Crow Holbeche
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Crow Holbeche
Painter, visionary, teacher.
Co-founder of the Exeter hearing voices group.
Died 28th November 2001
Crow fought for more than a year against cancer after being told it could not be treated.
In that time he created 24 paintings and won his freedom from the psychiatric system.
Friends rallied round and supported him and so did many who did not know him but were inspired by the stand he took against compulsory psychiatric treatment.
Crow's paintings express his belief that creation comes about when the spirit enters the physical and gives it life. He believed that he had a sacred responsibility to receive the communication of spirit through visions and voices.
That is why he felt so angry and hurt when he saw these experiences dismissed as mental illness and when people tried to destroy them with medication.
He wanted everyone to be able to value and find meaning in their experiences, and thought that even distressing experiences could be understood and transformed if people were open to their spiritual meaning.
His passion to communicate this view was what motivated his painting and his work in the voices movement.
With other voice hearers he founded the Exeter voices groups and helped to inspire the many groups that have now grown up in the South West of England.
His voice was also heard at conferences and training events by scores of mental health workers who will never again view visions and voices in the same narrow, clinical way.
He died peacefully.
Source: News from the Joan of Arc Project, Jan - March 2002
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