‘In the future artists will not be judged on their writings, paintings or sculpture: people will want to know the people themselves so as to admire the beauty and music emanating from them and their life. Everyone will want to live a life of poetry and express music in their gestures, thoughts and feelings; everyone will want to draw the features of their own face and carve the lines and contours of their own being in God’s image.’

The Master recognised all human beings have been given the need to create, to express themselves, whether it be through the creation of a child or through artistic expression such as painting, poetry, music, song, dance or sculpture. But this inner need is not enough. In order to create something truly beautiful, capable of ennobling and uplifting others, would-be creators must first make great efforts to surpass themselves, to raise their consciousness through prayer and meditation, to visit the higher regions of the invisible world in order to receive divine inspiration from the entities there. It was this practice that gave immortal, sublime, elements to the masterpieces created by artists of the past such as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Mozart.

However, many artists today seek their ‘inspiration’ from nightclubs or the lower regions of their subconscious; they are unaware they need to prepare themselves before attempting to create or that their method is in variance with the intelligence of nature. The natural process of creation is for order, beauty and perfection to emerge and develop out of chaos – a single cell divides and gradually differentiates to create a complex being and yet much contemporary art is moving in the opposite direction.

So, from the point of view of the Master and Initiatic Science, much of contemporary art with its incoherent, disjointed forms and discordant sounds has lost sight of its true role and mission:

‘The truth is that if you are an artist you must accomplish something that no one else can accomplish, something so beautiful and inspiring that it propels hearts and souls upwards on the path of perfection towards the Lord. This is how initiates understand the mission of art: to lead human beings to heaven, not to hell, discord and disorder. Whatever you see and hear influences your nervous system and when you see nothing but disorder, disorder necessarily enters you; whereas when you contemplate beauty and harmony, beauty and harmony enter you. It is a law of magic.’

Book 233 in the Izvor Collection, ‘Creation – Artistic and Spiritual’ is a collection of lectures by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov on the magical influences of beauty, harmony and light as expressed through various art forms.