Approved. For Release- 2003/09/10.: CIA-RDP9_6-0.0,788R001 700.21001.1 -0-
POINT OF VIEW
FRED MARTIN: ART AND HISTORY
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
"How may I reach the mythic world?" A little
after 3:00 on the afternoon of May 6, 1978,
wearing headphones and lying on my back In a
dark room, I sent this question out "everywhere
Into the furthest reaches of my expanded
consciousness." The purpose of the following Is to
tell how I got there on the floor of that room In a
Mill Valley medical center, why 1. asked the
question, and what the answers were.
During most of 1975 and '76, 1 concentrated all
of my attention as an-artIst on creating A Travel
Book, published by Arlon Press In San Francisco
In November, 1976. By January of 1977, 1 was
ready for new experiences, now things to see and
hear and think about, and I renembered the
Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, which a
friend had told me would provide'the experience
of timelessness not as an esthetic speculation as
In my book but as an experiential fact. Motivated
chiefly by curiosity and the need for new
adventures, but also by the need to reestablish my
connection with the mythic world to which art had
always been my access and which had been
.summed up and also at least for a time closed off
by completion of the Travel Book, I contacted the
institute.
My "Gateway Weekend" with the Monroe
Institute was In March, 1977. It was a stupendous
revelation to me of whole now continents of the
mythic and my place In them, and these new
worlds were revesied with an Immediacy and
power far beyond any artistic techniques I had
ever found for similar purposes. This power
continued during the following spring and
summer, but has seemed to fade during the year
since. Often I have seen this fading In a negative
light, but there I$ also a positive aspect to it,
because now that the Impact of novelty has faded
and the experiences have been more fully
Integrated Into the general patterns of my life, I
can Write of them publicly, as here, In fact, It
seems to me that the fading might well mean not
that the techniques and the resultant materials
are only Insubstantial dreams, but rather that the
core of the work has become so deeply entrenched
In my mental processes that I no longer notice
how really novel It Is.
Early In my work with the Monroe system, I
learned that there were three related types of
consciousness developed in the training, called
Focus 10, 12 and 15. 1 found that Focus 10 is the
consciousness wherein clairvoyance, telepathy,
psychic healing and' verldical out of body
experiences take place. It 13 the psychic world
typified by the work of a tribal shaman. I found
that Focus 12 Is the realm of the mythic, of the
mythopoeia otr certain writers and artists: and I
found Focus 15 to be the realm of union with the
One that Is the goal of all mystic contemplation.
In searching my mind and the available literature
of the psyche and the spirit for appropriate terms
for what aspect of oneself It Is the( engages each
of these realms, it has come to seem that Focus 10
is the realm (or, as they used to say, "plane") of
the "etheric body," Focus 12 Is that of the soul,
and Focus 15 Is that of the spirit. (Please
remember that these are my categorizations and
terms for the states as I experienced them. Others
who have worked with the system have found
them somewhat different, and so have I from time
to time.)
In the beginning of my work with the method, I
made the layman's survey of the available
scientific literature on parapsychology, and
became convinced that parapsychological phe-
nomena are real, occasional phenomena that lie
outside our contemporary scientific paradigm. I
also became convinced that they are probably not
common enough or Important enough socially to
bring about a paradigmatic shift or to Initiate the
scientific revolution so many parapsychologists
desire. I reviewed some of the literature on
hypnople because I felt that hypnosis and
posi-hypnotic suggestion followed by sell-
hypnosis were extremely Important techniques in
the Monroe system. The literature confirmed my
feeling. The phenomenon of "frequency following
response" which the Monroe system uses to
induce narrow-band, high amplitude, broadly
synchronized alpha rhythms In the brain. I had
already encountered at the base of various
methods of meditation on mantras and yantras, as
well as being at the core of Jung's analysis of
alchemy as a method of meditation pn chemical
reactions symbolized In philosophical I religious
modes.
I looked through the OOBE literature, which
seemed to be all concerned with either seeing
Aunt Mary In a house on the other side of town
and then finding she was actually there, or else
proving the survival of the human personality
after death. I looked through the "astral"
literature because It seemed more concerned with
travel to the mythic realm which was my original
goal. As the scientific OOBE and clairvoyance
literatures were fatally compromised In my eyes
with the desire for a veridical proof which Is
contradictory to the not4(o of myth, so the astral
literature was tainted and almost destroyed by the
rolling bones In It of myths long dead, jumbled
together In the mass grave of myth that is
contemporary occultism.
I have been working with the Monroe system
now for a year and a half. The specific results
have been that Focus 10 has become an area of
great use as far as maintaining a high
psycho-physical energy level Is concerned, but the
rest of its practical applications, though real, are
of no great importance to me. Focus 15 has come
to life only a few.tImes and then In mythic guise.
But Focus 12, the goal of all my efforts and once
so bright with promise, has seemed to fade until jt
happened last May that lying In a dark room with
my eyes closed, my brain tilled with a beat
intended to initiate a frequency following
response, In the midst of a Focus 12 exercise
Intended to apply the maximum energy of the
unconscious to the solution of problems In the
external world, I sent out Into the furthest reaches
of my expanded consciousness and waited for an
answer, "How may I reach the mythic world7"
The exercise Is constructed to bring three
responses to any serious, life question. The three
responses were: to work the work, to wear the
mask and to dwell In the humble house on the hill.
Each had lor me the oracular character of a
response from the I-Ching, and I think Focus 12
centers attention-awareness In that same general
area of being. However, the I-Ching was made for
great problems of war and world politics, while
my answers came from and were meant to guide
the small world of a personal life, a "humble
house," and their Interpretation. therefore, lies
only In the actual living of the life Itself. I know,
however, that "to work the work" means to make
art, and "to wear the mask" means I Must wear
the head of myth It I would make an art of myth.
And as for (he humble house on the hill, I have
always fell the goal of life is to rise as high as one
can, to look as far as one can and to know one Is
always so very much smaller than the groat world
one sees.0
D1 SUVERO SCULPTURE INSTALLED IN D.C.
Isis, a monumental sculpture by Mark Of
Suvero, will be dedicated on July 19 on Its site at
the plaza of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden. The work was
commissioned by the institute of Scrap Iron and
Steel, Inc., to commemorate Its fiftieth anniver-
sary. 01 Suvero completed the piece at his outdoor
studio in northern California.
Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00788RO01 700210011 -0