18 ICSA TODAY
Faith Red Cat (2014, oil on canvas, 48 in x 36 in): Hanging on to the
unknown ladder in the sky.
What Mouse Said (2014, oil on canvas, 24 in x 36 in): Does a cat care?
In imitation of the early 20th-century
modernists, I culled inspiration from Spiritualism,
Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner’s
anthroposophy, and the writings of P. D.
Ouspensky. Motivation for me came not only
from the desire to join the cutting edge of art,
but also to cash in. Famous modern art was
selling for tens of thousands of dollars, and
some museum pieces by Kandinsky, Mondrian,
and others were worth tens of millions. Many
artists I emulated experimented with altered
states of consciousness induced by illness,
absinthe, cocaine, opium, self-hypnosis, or
yoga. Kandinsky first studied yoga in 1900.
Kandinsky once “saw” an abstract painting when
he was ill with typhus, for example and Nikolai
Kulbin “maintained he could induce special
psychic sensations by inserting a blunt needle
into his skin.”1 The late 1960s were a revival of
many of these ongoing movements, with the
explosion of psychedelic drug use and newer
religious movements. Higher consciousness and
spirituality were “in” again during my college
years, so my quest for ultimate inspiration
using drug and nondrug techniques seemed
appropriate.
After completing a certificate program at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1975, I
immediately moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico,
the third largest art market in America, to
pursue my career. I encountered more than art.
The town of 50,000 was teeming with spiritual
seekers and had a history of odd religious
groups. That year, I developed an interest in
artist and guru Nicholas Roerich, who, with his
wife Helena, greatly influenced by the writings
of Madame Blavatsky and esoteric Buddhism,
founded the Agni Yoga Society in the early
1920s. The Roerichs visited Santa Fe in the
early 1920s, and I met a woman whose family
had hosted them when she was 11. (Agni Yoga
remains the most successful Theosophy sect,
with more than 3 million members in Russia
alone.2)
My interest in the Roerichs and Agni Yoga led
me to the Church Universal and Triumphant
(CUT), which incorporated Agni Yoga with the I
AM Activity teachings founded by Guy and Edna
Ballard. CUT had a living founder who claimed
that her youngest daughter was a reincarnation
of Helena Roerich. Out of curiosity, I attended
a CUT conference with 4,000 others in 1979 in
California. The effect on me after several days of
chanting, watching the guru channel Ascended
Masters, and getting little sleep was profound.
My first wife divorced me soon after that
conference.
After months of anxious struggle, I quit the
CUT group in 1980. But though I was not in the
church for long, my identity as a man let alone
as an artist was shaken to the core. I felt that I
Faith Red Cat (2014, oil on canvas, 48 in x 36 in): Hanging on to the
unknown ladder in the sky.
What Mouse Said (2014, oil on canvas, 24 in x 36 in): Does a cat care?
In imitation of the early 20th-century
modernists, I culled inspiration from Spiritualism,
Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner’s
anthroposophy, and the writings of P. D.
Ouspensky. Motivation for me came not only
from the desire to join the cutting edge of art,
but also to cash in. Famous modern art was
selling for tens of thousands of dollars, and
some museum pieces by Kandinsky, Mondrian,
and others were worth tens of millions. Many
artists I emulated experimented with altered
states of consciousness induced by illness,
absinthe, cocaine, opium, self-hypnosis, or
yoga. Kandinsky first studied yoga in 1900.
Kandinsky once “saw” an abstract painting when
he was ill with typhus, for example and Nikolai
Kulbin “maintained he could induce special
psychic sensations by inserting a blunt needle
into his skin.”1 The late 1960s were a revival of
many of these ongoing movements, with the
explosion of psychedelic drug use and newer
religious movements. Higher consciousness and
spirituality were “in” again during my college
years, so my quest for ultimate inspiration
using drug and nondrug techniques seemed
appropriate.
After completing a certificate program at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1975, I
immediately moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico,
the third largest art market in America, to
pursue my career. I encountered more than art.
The town of 50,000 was teeming with spiritual
seekers and had a history of odd religious
groups. That year, I developed an interest in
artist and guru Nicholas Roerich, who, with his
wife Helena, greatly influenced by the writings
of Madame Blavatsky and esoteric Buddhism,
founded the Agni Yoga Society in the early
1920s. The Roerichs visited Santa Fe in the
early 1920s, and I met a woman whose family
had hosted them when she was 11. (Agni Yoga
remains the most successful Theosophy sect,
with more than 3 million members in Russia
alone.2)
My interest in the Roerichs and Agni Yoga led
me to the Church Universal and Triumphant
(CUT), which incorporated Agni Yoga with the I
AM Activity teachings founded by Guy and Edna
Ballard. CUT had a living founder who claimed
that her youngest daughter was a reincarnation
of Helena Roerich. Out of curiosity, I attended
a CUT conference with 4,000 others in 1979 in
California. The effect on me after several days of
chanting, watching the guru channel Ascended
Masters, and getting little sleep was profound.
My first wife divorced me soon after that
conference.
After months of anxious struggle, I quit the
CUT group in 1980. But though I was not in the
church for long, my identity as a man let alone
as an artist was shaken to the core. I felt that I
