There is no doubt that there are many ways to travel beyond the quintessential physical journey. As beings in transit, and despite our apparent sedentary nature, we are also creative beings, and the practice of imagination has allowed us, throughout existence, to "visit" what the French surrealist poet, Paul Éluard, defined as those "other worlds that are also in this one."
It is said that the famous medieval French alchemist, Nicolas Flamel, walked the Saint James Way, although many authors today believe that Flamel never actually left Paris and used dreamlike documentation to unravel the esoteric keys related to this pilgrimage route, incorporating them into his treatises and research.
Through psychotropic substances, allegedly obtained from the famous fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) and other related mushrooms, travelers who visited the renowned sanctuary of Delphi "journeyed" to other worlds and other dimensions. Similar journeys were offered by that perplexing enigma who, even centuries later, remains the beloved son of the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch, born Hieronymus Bosch, but known worldwide as El Bosco.
Among his enigmatic works, precursors—comparatively speaking—to those memorable fantasy sagas in comics and novels, such as 'Weird Tales' or 'Tales of the Crypt', this one stands out, which I invite you to explore on this occasion: 'The Reveries of Saint John'.
A jewel of the Flemish collection at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid, this work, which has recently been the subject of some criticism regarding its authenticity—that is, its authorship by Bosch—supposedly depicts a dreamy John the Evangelist. Having also passed, like Dante, half his life, he lies peacefully on the grass, surrounded by plants and creatures that are certainly suspicious, such as the poppy, suggesting the prelude to that mystical journey that led him to write one of his most cryptic and perplexing works: the Apocalypse.
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