I dunno ive been looking at it for hours and I dontmqq as splork asas in mmy alasm s&IAUuo__ -,.a,;1'

"The Wheel of Darkness," one of the Special Agent Pendergast novels by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, centered around such an image.

The image in question was an incredibly complex mandala that could only be safely viewed by someone who had trained in highly advanced meditation techniques. Someone with no training who looked at it would be driven insane. If someone whose training wasn't quite advanced enough looked at it, they would gain knowledge & power from it, but become evil.

Pendergast, who had trained at the Tibetan monastery where the artifact was held, was enlisted to track it down after it went missing following a visit by a young American tourist.

It was easily the silliest Pendergast story up to that point. (the series has since gotten sillier) It takes place on what is clearly meant to be a modern version of the Titanic. There's a side plot with a card-counting ring working the casino. There's a killer bumping people off in slasher movie fashion and there's a tulpa made of black mist stalking around the ship.

See also “BLIT” by David Langford.

If you stare at Todd Scott for long enough, something happens in your brain that's quite scary. You can't tell if he's 15 or 50.

gotse.cx

My brain broke the image, sorry