# Form-Constants, and Entoptic Cinema Pre-1930  While avant garde filmmakers sought to reveal an inner world through asemic abstraction or distorted reproduction—filmmaking practice in pursuit of revelation—science was simultaneously identifying biological structures of vision that paralleled the symbolic and anagogic structures of automatic art and absolute film. *Mescal and Mechanisms of Hallucinations*, a small scientific monograph published in 1928, contained detailed accounts of the subjective visionary experiences of the mescal induced ivresse divine — a “dome of the most beautiful mosaics”, “harmonious in color” where mathematical figures chase “one another wildly across the roof… a beautiful palace filled with rare tapestries…” The author, Heinrich Klüver, a biological psychologist, also noted for his introduction of Gestalt psychology in the United States at the beginning of the 20th Century, used this data to identify four typical, recurring visual patterns he referred to as “Form-Constants”: Tunnels, Spirals, Chessboards/Honeycombs, and Cobwebs. **** **** These form constants have since been related by various fields to the neurogeometry of the [primary visual cortex](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00336965), to the [visual patterns and visionary practices of paleolithic art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lewis-Williams). Flickering light, magnetic fields, and pressure on the eye can spontaneously generate similar visions. ## Resources and additional research materials of interest: ### Articles: Amaya, Ioanna Alicia, et al. “Effect of Frequency and Rhythmicity on Flicker Light-Induced Hallucinatory Phenomena.” PloS One, vol. 18, no. 4, 2023, pp. e0284271-, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284271. Bartossek, Marie Therese, et al. “Altered States Phenomena Induced by Visual Flicker Light Stimulation.” PloS One, vol. 16, no. 7, 2021, pp. e0253779–e0253779, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253779. Betancourt, Michael. “A Taxonomy of Abstract Form Using Studies of Synesthesia and Hallucinations.” Leonardo (Oxford), vol. 40, no. 1, 2007, pp. 59–65, https://doi.org/10.1162/leon.2007.40.1.59. Gruêsser, O. J., and M. Hagner. “On the History of Deformation Phosphenes and the Idea of Internal Light Generated in the Eye for the Purpose of Vision.” Documenta Ophthalmologica, vol. 74, no. 1–2, 1990, pp. 57–85, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00165665. Gunning, Tom. “Flicker and Shutter: Exploring Cinema’s Shuddering Shadow.” Indefinite Visions, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 53–70, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474407137-006. Lewis-Williams, J. D., et al. “The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art [and Comments and Reply].” Current Anthropology, vol. 29, no. 2, 1988, pp. 201–45, https://doi.org/10.1086/203629. Luke, David. “Rock Art or Rorschach: Is There More to Entoptics than Meets the Eye?” Time and Mind, vol. 3, no. 1, 2010, pp. 9–28, https://doi.org/10.2752/175169710X12549020810371. Mauro, Federica, et al. “A Bidirectional Link between Brain Oscillations and Geometric Patterns.” The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 35, no. 20, 2015, pp. 7921–26, https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0390-15.2015. Montgomery, Caspar, et al. “Flicker Light Stimulation Enhances the Emotional Response to Music: A Comparison Study to the Effects of Psychedelics.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 15, 2024, pp. 1325499-, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1325499. Moolhuijsen, Martin. “Seeing Time Through Rhythm: An Audiovisual Study of Flicker Films.” Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture, 2021, https://doi.org/10.21428/66f840a4.cc0b43a4. Moritz, William, and Jayne Pilling. “Restoring the Aesthetics of Early Abstract Films.” A Reader In Animation Studies, John Libbey Publishing, 1998, pp. 221-. Mottes, Jacopo, Dominga Ortolan, and Gianluca Ruffato. “Haidinger’s Brushes: Psychophysical Analysis of an Entoptic Phenomenon.” _Vision Research_ 199 (October 2022): 108076. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2022.108076](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2022.108076). Ostherr, Kirsten, et al. “Operative Bodies: Live Action and Animation in Medical Films of the 1920s.” Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 11, no. 3, 2012, pp. 352–77, https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412912455620. Pearce, Ida. “Entoptic Perceptions of Spiral Waves and Rare Inward Spirals.” Chaos (Woodbury, N.Y.), vol. 25, no. 6, 2015, pp. 063109–063109, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922253. Rule, Michael, et al. “A Model for the Origin and Properties of Flicker-Induced Geometric Phosphenes.” PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 7, no. 9, 2011, pp. e1002158–e1002158, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002158. Schulze, Mario. “Mobilizing Moving Images: Reusing a German Flow Film of the 1920s for U.S. Science Education in the Cold War.” Isis, vol. 112, no. 2, 2021, pp. 361–69, https://doi.org/10.1086/714728. Schwartzman, David J., Michael Schartner, Benjamin B. Ador, Francesca Simonelli, Acer Y.-C. Chang, and Anil K. Seth. “Increased Spontaneous EEG Signal Diversity during Stroboscopically-Induced Altered States of Consciousness.” Neuroscience, January 4, 2019. [https://doi.org/10.1101/511766](https://doi.org/10.1101/511766). Sokoliuk, Rodika, and Rufin VanRullen. “The Flickering Wheel Illusion: When α Rhythms Make a Static Wheel Flicker.” _The Journal of Neuroscience_ 33, no. 33 (August 14, 2013): 13498–504. [https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5647-12.2013](https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5647-12.2013). ter Meulen, B. C., et al. “From Stroboscope to Dream Machine: A History of Flicker-Induced Hallucinations.” European Neurology, vol. 62, no. 5, 2009, pp. 316–20, https://doi.org/10.1159/000235945. Worrall, David. “‘Seen in My Visions’: Klüver Form-Constant Visual Hallucinations in William Blake’s Paintings and Illuminated Books.” Blake, vol. 55, no. 4, 2022, https://doi.org/10.47761/biq.314. ### Monographs: Elder, Bruce (R. Bruce). Harmony + Dissent : Film and Avant-Garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. Hayward Gallery., et al. Film as Film : Formal Experiment in Film, 1910-1975. Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979. Klüver, Heinrich. Mescal, and Mechanisms of Hallucinations. University of Chicago Press, 1966. Wade, Nicholas J., et al. Purkinje’s Vision : The Dawning of Neuroscience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. ### Images: A Model for the Origin and Properties of Flicker-Induced Geometric Phosphenes Figure 1. Illustrations of basic phosphene patterns and their transformation to ‘‘cortical coordinates.’’ doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002158.g Heinrich Müller (1820-1864) and the entoptic discovery of the site in the retina where vision is initiated Figure 2.1. Drawing of the vasculature of the human retina based on injection of a dye by Heinrich Müller and completed by Becker (1881). Item #1096 Beobachtungen und Versuche zur Physiologie der Sinne von J. Purkinje, Doctor der Medizin und Professor der Physiologie zu Breslau. Erstes Bändchen. Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Sehens im subjectiver Hinsicht. Mit 1 Kupfertafel. Zweite unveränderte Auflage. Johannes Evangelista Purkinje, Jan Evangelista Purkyne.