CREATIVITY: WRESTLING WITH OUR DEMONS AND DAEMONS
For the Ancient Greeks it was important to take personal ownership of all the emotions, entities and Spiritual energies that we carry in our daily lives. That included the “dark forces” and destructive energies as well as the gentle and angelic entities and all the different archetypes in between those two poles.
All of these archetypes were called daemons by the Greeks. When the Christians came along 2,000 years ago, they attempted to cast out the dark side of individuals and proclaimed that it was an “outside demon entity” that drove folks into sin (the Devil). Thus, personal responsibility was down-played and redemption, guilt, confession and tithing flourished. The idea that “the Devil made me do it” was widespread. Basically, the Church disempowered its followers by offering to take care of their dark side ln return for an eternal pardon.
With clients and Partners-in-Healing who come to my practice, I share that there are 4 ways of approaching an issue, situation or relationship that is challenging and/or perturbing: Face it…Deny it…Hide from it…Run from it… The best approach is to face it. The worst is to run from it. Many people choose a combination of denying and hiding. Sometimes, of course, it is important to put the challenge on hold and then gradually resolve it. C.G. Jung has called this process of facing our demons and daemons “assimilating the dark side”. The early Greeks called it Khaos or Karos which basically meant staying very centered and present while juggling and balancing all of the various emotions, thoughts, actions and reactions.
When a person has become very adept at wrestling with all of these entities, they are then able to smoothly transition from their fate through to their destiny in a seamless way. They are able to maintain and navigate through a field of very creative life energy.
They become “emotionally available” for creative endeavours and very adept at manifesting their dreams, ideas and inspirations. They find it very easy to transcend their fears and their lethargy. At first the person feels like they are having “sparks of genius” or “flashes of inspiration” and only later does it become obvious that it is a new creative state of being.
C.G. Jung also wrote extensively on the concept of “instinctual truth”. He claimed that, although intuition is wrong as often as it is right, instinctual truth is virtually always right. Creative people seem to have “little people” inside of them that guide them in a direction that fits with exactly who they are. They are not fooled by tricksters or impersonators or bizarre fantasies. They stay true to their own dreams, wishes and inclinations. They sense when a good entity, project, etc. comes along and they spontaneously jump right in. They engage with that energy with very strong faith and then follow through with conscious determination and perseverance. They practice “smart work”.
The ultimate state for the truly creative person is to be navigating continuously between fate and destiny in cadence with everything around them and maintaining an “ever-vigilant” path. This is called being a fully individuated person. It is not about applying a set of rules or striving for a set of goals. It is a state of being continuously and exactly oneself in each and every situation or event.
This article was written in October of 2014 by:
Richard M. Haney, M.Ed., Ph.D. (Counselling and Mediation)
Richard has been practising Wholistic Counselling, Coaching, Hypnotherapy and Mediation for the past 25 years in Ottawa.
To contact Richard please call (613) 234-5678 or send an e-mail to:richard@magma.ca