The Daimon Creativity: My 800 Year Old Soul

Many of us are driven to live creatively. We risk showing the most impossible parts of ourselves and suffer our fates. Rather than trying to tame or integrate our energies, we allow them to live through us. Often our acts do not abide by consensus standards, and as a result our lives are filled with inner and outer conflicts. We may feel ashamed of our troubles and choose not to speak about them. In this article, I discuss my own creative path as it has been inspired by alchemy and Process Work. I address destructive and constructive aspects of the creative process and propose a creative imperative for living madly in today's world.

My spirit baby

I've been cooking a spirit baby for twelve months. Last year I experienced a pregnancy and an abortion. The dreaming world indicated that something other than a human child was meant to come into my life (see Dworkin 1994). My partner Robert and I chose to terminate the living being in my womb in order to make space for a spirit life. As we processed our pregnancy, it became clear to us that our baby was an 800 year old soul, not meant to be born as a human.

Instead, it is an aspect of myself and my relationship with Robert, meant to live through me in the world. In some indigenous cultures, shamans believed that when women became pregnant, their task was to discover whether they carried an 80 year old baby or an 800 year old baby. If the baby's spirit proved 80 years old, it was the seed of a human child, meant for birth in this world. If the couple discovered an 800 year old spirit, the woman did not give birth to a

human child. Instead, a shamanic calling was indicated and the couple was given a task. They were meant to find their song and bring it back to the community as an offering. This baby is my creativity trying to discover itself, pushing towards birth, sometimes damaging myself and others in the process.

The pregnancy became a daily reminder of our procreative potential. Each month I secretly hoped I might be pregnant again, looking for a sign that we were meant to have a child after all. For the first time in my life, I experienced a deep longing to be pregnant and give birth. My fantasies were mostly impractical. I thought having a baby would bring me a simple life; we could move out of the city and I would write and paint. Once I became clear that a child would not furnish me with my longed for inner life, we chose a secure method of birth control. With that decision, I ended my fantasies of human procreation. Eros the creator

Faced with my creative void, I developed what the clinician in me might call a sexual obsession. I was sex-crazed, driven by some force or itch or irritation. I had to make love when I wanted, how I wanted, as frequently as I desired. I didn't need more closeness and intimacy, but yearned to express a deep aspect of myself.

Freud saw a direct connection between sexual energy, or libido, and the creative process. Although he contradicted himself on the topic, he finally seemed to reduce creativity to the process of sublimation. According to Freud, when libido is thwarted from its natural sexual aim, it attempts to find partial fulfillment in other aspects of life, resulting in creative products. One

has a limited amount of libido; if all is spent sexually, nothing is left for artistic creation (see Freud 1908; Arieti 1976). Freud's theory touched something in me. I decided to economize my libido and use my horniness to create!

Similarly, in ancient Greece, sex and love were seen to have creative potential. Plato considered Eros to be a god or demiurge which constitutes the creative spirit of the human being. Eros is the drive which impels us towards sexual union and other forms of love, and towards knowledge and artistic creation. He says that in creativity we come as close as humanly possible to becoming immortal (see Plato 1951; May 1969).

In Hesiod's Theogony, a Greek creation story from 750 B.C., Eros is one of the original team of gods and goddesses who create the world. Eros holds a unique role. While creating, he "breaks the limb's strength... (and) overpowers the intelligence in the breasts (of human beings) and in all their shrewd planning" (Campbell 1964: 234). More simply said, Eros overpowers and destroys in order to create.

In my view, Eros destroys our identities whenever we surrender to a lover, momentarily giving over who we are and opening ourselves to the energies and emotions which come through us. The throes of passion may destroy our self-images. We might find ourselves behaving in ways that do not abide by collective standards or by our usual behavior patterns. For example, I recall a client, a poet and holistic healer, who became sadistic and violent during sex. This behavior greatly threatened his loving persona. I also think of the teacher who, against her best judgment, fell madly in love with a student. In sex we often lose rational control: we may risk our emotional and physical health or disobey our valued professional ethics.

Eros yearns to destroy and create outside the bedroom as well. I am beginning to know the destruction intrinsic to my own creativity. I had intended this article to be impersonal and academic. I promised myself not to mention my abortion, my sex life or my personal experience. I want to control my creative products so they go along with my identity and intentions and make me look intelligent and spiritual. This urge to control is not uncommon. For example, it may appear in parents who try to create children in their image, hoping the offspring will reflect the parents' virtues in the community. But control impedes creativity and can kill it. My creative spirit lives its own destiny. It destroys my intentions and the identity which I so cherish. The alchemists' nigredo

My shift of focus from procreation and sexuality to other forms of creativity requires ongoing discipline and attention. I find it nearly impossible to discover and nurture my creativity without school and assignments, in between workdays and in our noisy city apartment with the phone ringing. There are always excuses, so many reasons not to focus on myself, so much busy-ness created by my self chosen life-style. So much horniness and desire to relate. No wonder I fantasize about having a child—I need a radical change of focus and life-style.

In my struggles to birth my own creativity I have been inspired and guided by the spirit of the alchemists. I was drawn to them twelve years ago in my early studies of Process Work and creativity (see Dworkin 1984). The alchemists have helped me understand some of the more difficult and conflictual aspects of the creative process.

Alchemists appeared in China and North Africa as early as 3000 B.C. and in western Europe around the time of the birth of Christ. Their lineage includes shamans and medicine people. The alchemists' task was to facilitate and study transformation (Mindell and Mindell: Chance, Taoism and Alchemy Seminar, March 1994). On a concrete level, some were scientists attempting to transmute base metals into gold. If we consider them to be predecessors to modern psychologists, we note that they observed the process of transforming undifferentiated consciousness, the prima materia, into something full of hope and expectation. Spiritually they strove for fluid awareness, immortality and oneness with God, which was known to them as the Divine Child or the Philosopher's Stone. In my mind, they lived and studied the creative process (see Dworkin 1984; Eliade 1956; Jung 1944; Lossowski di Rola 1973; Mindell 1985).

In the west, the alchemists generally cooked their metals in a vessel. In the east, the vessel was often the human body, and the transformations took place on an introverted level. In both regions, they were radical women and men, living at the fringe of their communities, totally dedicating themselves to their work. When I use alchemy as a pattern for the creative process, I am reminded that there is no creation without anni-

Jan Dworkin

hilation, the plunge into the fiery depths known to alchemists as the nigredo.

During the nigredo phase of the alchemical process, the metals turned a dark, charred color and were said to emit foul, noxious vapors. The fumes sometimes drove alchemists insane or fatally poisoned them. Indeed, some alchemists threw themselves into the fiery furnace during the nigredo, sacrificing their lives for their work (Eliade 1956). Although the nigredo was a violent phase where the opposites did battle, alchemists insisted that the appearance of the nigredo, or "black of blacks," indicated the first sure sign they were on the right track towards creating gold (Lossowski di Rola 1973:11). Alchemy was not meant for the sensitive of heart or body. Daimonic as creative inspiration

As I cook in the heat of my inner and outer conflicts, destroying myself again and again, I come to know the daimonic aspects of my creativity. The ancient Greek word "daimon" refers to an inner deity both divine and diabolical. It translates into Latin as "genii" or "jinn," associated with the genius of a person. It is said to be synonymous with one's fate and is also seen as the voice of the generative process within the individual. Yeats called the daimonic the "other Will." Plato informs us that the daimon is "a divine madness that seizes the creative person" (in May 1969:124-25). Although the daimon is commonly thought of as the artist's inspiration, the angered or frustrated daimon can be negative. Transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilbur cautions:

there is a strange and horrible thing about one's daimon. When honored and acted upon, it is indeed one's guiding spirit; those who bear a god within bring genius to their work. When, however, one's daimon is heard but unheeded, it is said that the daimon becomes a demon, or evil spirit—divine energy and talent degenerates into self-destructive activity. The Christian mystics, for example, say that the flames of Hell are but God's love denied, angels reduced to demons. (1991: 58)

Sometimes I live in the flames of hell, flames fueled by a critical, self-loathing, frustrated spirit which expects great things of me and has been disappointed too many times. These flames burn my skin, creating inexplicable rashes. They also singe people I love as I lash out with my irritable moods. The fire cooks the 800 year old soul in my womb, fueling my creative struggle. This struggle often leaves me feeling hopelessly human with no creative potential, no link to god, the victim of my daimon, destroyed, bruised and discouraged.

At those moments I remember alchemy and am grateful for the knowledge that transformation may be heated by despair. I recall frequent references in alchemical texts to torture and dismemberment. In my more dramatic moments I relate to the vision of the alchemist Zosismos, in which he sees a man who "has been pierced by a sword, cut into pieces, decapitated, scorched, burned in fire, all of which he suffered in order to change his body into spirit" (Eliade 1956: 150). The daimon as ally

I have found it useful to think of the daimon as an ally. The daimon is generally considered an inner deity. Allies, however, may appear as outer figures: powerful or abusive parents, impossible partners, exceedingly loving or jealous friends, authority figures. They can show up as haunting fantasies or predatory animals. Sometimes they appear as aspects of nature: an icy wind, the scorching sun, the vast ocean. Their energies are unmistakably other and terrifying (see Mindell 1993; Castaneda 1971,1972).

Arnold Mindell devotes several chapters in his book, The Shaman's Body_y to a discussion of the ally. He says that the archetypal and most powerful ally... is an impossible god of darkness... the thing that scares you most and is furthest from your ability to control.... The encounter with the ally is potentially lethal.... The bottom line is death. (1993:116)

Process Work has shown that these apparently destructive forces, which devastate, horrify or drive us mad, can be used consciously to creative ends. The most venomous criticisms may be wake up calls, demanding us to identify less with the known world and more with their uncanny and awesome tendencies. Often these forces intend to destroy our identities.

My studies and experiences in Process Work help me know my ally. I recently dreamed of a sadist in leather who chained me to my desk and whipped me with her switch as she insisted that I write. This daimonic ally demands a disciplined and brutal attention to my creativity, my writing and my artwork. When she is ignored, the process flips into masochistic self-hatred and depression. Often I meet my animal ally, one who attacked me in my youth and terrorizes my dreams to this day. My vicious dog power almost took my life once, when two Dobermans cornered me. In my dreams my dog ally does not hesitate to bite off my hands, turning his teeth on me when I do not live his power.

Existential psychologist Rollo May believed the task of psychotherapy was to assist an individual in getting to know, integrate and use the daimon. He said that we must integrate the daimonic into our "self systems," so it does not possess us. "If the daemonic urges are integrated into the personality, which is, to my mind, the purpose of psychotherapy, it results in creativity" (in Greening 1984:14).

May tells us that an unintegrated daimon will come out in violence, rage, compulsions and sex. While the daimonic cannot be said to be evil in and of itself, it confronts us with the troublesome dilemma of whether it is to be used with awareness, a sense of responsibility and the significance of life, or blindly and rashly. (1973: 129)

Most of western psychology has valued integration and responsibility to the status quo above destruction of the identity or radical changes in culture.

The poet Rilke warned that psychoanalysis, with its focus on civilizing the id instincts and adapting to society's rules and conventions, is a threat to creativity. Upon declining to enter psychoanalysis with Freud in the early part of this century, he exclaimed, "If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well" (in May 1969:122). The emphasis in Jungian analysis on integration of unconscious material (the shadow) into the personality might also be thought to inhibit creativity (Jung 1951). However, Jung himself was sometimes overwhelmed by his unconscious and driven to creative madness. "The daimon of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me," he reflected in his autobiography. He confesses having had to obey an "inner law" which was imposed on him, leaving him no "freedom of choice" (Jung 1965: 356-58). Many other creative artists and thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, were driven to the brink of madness in service of their creative processes. Yeats cried, "in my heart the daemons and the gods Wage an eternal battle" (in May 1969: 127).

Although the daimonic often expresses itself in socially unacceptable ways, I believe this unac-ceptability is its gift and its demand. Creativity does not result from taming the daimon and making it part of the identity. Quite the contrary—we are driven to the brink of madness, murder, mayhem and self-sacrifice for these spirits. Only then, on the edge of our so-called sanity and the far reaches of our identities, comes our imperative. We must redirect daimonic energies in order to create.

Recall the alchemists, who threw themselves into their fires to make the work progress. Recall Eros, who must overpower and destroy in order to create. This sacrifice of identity is a requirement for creativity. "It is the mad you, the perverted you, the ecstatic you, the rebel, the suffering and wise you," says Mindell of the creative ally (1993: 119). If we look too good or too normal or too mainstream, then it is not the daimon, but rather our standard selves, trying to fit into the world as it is, wanting to make a name for ourselves. Living creativity

Sometimes I live my creative self as a therapist. In these moments time stops and therapy becomes mystery. Usually, I don't risk losing my therapeutic routine unless I am driven by boredom to the edges of my identity. Then I brace myself, kick my butt and follow irrational and unconventional tendencies. Perhaps I do not feel helpful. I am hopeless or depressed or want to close my eyes and focus inward. Sometimes I feel like dancing madly or screaming or pulling my hair or jumping for joy or crying for the person's pain. At worst, I am irritated or turned off by the person I think I should be loving and supporting.

Recently I worked with a young man who got on my nerves. Although he appeared happy and content with his life, he came to therapy because his partner wanted him to change. He sat down, kicked back and seemed to expect me to entertain him. My training told me that he did not identify with his arrogant behavior. Because he was not consciously aware of this part of himself, it was expressed in a disturbing manner. I knew I should support his confidence. He was without direction and needed more self-esteem. But this man turned me off. I didn't know if I could bear to work with him.

After two sessions I rebelled against my own well-behaved persona. I told him I didn't like him.

Jan Dworkin

Worse yet, I disobeyed my own ethical rules and did not support him by taking his side against me. I simply gave it to him. Much to my surprise, after his initial shock, tears welled up in his eyes and he spoke of his insecurities and desire for my approval. He asked for help with his marital difficulties and career path. Our work and relationship became starkly real and creative as I outlined my expectations for his warriorship.

This hard-line approach is the total antipathy of my normal therapeutic style. Murdering my usual style created an exciting change. I have seen other teachers, students and friends risk their popularity and identities in order to serve their uncanny spirits. I am always in awe when I witness this.

As an artist I have been blocked by an inner prejudice against my work. After entering therapy, I stopped painting because I thought I should create abstract paintings which came from my so-called unconscious. My passion for portraits and the human form were not sufficiently psychological, I told myself. Besides, my obsession with my own face and body surely indicated narcissism. What would others think if they saw me produce yet another drawing of myself? For ten years I cut off one of my greatest pleasures in life. I am in the midst of destroying that prejudice and rediscovering myself as a visual artist. I am desperate to live my creativity in spite of expectations of me as a therapist, teacher, friend, lover, woman. As I write, I feel ready to "kill" myself, ready to risk new identities.

If we encounter our ally or daimon and do not go through the process of wrestling it: struggling, refusing, complying, praying, opposing, debating, colliding and ultimately sacrificing aspects of ourselves to live its energy, the ally might kill us. Literally. Minimally, it will make us miserable: physically ill, depressed, frantic, distressed in relationship or frustrated in career. Wrestling an ally can take a lifetime. Many of us were chased by these allies in our childhood dreams. If we don't gain access to their powers in life, they may overtake us again at death.

According to Mindell,

your most ancient human task is to recover everything which makes you whole, to find your soul, to discover your demon. This means noticing where that demon is and then processing its uncanny energies. (1993:118)

My 800 year old soul-child has a burning and violent need to express her most essential self, her ancient task. She wants me to live my death now by murdering my tendency to view life as known, predictable or impossible to change. She wants me to develop a fluid identity, follow my inner impulses and break my addiction to consensus reality. She demands that I be her midwife and mother, ready to protect her by destroying anything which blocks her creation.

Conclusion

Currently in the United States, I sense a huge fear and sense of insecurity permeating the atmosphere. This is indicated by the media's preoccupation with crime and violence and the recent Republican sweep in congress. Personal safety and financial security are certainly important issues. However, in my opinion, contrary to conventional wisdom, mainstream America does not need more safety. We need more violent and mad artists, willing to risk everything to change themselves, challenge oppressive values and create a culture that supports human rights and community. We need models who can cook in the fires of change and ride the waves of the chaotic transitions we experience today. Changing the world may seem too great a task for any one creative artist, but I want to believe that if I live my daimon ally, nothing is impossible. If we do it collectively, perhaps anything is possible.

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