(University of Oregon, 2021) Center for Art Research, University of Oregon; Abreu, Manuel Arturo
I unyoke the issue of real and fake from the artificial, post-Enlightenment European
context of ‘art’ to look at the prehistory, which is theological and entheogenic in nature.
I first discuss Sylvia Wyner’s notion of auto-institutionality with respect to mind; I then
discuss Abrahamic literalism; finally, I situate the ancients’ respect for visionary-driven
consciousness within the larger frame of governance of such consciousness. That is, even
though the moderns lost knowledge of the mysteries, the ancients aren’t so different from
us, different societies simply control access to consciousness altering goods in different
ways. Why are these resources so tightly controlled?
