Surrealist Manifestos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo

“Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins.”

Surrealist Manifestos: The first Surrealist manifesto, Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

Surrealism : visual artworks and writings, spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory.
Contents:
To speak of the techniques of surrealist poetry is necessarily to speak of the theory behind their practice, a theory that is unique in literature because it transcends literature and art altogether and invades the domains of philosophy, psychology, and even politics. In fact, as we will see, surrealism is essentially a technique and an inquiry utilizing that technique as a key to unlock the limitless within the human mind, effecting an essentially spiritual liberation.

Manifesto of Surrealism by André Breton in 1924. Prior to that, in 1919, the first automatic text, The Magnetic Fields, was produced by Breton and Philippe Soupault. In his first manifesto Breton explicitly defines surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state" -- the purpose of which is to express and thus reveal "the true functioning of thought."1 There is a need, of course, to discuss the signal importance of this claim -- that is, if the claim has any meaning, and if the techniques prescribed by surrealism achieve what it purported of them. Insofar as western civilization (and thus our very lives) is practically built on thought (or was built, and is sustained, by the activities of thought -- to an extent to be determined by the very phenomenological inquiry that surrealism intends to be), then surely it is important to look into surrealism, its basic concepts, to see what is there. And this is quite apart from the curiosity one might have about the various techniques employed by the surrealist poet; though in fact an understanding of the concepts lends credibility to the techniques and thus one begins to regard them in the light of their own purported expansive possibilities.

Psychic Art - Automatism
By Barbara Garcia

"Images of psychic art are recorded in our earliest visual records covering centuries of time. An examination of prehistoric man, ancient sages and shaman’s, to the modern day psychic artist we find an intuitive acceptance of pictures. Psychic art is one of our greatest tools of communication and intuitive comprehension of space that expands our physical reality, pleases the eye as well as the logic of mind."

"The term psychic art is a form of automatism representing a person whose writing, drawing, painting or musical performance occurs without conscious control or knowledge. Premonitions of future events, messages from beyond the grave, and scenes from the distant past are available to review in vivid color, shapes and lines in sharp contrast of physical reality. The term psychic art is somewhat of a deliberate umbrella used to include almost everything in the field including forms of tribal art, folk art and that of today’s suggestion of spirit drawing. It is safe, valid but a very general term of automatism."

"Psychic Art Automatism, on the other hand, is entirely the scope of the unconscious mind attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained by natural laws. It is often predictive in nature but remains one of the less investigated psychic skills in parapsychology. Perhaps a presence in a museum would create an active market for Psychic Art Automatism but most likely for only the elite group of paranormal societies."
http://the-psychic-detective.com/psychic-art.htm