Art as a Language for the Soul
The Artist’s Inner Journey: a visionary who travels into the unknown and returns with insight for the collective. The artist channels ethereal experiences into physical forms, balancing order and chaos. Throughout their journey, they learn to navigate disempowering restrictions the external system sets while carrying the weight to question everything, including the norm. This notion of the artist, the artist as a shamanic caregiver, a visionary guide, is deeply intertwined with spirituality and nature, and it is only recently that this shamanic function of the artist is beginning to re-emerge. Through their artistic process, the artist explores multiple concepts of creativity, to eventually be taken back to the great engine of creativity, nature. In its earliest state, the universe was simple but over time it accumulated complex characteristics, giving rise to intricate forms, absurd organisms, exotic juxtapositions, and eventually human consciousness. Psychedelic Philosopher and Ethnobotanist Terence McKenna believed that this pattern of novelty can be implemented through the human artist, drawing from the wellspring of nature. Reality, he argued, is not fundamentally material, but linguistic. We construct meaning through language, images, symbols, and other forms of artistic expression, aiming to reshape culture and our understanding of reality.
Image of a dancing horned Goddess. Late Round Head Period, Inaouanrhat in the Tassili. This depiction of a female figure with horns can be interpreted as a Goddess or shamanic entity, symbolozing fertility, trance states, or spiritual connection in prehistoric North African cultures.
Over the course of human history, the role of the shamanic artist has largely been forgotten about, overshadowed by the religious epoch of the Middle Ages and renaissance while gradually emerging from the personal visions of the romantic period. The symbolists delved deeper into the irrational, embracing the emotional impact of imagery. The evolution of art continued to push boundaries and paved alternative ways to perceive reality. The impressionists captured fleeting moments and the surrealists wove dreams into reality. Each movement has brought humanity closer to rediscovering the archaic function of the artist, a guide into the unknown.
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Language becomes a powerful tool of the artist. Acting as a catalyst for human evolution, language, perchance, shapes a transcendental bridge from our animal origins into a greater understanding of reality. Through his experiences with psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, Terence McKenna explored how language, consciousness, creativity, and nature are all interwoven. Understanding furthermore lies at the core of creativity. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead defined understanding as ‘the ability to perceive patterns’ as such, and in theory, there are infinite ways to interpret what we see. For instance, if you were to observe a forest at first glance it may appear chaotic, cluttered with trees, leaves, and branches. Shift your focus and you may notice deeper structures, how light filters through leaves, or how colours slowly change over time. The deeper our understanding, the richer our creative expression becomes.
My own recent painting based on a vision from an old dream. The figure in the painting symbolizes transformation and fluidity. The painting was made in 2025 using oil paint on paper, the painting is currently untitled.
Early evidence of shamanic practices integrating both artistic language and psychedelic fungi dates to 7000 to 9000 years in Algeria’s Tassili n’Ajjer cave paintings. These cave paintings depicted humanoid figures with bee-like features surrounded by mushrooms. Terence McKenna believed these paintings recorded altered states of consciousness induced by psychedelic mushrooms supporting his ‘Stoned Ape’ hypothesis. Before human evolution, primates roamed around in groups searching for food nearby, led by the scent of rhinoceros excrement. Coincidentally, mushrooms can grow from rhinoceros excrement. The hypothesis suggests that early primates consumed psychedelic mushrooms while experiencing heightened perception, abstract thinking, fractals, various emotions, and the development of symbolic language, all contributing to human evolution. Substituting Serotonin, psilocybin causes neurons to form along with new pathways of knowledge. Although we don’t fully understand the meaning behind the bee-like figures, the symbolic meaning of bees may reflect on structured societies and the collective nature of psychedelic experiences.
Tassili Mushroom Shaman. (Pencil sketch by Kathleen Harrison McKenna.) The rock painting dates from sometime before 6000 B.C. and is from the Tassili plateu in the Sahara Desert in Algeria. The cave painting depicts a humanoid figure with insect-like features surrounded by mushrooms, interpreted as evidence of early shamanic use of psychodeleic fungi in ritualistic practices.
Dominant culture today has arguably severed our ties to the mystical and irrational, reinforcing a system that prioritizes efficiency and order over the expense of the worker. French Philosopher Simone Weil immersed herself into industrial labor to experience and understand the suffering of the working class for extended periods of time. After months of experience she concluded that it wasn’t just physical hardships one has to endure, but how the modern labor system drains the human spirit. The endless pressure, repetition, and mind-numbing tasks strip the worker of creativity, critical thinking, and individuality, reducing them to a cog in a machine, a number, a disposable object. Weil argued that this erosion of attention and self-worth was not accidental but designed to create the most efficient, docile, and easily controlled system. Although Weil’s research was collected in the early twentieth century, this dynamic extends beyond factories and into modern office jobs, and retail jobs resulting in many workers today experiencing relentless stress, anxiety, depression, alienation, and spiritual starvation. Spiritual starvation can manifest as anxiety, distraction, or addiction, a deeper hunger for meaning that cannot be satisfied by the illusions of consumerism. Both Weil and McKenna suggested the antidote to this type of suffering, we must hold on to curiosity and connect with truth, love, openness, discipline, and attention and rely on artists. Creating and reflecting on art becomes the key, while spending time in nature, practicing mindfulness, and connecting with others on a deeper level. “The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is dithering while Rome burns. If the artist cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.”
Double Mushroom Idol from the konya Plain, housed in the Museo di Kayseri. This Neolithic figurine features two mushroom-like structures and reflects the artistic expressions of ancient Anatolian civilizations.
