— Jonathan Wiltshire

— Manly P. Hall

* * *

“I began to perceive a whole new realm! Enormous buildings stood in a beautiful sunny park and there was a relationship between the various structures, a pattern to the way they were arranged that reminded me somewhat of a well planned university. Except that to compare what I was now seeing with anything on earth was ridiculous. It was more as if all the schools and colleges in the world were only piecemeal reproductions of this reality.”

— Jonathan Wiltshire

* * *

“Death is the name we give to the cessation of physical processes as perceived by our physical senses. Higher processes ... simply continue, free of the encumbrance of the outer body. Furthermore, we are more truly alive in this new awakening than ever we were on earth, since we no longer suffer the illusion that only the physical world exists. All of our inner senses are activated and, like arousing from a long sleep, you suddenly become aware of a most familiar and cherished reality—the inner world which is our original, authentic and eternal homeland.”

* * *

“There are divisions between the planes of the astral world, which are also states of consciousness, but the form they take depends upon the state of evolution of the mind of the beholder. Some will see a river, some a wall such as the ‘Al-A’raf’ of the Muslims which divides ‘heaven’ from ‘hell’ in the Koran, others a dark abyss or bottomless canyon. Such barriers seem very real indeed to the mind which encounters them, but to the Initiate such barriers present no obstacle, for he has earned the freedom to enter any region of the astral world to which his inner state of evolution entitles him. ...

For unless a man is holy and good, pure and merciful, he cannot behold the higher realms, for his Mind is closed to the Light and he cannot hear the voice of his Soul. But once the Mind hears, the Soul’s presence will manifest in many wonderful ways, and before such enlightened individuals give up their bodies they will know the senses that operate them for what they are—Illusion. That condition may be reached in many ways, such as the doing of good deeds and attuning in thought with Beauty, Truth and Wisdom, or through spiritual exercises under the guidance of a true Master of the Mysteries. It cannot be attained by mere words, wishful thinking and self-indulgence. The understanding of it will come gradually to those who are tolerant, patient and strive unselfishly. Thus it is possible to attain to any region the mind aspires to in time.”

* * *

“Hail, holy light! Offspring of heaven first-born! Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam! May I express thee unblamed? Since God is Light. And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hearest thou rather, pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep Won from the void and formless infinite.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

Joseph Parker, Untitled (1973)

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The Visions of Joseph Parker, part IV

“Walter Hopps, former curator of the Smithsonian Institute and Senior Curator at the Guggenheim Museum, included Joseph Parker’s work among the California visionaries celebrated in his decisive book of 1977, Visions. Hopps describes the artist as presiding ‘over his model universe like an ecstatic god, bestowing it with a wealth of finely detailed contour, texture and local color, all executed with a consummate, meticulous, precision-tooled craftsmanship, breathtaking in its hyper-real clarity.’

Parker worked from the memory of his super-conscious visions. His kaleidoscopic skies, like Persian rug sunsets, present complex, mandalic haloes radiating from a brightly dawning, transcendental sun. Great artists map a new region in our consciousness, and their depictions allow us to visit the Divine imagination where, in the words of Ibn Arabi, ‘God meets God.’ Parker’s body of work evokes the heavenly world to come. As there is a ‘Blake Land,’ a ‘Fuchs World’ and a ‘Mati Klarwein Island,’ there is a mapped area of awareness called ‘Joseph Parker.’ Joseph Parker painted the sun’s rays expanding out in boundless brocade tapestries, patterned fields of rich color, both intricate and elegantly simple. The recurring motif of a centralized sun over landscape, ocean or mountain, became emblematic as Parker’s signature.

In an homage to Joseph Parker, in December of 2008 Alex began the painting, ‘Ocean of Love Bliss.’ Two lovers in the ocean embrace before a sky resonant with the patterns of Joseph Parker. In the hearts of the lovers is a bright light, shared by the sunrise. While painting this piece we got the tragic news of Joseph Parker's death. Thank you, Joseph Parker, for mapping an authentic aesthetic advancement toward super-consciousness. ...

Joseph Parker died to this world, at age 79, at 6:30 a.m. on May 17, 2009, in Desert Hot Springs, CA.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

Joseph Parker, Untitled

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The Visions of Joseph Parker, part III

“In Aldous Huxley's 1959 lecture, Natural History of Visions, Huxley articulates the visionary realm as ‘…jewel-like luminescence evoking clarity in its multi-faceted and transparent shimmer and iridescent hues.’ This description evokes Parker’s world, a spectral world with one-point perspective using the symbol of the ascending path up the mountainous road to enlightenment.

In Parker’s own words:

Joseph Parker is one of the great mystic painters of the late 20th century. Mysticism, according to The Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, is summarily defined as: ‘an apprehension of an ultimate non-sensuous unity in all things, a direct apperception of deity, the art of union with reality, an immediate contact or union of the self with a larger-than-self.’ Images of paradise can be found in the literature of all the world’s wisdom paths. The visionary abode of Buddha, as described in the Flower Ornament Sutra, is ‘made of jewels of various colors and decorated with all kinds of precious flowers. The various adornments emanated lights like clouds.’ Joseph Parker’s vision-scapes of the soul confirm the ideal world described by Socrates in the Phaedo, a world beyond compare to that which we know. ‘In this other earth the colors are much purer and more brilliant than they are down here. The mountains and stones have a richer gloss, a livelier transparency and intensity of hue.’”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

— Joyce Parker

Joseph Parker, The Path to Glory

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The Visions of Joseph Parker, part II

“Increasingly dissatisfied with his career as an accountant, Parker devoted himself to Rosicrucianism, joined the Theosophical Society, and took up singing and playing a musical instrument. A second epiphany in 1962, allowed Parker to overcome his fears of failure and financial ruin, and choose the life of an artist. He studied art briefly in Sydney and then moved to Paris and later Israel. His life in Israel and later in India, led to encounters with spiritual leaders such as the chief of the Rosicrucian order, the head of Jain Buddhism, and the well-known Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti. Parker continued traveling, settling next in Mexico where he attended two art schools and began a career as a portrait painter.

Continuing to travel, he moved to the U.S. in 1977 and lived in San Francisco where a Chicago writer, Gregory Vlamis saw and began collecting Parker’s paintings. With Vlamis as his ally, Parker exhibited his work in numerous galleries including the Walther Kelly Gallery in Chicago and sold paintings to many private collectors, corporations and museums including the Art Institute of Chicago. Parker was one of the featured artists in an exhibition at the cutting-edge P.S. 1 Gallery in New York City, his first exposure in the New York gallery scene.

Learning of his work in New York, E.B. and Maureen Smith became Joseph’s most active collectors until they lost track of his whereabouts as he moved across the country in a RV, painting wherever he traveled. Joseph cared little about the prestige of galleries or the lure of money and decided to give up painting in 1991 to commit himself to studying the ‘divine scheme.’ The Smith’s later found him in Desert Hot Springs and convinced him to recommence painting, supported by their generous patronage.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

The Visions of Joseph Parker, part I

“Joseph Parker began having visions during a hypnosis session to cure his painful migraine headaches. He describes his experience of that session:

Through this experience, Parker was transformed from his prior atheism to a deep faith in the reality of spirit.

Originally Joseph Schwartz, Parker was born January 6, 1930 to Jewish parents in Stropkof, Czechoslovakia. From an early age, Joseph was recognized as a talented young artist. But his creativity was put on hold with the onset of World War II. The Schwartz family survived Nazi Germany hidden in a hillside bunker for two and a half years, cared for by the kindness of local neighbors. After his sister died in a concentration camp, Joseph lost his faith in God and proclaimed that he was an atheist.

Post WWII, with Europe in chaos, Parker’s family escaped the communist take-over of Czechoslovakia to settle first in Vienna and then Paris. Joseph became fluent in seven languages, including Russian, German, Slovac, Latin, Hebrew, French, English, and Polish. When the family decided to move to Australia, Joseph Schwartz, in order to overcome anti-Semitism, changed his name to Joseph Parker. In order to support himself, Parker studied and became a successful accountant.

In the late ‘50s, extreme migraine headaches drove Parker to seek alternative therapy from an occultist who performed hypnosis. During this session, Joseph had an out-of-body experience where he was absorbed by the bright, pure light of Divine love, birthplace of the Living Soul. This epiphany opened Parker to a spiritual investigation that included a study of Norman Vincent Peale, Rosicrucianism, and other forms of mysticism. Joseph declared that he was no longer an atheist. From that point on, an ‘inner voice’ spoke to Joseph acting as a divine counselor, interpreting his mystical experience.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

* * *

Joseph Parker, Untitled

The World of Astral Fire, part II

“So do therefore, my soul and my body: rise up now and follow your higher soul. Let us go up into that high mountain before us from the pinnacle of which I will show you that place where two ways meet, of which Pythagoras spoke in cloud and darkness. Our eyes are opened; now shines the Sun of Holiness and Justice, guided by which we cannot turn aside from the way of truth. Let thine eyes look first upon the right path, lest they behold vanity before wisdom is perceived. See you not that shining and impregnable tower? Therein is Philosophical Love, a fountain from which flow living waters, and he who drinks thereof shall thirst no more after vanity. From that most pleasant and delectable place goes a plain path to one more delightful still, wherein Wisdom draws the yoke. Out of her fountain flow waters far more blessed than the first, for if our enemies drink thereof it is necessary to make peace with them.

Most of those who attain here direct their course still further, but not all attain the end. It is such a place which mortals may scarcely reach unless they are raised by the Divine Will to the state of immortality; and then, or ever they enter, they must put off the world, the hindering vesture of fallen life. In those who attain hereto there is no longer any fear of death; on the contrary they welcome it daily with more willingness, judging that whatsoever is agreeable in the natural order is worthy of their acceptance. Whosoever advances beyond these three regions passes from the sight of men.

If so be that it be granted us to see the second and the third, let us seek to go further. Behold, beyond the first and crystalline arch, a second arch of silver, beyond which there is a third of adamant. But the fourth comes not within our vision till the third lies behind us. This is the golden realm of abiding happiness, void of care, filled with perpetual joy.”

— Sapiens, Brother R.C., quoted in Anima Magia Abscondita by Eugenius Philalethes

* * *

Hans Georg Leiendecker, The Bridge is Built (2002)

Jean Michaud, The Golden Star

Jonathan Wiltshire, Of Astral Worlds

* * *

The World of Astral Fire, part I

“Bathed in the golden radiance, several beautiful white marble Temples rose up in all directions and in the distance a circle of fairy-like castles was silhouetted on the horizon, floating, as it were, in golden transparent clouds of aureate haze.

Bright yellow flashes shone forth when a ray of light struck the golden ornaments with which the buildings were decorated in exquisite and choice designs, and green, blue and red flames leapt from the thousands of blazing jewels which covered the fabric of the wondrous structures; a carnival of pyrotechnical delight.

Terraces, and lovely gardens full of flowers bewitched the eyes; and softly splashing fountains murmured mystic songs and rose up golden in the air, to fall like sprays of shining gems within their basins.

Singing birds did chant their songs of jubilation and of joy; and peacocks, birds of paradise, and butterflies bedecked with shining greens and blues and reds deluged the senses with rapture.

‘This is the Prince-dom of the Rulers in the World of Astral Fire. Sacred and inviolable in its Purity it lies between the lower Astral Worlds and the Heavenly Realms. A Holy Barrier that none but Holy Souls of Purity and Wisdom ever pass. It is cut off from earth and all the spheres below it and above, by walls of leaping flames that sear the Minds of those not qualified and blind their sight, so that, perforce, they must return to those abodes for which they are equipped by nature of their attributes of spiritual modulation. This is ordeal by Fire in the truest sense; for if a single speck of earthly dross remains within their Minds, the fiery glow will seize upon that mote and burn it up. They shall not pass when so disqualified.

‘There is no such thing as age or time in these regions. Those who penetrate here have had millions of mortal and Astral years of experience and life. But time, such as we once knew it, is but an illusion, the same as light or darkness. There is no night here—but always bright and untroubled day, such as you now behold.

‘Do not confuse these regions with those of the earthly and Astral worlds. For there all is subject to slower material vibrations, due to spirit-force flowing through the sun. There, also, the Minds of all the inhabitants are slaves to Illusion, whilst here all is actuality and not a dream within a dream. The only imagination here is the imagination of God, and not that of incarnated mortals, or mortals drifting between incarnations.’”

— Jean Michaud, The Golden Star