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How can one claim that human consciousness is evolving and going in a transpersonal direction when the twentieth century has witnessed such distressing carnage? Let us also remember that the twentieth century has been the time of great liberation movements, recognition of racial and sexual discrimination, and awakening ecological awareness. Although human greed, hatred, and ignorance have led us to the current crisis of our overpopulated and polluted world, the question is, Can enough individuals personally awaken to a reverence for life, and then, through their creative actions and interventions, redirect the tendency of society away from self-destruction? When people stare death in the face, they begin to question the direction and motivation of their lives, their worldview, and their priorities. There is greater potentioal now for people to realize our fragile gobal interdependence and access interpersonal truth. In the twentieth century we see the common features of the world's great wisdom traditions pointing toward ethically responsible action. The avilability of these teachings lends support to the activation of human spiritual potential. The exoteric dogmas that separate world religions are not the shared esoteric truths at the core of these traditions. At the core is a concern for the common good and loving-kindness based in the unshakable knowledge of our deep unity with each other and the cosmos.

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Alex Grey might be the most significant artist alive. In a world gone postmodern, bereft of meaning and value, cut loose on a sea of irony and indifference, Alex is taking a stunning stand: There is a God, there is Spirit, there is a transcendental ground and goal of human development and unfolding. Higher realities are available to us - that is the message of Alex Grey's art and words in this book. He has set himself the extraordinary task of depicting, in art, these higher truths and here encourages all artists to find their own unique means of serving art's abiding mission.

This is art in its original and highest meaning: the subjective revelation of Spirit. When an artist is alive to the spiritual domains, he or she can depict and convey those domains in artistic rendering, which wrestles Spirit into matter and attempts to speak through that medium. When great artists do so, the artwork then reminds us of our own higher possibilities, our own deepest nature, our own most profound ground, which we all are invited to rediscover. The purpose of truly transcendent art is to express something you are not yet, but that you can become.

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