Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions - Panel Discussion
Schedule
Thu May 07 2026 at 07:30 pm to 09:00 pm
UTC-07:00Location
Philosophical Research Society | Los Angeles, CA
About this Event
This event is part of the series THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH (April 25-May 31), co-presented by The Philosophical Research and Harry Smith Archives. See below for series description!
To celebrate the opening of Brain Drawings: The Art of Harry Smith, the Philosophical Research Society and the Harry Smith Archives are pleased to present a multimedia presentation and panel exploring the esoteric aspects of Harry Smith’s visual art and creative practice. Joining the conversation will be Director of the Harry Smith Archives, Rani Singh; occult scholar and Director of Ouroboros Press, William Kiesel; writer and Editor of Taschen’s Library of Esoterica book series, Jessica Hundley; and (via satellite) poet, artist, and classicist Chuck Stein. Artist and founder of PRS’ Hansell Gallery, David Orr, will guide our panel through various works from Smith’s career and the on-site Brain Drawings exhibition, offering them up for inquiry within the context of Smith’s guiding interests in esoteric prima materia and dedication to outsider anthropology.
Tickets: $15
Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.
David Orr is a California-based visual artist whose work is exhibited and collected internationally. He has presented his work at institutions including Cal State LA, Chapman University, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Death Salon, Dublintellectual (Ireland), the Directors Guild of America, the Mütter Museum, The New School/Parsons School of Design, Reed College, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, UCLA, and The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles—where he established the contemporary arts program, served as curator, and founded the Hansell Gallery. He is a member of The Long Now Foundation.
david-orr.com // @davidorrart
Rani Singh is Director of the Harry Smith Archives. She met Harry Smith at Naropa Institute and was his assistant until his passing in 1991 when she initiated the Harry Smith Archives dedicated to the location, preservation and presentation of the work of Harry Smith. Invited as scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute based on her work on Smith, she held long tenure at the Getty Research Institute, where she led research driven initiatives including Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980.
Singh was responsible for the placement of the Harry Smith Papers at the Getty Research Institute and the acquisition by the Bob Dylan Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma of Smith’s books and records. She also co-curated “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith” presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2023 – 2024.
Based in Santa Monica, Singh is an art consultant and appraiser specializing in strategic planning and legacy management for artist’s estates and foundations. She is currently curating an exhibition on Harry Smith for the Bob Dylan Center, opening summer 2027.
harrysmitharchives.com/
William Kiesel is a practitioner and scholar of esoteric symbol systems in historical and contemporary contexts. He brings his decades of scholarship and experience in the antiquarian book trade together as the director at Ouroboros Press, the publisher of classic texts of Western Esotericism.
As faculty at 22 Teachings School of Hermetic Science and Magical Arts he teaches four branches of the Western Mystery Tradition: Alchemy, Astrology, Qabalah and Theurgy.
www.bookarts.org // @ouroborospress
Jessica Hundley is an author and filmmaker specializing in music, counterculture, magick and psychedelia. With a background in culture journalism, Hundley has served as a masthead editor for UK magazine Dazed & Confused, music publication The Fader and continues to freelance for publications such as Vogue, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. In her filmmaking work, she has directed the feature length music doc, Such Hawks, Such Hounds as well as numerous music videos and commercials. As an author, Hundley has published over a dozen books in the last decade, inclduing an acclaimed biography on country rock icon Gram Parsons, a book on music and meditation with the director David Lynch, and an extensive overview of the photography of Dennis Hopper. Hundley is also creator, author and Series Editor for TASCHEN’s multivolume collection, The Library of Esoterica, a book series exploring the visual history of Tarot, Astrology and other esoteric traditions.
jessicahundley.com // @jesshundley
Charles Stein is a poet, artist, and classicist. He holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Connnecticut at Storrs. He taught for many years in the MFA Art Writing program at the School of Visual Arts, New York. He is the author of several books of poetry, including From Mimir’s Head, as well as literary works such as Persephone Unveiled and The Light of Hermes Trismegistus.
is on view May 7-May 31, 2026
in the Hansell Gallery at The Philosophical Research Society
Gallery Opening Reception:
Thursday, May 7th 6:00-9:00pm
main image: Jimbo's Bop City, 1950, photograph by Hy Hirsh
Harry Smith, First Note, Fourth Chorus, Boplicity, 1950
Harry Smith was one of the most complex figures of twentieth century American culture, a brilliant polymath who made major contributions to the fields of sound recording, independent filmmaking, the visual arts, hermetic philosophy, and what might be termed "outsider anthropology."
Harry Smith was born May 29, 1923, in Portland, Oregon to a family active in freemasonry and occultism. By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording many songs and rituals of the Lummi and Samish peoples. It was in San Francisco that Smith began to build a reputation as one of the leading American experimental filmmakers. Smith developed his own methods of animation, using both stop motion collage techniques and hand-painting directly on film. Smith's films have been interpreted as investigations of conscious and unconscious mental processes. At times, Smith spoke of his films in terms of synaethesia, the search for correspondences between color and sound and sound and movement.
His 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, released on Moe Asch's Folkways Records triggered both the folk music revival and the maturation of rock and roll. The Anthology continues to serve as a uniquely profound introduction to some of America's greatest musical traditions.
Smith's broad range of interests resulted in a number of collections. He was a collector of Seminole textiles, paper airplanes and Ukrainian Easter Eggs. At the heart of his endeavors Smith was an alchemist interested in the correspondences and fundamental truths between all things. He was a gnostic bishop in the Gnostic Catholic Church of the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Smith spent his last years 1988-1991) as "shaman in residence" at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In 1991 he received a Chairman's Merit Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony for his contribution to American Folk Music. Upon receiving the award, he proclaimed, "I'm glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music." Harry Everett Smith died at the Chelsea Hotel on November 27, 1991.
This program and exhibition are presented in collaboration with the Harry Smith Archives.
https://harrysmitharchives.com/
THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH – April 25 – May 31 – co-presented by The Philosophical Research Institute and Harry Smith Archives
In celebration of what would have been his 103rd solar return, The Philosophical Research Society is proud to present HARRY SMITH’S COSMIC COLLAGE, a series dedicated to the boundless, unruly imagination of Harry Everett Smith—artist, filmmaker, folklorist, collector, and self-described alchemist of culture—co-presented and co-curated by the Harry Smith Archive, and presented in collaboration with 7th House, Los Angeles Filmforum, The American Museum of Paramusicology, The Getty Research Institute, Zebulon, and 2220 Arts + Archives.
A singular figure of the American avant-garde, Smith moved fluidly between disciplines and identities, assembling a body of work that resists containment. From his hand-painted and cut-out animation films—whose vivid abstractions and visionary logic would prove foundational to the development of psychedelic art—to his groundbreaking Anthology of American Folk Music—a meticulously curated, deeply idiosyncratic collection of early American recordings that would go on to inspire the folk revival of the 1960s and shape generations of musicians beyond—from ethnographic recordings to vast personal archives of string figures, paper airplanes, and occult diagrams, Smith approached the world as something to be gathered, transformed, and re-enchanted. His practice was not simply interdisciplinary—it was cosmological.
Deeply engaged with esoteric traditions, mysticism, and systems of hidden knowledge, Smith understood art-making as a form of spiritual inquiry. Alchemical thought, Kabbalah, and ritual practice were not peripheral interests but central frameworks through which he interpreted sound, image, and pattern. Across his work, correspondences emerge: between music and geometry, folklore and magic, the everyday and the divine.
Bringing together film screenings, an art exhibit, live musical performances, panel discussions, artist presentations, an online class, and a special visit to the Getty Research Institute’s Harry Smith collection, this series traces Smith’s expansive creative universe, reflecting both the breadth of his output and the coherence of his vision. Join us as we investigate and celebrate Smith’s remarkable life and works, where disciplines dissolve, curation becomes creation, and art serves as a bridge between the material and the unseen.
CONTENT DISCLAIMER
The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed within exhibited works are solely those of their creators and may not represent those of the Philosophical Research Society (PRS), its affiliates, or any individuals associated with PRS. Screenings are intended for educational and entertainment purposes.
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Where is it happening?
Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 15.00
