Mandalas have been used around the world in religious and spiritual contexts to express beauty, creativity, complexity and things about the nature of life that are not easily put into words. Sometimes they seem to depict energy, sound, light, inner worlds or outer spaces. Are they magic? Can you meditate on them and achieve anything contemplating them? Some say the sacred geometry or universal balance and porportion of some mandalas can take you special mental places or planes of consciousness.