Resonance is an ongoing experimental collaborative project which uses AI and emerging technology to imagine a new religion based on animistic cultures, Gaia hypothesis and transpersonal & ecopsychology, with the goal of using Art and technology to re-enchant humans with their natural environment in order to catalyse change in a time of climate crisis.

Resonance premiered at G5A Foundation as part of the Eyemyth Presents series, Mumbai, India on the 21st December 2024, featuring an interactive art exhibition, artist talk, AV ritual performance, music ensemble and aerial dance.

India-based British New Media Artist and curator/director Caroline Stedman Mishra conceived the project during the 2024 Eyemyth/Unbox Labs Artist residency in Goa. “Resonance began as a date – Winter Solstice. We were given the opportunity to put on a series of shows at the fantastic G5A Foundation in Mumbai and one coincided with the 21^st December – an important date in the Pagan calendar.”

“I had already been working on a series of thought experiments around using AI for good. The first project and one which is still in development was Catius B, where I aimed to ask the question ‘is AI inherently good or bad, and if AI is the culmination of human knowledge and creativity, can we find out the age old-lord of the flies question; are humans inherently good or bad? I did this by creating a superintelligent race of alien cats named ‘the Felinids.’ I didn’t prompt the AI to make them either good or bad, just super-intelligent. As it turned out, the cats were really, really good. They were entirely wholesome in every area of their culture, spirituality, approach to their natural environment etc. They were basically what we strive to be as humans in a utopian world.”

“This led me to explore further how we can learn from AI and ultimately gain insights into ourselves and our potential. I am a tech optimist and I believe technology has the power to save the planet so I wanted to demonstrate how technology need not separate and distance us from the natural world, as so many years of capitalism and patriarchal religion has done, but tech can actually enable us to connect with our environment and thus protect and nurture it.”

“So I used AI to create a new, nature-based religion, training the model on NASA scientist James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, dozens of academic papers on nature-based religions, from my own Celtic Paganism through to Native American Indian beliefs as well as thesis on transpersonal and eco psychology. Resonance was born and using the AI model I created all the mythology, music, hymns, artwork, fables and ritual practices around the imaginary deities born out of Resonance. The art was combined with nature-based photography works by Parizad D and illustrations by Optikbloom.”

“The work culminated in a show which featured an interactive exhibition of artworks, all linked by QR codes to sections on the website displaying guided meditations, short films and music videos or more information allowing the audience to deep dive into the world of Resonance. The show began with a performance-ritual where a high priest(ess) character was played by two non-binary performers Osheen and Musiq, symbolising light and shadow. They took us through a ritual whereby the audience wrote things down that they wanted to close a cycle on and expel from their lives. The ‘ritual resonators’ then spoke about the Dark Mother deity- the fertile darkness from which all of creation springs from, and the importance of embracing the shadow to find the light. The ceremony concluded with packets of seeds and a poem written for the occasion ‘The Turning Year’ by renowned poet Priya Malik. The audience were told to go home and plant with the seeds their intentions for the coming year and what they want to welcome into their lives.”

“The show culminated with an aerial dance performance and live electronic music from PIR and Anuj Deo, live percussion from Anand Bhagat and live throat singing and beatboxing from MC Eucalips with live visuals from myself featuring animations of works from all contributing artists in a fitting celebration to bring in the new lunar year.”

“We also built an infrasound generator based on a design by Sarah Angliss – a machine which produces sound below the human range of hearing which is reported to enhance emotional and religious experiences, to deepen the experience of the show.”

“We hope to continue the Resonance project and bring it to Arts Festivals, Spiritual gatherings, Art Galleries and unconventional spaces on auspicious dates and collaborating with more artists, musicians and performers who are inspired by nature in their work. The accompanying and ever-growing collection of audio-visual works are available all year round for audiences to explore via our website below. My hope is that by reconnecting people with nature and inspiring awe and wonder around the natural world using science and technology, we can build a better future of all inhabitants of the beautiful planet we call home.”

The story of any artist is, at its heart, the story of a soul in search of truth and meaning. For John Osborne Hughes, this search has guided his entire professional and creative life—through the bright lights of the stage, the quiet moments of reflection and contemplation, and the emergence of a unique artistic path, rooted in modern psychology and ancient wisdom.

Today, John is known on both sides of the Atlantic as the creator of The Spiritual Psychology of Acting, a methodology that weaves modern acting technique with philosophy, meditation, and the journey of self-enquiry. But his path did not begin with method—it began with big questions: Who am I? Why are we here? Who are these people?!

John’s first four years were spent in Gibraltar, and then moving between England and Wales and back again. “I learned to adapt my character to fit in and survive”, he says, “and discovered a natural talent for acting along the way”. From school he was accepted on the Hampshire County Specialist Speech and Drama course, where he was awarded the special commendation for best actor.

In 1988 he moved from Portsmouth to South London and began training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. From there he went on to train as a stage director in association with the Moscow institute of Theatre Arts, where he was fortunate to learn the system of Stanislavski (the grandfather of modern acting) first hand.

After graduation he directed acclaimed stage productions, including Ecstasy by Mike Leigh at the Arts Theatre, West End, and his own original play Beyond Ecstasy, which gained critical acclaim for its existential themes, sparky script and visionary scope, enjoying sell out runs in London and at the Edinburgh festival.

Despite the success, John felt a quiet discontent—a realisation that the work, though technically strong, lacked something essential.

“I had just been initiated into a mantra meditation practice and everything started to open up”, he says, “I understood that the higher or deeper purposes of theatre and cinematic art are to raise the level of consciousness, open the heart and, as Shakespeare so beautifully put it, to hold a mirror up to nature”.

“But how can an actor, writer or director contribute to this process”, he wondered, “if they haven’t first opened their own hearts, raised their own level of consciousness or truly observed the processes of human nature in themselves?”

The answer is, of course - they can’t!

John’s search for true knowledge and meaning led him into decades of study—philosophy, mythology, psychology, the history of art and, most importantly, the perennial wisdom tradition of Advaita Vedanta, non-duality and the twice daily practice of meditation.

Slowly, he began integrating these insights with his experience of acting, and a new system and body of profound knowledge began to take shape in the form of: The Spiritual Psychology of Acting.

Not just an acting method, this approach invites the artist to journey inward—to explore the nature of mind, character and emotion in themselves, and to closely examine their own ideas of their own identity and their relationship to their own sub-conscious drives and purposes.

“The actor’s work is the art of becoming another character,” John reflects. “To truly inhabit a role is not to escape oneself, but to understand the aspects of the self, more fully—and, in doing so, to reflect something universal back to the audience.”

John’s devotion to the inner journey naturally extends into his creative works. As founder of Awakened State Productions, he continues to explore stories that touch the liminal space between worlds—between the visible and the invisible, the down to earth and the mythic.

His recent multi award-winning first short film, The Space Between, explores love, loss and the laws of karma through the lens of the near death experience, while Beyond Ecstasy, now in development as a feature film, follows a DJ’s psychedelic journey through the late 90s underground rave scene—a contemporary myth that asks timeless questions about the true meaning of love  - a parable about the need for us all to rescue the soul from the ego and rediscover to our true nature.

An accomplished musician, John is the drummer / songwriter for a new, as yet unnamed, melodic, indie punk band. He has also DJ’s internationally since the late 90s as Solar Loon, playing what he calls ‘transcendental house’, a vibey mix of cosmic disco, funky techno and soulful, psychedelic house music.

John’s journey feels deeply aligned with the mission of the Spiritual Arts Foundation: to honour the artist as a vessel of spirit, and to bring light to the sacred power of creativity in all its forms.

His work, like that of many members of the SAF community, stands at the threshold between disciplines. It is as much about healing as it is about storytelling. As much about awakening as it is about acting.

“We live in a time when the artist is being called to reclaim their role as visionary,” says John. “We are being asked to remember that art is not a luxury—it is a necessity for the soul of humanity.” He says, “the level of consciousness of every work of art is a reflection of the level of consciousness of the artist. By training artists to connect with their own true self they become connected to the source of all wisdom, all creativity, all love and all bliss”

For those walking a similar path—those who sense that art can be more than product, more than performance—John offers this:

“When you find the courage to align your art with your true, deeper self and offer it as a gift, with love and devotion, something extraordinary happens. You begin to manifest the mystery that lives at the heart of all true creation in the form of art. And that, I believe, is what the world needs right now.”

Starting this September, we’re excited to announce that John is presenting his ground-breaking KNOW YOURSELF, BE YOUR SELF self-development programme for newcomers.

The weekly online course provides training in spiritually based, practical psychology, exploring the three main dharmas of human life and is open to all. Check out the website below to book his free live online intro to The Spiritual Psychology of Acting. When you sign up you also receive his excellent free mini video course, AWAKEN THE ACTOR WITHIN!

Article by By Layla El-Khatib for The Spiritual Arts Foundation.

Starting her career as an actress in 2015, Cheryl Prince was exposed to spirit which allowed her to explore her inner creativity. Communication with spirits led to her working with a shamanic healer with whom she had an interesting past life regression. During the regression, she envisioned being a witch who was hanged on a tree.

Having a limited knowledge of what witches were and why she was killed for being one in her past life, Cheryl was driven to know more. It is precisely this curiosity about witch persecution that made her write her play, AWAKEN. She realized that true witch history has been repressed for a long time, and that writing about it is an effective way of showing it.

In AWAKEN, we meet two characters who are a mix of a fictional story and Cheryl’s own experience as a witch in her past life and a healer in her current life. In her own words:

‘I believe we all have stories locked in our souls of lives we have lived, gifts we have retained and lessons we have learned.  The two characters I play in AWAKEN – both in 1653 and 2023 - are an exploration of awakening to who you are on a soul level, whilst exploring the question; what would happen if you were silenced in one lifetime and came back to tell the tale today?’

AWAKEN explores the possibility of the witches’ persecution having had a much broader purpose behind it, such as preventing the fusion of energy from the spiritual world with that in our current reality.

Granted, the history and identity of witches hasn’t always been perceived in a positive light, and Cheryl hasn’t avoided this. For a long time, she assumed that being called a witch wasn’t a good thing at all, since witches have always been portrayed as ‘haggered old women.’

As Cheryl explains, ‘It’s a very clever propaganda campaign. AWAKEN aims to question the laws that came in which made it ok to torture, abuse and kill off many women as witches.  It also reminds us what we have lost.  We had our ‘knowing ones’, who were the practising cunning folk & witches of the time, stolen from us and their skills buried.  These were people who knew how to work with spirit.  That’s who the witches are to me and that’s what I believe they should be remembered for.’

A distinguishing aspect of Cheryl’s plays is that all of them are based on wisdom gained from her past life regressions, and the trilogy of her plays represent her own soul's journey. Interestingly enough, she tells us: ‘From these regressions I have discovered lifetimes in Ancient Egypt when dark magic & sorcery took hold and lifetimes in Atlantis & Lemuria when the masculine & feminine energy was first split.  ‘

Cheryl says that throughout time, spiritually awakened people ‘have suffered persecution in the most brutal ways by burning their temples, torturing their bodies, mass executions and instilling fear, ridicule, or corruption within their belief systems so we end up forgetting who we are and the power we have within us.’ She acknowledges that by writing this trilogy, she is ‘lifting the veil and honouring who the Witches, Priestesses & Light Warriors really were and how we are all connected throughout time.’

A script in hand reading of AWAKEN was filmed in Scotland and aired for a short period from the Summer Solstice in 2022. Because if its success, Cheryl hopes to air the film again on her website from Samhain. Her larger plan is to take AWAKEN on tour in places where witch persecution was common, such as London, Bury St Edmunds and Scotland. Still, there are 7 countries in which witches are persecuted to this day, and Cheryl hopes to exhibit the play in those lands too.

In spare free time, Cheryl loves to dance, and carry out ritual practices, such as building altars or creating sacred spaces. She also invites and works with spiritual beings, such as loved ones who have passed on and the souls of people who wish to have a say on her work. 

‘We all have a type of spiritual practice gifted to us which serves our soul and can be called upon in our creativity.’

In working as an actress, writer and healer, Cheryl has experienced spiritual awakening at its peak, whereby her creativity allows her to channel spirit completely. Like most spiritually awakened people, Cheryl’s creativity stems from tuning into the multidimensional energy that exists within and around her all the time. It’s this ability that has allowed her to venture into the world of spiritual creativity and set up her own company, 5D Theatre, which always embodies the spiritual dimension of her work.

Mariae Smiarowska is a Polish-American actor, performer, theatre-maker, singer, writer, adventurer, and healer. She came to Europe to train in theatre as she was inspired by the great avant-garde and laboratory theatre traditions of such artists as Tadeusz Kantor, Jacques Lecoq, and Jerzy Grotowski.

Her training led her to meet and collaborate with theatre artists and companies in Paris, London, Northeast England, Edinburgh, Montreal, Krakow, and Wroclaw. 

Along her path, she worked with traditional text-based acting techniques, musical theatre, mask work, physical theatre, corporal mime, and circus arts. She became very inspired by polyphonic traditional singing and shamanic practices.

In particular, her training with Song of the Goat Theatre galvanized her curiosity of shamanic and energy principles, as well as working with the dream realms, and led her to start a journey of weaving together theatre arts with healing arts.

Mariae is an Usui Reiki Master and is always learning new skills to be able to incorporate into both her healing and theatrical work. She regularly works with shamanic and energy healers to remove obstacles, delve deeper into her own soul, maintain her spiritual and artistic integrity and to keep aligning with the principles of nature as she continues on her spiritual and artistic path. For a long time, she thought the two paths were separate, but over the last few years, she has grown to accept they are one and this has brought her a greater sense of fulfilment and wholeness.

In 2020, she began the journey on her one-woman show LANDING.  Finding herself completely isolated in rural Scotland, she went inwards and began to work through traumas from this life, as well as past lives. In facing the shadows found within her being, she began excavating and alchemizing them via her body, mind, soul, and voice. She began weaving these parts together to create LANDING.

“Let the land land you.                                                          

Let the land guide you.                                                                       

Let yourself be landed.” 

LANDING is her first fully original piece of work. The show questions the concepts of home, belonging and identity, asking how to find one’s place on earth. It is an intimate piece of theatre, incorporating storytelling, song, movement, poetry, elements of ritual and interactive moments with the audience. It was streamed live from St. Martin’s in the Isles of Scilly via the Pleasance as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2021. In LANDING, Mariae went into her personal story and used shamanic journey as well as ritual and shamanic work with the land to create the piece.

The next step is to take LANDING from the screen into the physical realms and make it into a full-scale theatrical production.

Some feedback from audience members about LANDING:

“This is such a touching performance! Personal, funny, melancholy, heart achingly beautiful. I loved how you invited your audience to interact with you, I felt very connected. Thank you so much.” -A.O. Finland

“Hats off to exposing your intimate dark truths. It takes guts to do that! There was a truth and authenticity to the piece. Very intimate and vulnerable, showing your painful parts, went into the basements. Very naked. … I felt safe as an audience member. Could see a lifetime’s worth of craft and skill in what was going on.  An expert at work.” - A. P-R. Edinburgh

“Wonderful use of film and live performance, it felt like a piece that was conceived for this medium, one of the best I’ve seen to fuse all the elements.” - S. N. -London

“Haunting and powerful… loved the way your words led into your music”  J.H.- England

This year, Mariae acquired a bit of magical land in the middle of a forest in Poland and is now working to build her own Shamanic Theatre. The principles of her work are based on working in symbiosis with the land and the spirits of the land, to create theatrical pieces which have the power to transmute darkness into light, to take the audience on experiential journeys of transformation and to open to the multi-dimensional aspects of our life on this planet by communing with the land, with our ancestors, spirit guides, and with each other in magical synergy.

Mariae also facilitates workshops in embodied voice which help open the throat chakra and connect the participants more deeply to their body and voice, which helps bring a greater sense of wholeness and joy in being, moving, expressing, speaking, and singing.  She will be running a workshop on the land in Spring 2023. The Shamanic Theatre is a space for creativity, healing, and also a community where people can come to theatre performances and workshops, a space for the body and soul to dance, sing, and participate in ceremony and ritual. The vision is of a new theatre that is based on a sacred respect for the land and humanity, and which fosters a deep sense of connection to both, as well as bridging the gap between this world and other dimensions.

This summer, Shamanic Theatre has the great pleasure of curating its first ever gathering, the ACTIVATE Festival. It will take place on the land August 16-18, 2024. More information can be found at Activate Festival.