What it Is
ARCHETYPAL is a photographic art project intended for contemplation, meditation, and spell work. It explores mythic themes, including Kabbalah and Jungian psychology.
How It Started
Taylor Ellwood did an interview on the (now defunct) podcast deo's Shadow to promote his book Pop Culture Magick. Their interview made me think of the impact pop culture has on me. I thought of the awe I felt when watching Dumbledore conjuring a firestorm in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The scene in the movie version really demonstrates Dumbledore's might, and when I thought about applying pop culture to magick, I found that imagining myself in that role made me feel mighty. I couldn't get that effect just from imagining myself wielding extraordinary powers. It had to be Dumbledore. I think it happened this way because the original story had had an impact on me.
If a big part of magick is psychology, and getting oneself to the right mental/emotional state, then it wasn't just about invoking real beings or meditating on cosmologies that I felt were true. Ritual is about the words, images, and actions that bring us into trance or transform us.
I thought of other stories that impacted me, or images that brought my mind to the places that I wanted to go. I sought out images of all kinds of characters, items, and scenes that had patterned on me at a deep level. I filled my computer with images of the mystical Zhaan from Farscape, the Orb of Aldur, the Staff of Law, Supergirl, Hedwig Robinson, Moiraine Damodred, Willow Rosenberg, Lord of the Rings elves, fantasy wizards and dragons, and superheroes.
I intended to print them all out for my Book of Shadows. As an aspiring writer I thought of publishing such a thing, but of course I don't have the rights to any of that. It lead me down the rabbit hole of contemplative images. Images to contemplate in ritual, to inspire fantasies and daydreams, to get a person to the emotional place that they wanted.
Another inspiration along the way was Masonic tracing boards, a way of artistically collecting symbols into one cohesive image as a way to help students remember a set of concepts or lessons.
When I conceived the project I didn't have any Photoshop skills. I had never done photography. I just knew I couldn't paint or draw, so if I wanted to translate my ideas into reality I needed to figure out a medium to do that.
How to Use These Images
Do what you want with them. Put them in your Book of Shadows. Add them to a vision board. Contemplate them to prepare your mind to touch the powers. Identify with the characters, to help you feel mighty, vulnerable, even sad. Use them as inspiration for pathworking or lucid dreams. Set them as wallpapers for your devices, to subtly influence your consciousness with your intentions. If any of them express a concept that's meaningful to you, stare at them until the concept becomes a living idea inside of you. Use it as a jumping-off point for your own art, meditations, or interpretations of concepts.
Hang it on your wall - you don't have to do anything magick with them.
The Symbolism
I draw heavily from Jungian archetypes - hence the name of the project - and also from Kabbalah. I don't claim to be an expert in these areas. I'm not a psychologist. I'm a magician and an artist. As time goes on I expect the project will expand into other realms. It's an eclectic project so don't be surprised to find Celtic, Jewish, and Greek images combined with modern technology all in the same image.
Though I draw from mythology I don't intend to directly depict the gods. It feels somehow blasphemous for me to choose a human model to depict a god, though if I could paint or draw a god I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Leave a comment!