While reading a book, I found a word that interested me, “Tensegrity.” In the book, it was used in connection with Carlos Castaneda’s work related to Shamanism. So I looked it up and fell into a bunny abyss.

Carlos Castaneda used “Tensegrity” to describe a series of movements taught by Yaqui shamans. These movements, also known as “Magical Passes,” help individuals harness and direct their internal energy. Castaneda’s tensegrity is rooted in shamanic practices and aims to achieve a state of heightened awareness and spiritual enlightenment. However, he did not coin the word.

In contrast, American architect and systems theorist Buckminster Fuller coined “tensegrity” as a portmanteau of “tensional integrity.” In Fuller’s context, tensegrity refers to a structural principle based on a system of isolated components under compression inside a continuous tension network. This concept has been applied in various fields, including architecture, engineering, and biology, to create lightweight and stable structures.

Anamorphic sculpture is a form of art that involves creating distorted or fragmented objects or shapes that appear as coherent and recognisable images when viewed from a specific angle or with a reflective surface. This technique plays with perspective and optical illusions to create an interactive and engaging experience for the viewer.

Now, I am thinking in two directions:

1: Both art forms are good analogies for explaining why magick is hard to pin down and explain. In the case of tensegrity sculptures, they show that just observing a phenomenon does not explain it. With engineering mathematics, it is easier to grasp why the sculpture consisting of chains and rods can defy gravity. The same is true of anamorphic sculptures that require one to be standing in the correct position and looking in the right direction to make sense of what looks like a collection of random shapes. Both can serve as perfect analogies for why magickal practices look impossible or nonsense to someone who does not have the necessary knowledge to understand them.

2. There is a specific type of anamorphic sculpture that might give an insight into how sigils work. Sigils are usually two-dimensional, but one can create them by projecting a three-dimensional shape onto a flat surface using light. They could represent a two-dimensional representation of a multidimensional form. An entity at home in a multidimensional universe could see a sigil and interpret the multidimensional original much the same way we interpret a shadow of a person as representing a human being.

Food for thought.