the great significance of such phrases as one as one finds within all the great religious traditions. The inner light of the Quakers, the clear light of the void of Mahayana Buddhism the enlightenment and illumination which run uh again and again through the earliest uh religious traditions

these as I say are not metaphors they they do refer to actual factual experiences. Now from this undifferentiated light as I say seems to be mainly associated with the full blown mystical experience. We pass what may be called differentiated light which is more strictly visionary in the technical language of uh catholic mysticism I think these state's be called pre-mystical states and in this um these experiences the light seems to shine on and shine out of of actual objects now there seems to kind of hierarchy of the objects from which it shines it- on the lowest levels so to say it seemed to shine out of luminous living geometrical figures. Many people have uh have recorded the fact that they see geometrical

figures one the- a most curious of these records is that of the Victorian astronomers Sir William Herschel uh who had the courage, naturally would require a good deal of courage in the 16th century to write what he wrote to record that uh he regularly saw living geometries that at the breakfast table he would suddenly see these things in front of him and that he was i-i-i- immensely sane man he was an excellent astronomer, but he recorded this is as a very interesting psychological effect an incident among other things he used the fact of his own visionary experience uh to say what- that there must be in an important area of the mind which remained unconscious and was yet to be capable of a coherent and in a sense rational activities that were a part of the mind which could produce these beautiful geometrical figures it- it is not completely foolish and chaotic it uh, I must

must have some sort of of a deep unconscious activity going on at the back of my head and this uh, that is interesting an early, well developed example of somebody writing about the typical positive unconscious, now um the- let us continue with some of the other internal aspects of differentiated light as I say we begin with the simplest thing, which are the living geometries and on the next stage up we get uh a geometrical objects like carpets or mosaics and so on the next stage we have uh visions of architectures this is very frequent and the architecture seize buildings seem to be alive and very often see- seem as though

encrusted with precious stones precious stones come in again and then beyond the architecture's lie landscapes and also full of uh living stones, stones of fire as Ezekiel calls it the- the James in the garden of eden. And finally there are visions of the great figures uh Blake saw these figures all the time and left us a number of descriptions of them he he knew what their size was much as a 120 feet high and that uh, he called them the seraphim one of the extraordinary and most interesting facts about all records of these visionary figures is that almost in no cases they know case are they the figures of people whom the subject knew they're not because of his mother, his father, his wife, his old friends. They are figures of perfect

strangers this is a very strange and curious fact that um, they um they emerge out of the back of the mind and the back of the mind from the elements obviously provided by since impressions and memory fabricates entirely novel figures. Why it should do this, goodness only knows, by which the fact remains it does and that uh this is being recorded again and again that these figures seen in vision are not what one would imagine they would be because of- what we know in childhood and what we know at the present time but um perfectly strange figures remain of another species now another fact which is frequently emphasized that there's nothing vague or fuzzy about these issues they are extraordinarily clear and in a certain sense

super real, if the word surrealism wasn't adopted by a certain bunch of art, they would be super real and Blake very interesting remarks on this and he says that they are more highly articulated than anything that the mortal perishing eye could perceive that they have this brilliance and clarity but they look even like a when for example that you described on one occasion seeing the group of lambs in a sheep fold and seeing them as if they were all made like statues, they were so clear and bright as though they were sculptures and this brings us to the [clears throat] to the visionary experience of the external world and this is just as important and I think in many ways more important than the internal visionary experience it is a vision of the external world as transfigured as though

it a fused a kind of light pulsing from within and here we uh go back again for example to the uh what I mentioned before Wordsworth's great ode on the, the um [tap sound] intimations of immortality in childhood where he describes with a ?stream? clarity this uh this kind of uh transfigured world in which he lived and those are you who know the beautiful centuries of meditation of Thomas Traherne will remember there the extraordinarily fine description that Traherne gives of the world in which he was brought up to the city streets that the um the trees beyond the gates, the children playing in the dust, the old men shining like ?seraphim? it is wonderful and uh immensely vivid description [papers rustle]. Well now, I would like to consider the significance

of these curious psychological effects in the realm of religion and of art. In the realm of popular religion I think without question the the um visionary experience has played a very important part. I'm not talking now of the undifferentiated light of the- of the mystic, I'm talking about the strictly visionary work of the world. I think it's quite clear when one reads the accounts of the paradise's and uh after death worlds and gold agents and fairy lands of the different religious traditions in various folklore and it's quite clear that these are simply descriptions of visionary experiences projected into the outer world. The the paradise's with uh gems as such as Ezekiel has describes such as a described in the- in the accounts of Buddist and Hindu

to paradise's. Now these uh- are almost word for word the same as the descriptions given by people who have had visionary experience of landscapes and and architectures and uh this um it's v- very curious to- to go- to the going to the details of of this you get um in the new Jerusalem for example, in the book of revelations, we have a great account of the different kinds of precious stones which- to which the city was built, but and we have to account of- of the glass like substance which uh which was used. The walls of the city, if you remember were gold like glass. They were transparent but gold in color and in the mist there was a sea of glass and we have in all

kinds of other traditions uh similar accounts of self luminous ?into? substances like glass. Glass had obviously made an enormous impression upon simple people at a fairly early age of history we have for example in the celtic tradition the land of the dead is called Caer Wydyr the island of glass and in the Teutonic tradition we have something called glass ?bear? of glass mountain where the dead were supposed to live. Again, it's quite clear that these are related uh to the uh visionary world of a of um which people enter, uh uh [paper rustling] and in relation to to the popularity of visionary art its worthwhile thinking of

words which very often embody fossilized forms the sentiments which people have about things tis for example highly significant that um when aphantasia ?Christiaan? invented a machine for projecting colored slides in a dark room on a white ground immediately the uh device was called a magic lantern and it's very significant to the decorations at night in an exhibition car called fairy lamps and the French call any kind of illumination at night and ?en fairy? so that- you see that language embodies this fact that people feel these things seem to be in some sort preternatural, almost supernatural thi- this this visionary thing has this strange appeal which um is more than normal in some kind of way. With this sir

I think I I better close one could go on I suppose talking about this strange subject have been for a long time but I think I've said enough to indicate it this is a fascinating and very significant subject and it- it is something which is far as I'm concerned, is very w- well worth uh studying with care and with the upmost sympathy. Thank you. [Applause] [Audience applause] [Silence] [Silence]