Mantic visions

Vision is through the veil, and inescapably so.

– Ibn ‘Arabi

The subtle eye of matter

Esoteric or occult knowledge is revealed in revelatory episodes, in mantic visions that are felt to descend on us when we are engodded, or, when dreaming or enraptured, we are transported to a visionary realm. If the living body is, as phenomenology understands, the basis of our being and knowing, then all forms of knowing, including the visionary, should be considered in terms of the flesh.

In this talk I explore visionary states in relation to embodiment and animate life, showing the visionary and imaginal as grounded in corporeality, in the physiology of the living body. It is through the mediation of the body that the invisible makes itself known to us. I will consider the dark senses of touch and kinaesthesia and their synaesthetic involvement with vision, how the tactile kinaesthetic awareness of the living body is in continual conversation with the visual.

I propose that we think of a continuum of embodied states between incarnation and excarnation, from out of body and near death experiences to the weakly embodied dreaming and psychedelic states to the immersive deep embodiment of possession and performance. To each of these states belong distinctive modes of seeing. These perspectives are drawn from my experience of creating dance; exploring dreaming and visionary states to inspire form and movement in the choreographic process, and in the translation and transfiguration of images into flesh in performance.

My presentation from Trans- States: The Art of Revelation on the role of visionary states in my choreographic process, with a specific focus on Visitation. Visionary states of consciousness are embodied states.