The “Arte & Factum” exhibition featured art and artifacts from the Museum Curiosa collection and other private collections. It combined visionary art with ritual and supernatural objects.

Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The supernatural refers to forces and phenomena which are not observable in nature, and therefore beyond verifiable measurement.

Museum Curiosa is a small museum located in Oakland, California. It's mission is to collect and preserve visionary, ritual and supernatural art and artifacts.

For more information, please email us: info@museumcurosa.com

Oscar Jensen, a mortician in the late nineteenth century, died amidst rumors that he was stealing valuables from the deceased. Less than a year after his death, his wife discovered a stolen cache of gold teeth and fillings hidden in the hollow door knobs of their home. Facing financial hardship, she reluctantly began selling the treasures. Deeply ashamed, she would whisper into the knob after removing the gold, a promise to repay the debt. Eventually she was forced to sell her home, so she removed all of the knobs, sealed them and kept them as reliquaries for her husband's debt. She was never able to honor the debt before her death so she entrusted her daughter with the task.

In the summer of 1972, three Georgian teenagers were approached by a John Samis, a local psychic, who allegedly gave the girls these scry boxes. He instructed them to write a question in the wax inside the boxes, place them under a heat source, like the Georgia sun, then stare into the melted wax to receive an answer. Journal writings from one of the girls suggests that the boxes "told" them to go to a secret place where they would find immense treasure. The morning of August 13, 1972 the girls set out to find this treasure and were never seen again. The scry boxes were found in the basement of Samis' home, who had also disappeared.

Dr. Edward M. Chester was an occultist and alternative medical practitioner from Suffix, Maryland. He was a quack physician and surgeon, who spent time in jail for prescribing dangerous potions, was banned from practicing medicine, and implicated in murder after his death. These three boxes were found in his home after he died in 1946. The specific use of each object is unknown, however it is believed that the hair and teeth were taken from the corpse of his sister whom he loved dearly. Records of his life, including some of his experiments are held in the Bodleian Library in Mount Airy, Maryland.

Ester Brennen had a particularly powerful experience watching an evangelical preacher on her television. She believed that the television itself held the intense spiritual power she perceived. After her television broke, she disassembled it very carefully and "embalmed" every part in wax and salt to preserve it. She also covered the wooden cabinets with writings documenting her experience of channeling the Word Of God.

Heinrich Meyer, a piano maker who worked for Kohler & Chase, was rumored to have made "magical pianos" in the late 1880's. The pianos were used to evoke spells when specially composed music was played on them. These keys were salvaged from a dismantled piano by John Thurman, a music teacher in New York City. He recognized the unique markings on the interior surfaces of the keys as being those of the Meyer pianos. These are the only examples ever put on public display.

Ruedolph Callicutt was a traveling salesman who was determined to create a water that would grant immortality. He postulated that this could be done by filtering water through the right combination of natural materials which he collected in the kit. The tool on the lid was used for making measurements and calculations on the materials.

This electrical device is one of dozens built by Warren Randolph who believed that all ailments could be cured with electricity. He refused to allow his family to seek conventional medical treatment subjecting them instead to electrocution in an attempt to cure everything from the common cold to his wife's stomach cancer. Although he was unable to cure his wife's cancer he was convinced that he was only months away from discovering the right combination of voltage at the correct intervals to cure her. He bequeathed these devices to a cancer research center, along with volumes of documentation describing the "treatments" he administered to his family, including the family dog.

This ice pick was a promotional advertising give-a-way manufactured by company owned by John Hammond. Hammond was an occultist leader who embedded many of the symbols of his cult into his kitchen products. This is the actual ice pick used to mark lower ranking members in the cult's initiation ceremonies.

Mother Lenka was a prominent and well respected nun who heard a distinct and clear dictation from an inner voice, which identified itself to her as Jesus. Her lectures, writings, and counseling were a source of inspiration and healing to many. After her death, an investigation into the scar on her left ankle revealed—via personal writings—that she hung up her leg every night in order to better receive the Word of Christ. She believed the Word came to her through her uterus just as Jesus' soul entered Mary.

This is an example of an unusual divination technique in which numbered maple seeds are tossed from a balcony onto a specially etched floor. The page shown is an example of an etching on the floor of the Sect of the Gold Horizon used for divining in this way. Predictions about the future were made based on the orientation of particular seeds in relationship to the markings on the floor.

This reed belonged to a popular jazz musician who held it sacred. He kept it in his mouth for days at a time and only removed it to drink and eat. He claimed he received his music directly through this reed and that they were the unsung songs of the dead. Ironically he was successfully sued for plagiarism for the most successful song he wrote using this technique.

This wand was made to be buried with two twins who had died of tuberculosis in 1943. The family belonged to a sect whose funeral rituals included the sacrifice of a pig and the creation of a wand from its entrails to bury with the dead as protection for their soul. This rare double headed wand was made from the same pig but was rejected by the mother of the twins. She insisted two more pigs be slaughtered to forge separate wands for each child.