Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions - Screening & Panel Discussion
7th House at the Philosophical Research Society, the Harry Smith Archive, and Los Angeles Filmforum present
Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions - Panel Discussion
Including a screening of Smith’s Late Superimpositions
Part of The Cosmic Collage of Harry Smith
Thursday May 7, 2026, 7:30 pm
At the Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.
NOTE THE CHANGE IN DAY and LOCATION
Tickets: $15 general, free for Filmforum members.
A multimedia presentation and panel exploring the esoteric aspects of Harry Smith’s visual art and creative practice!
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, the Harry Smith Archives, and Los Angeles Filmforum are pleased to present a multimedia presentation featuring Smith's art, excerpts from his experimental films, and audio selections from his Materials for the Study of Religion and Culture in the Lower East Side or Movies for Blind People, as well as rare clips of his close compatriots (including Allen Ginsberg) and Smith himself. This special presentation will be accompanied by a fascinating panel discussion exploring the esoteric aspects of Harry Smith’s visual art and creative practice and culminate with a screening of his landmark work Film #14: Late Superimpositions (1964).
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 a recorded conversation with poet, artist, and classicist Charles 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
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, including 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 Connecticut 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.
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Brain Drawings: The Art of Harry Smith
On view May 7-May 31, 2026
in the Hansell Gallery at The Philosophical Research Society
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays-Saturdays 12-6pm and by appointment (info@prs.org)
Gallery Exhibition Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7th 5:00-7:00pm
This exhibition is curated by Rani Singh and presented in collaboration with the Harry Smith Archives.
Brain Drawings: The Art of Harry Smith invites audiences into the singular world of Harry Smith (1923–1991)—experimental filmmaker, anthropologist, musicologist, and artist—whose practice was shaped by a deep engagement with esoteric spirituality, occult traditions, and systems of hidden knowledge. Describing himself as a “shaman in residence,” Smith approached art-making as a form of inquiry, mapping correspondences between sound, image, and cosmology.
This exhibition brings together a wide-ranging selection of Smith’s work, from early experiments in visualizing sound to a rare 1954 four-color silkscreen of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Also on view are string figure constructions, materials related to the Anthology of American Folk Music, photographs, and rarely seen films and audio works. Archival footage—including documentation of Smith’s rooms at the Chelsea Hotel and Naropa Institute—offers an intimate view into the environments that shaped his thinking.
Both rigorous and idiosyncratic, Brain Drawings presents Smith’s practice as a sustained exploration of pattern, transformation, and meaning—an invitation to encounter a body of work that resists easy categorization and rewards close attention.
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In celebration of what would have been his 103rd solar return, The Philosophical Research Society and Harry Smith Archives are proud to present THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH, a series dedicated to the boundless, unruly imagination of Harry Everett Smith—artist, filmmaker, folklorist, collector, and self-described alchemist of culture—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.
THE COSMIC COLLAGE OF HARRY SMITH
Thursday May 7 – Sunday May 31
Events:
Thursday May 7, 5:00pm – 7:00pm — Brain Drawings: The Art of Harry Smith Exhibition Opening Reception — in the Philosophical Research Society's Hansell Gallery. Free with RSVP, info & tickets at prs.org
Thursday May 7, 7:30 pm — Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions feat. LATE SUPERIMPOSITIONS (1965) – Multimedia Presentation, Screening, & Panel Discussion w/ David Orr, William Kiesel, Jessica Hundley, Chuck Stein, and Rani Singh — at the Philosophical Research Society. $15, info & tickets at prs.org
Thursday May 21, 7:30 pm — Adam Green Explains Harry Smith + HEAVEN & EARTH MAGIC (1957) — A Lecture by Artist, Musician, and Harry Smith Enthusiast Adam Green plus screening of Smith's renowned film — Adam Green in person! — co-presented by 7th House & Los Angeles Filmforum — at the Philosophical Research Society. $20, info & tickets at prs.org
Sunday May 24, 11:00 am — Harry Smith’s Anthology as a Magical Instrument presented by Matt Marble of The American Museum of Paramusicology (Online Presentation) — As part of his online The Heretical Heart of Americana series, author, musician, and artist Matt Marble explores Smith's legacy as anthropologist and magician, examining the occult frameworks which charged the work that helped ignite the folk revival, pioneer innovations in film, and refuse the dead logics of colonialism and commerce that threaten to weaken the soul of the nation for profit. — Online via Zoom. $20, info & tickets at prs.org
Friday May 29, 12:00 pm — Show & Tell: Harry Smith Archive at the Getty Research Institute — A special guided viewing of material by the artist, musicologist, filmmaker, and esoteric icon — at the Getty Center Research Institute. Free with RSVP, info & tickets at https://www.getty.edu/calendar/harry-smith-archive/
Friday May 29, 7:00pm — A Celebration of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music: Tribute Concert — Contemporary artists Eddie Ruscha, Kacey Johansing, Shannon Lay, Barry Johnson, Matt Baldwin, Frank Fairfield, David Elsenbroich and more TBA will interpret the music that inspired Smith on the Zebulon stage for one night only. — at Zebulon. $20, info & tickets at https://zebulon.la/
Sunday May 31, 4:00 pm — LA Filmforum presents Harry Smith’s MAHAGONNY (1980) screening — Harry Smith’s final film, an epic four-screen projection, cinematic transformation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny which he considered it his magnum opus — co-presented by 7th House and the Harry Smith Archives. — at 2220 Arts + Archives. $15, info & tickets at www.lafilmforum.org and 2220arts.org
Film No. 14: Late Superimpositions
Film No. 14: Late Superimpositions
By Harry Smith, 1964, color, 31 minutes
“Superimposed photographs of Mr. Fleischman’s butcher shop in New York, and the Kiowa around Anadarko, Oklahoma–with Cognate Material. The strip is dark at the beginning and end, light in the middle, and is structured 122333221. I honor it the most of my films, otherwise a not very popular one before 1972. If the exciter lamp blows, play Bert Brecht’s Mahagonny.”– Harry Smith
Allen Ginsberg on Harry Smith
Some Crazy Magic: Meeting Harry Smith
By Drew Christie
Harry Smith with P. Adams Sitney and Andres Labarthe
Footage of Harry Smith’s room at the Chelsea Hotel and Naropa Institute
Heaven and Earth Magic - Excerpts