entoptic phenomena

“In “The Signs of All Times,” [1988, David] Lewis-Williams and [T.A.] Dowson declare that . . . they have discovered . . . a “neurological bridge” that could take us back to the Paleolithic Age. That bridge is the human nervous system, which they claim was the same then as now. They say that when drugs, fatigue, pain, insistent rhythms, or other stimuli induce a trance, the nervous system produces a pattern of hallucinations derived from it and not from cultural clues. The pattern is the same for all people in all cultures at all times. Therefore, Paleolithic hunters had the same pattern of hallucinations during trances that we do.

In particular the authors mean visions derived from the structure of the optic system. They call such visions “entoptic phenomena.” One example of entoptic phenomena is the jagged lines or herringbone patterns that some people see on the edge of their vision as a prelude to a migraine. Citing a considerable amount of modern research on the effects of mescaline and LSD, Lewis-Williams and Dowson identify six principal entoptic forms: a grid, parallel lines, dots, zigzags, nested curves, and filigrees. They also say that there are three stages of a hallucinatory trance, although they are not necessarily sequential or completely distinct. A subject experiences the entoptic forms and only those forms in the first stage. During the second stage, the subject tries to make sense of the entoptic forms by, for example, seeing a grid as a chessboard. And in the third and final stage, which is usually accompanied by the feeling of flowing through a swirling vortex, the subject experiences hallucinations that are so powerful they seem real. . . . Lewis-Williams and Dowson exhibit several charts showing that the entoptic forms appear in both San and Paleolithic art. More than that, various images from the art of both cultures appear to apply to each of the three stages of a trance.”

—Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists, 2006.

to the red-room

“‘Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.’”

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847.

scapulimancy

“The origins of the Chinese writing system are still somewhat mysterious. In 1899, the marks on some inscribed bones sold as medicinal “dragon bones” in a Peking pharmacy were recognised as writing. By that time, these pieces of writing were already some 3,500 years old, having been made during the Shang dynasty (c. 1500-1028 BCE). Though subsequent archaeological sites have turned up many pieces of neolithic pottery bearing marks dating back to c. 4000 BCE, these have yet to be interpreted, and the “oracle bone” script, such as that discovered in the pharmacy, is the earliest to be at least half understood.

The bones, mostly the shoulder blades of oxen, were used by the Shang rulers for scapulimancy: divination by reading the cracks that appeared after the application of heat to the prepared surface of the bone. The inscriptions typically consisted of a preface recording the date and the name of the diviner and the topic of divination, which was often the potential outcomes of military campaigns, hunting expeditions, sickness, childbirth or agricultural events.”

—Wikipedia, 2006.

‘dragon bones’

“The earliest record of written Chinese is inscriptions carved on turtle shells and oxen shoulder blades excavated from the ruins of the Shang dynasty (sixteenth to eleventh centuries BCE) capital at modern Anyang in Henan province. This type of writing is usually called “oracle-bone script,” and it was carved there for the purpose of divination. It was first discovered accidentally in Anyang in 1899 after a Qing-dynasty scholar, Wang Yirong, who was an expert on bronze script, found a strong resemblance between bronze script and the carvings on some “dragon bones” that had supposedly some curative powers and were perhaps given to him as part of a medicinal prescription. Currently, over 100,000 pieces of shells and bones with engraved script have been recovered through excavation in Anyang. A total of about 3,700 different characters have been identified from these artifacts; however, only about 2,000 of them have so far been deciphered. Closely related to the oracle-bone script is the bronze script that is carved on the surface of bronze vessels supposedly placed in palaces and used for sacrificial ceremonies at the times of Shang and Western Zhou dynasties.”

—Chaofen Sun, from Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction, 2006.

a focused intelligence

“In Africa . . . about 150,000 years ago . . . the first modern humans, Homo sapiens . . . appeared. . . .

Then, about 47,000 years ago, Homo sapiens, who had always looked like us now began to behave like us as well. After that time, their sites are flush with carvings, figurines, and other art. They performed elaborate burials. They decorated their bodies and clothes with shells, beads, and the teeth of animals. All of this implies a rich culture, a focused intelligence, and a probing, seeking, imaginative life, none of which had been present before.

There is no apparent reason for this sudden change. Richard G. Klein of Stanford University believes that the change was the result of a neurological change in the brains of Homo sapiens that occurred about 47,000 years ago. Specifically, he believes that this sudden neural alteration created the ability to speak a complicated language. Without language, symbolic thinking would have been impossible. With language, people did begin to think symbolically, and all our art and culture, our music and myths and tales, and all our religions are the result.”

—Gregory Curtis, from The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists, 2006.

Freemen of Color

“People of African descent have been in New Orleans, like the French, from the early eighteenth century. The city’s relative social and geographic isolation during its early history as a French colony and international port contributed to the unique black culture. Blacks were brought to the city as slaves from Senegal, Senegambia, and the Windward Coast of West Africa, as well as from the French Caribbean islands, especially Haiti, after the French Revolution. Some were trained as skilled laborers and crafsmen and were able to buy freedom for themselves and their families upon enactment of the so-called Code Noire, which made this possible for the first time. This gave rise to a community known as the “Freemen of Color.” The intermarriage of Freemen of Color with native Indians and French settlers resulted in the growth of Creoles—blacks of mixed ancestry.”

—Alan Govenar, from A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music by Michael P. Smith, 1990.

Indian Red

“They do things in church, they sing and they dance and feel the spirit. That’s what church is all about. They praise the Lord.

With Mardi Gras Indians we do the same thing in a sense. We sing, we party, we dance, and we even have our prayer. We praise our past Indians when we sing “Indian Red.” It’s like an Indian national anthem.”

—Johnny “Kool” Stephenson, interviewed by Alan Govenar, from A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music by Michael P. Smith, 1990.

glass architecture

“If we wish to raise our culture to a higher level, we are forced . . . to transform our architecture. We shall only succeed in doing this when we remove the element of enclosure from the rooms in which we live. We can only do this, however, with glass architecture, which allows the light of the sun, moon and stars to enter not merely through a few windows set in the wall, but through as many walls as possible—walls of coloured glass. The new milleu created in this way must bring us a new culture. . . . Then we should have a pradise on earth.”

—Paul Scheerbart, from Glasarchitektur (Glass Architecture), 1914; quoted in Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914-1939, edited by Christopher Wilk, 2006.

More sun! More light!

“‘More sun! More light! Is the cry of our desperate age,’ wrote a female correspondent in a German nudist magazine. . . .

The nudist’s belief in the therapeutic power of sunshine gained medical credibility during the 1920s as the Swiss doctors August Roller and Oskar Bernhard, working independently, proved the efficacy of the so-called sun cure (heliotherapy) on tuberculosis. . . . Roller’s clinic in Leysin, Switzerland . . . incorporated sun balconies where patients could lie in the sun (they took the sun when it was low in the sky rather than when it was at its strongest). . . .”

—Christopher Wilk, The Healthy Body Culture, from Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914-1939, edited by Christopher Wilk, 2006.

black-line engraving.

“In black-line wood engraving the burin removes all the surface of the block except the lines of the artist’s design; in white-line engraving, the surface of the block prints as a black background, while the burin removes the lines of the design which appear white in the impression. Blocks engraved with a combination of both methods achieved engravings of great strength and delicacy. . . .”
—Early Victorian Illustrated Books; Britain, France and Germany, 1820-1860, by John Buchanan-Brown, 2005.