Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton

---

Where literature, poetry, music, painting, or other real art is truly inspired, it comes near to religion and nearer still to mysticism. Those persons who cannot find any affinity with these last two may get their spiritual aid from the arts. Respectfully approached, properly used, and correctly understood, these too can be sacred, as the ancients well understood. If today art has been dragged into muddy gutters and mad encounters, if it has been squalidly commercialized and deprived of purpose, meaning, form, or Truth, that is because the invaders are not artists but barbarians.

-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 3 : Art Experience and Mysticism > # 6