Tag: #spirituality

Mystical Manipulation

mystical manipulation

Anyone here into learning about cults? I know it isn’t just me. I listen to podcasts, watch TV shows/documentaries, and read about cults in my spare time. I’ve never been in a cult, but I’ve been in a cult-like situation* so I find my hobby to be very cathartic (as well as fascinating).

Robert Jay Lifton is a psychologist and renowned writer who wrote about thought reform. He came up with 8 criteria that describe how someone may manipulate someone’s mind and change the way someone thinks. Mystical manipulation is one of these. The term refers to the way someone (such as a cult leader) will claim that coincidences and other events were in fact examples of their power. If I were to draw a picture of you perfectly with my eyes closed, and then claim that it was my God-given power of true sight that made it possible (not my skill) – that’s a clear example of mystical manipulation.

Gets the mind racing, right? I hope you enjoy my marker drawing, which I think ended up looking like a poster. It was a way for me to channel my impressions of this particularly powerful concept.

 

 

*It wasn’t a cult, and I’m okay. I don’t want to take away from people who really have been affected by a cult.

Walking out into the world, lost

This isn’t as depressing as I think I’ve made it seem by the title. It’s just my way of looking at life.

lost

It’s how I think everyone starts their story. Without knowledge, and barely themselves. So all our life we are struggling to be who we are. Hence the imagery of a cell, our basic biological unit.

I’m not the happiest with the pencil lines, but at the same time I like the way it feels unfinished, like a life. So it’s doing right by me.

 

Religious Eye

religious eye

I have started to do more drawings in marker. Markers give me the force I need: Thick, bold lines that dig into the paper. Limited colours that give me the opportunity to be creative in another way. The feeling that ink gives me of permanency and no turning back. It is the perfect medium for depicting the “religious eye” that many of us know and feel even when there’s no one there.

Mind Map, e.g.

mind map

Have you ever tried to draw your mind?

When I “release emotion” through drawing, I’m actually releasing myself from the hold my thoughts and emotions have over me. The artwork ends up exposing what’s inside; it’s more about how I think than what.

To get an idea of my state of mind: I had been listening to a lot of true crime podcasts, including episodes regarding cults, when I drew this. Listening to the stories made me ask myself big questions about my place in the world, religion, protection, and responsibility.

It may not be visually stunning, but these types of drawings give me a different sort of pleasure and feeling of accomplishment. These “mind maps” remain the best way for me to explain what I am truly thinking.

Kathak Doodle-like

illuminated dancer

 

Many Mauritians practice Indian classical dance (Kathak) forms, although I was never one of them. That wasn’t important in my family. However, you are influenced by it if you are what is known as “Indo-Mauritian” (ethnically from India, ancestors brought over during British colonialism). It’s a part of the larger culture.

While drawing, I considered the way the rhythm, melody, and dancer’s body must become one in any one of the complex dance forms. They’re considered to be very difficult to learn, and there is a constant struggle to make everything look flawless. I’ve heard “dance is worship” in dozens of Bollywood movies – I get it, I really do. Dance requires your absolute devotion and focus.

With such a link to the divine, I thought it fitting to represent the top of the dancer using a light bulb.

drawing the mind

the dark hand picks from the table

Certain models of the brain show that the human mind most likely has two or more sources from which thoughts are created. For example, some of us study the left and right sides of the brain, or the zones of the brain that perform specific tasks (frontal cortex vs Broca’s area, for example). These aren’t perfect models but they get us closer to understanding how our bodies help us to think.

I think it is very telling and natural that there are many cultural explanations as well for where thoughts come from. A very important one is the light/dark or yin/yang allegory. These speak of a “dark” and a “light” side to all people, to keep it simple, and finding equilibrium within that context is something we all share as people. We just call it by different names.

A lot of what I draw attempts to reconcile different areas of my mind, to accept all aspects of the self. Here the shadowy hand is reaching out to eat from the bowl of another world made up here of cleaner lines. It’s just one example of a work that expresses my desire to explore the mind – another thing shared by all people.

Auditory

I drew this a few weeks ago, based on the idea that music lives in our every cell.

vase voice orange purp

It’s a little cliche, sure. But much of art is based on things we’ve seen over and over again.

One of my favourite artists ever is Vasily Kandinsky, who drew music effortlessly (based on his synesthesia) and I would have him no other way. I adore the obvious movement his music-based works have; the clear emotion of his experience.

Just like any other artist, I tend to draw what’s close to home. So while I did think of Kandinsky, these colours and lines are all mine; a representation of my musical “home.”

 

Scare

I love horror. Gory, funny, dark, demented, all of it really.

Behold Scare:

 

farm life

This drawing is meant to have undertones of the mystery and paranoia that come wrapped up in the “occult” or “horror” themes. The sinister feeling in your body, the uncertainty of knowing and not knowing, etc. all inspire me often when I doodle or draw.

The eye I doodle constantly makes an appearance as a major character this time. The floating eye and mixed messages coming from it hang authoritatively over the structure below; all existing in a cold white space. I used the structure and environment of a farm because it was a wholesome setting where our sustenance grows.

To me, no place is safe. I have to deal with that reality. Basically, I wanted to show somewhere vulnerable.

 

the “feminine”-I

Personally, my spirituality has blossomed out of what most societies call “feminine” ideals. The binary hasn’t impressed me since I was little and called tomboy, which didn’t bother me but nonetheless was based on silliness. However, sometimes the language of masculine and feminine is useful, and for the time being it’s what we have as a society.

moquee

When it comes to art, I tend to create things that some may view as “sexless” – sexuality and gender expression are not a huge part of what ends up being expressed. Since I do things so intuitively, I just let those aspects of my identity show themselves as needed. It just so happens that it is rare. *shrug*

I decided to draw in pencil again the other day, and when I looked at it I could immediately see the “feminine” aspects of what I had drawn. I wasn’t surprised, or upset, but instead viewed it as merely interesting.

I’m content with that.