Drinking Lightning
Art, Creativity and Transformation
by Philip Rubinov-Jacobson
Foreword by Ken Wilber
Preface by Ernst Fuchs
The book has 42 color plates and
53 black and white reproductions and photos.
The book also features the art work of 21 artists:
Isaac Abrams, Johannes Elis, Daniel Friedemann,
Eva Fuchs, Ernst Fuchs, Michael Fuchs, Alex Grey, A.Andrew Gonzalez,
Jim Harter, Martina Hoffmann, Hanna Kay, Mati Klarwein, Carlos
Madrid, Brigid Marlin, Sandra Reamer, Cynthia Re'Robbins, Philip
Rubinov Jacobson, DeEs Schwertberger, Olga Spiegel, Mariu Suarez,
Ingo Swann, Carmela Tal Baron and Robert Venosa.
ABOUT THE BOOK
“Drinking Lightning - Art, Creativity
& Transformation”
DRINKING LIGHTNING is a fascinating personal exploration of
the relationship between art, creativity, and spirituality. Philip
Rubinov-Jacobson is both a writer and an artist - a bridge-builder
between many different worlds. Here, he describes his encounters
with a number of remarkable creative mystics and artists who,
like him, have sought to explore the furthest boundaries of human
experience - entering transpersonal domains associated with healing
visions, and archetypal dreams. During the early 1970s, Rubinov-Jacobson
studied painting with the renowned artist Ernst Fuchs -- internationally
acknowledged as the founder of Viennese Fantastic Realism -- and
was introduced to a group of creative thinkers whom Fuchs referred
to as a 'Secret Lodge of Visionary Artists'.
Rubinov-Jacobson later worked with other spiritual teachers representing
various wisdom traditions from both East and West. Collectively,
these visionary encounters would provide a basis for the exploration
of art and creativity -- opening a path which resonated with the
writer's deepest intuitions, while also offering a revelatory
and unifying vision of human spirituality. Philip Rubinov-Jacobson
provides us here with a provocative overview of the problems,
passions, and pathways of the creative process, synthesizing insights
from his own life experience with an enthralling and sometimes
irreverent analysis of the nature of artistic temperament, the
role of the artist within the community, and the relationship
of art to spirituality. Passionately written -- combining wisdom
and inspiration with biting wit and humor -- DRINKING LIGHTNING
invites us to explore dimensions of human creativity which have
long been neglected or forgotten. It is a book which helps to
enlarge our understanding and belief in our own inherent creative
potentials, providing us with an inspired sense of spiritual direction
in both art and life.
TESTIMONIALS - PRAISE for:
"Drinking Lightning -Art, Creativity & Transformation"
by Philip Rubinov-Jacobson
from the FOREWORD:
This is a wonderful book, ripe with the wisdom of an artist in
whom the creative fire is alive, touched by the Gods and Goddesses
of a realm that the conventional mind too often fails to see,
enraptured by a vision of a beauty too painful to pronounce. Art,
as the eye of spirit, is the royal road to your own soul, and
this book is nothing less than a road map for that extraordinary
adventure. - KEN WILBER
from the PREFACE:
Phil and I met years ago just at the beginning of his path -
at the entrance to the reality of imagination. It was at Schloss
Wartholz where I gave lectures on the old masters techniques,
and ever since, he followed his way through the wilderness of
contemporary arts. His talents have unfolded the message he has
been chosen to give to his students first and to all that have
set out to an esoteric interpretation of the universe. - ERNST
FUCHS
THIS VERY PERSONAL TALE OF BREAKING THROUGH THE VEIL THAT SEPARATES
THE SELF FROM THE SELF, BRINGS US CLOSER TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF
HOW THE CREATIVE PATH FORCES US TO FIRST FOCUS ON, AND THEN FOREVER
HOLD, THE BIGGER PICTURE. PHIL JACOBSON SHARES HIS INSPIRATIONAL
JOURNEY WITH GREAT HONESTY AND THE PASSION OF THE ETERNAL ARTIST.
--Martina Hoffmann, Artist.
Where people often find their access to spirit barred by "religion,
dogma and piety", esthetics breaks the locks. Philip Jacobson
points us to a door to transcendence. His story opens vistas to
the greater possibilities.
--Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi, World Wisdom Chair, Naropa
University
PHIL JACOBSON IS AN ARTIST AND MYSTIC OF RARE INTELLIGENCE AND
HIS DRINKING LIGHTNING IS A MULTIFACETED GEM WHICH IS BOTH AN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND HEARTFELT PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION REMINDING
US THAT CREATIVITY AND SPIRITUALITY ARE ONE. --Alex Grey, artist
and author of Sacred Mirrors
As an engineer, I am immersed in a world of analysis and logic.
Jacobson's book elevates the reader and reveals a wider view of
the world, dramatically demonstrating that creativity is the natural
heritage of being human, available to everyone, and that in synthesis
and beauty, in art, we discover a true home for the soul.--Alan
Sparks, MSEE, Stanford University, Computer Engineer
A Review (Edited from Amazon)
by Wilson G. Wheatcroft, MA, Ph.D.
November, 2000; Holbrook, Arizona U.S.A.
This is a powerful, partially autobiographical work, the mere
reading of which has the power to transform the consciousness
of the reader, if s/he be honest, alert, and thoughtful. In this
seminal work, Rubinov-Jacobson has demonstrated a sensitive and
mature power to extract from his highly varied and rich life experiences
an unusual depth of original, compelling, and fresh insights into
the nature of human consciousness.
This new work is testament that the author is as accomplished
as a writer, intellectual and scholar, as he is an artist and
painter, for which he is already world renowned. This work probes
meanings in everyday life, the proper place and nature of the
educational process, higher values, the development of human character,
the nature of creativity and transcendence through the arts, psychology
that reaches transpersonal ends, plus, art in its relationship
to genius.The reader never gets the feeling that the author is
speaking "at" him or her. Rather, by and through the
writer's loving spirit and genuine acceptance of the great goodness
lying in the heart of everyone, our author generously invites
us aboard his often magical, mystery tour of the great ideals,
passionate sentiment, and the high spiritual potential of the
soul in all of us. We are accepted. By this, we open. We listen
to what he has to say. We are often enlightened and spellbound
too by the sheer power of his observations on so many subjects.
We are helped by a loving Heart reaching out to us with sensitivity,
to more deeply see the upwelling of our own, unique potential
as Beings of Creative Seed. It is delivered to us alive by the
power of the author's own charismatic, and transformative spirit.
Thus it is an intensely personal, highly spiritual book.
Our author proposes as a precondition for all fields of art,
education and civilized living-and for all institutions-- first
that everyone open their hearts, minds, and souls to the living
Eternal reality of the spirit, in order to raise all of life beyond
the death and decay of techno-materialism into which our planet,
all together, has sunk. The author achieves this objective, I
believe, only because of his own, fierce self-honesty, his capacity
for penetrating sincerity, and the fact that he, himself, has
lived and practiced an unbroken devotional and contemplative lifestyle
for several decades. I would have to say that Drinking Lightning
is the first honest book on creativity and art that also deals
with various aspects of the history of art from a trans-cultural
point of view largely unknown in academia. While "autobiographical"
indeed, this is not an "autobiography" in any traditional
sense. Rubinov-Jacobson insists that everyone, in all walks of
life, shares the genuine potential to live a life of inspiration,
to experience the thrill of the release of creative power within
themselves, and by commitment to these processes, to experience
healing of character along with spiritual transformation, moving
one towards self-actualization and the fulfillment of one's deeper
life's purposes.
Simply put, it is largely an inspired work. Even though this
is so, the worlds of academic scholarship, and the dry, merely
intellectual arenas of art criticism will have difficulty seeing
this book for what it is. For they cannot, and remain unchanged!
This camp also rejects any goal of "self-actualization"
and "whole person-hood" no matter how sweetly articulated.
And it is likely that such rejection would include the works of
Rubinov-Jacobson: both his paintings and his writings. This is
a pity. Those who love the ego-mind and who live with pride-of-intellect,
knowing nothing more noble, may thus reject our author's generous
contributions to art, to philosophy, to transpersonal studies,
and to art history. But, Rubinov-Jacobson's conclusions and artistic
offerings to the world are simply too gracefully established in
the perennial Truth to be shaken by any external pomp, denial,
or dogma.
He writes:
"A great deal of the work necessary to equip and activate
the mind for the spontaneous part of invention and creativity
must first be done consciously and with an effort of the will.
Mastering accumulated knowledge, gathering historical and new
facts, reorganizing old and existing knowledge, observing, exploring,
experimenting, developing technique and skill, marrying techne
with psyche, refining sensibilities and discrimination are all
more or less conscious, or voluntary activities. The sheer labor
of preparing technically for creative work, consciously acquiring
the requisite knowledge of a medium and skill, is extensive and
arduous enough to repel many from achievement. After all this
is in place, we must add the larger part of artistic service:
being genuinely human, original thinkers, receivers and givers
of the Heart Divine." (Page 171).
The Reviewer, Dr. Wilson G. Wheatcroft, received his MA and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of Chicago, in fields of Psychological
Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology of Religion, respectively.
He is a published author, and he taught at University level for
12 years, in the fields of Anthropology of Religion, Comparative
Religions and Mysticism. He is now retired. Dr. Wheatcroft has
an unusually extensive background in metaphysics, parapsychology,
Western science, Western alchemy, and the Eastern mystical traditions
of meditation. He has taught and supported spiritual awakening
in others, for over thirty years, from diverse, eclectic viewpoints.
He is also an initiate in the meditation and devotion Path of
Sant Mat, [the Path of the Perfected Masters], also called Surat
Shabd Yoga, the vehicle of inner Divine Sound Current, originally
founded in 1861 by His Holiness, Soamiji Maharaj, of Agra, India.
