Quest for the Eidolon
by David Chaim Smith
In the quest for gnosis, the contemplative practitioner can encounter a hidden resource known as the eidolon which provides spiritual nourishment the psyche cannot imagine. This resource helps the mind penetrate its habits so the profound nature of reality can be explored. Ironically, the same power that enshrouds the mind in self-created fantasies is the power that liberates it. The eidolon introduces this power, and helps the mind cut through the confusion. But the eidolon cannot be conveniently reduced to an internal or external agency. The concepts of angelic intervention and the so-called “higher self” do not apply. The eidolon signals a precious treasure the mind has forgotten but has always possessed, like buried treasure in the ground upon which we stand. However, the guiding power cannot excavate the treasure for us. The work is up to us.
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Table of Contents
The Quest
Before Nothing Can Be Said
Primordial Residue
The Eidolon
Organs of Communication
Unfrozen Instance
The Arrow of Wisdom Becomes the Sky
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18 illustrations by David Chaim Smith
Hardcover Edition
124 pages. Linen hardcover with dust jacket, perfect-bound.
ISBN: 979-8-9965813-0-6
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Press, reviews, endorsements
Interview with David Chaim Smith in The Occult Library - read it here
Interview with David Chaim Smith on the Arcanvm podcast - watch on YouTube here
Interview with David Chaim Smith on the Glitch Bottle podcast - watch on YouTube here
Interview with David Chaim Smith on the This Is Darkness podcast - watch on YouTube here
Interview with David Chaim Smith in Arthur Mag - read it here
Interview with David Chaim Smith on the Thelema Now! podcast - listen here
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About the Author
David Chaim Smith is an artist, author, and practitioner of contemplative mysticism. He was born in 1964 in New York and worked as a visual artist throughout the 1980s. In 1990, he became immersed in various esoteric mystical traditions, and over the next seven years he studied the Golden Dawn system and worked within several Lodges. In 1997 he set aside both this structured approach and all activities with his visual art to take residence in a gnostic Hermitage in the American midwest. In his studies there he found new methodologies, most notably those for approaching a non-dual perspective via a Gnostic-tantra praxis.
David returned to New York in 1998 and immersed himself in Chassidic mysticism and traditional Hebrew Kabbalah. This he embraced through the devotional approach of Breslov, and it was here he made a profound inner connection through the meditative praxis of ‘Hitbodedut.’ In 1999 David encountered The Fountain of Wisdom, a text that has survived as a 13th century manuscript in the Vatican Library. He worked with the text for many years, drawing from his experiences as an ecstatic visionary artist. In 2004 he made a breakthrough in interpretation with the development of esoteric cartography (spiritual or occult map-making), and within a few years had reached a degree of fluency that allowed him to transfer their syntax and visual vocabulary to works of art. Since this return to visual art, David has been prolific in his practice and his work as a writer and artist whose creative engine is fuelled by a devotional approach to ecstatic visionary mysticism, a unique dimension of David’s work stems from aspects of ideational contemplation considered as a mystical path.
David currently lives in the suburbs of New York City with his wife, Rachel.
