Mapping the Unknown: Intro – Awakening to the Unseen

“The atom has at once limits and the capacity to develop, when the atom expands on the ether plane, the physical part of the earthly atom begins to glow.” – Hilma af Klint

Creating abstract canvases five years prior to the first by Wassily Kandinsky, and experimenting with writing and drawing guided by the unconscious decades before the Surrealists, the woman was a pioneer. Source

Synchronicity

Once again I am going off on a tangent. Yesterday, I revisited one of the art pieces I have been drawn to. Today – I start working on this post. And it becomes much more detailed and in depth than I originally planned… but I intend to follow it.

As I worked on this segment – I noticed an oddity with my nearby glasses – a pair I keep to read the KDrama [and recently, a beautifully rendered Cdrama] subtitles on the screen. One of the lenses has popped out.

Very odd. What is that about? Nothing was nearby that could have hit the glasses. They get limited use. No dropping, bumping or over use abuse.

I gently pushed the lens back into the frame and thought about the message. Then I reread the title of my post. Perfect. The focus is on insight. No glasses required. When I look back at the screen, I see a bright squiggle of light move across my left eye. How very interesting.

The creative spark

What if insight doesn’t always come from effort, but from a sudden opening? A dream, a vision, a ripple in the pattern of reality?

In the upcoming post Awakening to the Unseen, we explore the idea that some of the most powerful revelations in human history don’t originate from logic or planning, but from encounters with something beyond the known. These experiences—often spontaneous and unexplainable—become seeds for transformation. And those who receive them? Artists, scientists, mystics, even skeptics—who feel compelled to share what they’ve glimpsed.

Dr. Eben Alexander, who as a neurosurgeon once dismissed consciousness beyond the brain—until a week-long coma turned his worldview inside out. His vivid journey into another realm (while his brain was clinically inactive) became the foundation for Proof of Heaven, and helped launch a renewed inquiry into life after death.

Or consider Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist and mystic whose breathtaking abstract paintings were, in her words, “directed by higher beings” during trance states. Her work was so ahead of its time she kept it hidden for decades. Today, she’s finally being recognized as a pioneer of modern art.

The subject of a smash retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, af Klint was for years an all-but-forgotten figure in art historical discourse, before her long-delayed rediscovery. “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,” was the first major solo exhibition in the United States devoted to the artist, October 12, 2018–April 23, 2019.

Halina Dyrschka’s course correcting documentary describes not only the life and craft of Af Klint, but also the process of her mischaracterization and her erasure by both a patriarchal narrative of artistic progress and capitalistic determination of artistic value.

Interview: Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint – Halina Dyrschka, Filmmaker, Director, Producer. Youtube

Theosophy and the Arts: In her will, Hilma af Klint wrote that her abstract works must not be made accessible to the public until at least twenty years after her death. She was convinced that their full meaning could not be understood until then. One hundred years ago, Hilma af Klint painted pictures for the future.

And then there’s Robert Monroe, whose out-of-body experiences led him to create the Monroe Institute, where altered states of consciousness are now explored with scientific tools. His simple declaration—“I am more than my physical body”—still resonates with seekers around the world.

The list continues: Philip K. Dick, whose contact with an intelligence he named VALIS resulted in a torrent of visionary fiction and a sprawling metaphysical journal. Srinivasa Ramanujan, who received complex mathematical formulas in his dreams and attributed them to divine origin. Each story opens a crack in our reality model, urging us to ask: what else is possible?

Why This Matters Now

We live in a world obsessed with evidence—but some truths can’t be measured. They must be felt, experienced, integrated. These aren’t just stories of oddities. They are invitations. To read with an open mind. To engage with mystery. To trust that insight sometimes arrives without warning—and that this, too, is part of evolution.

Try This

• Keep a notebook: Track dreams, sudden insights, odd moments of clarity or synchronicity. Treat them as data from the unknown.\n- Explore the source: Read firsthand accounts of those who’ve journeyed beyond. Start with Journeys Out of the Body, Dying to Be Me, or VALIS.\n- Give space to the unexplainable: You don’t need to believe everything. Just stay open. Wonder is a gateway.

Final Thought

As Philip K. Dick wrote: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” But perhaps reality is larger than we think. And maybe, just maybe, discovery doesn’t come from certainty—but from surrender.

And we continue in the next post. Extraordinary Reality-Shifting Experiences and Their Documentations. Some you might recognize.

• Art featured in the Heading: Hilma af Klint 1907 – The key to the work up to this point.jpg – By Hilma af Klints Verk – http://www.hilmaafklint.se/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55041376