Terence Mckenna talks about the prototypic figure for the artist is the shaman. The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history that unites the doctor, the scientist, and the artist into a single notion of care-giving and creativity.
This notion of the artist as mystical journeyer, as one who goes into a world unseen by others. The shamanic function of the artist: permission to explore the irrational. This was a true effort to bend the boundaries of art, to create new permission… permission really for the unthinkable.
What do we mean when we say the unthinkable? We mean the envelope of that which can be conceived. And, for, uh, at least 200 years, the ostensible mission of the artist has been to test the conceptual and imagistic envelope of what the society is willing to tolerable.ate.
Or the permission for the irrational imagery of the unconscious; Always the idea being to somehow destroy the idols of the tribe, dissolve the conceptual boundary of ordinary expectation.
from: Opening the Doors of Creativity
20 October 1990
Port Hueneme, CA
https://terencemckenna.wikispaces.com...
William Blake - Auguries of Innocence
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage "
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