Review: José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal, A Second Nature, (s.l.), Aeon Sophia Press 2017, 149 pages, full wine-red linen cover, gild lettering to the spine and gild illustrations printed to the front and back cover, limited edition of 200

by Frater Acher

A Second Nature is the second book by  artist José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal (JGAS) and features a pristine selection of drawings and paintings collected over the relatively short period from 2014 to 2016. Right upon opening the book we realise that it can be read in many different ways. Whichever access route we choose though, once we delve into its manifold visions of the daimonic – some perfected in beauty, some in grotesqueness – we should be prepared to tremble.

Let me expand on this statement a little, for there is a significant tie between the experience of art and our spiritual experience; and it is one that is unfortunately all too often overlooked. Back in 2003 I held a full workshop on “Art and the Occult” and bored the audience to death – or at least into deep slumber – while providing multiple examples of this principle all the way from the Renaissance to Modern Art. I will not repeat this mistake here, but keep it brief, before we return to A Second Nature with hopefully a better appreciation for it as a book of visual magic.

Now there is a wonderful section in the Zohar where the terrible or fear-inducing aspect of Divinity is explained as an expression of its perfection (II. fol. 78b-79b, Ernst Müller [ed.], Der Sohar. München: Diederichs Gelbe Reihe 1997, p. 56). It compares the experience of fear of the Divine to a man standing at the shore, looking out into a storm over the ocean. In the same manner as they tremble when confronted with the power, the beauty but also the terror of the scene, so humans tremble when they behold any truthful expression of the Divine. 

Two hundred years after the emergence of the Zohar, during the 15th century, the very same dynamic was consciously applied to the experience of art in Renaissance Italy. Roughly during the same time as Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) painted La Primaveraas a wedding gift to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, it was the latter’s private teacher, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who in a letter pointed out to him that “the mere sight of virtues is more persuasive than any admonition” (source). Ficino with this comment was referring to an essentially spiritual function that he saw embedded in the experience of any kind of art: according to him, the visual image created by the artist held the power to open a pathway to elevate the soul of the observer out of the material world and back into the sphere of Neoplatonic ideas. Thus experiencing art, whether it took place through indulging in the beauty of Botticelli images or through the experience of Ficino’s archetypal music therapy, was a process meant to be an act of spiritual alchemy. To Ficino, art was the most direct expression of magical principles and its experience was meant to trigger an act of spiritual sublimation in the mind and heart of the beholder.

Fred Gettings (aka Mark Hedsel) in his somewhat autobiographical novel The Zelator goes into great length to explore the importance of experiencing art as part of one’s spiritual journey – or shall we say: therapy? In a footnote to a conversation of two characters on how to deal with the experience of one’s personal shadow, Gettings gives us a wonderful description of the alchemical dynamics of this process. The technical term he applies is “fission” and it provides a great lens to understand the very process Ficino was convinced could be induced within man through the experience of any sort of inspired form of art.

Fission is an arcane term which relates very closely to its modern scientific use. Fission describes the separation of a given organism into two parts. One part is a released Spirituality [sic!] which had been in potentia in the organism: this is liberated, and through the liberation finds its own development on the spiritual plane. The other part represents a darkening, a solidification of the remaining part of the original organism. This darkens, and drops nearer to the Earth. The classical alchemical imagery for fission is the burning of a candle. The candle itself is separated into the light of the flame, and the darkness of the ash of the charred wick, and the smoke. Without fission, no development can take place. (Mark Hedsel, The Zelator, London: Century Books 1998, kindle loc. 961, n. 70)

With this in mind, we return to review A Second Nature. Unsurprisingly, we find that its very title refers to the same dynamic explored above: The book’s name is inspired by the essential theological debate about whether Christ’s body – and therefore the body of all humans – “was both divine and human in one body, as wine and water, or if these natures were divided, as oil and water in one cup” (p. 11). Thus the book in the body of its shape-shifting daimonic images confronts us with the essential question about our own mortality and divinity. And whether or not we will be able to lift ourselves up into the world of the sublime through the experience of fission.

I’d encourage everyone to turn this into a practical experience. When looking at the images of this book, bring a lot of time, just like you would when going to an art exhibition. Rest in front of the image that speaks to you and open yourself up to its experience in full. What does it bring to the foreground, which voices and memories does it conjure in your mind? Simply put, how do you experience yourself differently when looking through the mirror that this image is? 

The process of slowing down, as JGAS advises in the introduction, is also technically embedded in the short texts that we find interspersed. Referring to late medieval cryptography, the author encourages us not to pursue the “practical and cheapest” way of engaging with the images but to allow for the slow process of contemplation, for the germinating experience of new information sprouting into true understanding. 

The texts mingled in the images have been codified with a simple system of Steganographia derived from Trithemius's book of the same name. The key is the following: read the even letters of even words. 

If the reader follows this rule he or she shall obtain a text in Spanish. I hope this shall not be perceived as obscurity for the sake of obscurity. Through the constant experiment of language new words are discovered. It implies also that the reader shall take active part in the reading in order to extract a meaning. The purpose and direct outcome of this will be to delay the reading, which seems absurd to the rational and academic point of view. But the approach of this whole work is certainly set against the contemporary forms of spreading of knowledge, and against the widespread belief that the easier, more practical and cheapest of ways shall be the best one. 

Instead, the initiative is to encourage the idea that knowledge is at core different from information. Therefore, this seeks to encourage both contemplation and interaction, since working with the letters will make the reader reflect upon the image. 

This work is based in the speculation that the unconscious world is not the dumping ground of daily life, but it may be like a back garden in which everything is wildly overgrown due to our oblivion. And as a garden it can be cultivated and worked upon, in order to learn from the flowers it can give, as one of the opening drawings tries to depict. (p. 11f.)

We said there are many different ways how we can read A Second Nature. One entirely alternative approach to what we have explored so far is to read it as an expression of the immense technical learning curve of one of the most fascinating young occult artists in the current scene. 

JGAS explains that the book essentially contains two kinds of drawings: expressions of inner visions as well as approximations to outer forms. The former challenge the artist to mould something into a visible form that was sparked by an invisible encounter; the latter call for the arduous process of drawing something nearer, by means of ink and hand, that the eye encountered in its surroundings. However, as mentioned above, both ways of working represent forms of artistic sublimation, of drawing out the divine or demonic, and of finding passageways of incorporating the experience of the Other.

In following the images of the book, we witness how much JGAS has matured in this process over the short period of only three years. Personally, I had to flip backwards and forwards and compare the flow of lines and forms between images, so stark was the difference in their maturity (e.g. page 109 vs. 129/131). 

They say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a new skill. Marvelling at some of the images and the perfection accomplished in JGAS’s unique technique of using ink and quill to imitate classical copper engravings, I am reminded of the Zohar and the man standing at the shore, looking out onto the ocean storm. Trembling. This is the gift only great art knows how to give.

A Second Nature is a book highly recommended to any practical occultist as well as aspiring artist. It also is a book that creates immense anticipation to see the works of this outstanding artist which emerged since its publication over the years from 2017 to 2020.