Creativity is expressed in a number of ways.

Intellectual creativity

      There are different forms of intellectual creativity, such as writing novels, short stories or poems, tracking the genetic structure of a cell, developing a cross-disciplinary model of a particular phenomenon, developing or critiquing a philosophical worldview, composing a musical score, writing computer software or developing a business plan. The scope is endless.

      Two different processes are involved in intellectual creativity. We are normally more adept at one than the other.

      Some people have a capacity for synthesising a vast array of material, for discovering new connections and for ordering the material into simple hypotheses. Others are better at pulling arguments or theoretical models apart.

      Intellectual creativity is one form of creativity.

Relational creativity

      Some people are relationally creative. They are able to touch the lives of others, augmenting self-esteem and courage. Some are expert mediators. Others can organise, arousing enthusiasm and facilitating the conception and completion of projects. Yet others can galvanise community responses to justice issues.

      Inter-personal creativity, like intellectual creativity, requires a unique mix of gifts.

Sensual creativity

      Creativity may be associated with the senses.

      There are the visual arts, like painting, photography and calligraphy, which mirror nature.¹

      Some of the visual arts, like painting, also involve a tactile sensitivity. Other examples of creativity involving touch are clay [265] modelling, pottery, sculpture, cabinet making and building construction. Architecture, which takes texture into account, is also a form of intellectual creativity and requires a developed visual capacity.

      Music, which appeals to the ear, sculpts feelings and emotions. It can echo eternal essences.

      Theatre, cinematography, television and the computer bring together visual and auditory impressions.

      Chefs, appealing to sight, taste and smell, are creative artists.

      The sense of smell plays a significant role, not only in cooking, but also in the propagation of plants and shrubs and in the development and identification of wines and perfumes.

Resolution

      Our creativity arises out of our need to resolve issues, particularly life issues.

      This was evident in the life of the novelist, Henry James. James wrote, not only because he needed to earn a living, but also as a means of resolving a great loneliness, a loneliness that was more deeply rooted than any other factor in his life, including his genius, his discipline and his art.²

      This creative resolution of the deepest of personal issues is most clearly evident in the mature phase of an artist's development. Martin Cooper, writing of Beethoven's late style, commented that the composer was unconcerned with gaining and holding the attention of the audience. Instead, he engaged the deepest dimensions of his being and lost himself in his vision of reality and the musical processes through which this vision was expressed.³

      Anthony Storr has argued that there are three stages in an artist's career. We first sit under a master. Having mastered the craft, we express ourselves with exuberant virtuosity. During the third stage we are pre-occupied with the resolution of personal issues.

      Storr argued that the final period of Beethoven's career beautifully illustrated the style of creativity representative of this third stage--a diminished concern for communicating with others, a striving for unity between disparate musical elements, an absence of rhetoric and the exploration of intrapersonal and suprapersonal rather than interpersonal experience.⁴

Two phases

      Creativity involves two phases--the initial serendipitous inspiration and the laborious working out of this inspiration.

      Mozart, in whose creations these two phases were often inseparable, commented that the process began when an idea caught fire in his soul. The subject enlarged and organised itself and then shaped itself into a final form. He stood back and observed it as one would a beautiful statue. The composition presented itself to his imagination complete, rather than in fragments. The process was a joy and a delight--like a lively, satisfying dream.⁵

Receptivity

      To become receptive to the gifted insights that source our creativity we need open minds. This is difficult for men in a patriarchal culture, where aggressiveness, rather than receptivity, is encouraged.

      For some men, developing patient sensitivity is associated with exploring their feminine side. Jung highlights the importance of this feminine element in a memorial essay on his friend, the Sinologist, Richard Wilhelm. He contended that the masculine mind--the mind of the specialist--is ill-adapted to creativity. The fecundity that generates creativity is associated with a capacity for receptivity, with the feminine mind. The sort of mind that births creativity--the capacious mind--is feminine. Jung argued that his friend, Wilhelm, could feel his way into the spirit of the East, and translate the Eastern Scriptures into incomparable prose because he possessed a maternal intellect.⁶

      Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist master, argued that openness, the capacity for receptivity, is rare. Dealing with the issue of how we develop the wisdom of egolessness, he contended [267] that it is extremely difficult to listen--to let go of ourselves, of the information we have acquired, of the concepts that stand between us and our true nature, concepts that hinder this listening.

      As Zen master Suzuki-roshi commented, if we could listen with a beginner's mind, with a silent mind, with a mind free from preconceptions, we will have access to the true meaning of life.

      Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche suggested that the more we listen, in this fashion, the more we hear, and the more we hear, the more we understand.⁷

      Joseph Campbell's wife, Jean, a dancer, argued that that way of the artist and the way of the mystic are similar, except that the mystic lacks the craft.⁸ The mystic does have a craft, but it is a very different craft than that of the dancer, and it is not associated, as dance is, with public performance.

Development

      In the light of the givenness of creativity, it may seem pointless to ask how we develop creativity? Nevertheless, the question is not redundant.

Poetry and poetry

      Jung argues that there are two different types of poetry. The first is deliberately constructed by the analytical mind. It may be clever, but does not move the soul. The second type, which Jung describes as great poetry, is the product of unconscious energies.⁹ He disagrees with Freud that great art is generated by neuroses, though some artists have definitely been neurotic.¹⁰ This view is consistent with Rainer Maria Rilke's comment that true art derives from the anonymous self.¹¹ Robert Bly similarly commented that proper art can be distinguished from improper art in that it has a centre, a central thread of silence. By the time the creation is complete we are at the centre of ourselves.¹²

      A.E. Housman argued that it is not the intellect that produces poetry. The intellect is more likely to be a hindrance.¹³ He argued that writing poetry was a physical rather than a mental process, a physical process that is felt in the gut and that sends a [268] shiver down the spine.¹⁴

Relaxation

      Housman's explanation highlights the fact that inspiration has the opportunity to arrest our attention when we are relaxed. It is when you are sitting on a toilet seat, or shaving, or even driving your car absentmindedly that you will hear the muse. Like Mozart, you may sometimes find that the inspiration comes, not in bits and pieces, but complete.¹⁵

Collective unconscious

      Creative inspiration can also be a manifestation of a broader collective unconscious.

      Jung argued that Freudian psychoanalysis was a manifestation of unconscious currents. He suggested that psychoanalysis, while a scientific achievement, was, in essence, a psychic system that was more powerful that the analytical art of its originator. Freud was carried along by this unconscious movement of thought,¹⁶ which could be traced back to the Reformation and which had been anticipated by Nietzsche. This current, deriving from many obscure sources, gathered strength and manifest in Freud.¹⁷

The Spirit

      All great art derives, not only from the personal or collective unconscious, but also from the inspiration of the Spirit. As Gerhard Hauptman argued, poetry is an expression of the primordial word in the common word.¹⁸ There is a sense in which the deepest, and most profound art is a "word from the Lord".

In practice

      These arguments help explain the givenness of creativity. At a practical level, however, the "how" question remains unanswered.

      I will attempt an answer from personal experience. This experience is idiosyncratic, limited and mainly concerned with [269] preaching and writing.

Preaching

      When I prepare an address, I begin with a suggested passage or topic or one I have chosen myself.

      I give preliminary consideration to the topic at the time of the initial request.

      I later set aside time to work on the material, when I consider the occasion together with the needs and expectations of the people I will be addressing. As part of this process, I descend, with my mind, into my body, so that I can access feelings and intuitions. It is through the bodyself that I have access to the Oversoul, or universal Self, and the Spirit. I follow all leads until they run out. I do not impose restrictions or order at this stage.

      Once I am exhausted, I leave the next phase of the process to my unconscious, allowing sufficient time for the unconscious to work on the material free from interference from the conscious mind. When I sense that the material has been ordered and sorted, I call it up.

      I can best liken this process to taking hold of the end of the piece of string and drawing it out of my mind. The material orders itself on the page as I pull on the string. The connections are sequential, logical.

      Years of working on this process have taught-me to ensure that addresses are focused on one point, and that they are simple, practical, arresting, honest, and related to people's needs. My aim is to acquaint people with themselves, to walk them around inside the bodyself, gently and compassionately, helping them to interpret what they encounter.

      One of the most interesting experiences I have had, in preparing an address, was to have the whole presentation unfold before me as a dramatic narrative, set in a "primitive" context. It was a psychological exploration of the events of Palm Sunday. The address came to me, completely choreographed, as I was turning a corner while driving to work.

      Immediately before I deliver an address, I descend into my [270] bodyself, to get a feel for the atmosphere, for the audience. In this meditative state I connect with the Spirit, both within my body and within the congregation. In my imagination, I throw a thin gossamer net over the Presence, sensed in my body, and extend this net over and around the congregation. When I stand to deliver the address, I take a moment to engage the audience silently. I allow myself to be lost in their needs and pain. By this stage I am no longer concerned about people's reaction to me.

Writing

      In writing books I follow the same method of preparation. Because I think through issues by writing about them, I have usually done most of my reading beforehand. It is this reading that has demanded a new synthesis, a fresh interpretation of the data.

      As I have grown older, I have become less interested with sheerly intellectual concepts. Psychological intuitions, life-issues, soul-stuff, are what attract me.

      I enjoy writing poetry. While poetry has always been an interest, I purposely revisited the muse when my first marriage was disintegrating. It was a way of accessing and expressing my feelings. I also knew that I wrote my best poetry out of my pain.

      If I were to try to construct poetry, by first working out what I wanted to say, the result would be wooden. Poetic inspiration is associated with a sequence of images and spontaneous metaphors that break through into consciousness.

Exhaustion

      A little over 10 years ago I had a most unusual experience. I was asked to give three lectures at a conference. While working on the first lecture I found that I could not express what I wanted to say in prose. It came out as poetry. It wrote itself, not in fits and starts, but over several hours. When I had finished I was exhausted. It was as if the substance had been scooped from my brain, indeed, from my whole being. [271]

      Over recent years, I have experimented with writing novels. At the end of each day's work, I feel a similar exhaustion or emptiness. [272]

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