This commentary article (2002) imagines the two sides of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as two parts of a psychedelic experience. This is applied to artists in this somewhat esoteric article.
Historically, states of intoxication-like dreams and madness-are seen in either one of two opposed ways. The intoxicated are either “possessed” or “under the influence” of an external agency, or revealing hidden feelings or truths (in vino veritas). Along the same lines, artists who worked during LSD, mescalin or psilocybin intoxication often refer to feelings of either being “possessed” or “liberated,” a difference that can be explained partly by their expectations and partly by their evaluations, which both tend to conform to the cultural dichotomy in interpreting the irrational. Both interpretations, however, tend to obscure not only the other, but also-it is posited-the paradoxical nature of the drug experience itself. Analysis of a protocol shows that intoxication might comprise feelings of “possession” as well as “liberation” almost simultaneously, and mediumistic and some psychedelic art shows stylistic traits that can be seen as the visual expressions of both these feelings. It seems that the “demoniacal” and “psychedelic” mode come together in experiential reality, only to be divided in the cultural sphere.
Ten Berge situates drug-induced experiences alongside other irrational states such as dreams and madness, noting a long-standing cultural tendency to interpret such states in one of two opposing ways: as revealing truths (in vino veritas) or as producing nonsense and possession. The introduction sketches this binary from classical sources through modern accounts and argues that it recurs across time and cultures, shaping how intoxication, visionary states and their artistic products are appraised. This paper sets out to challenge the binary appraisal by examining the experiential and stylistic evidence from artists and controlled observations. Ten Berge aims to show that drug experiences themselves are often paradoxical, combining feelings of being both "possessed" and "liberated," and that artworks made under intoxication frequently display a fusion of those tendencies rather than fitting neatly into one interpretive camp. The study therefore interrogates historical accounts, experimental protocols and artworks to reveal the Janus-faced character of intoxication and its reception.
Papers in Blossom that reference this study
Preller, K. H., Vollenweider, F. X. · Behavioral Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs (2016)
McKenna, D., Riba, J. · Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences (2016)
Kometer, M., Vollenweider, F. X. · Behavioral Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs (2016)
Baggot, M. J. · Preprints (2015)
Humphrey, D. E., Mckay, A. S., Primi, R. et al. · Imagination Cognition and Personality (2014)
Ten Berge approaches the question as an art historian practising cultural-historical analysis with close reading of primary and secondary sources rather than as an experimental researcher. The paper reviews published reports of clinical and quasi-experimental projects in which artists worked under psychedelic or psychotomimetic drugs, examines detailed individual protocols where available, and analyses visual work produced during intoxication. The method is qualitative and comparative: contrasting the reports, settings, and stylistic outcomes across different investigators and cultural contexts to test whether the two-fold interpretive scheme holds up against the empirical material. Key sources include historical experiments and projects (examples discussed include work by Walter Maclay and Erich Guttmann, Richard Hartmann, Oscar Janiger, Robert Volmat with Rene Robert), a detailed hourly drawing protocol by the physician and painter Liszló Matefi, and examples of artists such as Isaac Abrams, Jan Kervezee and Marc Lamy. Where original protocols exist, Ten Berge gives special weight to contemporaneous notes and visual sequences because these reduce retrospective censoring. He also considers factors such as drug type and dose, the physical setting, and the psychological "set" (participants' expectations and cultural background) as explanatory variables in interpreting outcomes. The paper does not present new quantitative data collection or statistical analysis. Instead it reconstructs and interprets existing textual and visual records, noting where the extracted sources report sample sizes or proportions (for example, Hartmann's invitation of some fifty artists, Volmat and Robert's 29 artists, and Hartmann's observation that 80% of his subjects experienced a certain phenomenon). Ten Berge acknowledges the constraints of retrospective accounts and emphasises protocols when available to separate participants' evaluations from the events recorded during intoxication.
Across the reviewed material, Ten Berge finds recurring evidence that drug-induced artistic activity can show both apparent "possession" (loss of motor control, compulsive repetition, externally driven automatism) and apparent "liberation" (disinhibition, novel forms, greater spontaneity). Experimental reports differ markedly by investigator, drug, setting and the artists' pre-existing attitudes, but the reviewed cases demonstrate that these two phenomenological poles can coexist or alternate even within a single session. Examples cited include Hartmann's series in Munich, where artists working with LSD reported experiences of their hands being driven by an external force; Hartmann characterised these effects as a progression from associative point-to-point drawing to "magical painting" (reported in 80% of his subjects) and occasionally to "mimetical painting," a trance-like automatic transference. Hartmann's participants were often established artists who resisted stylistic change and were tested in institutional settings such as white psychiatric rooms and filming conditions. By contrast, Janiger's LSD projects and Volmat and Robert's psilocybin experiments tended to find movement away from figuration toward more abstract, expressionist, or spontaneous modes. Janiger's volunteers (described as "dozens") and Volmat and Robert's 29 artists showed faster, less planned working methods, sometimes abandoning tools to work with hands or throw paint. Many of these artists judged the drug-work as interesting or aesthetically superior and some reported lasting stylistic changes. Ten Berge emphasises that these divergent outcomes are linked to differences in drug type and dose, the physical setting (studio versus clinical room), and especially the participants' "set"—their expectations, cultural attitudes and professional status. A detailed protocol from Liszló Matefi's Basel experiment is presented as particularly revealing. Matefi made hourly portraits during LSD intoxication and recorded both written notes and sequential drawings. At peak intoxication he described seeing objects correctly yet drawing them "incorrectly," feeling that "my hands don't follow me," and speaking of an "intruder" steering his hand. Immediately after, however, he deliberately abandoned realist aims, switched media and reported euphoria and a feeling of liberation: "when I let go, very much, because it is the expression of my feelings." The visual record shows loss of motor control followed by rapid, expansive, and more liberated compositions. Ten Berge uses this protocol to show that possession-like and liberation-like phenomena can appear nearly simultaneously in a single subject. Analyses of artworks by practising psychedelic artists such as Isaac Abrams and Jan Kervezee are used to illustrate how formal features—dense repetitive doodling, symmetrical mosaic-like patterns, and expansive, fluid, expressionistic passages—can co-occur or alternate in the same work. Mediumistic art traditions are also invoked as a useful analogue: mediumistic drawings often blend geometrical repetition with organic proliferation, paralleling the dual tendencies seen in drug-influenced art.
Ten Berge interprets the reviewed evidence as undermining the simple cultural dichotomy that reads intoxication either as demonic possession or as revelatory liberation. He argues that both interpretations are culturally conditioned responses that emphasise different aspects of the same phenomena, and that the experiences themselves are often paradoxical or Janus-faced, combining elements of both loss of control and heightened expression. The discussion emphasises the explanatory importance of drug variables (type and dose), setting (clinical room versus familiar studio), and especially psychological set (expectations, artistic orientation, professional security). Differences between Hartmann's largely established German artists and Volmat and Robert's less established French artists are used to show how anticipatory attitudes and social context shape both experience and subsequent appraisal. Ten Berge also highlights methodological issues: many accounts are retrospective and subject to censoring or selective emphasis, whereas contemporaneous protocols like Matefi's provide clearer evidence of the mixed nature of intoxicated creativity. Limitations are acknowledged in the sources themselves: retrospective narratives and researchers' biases colour interpretations, experimental settings sometimes interfered with outcomes (for example filming or institutional rooms), and the paper does not provide new quantitative measures. Ten Berge stresses that recognising the paradoxical character of drug experiences is important for cultural understanding and for moving beyond the persistent urge to categorise such states into mutually exclusive moral or clinical boxes. In closing, Ten Berge suggests that rather than persistently choosing sides—drug-lovers versus drug-haters—scholars and clinicians should attend to the complex, often simultaneous dynamics of possession and liberation in intoxication and in our cultural responses to the irrational.