Psychomanteum at Phase Gallery

Palomar (Bog Beast), 2025, c-printPalomar (Bog Beast), 2025, c-print

https://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/project/scott-benzel-at-phase-gallery-los-angeles-61125

Scott Benzel, psychomanteum, Phase Gallery, Los Angeles. October 10- November 15, 2025.

psychomanteum. The ancient Greeks consulted a ‘psychomanteum’ (oracle of the dead), such as that mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus, gazing into a pit filled with the blood of sacrificial sheep, is reassured by his deceased mother that her passing was not violent or painful. In the 1950s, an actual psychomanteum was excavated at Ephyra in the western Greek province of Epiros. Within the ruins of a subterranean complex, fragments of a giant bronze cauldron were found; possibly both its polished exterior and liquid it contained were used as reflective surfaces. Shamanic mirror-gazing traditions are found in Siberia, Madagascar, North America and parts of Africa. In the Christian
era, mirror-gazing appeared sporadically and was discouraged by religious authorities. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the three witches conjure apparitions from the depth of a cauldron. The English queen Elizabeth I consulted with John Dee, a polymath scholar who set up a mirror-gazing room in his house and recorded in detail the visions experienced by his guests. Goethe’s Faust features frequent references to mirror-gazing techniques for invoking spirits of the dead and other
purposes.

A large-scale ‘Census of Hallucinations’ published by the Society for Psychical Research in 1884 includes many accountsof apparitions spontaneously observed in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
– The Psi Encyclopedia, The Society for Psychical Research, London. online: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/ psychomanteum-mirror-gazing

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. – William Faulkner