In-between worlds: Forrest Bess was a commercial fisherman and led a fairly secluded existence in Ch
In-between worlds: Forrest Bess was a commercial fisherman and led a fairly secluded existence in Chinquapin, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. In his spare time he systematically started to make small paintings which encapsulated ‘visions’ that appeared to him on the threshold between waking and sleep. He pursued the exploration of these visions not only in exquisite painting, but also in developing a remarkable thesis. During his life he came to the conclusion that everlasting life lay in the act of transforming the body to become a hermaphrodite. Bess makes it clear that his paintings were only part of a grander theory, based on alchemy, the philosophy of Carl Jung, and the rituals of Australian aborigines, which proposed that becoming a hermaphrodite was the key to immortality.To test his thesis, he altered his own body in an attempt to become a ‘pseudo-hermaphrodite’. He made a cut in the underside of his penis that he hoped to dilate enough to approximate a vagina, thus uniting the male and female within himself. Bess believed that having intercourse in this pseudo-hermaphrodite state could ultimately bring him immortality. -- source link
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