BEYOND THE VEIL (1991) ~ egg tempera on rawhide by pcbacon, artist.
Though I chose egg tempera for its transparent color clarity, I was still disappointed with the results. The colors were not accurate– too heavy looking and feeling. Why rawhide? I wanted a soft, uneven surface instead of a flat plane that paper or canvas offers. Why I was concerned with these issues, I wasn’t sure. This was not my typical approach to creating- making demands. After the work was done, I knew it had something to do with what happens after we loose the physical body to the death process, but that was the extent of it.
Ten years later, in 2001, I got the answer. I began reading Journey of Soul: Case Studies of Life Between Lives by Michael Newton, PhD. The book is based on case studies of his clients, while under hypnosis, recounting their experience after physical death– life between lives.
His clients accurately describe in detail the images and feeling found in my painting: BEYOND THE VEIL (1991).
In chapter: “Gateway to the Spirit World”, Case 4 describes the experience: “Things are layered, like a cake… levels of light… translucent indented… woven together…stratified threads…variations in thickness and color refraction in the layers…they’re rounded…they curve away from me, as I float through them…I move across.”
In chapter: “Orientation”, Case 11 refers to the souls’ orientation to a spiritual environment as…“I hear such terms as chambers, travel berths…this place is most often called "the place of healing.”
Chapter: “Transition”, Case 14 shares “…islands of misty veils.” Newton states that he is told the most outstanding characteristic of the spirit world is a continuous feeling of a powerful mental force directing everything in uncanny harmony. People say this is a place of pure thought…it’s strange, “although everything appears to go on straight when my Soul is drifting…that changes into a feeling of roundness when I’m moving fast on a line of contact…the speed lines seem to bend. They curve in a more obvious direction for me and give me less freedom of movement.”
Question: “Can you describe the movement of your Soul along these curving contact lines?”
Answer: “It’s just more purposeful– when my Soul is being directed someplace on a line– it’s like I’m in a current of white water only not as thick as water– because the current is lighter than air– well, it’s as if we are all swimming– being carried along, in a swift current which we can’t control– under somebody’s direction– up or down from each other in space with nothing solid around us.”
Question: “Do you see other Souls traveling in a purposeful way above and below you?”
Answer: “Yes, it’s as if we start in a stream and then all of us returning from death are pulled into a great river together.”
Question: “Later in your normal travels as a Soul, is it the same as being propelled around in streams and rivers as you have just described?”
Answer: “No, not at all. This is different. We are like salmon going up to spawn, returning home. Once we get there, we are not pushed around this way; then we can drift.”
In chapter, Transition" Dr. Newton states: “I have touched upon the commonality of word usage to describe spiritual phenomena. I regularly hear such water-words as currents, streams used to explain a flowing directional movement, where a sky-word like cloud denotes a freedom of motion associated with drifting.”
