The music began, and suddenly I was overwhelmed by an irresistible force.  The world, the cosmos, and myself, all dissolved into the formless presence that embraced me, caressed me, crushed me.  There was no preparation, no defense, no escape.  All thoughts and perceptions of my existence vanished.  I knew nothing - not where I was, not who I was, not that I was.  In those moments Jonathon Earl Bowser no longer existed.  I was consumed by something that was utterly unbearable - simultaneously both torment and rapture.  A doorway had opened, through which my humanity fled, and something other entered.

I am aware that this music leaves many people entirely affected.  But there are other doorways for other people - perhaps one private door for every individual that has ever lived.  I have read that upon entering the Sistine Chapel some people suddenly faint, as though some sort of neurological overload had compelled their minds to briefly shut down before restarting.  What kind of experience is this?

We generally think of a revelation as something significant; a formerly mysterious aspect of the world becomes suddenly clear in the mind.  But it is much more than merely learning an interesting fact we did not know; it is an acquisition of keen understanding that we did not previously possess, a comprehension of something not universally known that subsequently changes one’s way of viewing life and existence.  It feels like a personal communication with Truth.  We, each of us, exist at the center of a sphere of perception upon which flickers our sensations of the world.  Just beyond that opaque veneer of self-projected illusion is the unknown.  Sometimes, when the dirt on the inside of that sphere is wiped away, by inspiration or concentrated thought, when it is made transparent to the transcendence beyond, the burning light of that mystery shines through. 

Of course, we usually think of revelation in religious terms: the revealed truth is the Word of God.  Religious experience is not well regarded by science.  Nor should it be; skepticism is required for no other reason than our recorded history, where there is an overwhelming preponderance of conniving charlatans in this curious arena of human experience.  Modern neurology has been even less kind to the notion of supernatural communication.  Detailed experiments involving the superior parietal lobe have provided an entirely naturalistic explanation for divine seizure.  We can impose religious encounters in the laboratory. 

That is indeed intriguing, and quite possibly helps explain the otherwise inexplicable experience of a few solitary men who may have wandered around in the open expanse of the burning desert for too long.  But just because there is a region of the brain that corresponds to a certain kind of experience does not invalidate the legitimacy - or reality - of that experience.  No one is suggesting that because there is a region of the brain that corresponds to our visual perceptions, that somehow those perceptions do not correspond to any real phenomena out in the exterior world.  No one is suggesting that because we can manipulate the visual center of the brain and alter the normal function of vision, that therefore what we perceive visually is only the mere product of brain activity.  That there is a region of the brain that seems to be responsible for sensing the presence of the divine may very well indicate that such apprehensions are entirely internal; and it may also mean that such sensory apparatus has evolved in response to real phenomena immanent in the world.  This particular sense - if it exists - seems rather undeveloped in most of us.  How are we to know if it is leading us astray?  Everybody believes that the data we gather with our other 5 senses corresponds to a real world.  How can we know if these comparatively rare perceptions of something numinous do not also correspond to a real presence out in the world as it actually is?  To what other authority can we direct our inquiries?  Fortunately, spirituality is not the only method by which we might, as Blake entreated, “cleanse the windows of perception.”

Once upon a time there were four inquisitive blind men: a theologian (exoteric mythological mind), a scientist (exoteric logical mind), a philosopher (esoteric logical mind), and an artist (esoteric mythological mind).  They were wandering along a country road when they came across an elephant that, of course, they could not see.  The theologian, feeling the ear, said (too loudly), “It seems like a bat!”  The philosopher, feeling the leg, said (too abstrusely), “It seems like a tree.”  The scientist, feeling the trunk, said (too concretely), “It seems like a snake.”  The artist, walking around the mysterious object, said (too poetically), “It seems noble...” (but the other three ignored him because artists never have anything useful to say).

These are the four disciplines by which we approach the enigmas of the world.  It’s not that these disparate descriptions are inaccurate, but their incompleteness reveals little of the true nature of the enigma - Kant’s “thing in itself”, what Hindus call Atman, the Truth beyond the illusion.  So these four methods of exploration are rather like the Four Elements: it is only in a miraculous union that they might achieve Quintessence.  All religions, all science, all philosophy, and all art, are merely shallow interpretations of the same infinitely deep mystery of existence.  The repetition of patterns - in our sacred books, in nature and natural laws, in mathematics and the forms of logic, and in the poetic reverence by which we adore these mysterious things - is evidence of an ineffable Presence: Beacons of Divinity.  Buddha, Einstein, Plato, and Beethoven all perceived the same revelatory light; they simply communicated their experiences in different languages.  (But perhaps only someone with an “esoteric mythological mind” would think so.)

What distinguishes complex revelations from the simple encounters many ordinary people experience is the Herculean will (or is it reckless abandon?) needed to maintain a mental grasp of the moment.  Only then can an aspect of that infinitely-faceted Jewel be integrated into one’s identity, thereby allowing the experience to be shared: as spirituality, science, philosophy, or art.  When I saw that exquisite flame, I held back, struggling to hold onto a sense of self threatened (or so I thought) by an overwhelming assault; some rare individuals, it seems, are able to abandon the security of the ego and release their grasp over that ravening chasm of oblivion.  What would that be like, to leap off the world into the glory of the Divine Fire and seize hold of the terrifying Infinite, refusing to let go?

The paradoxes and enigmas of existence are a relentless contradiction to every belief, every assertion, every confidence, every certainty.  We are here by virtue of forces beyond our control, beyond our knowing.  Galley slave or Alexander, we are all simply along for the ride - driver and destination unknown.  And yet, I have seen that the surrogate forces who orchestrate the remorseless tragedy of nature are not the conductors they believe themselves to be.  In a sudden, fleeting moment of illumination, I was touched by another.  A silent and unseen Will ferries us across the river, the Conductor of a cosmic symphony calls from yonder shore with the melody of an inscrutable promise...

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (the first 14 tones of which are seen here as bluebird-notes fluttering upon a musical staff of light) remains one of the more exquisite human expressions of Absolute Beatitude and Eternal Perfection.  This painting is my interpretation of that same Truth that dwells within and beyond the universe: the Mother Goddess as the Conductor of the Symphony of Nature...