



Spiraling back—way, way, back—to the "Archaic Revival"


This quote (from plate 3 of Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, 1804–1820), reflects Blake's belief that humanity's original state was one of integrated knowledge, creative expression, and understanding. Blake saw the fall of humanity as a separation of imagination from intellect, leading to a fragmented existence. In his view, the "Primeval State" represents the original wholeness before this fall, where wisdom, art, and science were not separate disciplines but integrated facets of the human imagination.
If we take the fall of humanity from the paradisiacal Garden to be an event in the evolution of human consciousness and culture (not a "fall" from some otherworldly plane of existence into this material world), then Blake's vision of the "Primeval State of Man" can be interpreted as situated in the prehistoric period, of which little is known about the condition of mankind, except the assumption and it was a barbarous existence for so-called "hunter-gatherers." This kind of interpretation would fit in with Blake's heretical contention. By linking wisdom, art, and science in a unified primeval state, Blake can be understood as implicitly criticizing the scientific view of his time and the later specialization of knowledge that he saw as leading to a diminished human experience.
Unfortunately, little has changed in the establishment scientific view based on archeological evidence. This is so despite the paradigm-challenging discoveries of more outside-the-box scientific researchers (like Graham Hancock), whose findings keep pushing back the dating of mankind's cultural achievements which are formerly believed to be of the Neolithic or New Stone Age period, beginning around 10,000 BCE. (This was a transformative era characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of plants and animals, and the establishment of permanent settlements. Technically called the "Neolithic Revolution," it saw human societies transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to sedentary farming communities, laying the foundation for later civilizations and leading to innovations in crafts like pottery and weaving. Before this age was the Stone Age, which is contemporaneous with the evolution of the genus Homo. (The Stone Age is the first period in the three-age system frequently used in archaeology to divide the timeline of human technological prehistory, especially in Europe and western Asia, into functional periods, with the next two being the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, respectively. The Stone Age is also commonly divided into three distinct periods: the earliest and most primitive being the Paleolithic era; a transitional period with finer tools known as the Mesolithic era; and the final stage known as the Neolithic era.)
Being that Blake was from Britain, take for example the famous prehistoric megalithic structure of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. It's Neolithic date of construction now has been moved back to 3000 BCE, and some date it even earlier. Thus, Stonehenge serves as a starting point of a 2018 documentary that challenges the establishment science view of prehistory and its peoples. The title of this documentary is "The First Britions" (Britons was a name Blake knew well as it is a subject of his prophetic mythology, as related to "Albion.")
The opening commentary of "The First Britons" is presented here in order to demonstrate the latest scientific discoveries that lend credence to Blake's "The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom, Art, and Science."
"Historians and archaeologists have long thought that the story of the earliest Britons was lost to the mists of time. Stone Age settlers of ancient Britain had always been thought of as simple folk, living a brutal hand-to-mouth existence. An itinerant people, leaving almost no trace of their nomadic evidence. But now, evidence is emerging that turns those assumptions upside-down. Traditionally, the view of the hunter-gatherer has been that they’ve really just been sort of running through the landscape, chasing after the latest big animal. But, in fact, what we have here is something much more complicated. Archaeological sites all over the UK and Northern Europe are producing evidence that paints these people in a very different light. It’s become clear over time that people are thinking ahead and planning for the future. And that is really quite a sophisticated way to interact with the environment. And scientific technologies are bringing prehistory into sharp focus in a way unimaginable just a few decades ago. We produced a life story, a life history; what they were eating, and the climate was like. We could reach back into the past and reconstruct their childhoods. But perhaps the most surprising of all is the discovery in an ancient cave that completely confounds our preconceptions about who our ancestors actually were. When we got the isotope analysis results, our whole picture that we had before just crumbled in a second. Thanks to science, we now have an increasingly clear picture of prehistory and the sophisticated people who were the first Britons. . . . We have to start rethinking about how we imagine groups which we call simple [not sophisticated but "primitive"] . . . . It's only occasionally that an archaeologist finds something that you think may be a complete game changer."
Thematic Images for the Archaic Mother Goddess & the Archaic Horned Gods
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Femme à la Corne (Laussel, Dordogne 27000-22000 BCE)

Venus of Willendorf (Austria 24000-22000 BCE)


Paleolithic "Sorcerer of Trois Frères"
(Lascaux cave, France)
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horned god Pasupati (Indus Valley)
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horned god Cernunnos
(Pilier des nautes, France)
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Celtic horned god Gold Phalera
Antlered god Cernnunos (Celtic Gundestrup Cauldron)
"The Horned One" (Denmark)
Thematic Images for Archaic Petroglyphs (Cave or Rock Art)

The subject of many of these prehistoric rock art compositions is somewhat very advanced, and strongly expresses a kind of mythology present at the time (about 12,000 BC). Strange creatures with no heads, others with round heads and wearing alien-like masks, some with one eye, an antelope with an elephant's body, and tall and skinny figures, involved in some kind of offerings and rituals.

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The Sorcerer (Les Trois Freres,
Lascaux cave ca. 13,000 BCE)
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Horned Goddess (Saharan ca. 4000-1570 BCE)

Thematic Images for Archaic Rituals



Thematic Images for Archaic (Psychedelic) Rebirth










































Thematic Images for Archaic Revival Goddesses


















Pachamama


Pachamama te ama

Pachamama de mamani-mamani
Thematic Image Representations for Archaic Revival
Thematic Artwork for Archaic Revival

















































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Amazon Vision
Archaic Revival Dream



Thematic Artwork for Archaic Revival's Psychedelic Vision



























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shaman and DMT entities


DMT machine elves


DMT shaman
DMT Vision

Thematic Images for Archaic Revival's Psychedelic Shamanism



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Shamaness

The Shaman




















Thematic Artwork for Ayahuasca Shamanism

Ayahuasca Shamanism

The Shamanic Journey













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Thematic Artwork for Ayahuasca Ceremony


Thematic Artwork for Ayahuasqueros & Ayahuasqueras

Ayahuasquero

Ayahuasquera

Ayahuasquero

Ayahuasquera


Ayahuasquero

Ayahuasquera

Curandero (traditional healer or shaman)

Curandero

Curandero
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Curandera - Ayahuasca Healer


Curandera
La Curandera

Curandera in healing trance
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Medicine Woman (Curandera)


Rapé (pronounced ha-pae) is one of the tribal cornerstones of communal health. It must be prepared by a shaman or elder, then administered using a two-way pipe.

Thematic Images for AyahuascaVisionary Artwork


































































Thematic Artwork for Ayahuasca









Era Sonora

Ayahuasca At The Gates

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"Espiritu"


"The Purge"





"Vine of Spirits" (Ayahuasca)

"DMT" (Ayahuasca)

Ayahuasqca vine snake

"Ayahuasqca Daemon"
Thematic Artwork for Ayahuasca Music















Thematic Artwork for Psychedelic Alien Visions








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Thematic Images for Native American & Mesoamerican Archaic Revival











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Quetzalcoatyl (Aztec god)
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Xochiquetzal (Aztec goddess)

Thematic Images for Archaic Revival's Psychedelic Mushrooms



Great Horned Mushroom Goddess
Thematic Images for Archaic Sacred Mushrooms



Mayan psychedelic mushroom ritual
Aztec god Pilzintecuhtil offering magic mushrooms

magic mushroom priestess

Soma mushroom Goddess

magic mushroom shamans
















Terence McKenna







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Thematic Primitive & Primitivist Artwork for Archaic Revival






Folk Ethnic Dance

Indigenous American Culture


Hikuri Shaman Huichol mescaline artwork

Huichol Psycho Natural Trip


Creation

Ancient Rituals

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Three Ayahuasca Visions


Archaic Revival Spiral
The roots of what Terence McKenna envisioned as the “Archaic Revival” (1992) are most probably in the modernist artistic and literary movements known as Primitivism.
Primitivism is an interconnected art style and philosophical doctrine that believes primitive humans and their unsophisticated behaviors were more noble and innocent than modern, civilized people. It began in the late 1800s and some experts consider Primitivism a “found sensibility and cultural attitude” more than an art style unto itself. Primitivist ideals can be combined with other art styles. Primitivism as an art style comes from a mix of artwork from ancient cultures and the native art styles found in contemporary tribal societies (although mostly from a Western lens). The style can be found in the traditional arts, in music, in philosophical ideals, and in literature. Many of the dominant voices in the Primitivist art style were European artists who wanted to make their idealized version of what they considered “uncivilized art.” These perceived “uncivilized” cultures were romanticized by Western artists and seen as more pure and/or noble. The artistic movements of Fauvism and Cubism are thought to have arisen as a direct result of Primitivism. Paul Gauguin was one of the most influential names in the Primitivist movement. Pablo Picasso is likely the largest name connected to the Primitivist art style. Picasso is identified as the first practitioner of Primitivism, which directly led to the style he would be most known for: Cubism. Henri Matisse led the development of Fauvism from a foundation of Primitivism. African art styles played a major influence in this period of Matisse’s work.
In the arts of the Western World, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of the primitive time, place, and person, either by emulation or by recreation. In European art, the aesthetics of Primitivism included techniques, motifs, and styles copied from the arts of Asian, African, and Australasian peoples perceived as primitive in relation to the urban civilization of western Europe. Moreover, the term Primitivism also identifies the techniques, motifs, and styles of painting that predominated representational painting before the emergence of the Avant-garde; and also identifies the styles of Naïve art and of folk art produced by amateur artists, such as Henri Rousseau, who painted for personal pleasure. The paintings of Paul Gauguin and of Pablo Picasso, and the music of Igor Stravinsky usually are cited as notable examples of Primitivism in art.
Historians most often use the term “Primitivism” to refer to the attempt to reconstruct a religious tradition’s original theology, structure, or beliefs. Primitivists believe that the earliest expressions of the faith are the most efficacious, powerful, and valid, and hence they attempt to recapture them in as complete a form as it is possible for them to imagine. Thus, they frequently dissent from established religious traditions, believing that those constructed under the primitive impulse achieve superior purity. In Western philosophy, Primitivism proposes that the people of a primitive society possess a Morality and an ethics that are superior to the urban value system of civilized people; thus, in art and in philosophy, Primitivism is nostalgia for a non-existent golden age in the Garden of Eden.
Primitivism, which has taken many forms over the centuries (among its two basic styles: artistic and cultural), may be seen, beginning around the late nineteenth century, as the beginnings of a cultural critique aimed at “modernity,” which sought to overturn the value-laden hierarchy of civilized and modern over savage and primitive, a preliminary stage to the eventual breakdown of the distinction itself.
Some dissenting Americans of that time advocated “Primitivism,” which they understood as “uncorrupted,” because they believed it had the potential to “energize and renew” American civilization. They believed deeply that white American civilization was bankrupt and that renewal would come from “primitive people,” they had the childlike energies and insights that would reinvigorate white American society. Thus, for example, during the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American writers Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes were intent upon anthropologically discovering the “primitive,” in black culture through stories and songs. In this sense “Primitivism” was a search for spiritual illumination through the art of primitive peoples. (Yet, it should be pointed out that for all this noble and well-intentioned search “Primitivism” was not without its pitfalls, and thus this endeavor was been controversial in African-American history.)
The Gypsy Scholar sees the concept of the “Archaic Revival” as hearkening back to the Romantic period (18th & 19th centuries), with what has been termed “The Romantic Quest for Origins.” For the Romantic poets, writers, and artists, this was basically a quest to recover the ancient past (whether through lost poetic texts, forgotten traditions, or ancient ruins).
To read "Terence McKenna on the Archaic Revival," click on PDF

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This “Archaic Revival” webpage is dedicated to the memory of psychedelic philosopher and visionary Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000)
Thanks to the “nervous, rocky West,” Emerson prophesied, “we shall yet have an American genius.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson had a poetic vision of America and of the “Poet as Sayer”: “We love the poet,” exclaimed Emerson, “he unlocks our chains and admits us to a new scene.” The poets are “the liberating gods,” and they are sure to come to sing of the new nation, for “America is a poem . . . and it will not wait long for metres.” (Emerson's ideal of the true poet/prophet is not elitist but, like Blake's, thoroughly democratic: “All men are poets at heart.”)
My point here is that Emerson seems to be prophesying Terence McKenna—this “American genius”—; that is, he sounds like he is speaking about our experience of the Colorado-born psychedelic visionary (of Irish-Sicilian ancestry): “The poet has a new thought; he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us how it was with him, and all men will be richer in his fortune. . . .” The poet is the sayer of “truth-speaking things.”
Although Terence is no longer alive, consider the following belief he expressed:
“I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us—as part of something greater than us, greater than any alien force. And, if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe if we listen to what's speaking it can give us the power to save ourselves.”
I feel that those of us who saw and loved who he was and what he stood for—his courage of thought, visionary imagination, nobility of soul, poetic eloquence, and witty sense of humor—are so much “richer” and deeper in our imaginations and in our souls thanks to Terence. I doubt we shall ever see another like him again in our time. I like to muse that Terence still can be experienced through this cyberspace medium, since he maintained that the internet was a virtual place where we could share our dreams and visions—as he was fond of admonishing concerning the world-wide web: “You can see what I mean!”
