Creativity and Spirituality: It's Complicated

If you really woke up, would you still want to write?

Commencing with this post and moving forward into the indefinite future, I’m diving headfirst into the subject of creativity, spirituality (or nonduality), and the demon muse. I will still of course publish posts about a wide variety of things, but creativity, and most especially the deep, and deeply fraught, relationship between the drive to write and the drive toward spiritual liberation or awakening, will come to the fore. So will the question of the relationship of these matters, which have been steadily rising in public consciousness for the past couple of decades, to the general tone of apocalyptic giddiness and dread that has overtaken global culture. Think of this overarching theme as one that picks up where my A Course in Demonic Creativity leaves off. And indeed, that’s exactly what it does. There is a method to this madness and a long-term book-related goal to these posts.

Also note that this post interacts with and builds on “The Endgame of Creative Pursuits: Reaching the Flashpoint of Stillness,” which I commend to your reading attention.

My creative confession

It is popular to think that creativity and spirituality go together. Many people enjoy believing that heightened or deepened spiritual experience is mutually supportive of enhanced creative flow. Offhand, I can think of at least half a dozen books that either touch on this premise or are mounted forthrightly upon it. Some of them rank among my own personal library of favorite texts.

But still, is the claim they advance accurate? Is it unqualifiedly true? Is there perhaps another view, a counter experience, a contradictory truth? Contrary to popular belief, might the two activities, experiences, or modes of being that we call “creativity” and “spirituality”—the desire for which is so commonly lodged within the same person—be inherently antagonistic? Might they even, to an extent, be mutually exclusive?