BRIEF HISTORY OF SPIRITUAL PSYCHIC ART

Spiritualism, Spiritism, Higher Spiritualism
Spiritual Psychic Art, Visionary Art
Spiritual Psychic Artists
• Rosa Parvin
• Luis Gasparetto
• Keith Milton Rhinehart
• Coral Polge
• Frank Leah
Visionary Artists
New Age Visionaries

SPIRITUALISM — SPIRITISM — HIGHER SPIRITUALISM

Psychic art for many brings to mind the psychedelic patterns of swirling paisleys, god’s eyes, and the glowing halos of the sixties. Certainly, the LSD experience opened up the common person’s psychic eye, forever redefining psychic art as more than the bizarre product of the mystics’ imagination. Although many have dabbled most within the general public would be surprised to know the true nature of psychic art and it’s role in the religious history of Spiritualism, Spiritism, and Higher Spiritualism. Each of these religions hold similar beliefs, and in general believe that the phenomenon of nature, both physical and spiritual, are the expression of Infinite Intelligence. They state that the existence and personal identity of an individual continue after the change called death. Each of these religions employs mediums to contact the so-called dead to communicate with the living. The fact that the dead can indeed communicate has been proven to be a scientific fact by the phenomena of Spiritualism. And it is through psychic art that this fact has been further corroborated by providing irrefutable visual imagery of the dead. It is not within the scope of this presentation to discuss this proof in detail or outline the differences within each of these forms of religion, suffice it to say that Higher Spiritualism is more focused on universal and spiritual truths communicated from consciousnesses stating to have overcome the cycle of birth and death.

SPIRITUAL PSYCHIC ART — VISIONARY ART

Within the following pages we want to sketch a bare bones history of visionary and Spiritual Psychic Art, illustrating how our work is not necessarily unique, but stands in place with a growing list of extraordinary Artists. Briefly, we will explore the differences between these two forms of psychic art. Nowhere has it been officially established that there are primarily two forms of psychic art, but this is our analysis through our involvement with the field. Our main focus is Spiritualism whereby an artistic vision is impressed upon a persons’ mind from the spirit side of life. In this form the person being impressed doesn’t necessarily possess artistic talent. Often with authentic Spiritual Psychic Art the artist in question is typically a medium first, and if an artist at all their talent is latent or non-existent (we preface psychic art with Spiritual to acknowledge that the image has come from spirit).

The visionary realm of psychic art is relatively free-wheeling and often points toward world views not readily accepted by society at large. Visionary artists are usually more gifted as artists, many having been educated and trained in the arts. The imagery of visionary art is vast in scope presenting ancient legends, futuristic concepts, other worlds, spiritual bodies of light, and various forms of energy unseen by the human eye. In general, it is interpretive, completely derived from artists opening of their “organs of the imagination”. Some have characterized this process as the opening of the spiritual center associated with the sixth chakra often referred to as the third eye. In esoteric language this chakra center is linked to the spiritual body of awareness and the development of clairvoyance. But psychic vision is complex and C.W. Leadbeater, who was a highly developed clairvoyant, states one can experience psychic vision from both the astral and the mental bodies of awareness as well. So we see that psychic sight unfolds in different ways for different people. A discussion of the mechanics of exactly how psychic vision manifests would constitute a book in itself. With that understanding we will allow this brief description to stand.
Like the visionary form, the traditional spiritualistic realm of psychic art isn’t roundly embraced as scientific fact by general society, but unlike the visionary it follows accepted guidelines established by the religious practices of Spiritualism. In spiritualistic circles genuine Spiritual Psychic Art has a very specific purpose. It follows three guidelines. It is produced to: 1) Bring comfort to a mourner, by proving the continued existence of the passed personality. 2) Heal the infirm 3) Uplift and inspire the truth seeker. It is these principles and the fact that the medium producing the art is rarely an artist that sets the two forms of psychic art apart.

Monica’s drawings fall primarily within the traditional form of Spiritualism that we call Spiritual Psychic Art. She collaborates generally with her drawing guide who exists in another dimension, bringing forth portraits of past Earthly personalities and inter-dimensional beings. But because many of Monica’s portraits are inter-dimensional in nature, lying outside ones ability to provide irrefutable evidential testimony of their existence, some might suggest that she has crossed into the visionary form. We will leave that to your discretion.

One of our purposes in writing is to create a space that acknowledges the many psychic artists that have blessed us with their divine imaginations from both the visionary and spiritualistic domains. Through the rendering of their diverse visions, people have been able to glimpse foreign worlds, understand new concepts, and receive healing and insight that otherwise would have remained behind the conscious threshold of humanities’ collective vision. These artists have made significant contributions to many professional fields, including film, animation, criminology, remote viewing, and costume design to name a few, but typically have not been identified as psychic or visionary artists. Over the years some visionary artists and spiritualist artists have begun to get more public acclaim. This introduction discusses a limited few and is not meant to be even remotely inclusive, but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention some who have played a role in our lives and development.

SPIRITUAL PSYCHIC ARTISTS

There are many individuals who have dabbled as Spiritual Psychic Artists, but few who have produced quality evidential work. Rosa Parvin is an artist who was both a skilled artist and an accurate psychic. She was an English woman of the twentieth century who lived in South Africa for the later part of her life. Rosa was given a message through the mediumship of Annie Brittain that she would paint thousands of spiritual portraits for people who came to her from all over the world. So it happened. Rosa completed over 17,000 portraits of guides and helpers from the spirit world. As a Spiritual Psychic Artist she allowed her hand to be guided by a spirit artist who accurately portrayed those who had passed into spirit. This artist was a little known society painter living in Paris some 160 years ago. He called himself Papa Pierre. Rosa’s first experience was indicative of her accuracy and profound talent as a Spiritual Psychic Artist. On her first trip into town to purchase art supplies she couldn’t find the right materials and was about to leave when she felt a distinct pressure urging her to buy the paper she thought totally unsuitable. At home, she immediately started work and produced two portraits of an unknown airman and sailor. Soon afterwards, a well-known healer brought a group of sitters from Brighton to have psychic portraits done. As Rosa was preparing herself she happened to show one of the ladies the two drawings that she recently completed. Instantly the woman claimed one to be her son and the other to be her son’s best friend. From this point on, Rosa continued to produce drawing after drawing, providing clear evidence for her sitters that her portraits genuinely captured the likeness of dead relatives and loved one — all people she had never met or seen.

One of the more intriguing examples of psychic art is produced through a psychologist presently living in Brazil, Luis Antonio Gasparetto. By his twentieth birthday he had produced some 2,400 canvases by forty-eight well-known artists of the past. These are not works of undistinguished court painters, but the likes of Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Toulouse-Lautrec, Modigliani, and Degas. Each painting has the undeniable markings, colors and signature of the famous artist. Of course, one could claim these paintings are “spiritual” forgeries masterminded by incorrigible spirits. That in itself would be fantastic enough, like the talking dog who orders the wrong brand of beer. But the art masters state the contrary claiming that they are working on their and our spiritual development by providing proof of their ongoing existence, emphasizing the continuity of life.

Gasparetto creates his works of art in a dimly lit room where it is impossible to discern one color from another, at such a speed that he completes each work in less than ten minutes. He says he enters an altered state during which he feels the spirit artist’s emotions, sensing what he is going to paint long before he begins the painting. His mind is fixed on the thoughts the spirit is generating and experiencing, often with the impression of four or five personalities rushing forward at once. They come close, holding his shoulders, controlling the movement of his arms, just as if they were doing the paintings themselves, and his arms flail about immediately, responding to their thoughts.

Confounding the mind yet more, Gasparetto developed the ability to create two paintings simultaneously, one with the left hand and one with the right, both of which are signed by different famous masters. In 1974 Gasparetto’s spirit guides insisted that he begin ballet lessons. He was a bit disconcerted, as he had displayed no interest in or talent for dance. But he complied, and the following year, during one of his trance paintings, he rolled up his pants legs and began painting with his feet. Within minutes, he produced a wonderful painting of a young woman signed by Renoir. With this newly developed talent he could now paint three canvases simultaneously.

Gasparetto claims he paints with such fervor because the paintings have already been completed in the spirit world—his movements are driven by the thoughts of a master painter as he reproduces the original by following the template design. Some might suggest that Gasparetto’s strange gift is just a queer phenomenon having no more significance than the autistic behavior of the idiot savant. But Gasparetto says that during a painting session, a window opens between the two worlds through which spiritual healing energy flows, bringing physical and spiritual healing to those present. To Gasparettto this process alone justifies the phenomenon no matter what its true source.

Although not generally recognized as a Spiritual Psychic Artist, nonetheless, Keith Milton Rhinehart produced some of the most remarkable demonstrations of the phenomenon known as Spiritual Psychic Art because of his adept physical phenomenon and trance mediumship. No medium in history has produced more scientific evidence regarding psychic phenomenon than Keith Rhinehart brought forth during his career. During one seance in Israel on one of Rhinehart’s world tours he produced Spiritual Psychic Art under the strictest test conditions. After being entranced by his spirit guide Dr. Robert John Kensington, Dr. Kensington instructed each participant to write questions on their billet card and place the card into a sealed envelope. Once all the envelopes had been collected, Dr. Kensington through Rhinehart’s mediumship answered all the questions on the billet cards without ever opening the envelopes. Then he returned the billet card back to each participant. When each person opened their envelope there on the back of the billet card was a drawing of the person’s Spirit Guide. This is an astonishing example of an adept physical phenomenon medium’s ability to materialize into the seance room a drawing that didn’t previously exist. This ability to dematerialize something in one location and rematerialize it in another location is called apportation phenomenon.

In another incident in Tokyo Japan, Keith Rhinehart was again entranced by his Spirit Guide. During this seance ectoplasm was extracted from Rhinehart’s body and formed into finger like protuberances by his Spirit Guides. Through the manipulation of this ectoplasmic hand a portrait was drawn by the Spirit world. Shortly after being drawn, the portrait was recognized by a Japanese religious leader, Mr. Mikami. He claimed it was the likeness of one of his dead relatives. Ectoplasm is a subtle physical substance that comes out of a medium’s body during trance and is often invisible. At times it can be seen and looks like a milky-white material of nebulous form and consistency. The forming of a hand as in this particular instance is referred to as a pseudopod. This event was again conducted under the most rigorous seance test conditions by Japanese scientists.

Another English Spiritual Psychic Artist of repute is Coral Polge. Coral’s experience is somewhat different than others. She says she never actually sees the so-called dead, but becomes them. She states, “The other day at a demonstration in South London I seemed to be riding a bicycle as I drew a portrait of a young woman. I could literally feel myself on a bike with a basket full of shopping on the front.” On this occasion Coral had trouble drawing the communicator’s face altering it’s shape three times. After she finally finished a woman in the audience recognized the Spirit-inspired sketch as that of her daughter who had passed in a cycling accident. At another demonstration Coral was drawing the face of a girl’s face when suddenly she clutched at her throat making a choking sound. She felt horrid contractions in her throat and seemed as though she had been poisoned. A woman at the demonstration came forward claiming the drawing was that of her daughter who had died of carbon monoxide fumes.

Coral said when she was first told at a Spiritualist meeting, by her dead uncle that she would become a Spiritual Psychic Artist she thought it was a load of rubbish. She had been a very average commercial artist at the time and was skeptical of the claim. She spent years experimenting and then one day had the experience that someone was guiding her. Shortly there after people began recognizing her drawings as individuals that they had known. Coral says to be able to provide evidence for a sitter that a loved one has landed safely in the next world is greatly satisfying.

The famous Spiritual Psychic Artist who St. Germain referred to in his initial message to Monica through Keith Rhinehart, was Frank Leah. Leah was noted for astonishingly accurate portraits that astounded sitters. After viewing many different Spiritual Psychic Artists’ work we believe Frank created the best likeness of the deceased. He was talented in many facets of art as he was an accomplished landscape and portrait painter without spirit influence. The Irish born artist also worked as a caricaturist and sold his first cartoon to a newspaper when he was only twelve years old. Later he became an art editor of five Dublin journals.

To produce his portraits he worked out of his Kensington studio in London. When someone called his studio he gave them precise details and did a rough sketch of the spirit communicator who appeared before him. He claimed each drawing was an experiment. Although he never became entranced, like Gasparetto, he worked with amazing speed. The drawings were generally life size where he produced an exact likeness sometimes within 9 seconds. He’d say, “Once I’ve got the eyes I don’t care about the rest, but no picture is complete unless it’s warts and all.” After Frank developed the “telephone rough” he invited the recipient over to the studio to receive the final portrait. He once commented regarding the process he experienced in producing the portraits, “I have died over one thousand deaths.” Frank spent over forty years serving the spirit world in his inimitable fashion and died in 1972.

VISIONARY ARTISTS

The visionary realm has recorded many skilled artists diving deep within their imaginations to pencil their findings. Here are a few people and traditions that have been inspiring to us. When visionary art comes to mind William Blake’s name often heads the list and with good reason. He is one of the early practitioners aside from indigenous peoples. It was primarily through his commitment and devotion that the minds of the Western world were opened to the phenomenon of visionary art. He claimed that the clearer the “imaginary organs” the more prophetic its revelatory vision. He believed that the imagination was not a state of mind, but the human condition itself. It is through Blake’s understanding of the true nature of the imagination that it’s very existence began to be explored and expounded.

For centuries the art of the Tibetan Buddhists and Hindu traditions have depicted the deepest wisdom of humanities’ spiritual nature. Tibetan thangka paintings take us through inner spiritual worlds presenting an awareness of the potential of the enlightened mind when it is spiritually free. In Tibetan mandalas visionary artists present us with both divine and diabolical worlds that depict different states of awareness and vision. It is thought in Tibetan wisdom that through the viewing of these extraordinary revelations one is prepared for the existence of other realms that they may confront during their souls evolution

Throughout the world indigenous peoples have practiced visionary art since the beginning of time. On every continent one can find captivating images depicting interaction with a spiritual world. Two fascinating cultures are the Australian Aborigines and the Hopis. The Australian Aborigines paint pictures that are psychic impressions of spiritual landscapes and spiritual history. These paintings guide their peoples through the physical and psychic landscapes, guiding the viewer to psychic openings or portals that lead to the “dreamtime” of a particular spiritual or psychic event. These psychic paintings play a significant role in their spiritual traditions.

The Hopi use painted visionary imagery in ritual to activate Spiritual Healing. A painting acts as spiritual bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds facilitating the spiritual practitioner to bring forth healing. Both cultures use visionary and or psychically impressed images from the spiritual realms to achieve their aims. We would acknowledge that in the case of the indigenous peoples we find both visionary art and Spiritual Psychic Art at work, as there seems to be no clear defining demarcation.

In the history of Western painting there are many artists who have employed the divine imagination as a revelatory tool to guide their imagery. These artists have been more inclined to allow the muse to take control letting the imagery flow uninfluenced by their personal identity. Typically most artists’ imagery is controlled and contrived by their objective mind. In examining artists use of the imagination throughout history there seems to exist a spectrum of experiences. On one end of the spectrum lies pure revelation unencumbered by the mental manipulation of the artist. On the other end there is the initial revelatory impulse that has been heavily interpreted by the artist’s mind. Those who most interest us are those who have made a genuine effort to remain true to their initial visionary impulse. Hieronymus Bosch, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, M. C. Escher, Pablo Picasso, Hundervasser, and Paul Klee are some of the artist who we feel have been true to this ideal.

NEW AGE VISIONARIES

Recently, in what one might categorize as the new age of visionary art there are several artists who have made distinctions for themselves; of those, Alex Grey, Romio Shrestha, and Gilbert Williams stand out. Each of these artist have published marvelous books and a sampling of their work can be viewed on their websites.

In conclusion the distinctions between the visionary and spiritualistic forms of psychic art can be summed up by the practitioners’ intention. The intension of the spiritualist is clear; they are an intermediary and their product is strictly a collaboration with spirit to bring forth one of the purposes of mediumship. The clearer the medium’s “imaginary organs” or as some say, the less rusty the pipes, the more authentic and revelatory the image. The image is impressed in the subjective mind by spirit and the objective mind is non-active. This is the scenario at play during the process of pure Spiritual Psychic Art. Of course we must admit that this is not always the case. We must acknowledge there are completely deluded mediums and mediums who tamper with the subjective mind’s impressions by allowing the objective mind to alter their vision. The visionary also partners with the spirit side, but is much more subject to mental invention because they are usually not intending to interact with spirit and therefore unawares of the role spirit has played in the production of their vision. Many visionaries are driven by the artistic ego being quick to take the credit, while completely ignorant of spirits’ influence. Some visionaries like Blake are clear they are indebted to the spirit side of life for their visions and bend over backwards directing the accolades in the appropriate direction. So the visionary domain by it’s very nature more than the spiritualistic domain, is subject to material that is highly suspect in terms of genuine revelation, often being a product invented by the artistic mind. Not necessarily bad, but not pure psychic art. Admittedly, within both domains there exists the total spectrum of experience from pure revelation to total fabrication and one must keep their critical faculties alive to determine the authenticity of each claim.