Alex Grey is a renowned visionary and spiritual artist and author of The Mission of Art.  Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute and author of Integral Spirituality.  In the foreword to The Mission of Art, Ken stated: "Alex Grey might be the most significant artist alive."

An important part of Alex’s development as an artist came from visionary insights while on psychedelics, particularly during formative years in the '70s.  As anyone who lived through the '60s and '70s will probably tell you, psychedelics can give you "some pretty wild experiences."  But at what point does a "wild experience" give way to a life-changing spiritual or religious experience?  Lots of people have taken psychedelics; some report seeing God, some don’t.  So what’s going on here?  In your own life, if you have experimented with psychedelics, how did you interpret your experience?  Secularly, spiritually, or as just scary as hell?  

In this dialogue, Alex and Ken almost exclusively use the term "entheogen" when referring to psychedelic substances such as LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, peyote, and so on.  One meaning of entheogen literally translates as "that which reveals the Spirit within."  As Alex elaborates, the intention you had when you chose to take such a substance is extremely important in determining what your experience will ultimately be.  Were you simply looking to have some fun, or were you earnestly searching for Spirit, God, or Reality, by whatever name?  Both uses are clearly valid within their own purposes, but in Alex’s case, it was very much the latter—and he did see something far more Real than anything he had seen before. 

Alex and Ken go on to discuss the process by which Alex, as an artist, tried to depict some of these profound experiences in his paintings, resulting in masterpieces such as "Universal Mind Lattice," "Theologue," and "Deities and Demons Drinking From a Milky Pool" (pictured here), so that others might be able to glimpse aspects of their own deeper and truer nature.  Such is one of the most important roles of visionary and integral art—whereby it becomes transformative art—and Alex is among the most accomplished artists in this important and specialized realm of creativity.  
     
Why Integral?

An Integral Approach is important because it gives us a framework for understanding the relationship between visionary art and integral art, and how such artwork can help one grow and transform.  Integral art is simply any art created by someone with integral consciousness.  Visionary art, in a general sense, is art that depicts and elicits in viewers an experience of going beyond the merely physical, to a place where only spiritual terms seem to do it justice.  Not only is Alex a visionary artist, he is also an integral artist—which is pretty profound, given than neither is necessary for the other (they are independent forms of artistry), so their combination produces something truly special.     

Ken goes on to explain how an Integral Approach illuminates two distinct dimensions or axes of growth—states of consciousness and structures of consciousness, both of which can be affected by art, as an impetus or catalyst for further development.  States of consciousness are marked by their transient nature: they come, stay a bit, and they go. The three primary states of consciousness available to all humans are waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and what the great contemplative traditions do is show how one can gain mastery in each of those states, and realize their ever-present Ground and nondual Suchness.  While states come and go, stages, levels, or waves of consciousness are permanent structures in consciousness, which unfold cross-culturally from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to Kosmocentric (or archaic, to magic, to mythic, to rational, to pluralistic, to integral, and super-integral/transpersonal). 

Visionary art such as Alex’s most often serves to elicit profound states of consciousness (which can be accessed by nearly anyone at any stage or structure of development), but repeated access to these kinds of states of consciousness can  help move one to the next structure of consciousness—and, every so often, an individual will be right on the edge of moving to the next stage, and seeing an awesome vision like "Theologue" (or, perhaps, ingesting an entheogen) could be just what he or she needs to tip the scales towards the next more inclusive, embracing, and integral structure of consciousness.  Integral Art always keeps both states and stages in mind, and works to awaken and evolve both dimensions through the grace of creativity.      

(To find out why Ken said "Alex Grey might be the most significant artist alive," check out Part 1, and to learn more about states, structures, and bodies, check out Part 2.)