(Lack of) aesthetics in spiritual & esoteric world
Why things connected with being spiritual used to be ugly and lately they’re not.
That might seem like a harsh question, but really when you look at what “regular” people aspire to, things like luxurious clothing brands, cars that cost hundreds of thousands of $$$, fancy homes or even premium product advertisements — they are all beautiful. People are paid so much to create visuals and narratives that are eye pleasing and they do it so, so well.
On the other hand, most of the mandalas, quirky clay plates, hand dyed t-shirts, spiritual paintings — they all look tacky and cheap. At least for me, but I guess if you’re reading it, you probably see it too. The colors don’t seem to work together, composition is off, there is often way too much going on to actually appreciate anything and well, I find many of them plain ugly.
I do believe myself to be a spiritual person, yet I don’t feel associated with this kind of spiritual visual arts. I think it’s one of the blocks for me tbh to really claim my spirituality fully, so I tried to understand it and these are my 2 conlusions:
- Everyone can make art. If we assume every person is an artistic soul, then every person has a prerogative to create something and then share it with others. Can every person paint “well”? No. Does everyone have an aesthetic sense? No. Hence bad art. On the other hand it is kind of cute and I would like to live in a world that encourages every one to be creative and not ashamed of their art.
- The ugliness of spiritual art stands out. If it was pretty and eye catching in a good way it would be similiar to ads, and is that something worth striving for? To create art that resembles trying to sell something?
Actually, when spirituality became popular and more people got into this business the products started to look better. There is more competition and slowly etiquettes, packagings etc. became more visually pleasing. Is that a good thing though? Capitalistic market made people adjust/create their products to be more appealing to the masses.
It’s good, right? I honestly enjoy it. I’d rather buy a nice looking essential oil for instance then the ugly one, but that makes me think of authenticity. Things that I like visually are more less alike and in line with premium brands.
Lack of aesthetics in the spiritual world was authentic. Products looked like owners really just done their thing, now it’s companies hiring marketing agencies designing beautiful and very similar brand identities.
It’s yet another industry that sold out. Even when you look at the apps. Lately I got into astrology apps. I don’t understand much yet, but I’m fascinated by them. There are highly commercial apps like Co-star that is designed beautifully and it’s a pleasure to use. On the other hand there is more profound, deep dive app called TimePassages that looks terrible and it’s user experience is… well, it’s not great.
And guess which one I’m going to use? Authentic, but ugly? Or corporate, but pretty? For me the choice is obvious, even though it makes me a little sad 🥲
I guess the moral of the story is, it’s good for usability for things to be nice, but they loose their soul in the process.
The second moral is that people prefer soulless things. Including me.
Take care of yourself, and if you enjoyed this article even a little, please leave some claps/follow. It means a lot and keeps me motivated :)
