Full text of Matt Cardin’s introduction to PORTRAITS OF RUIN by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Tag: daemonic creativity
Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred
Dr. Angela Voss is an expert in mythology, astrology, and Western esotericism. She’s also one of the two editors of Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, whose imminent publication I recently talked about here. In conjunction with that post, she has asked me to help spread the word about an exciting new graduate program in these subjects…
Publication imminent: ‘Daimonic Imagination, Uncanny Intelligence’
I’m pleased to report that the publication of the book Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, which will feature my essay/paper “In Search of Higher Intelligence: The Daemonic Muse(s) of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson,” is imminent. The book is edited by Angela Voss and William Rowlandson, former co-directors of the Centre for the…
Stephen King on writing, inner dictation, and his fears for the future of reading
There’s a nifty interview with Stephen King in last weekend’s edition of that bastion of substantive journalism, Parade magazine. It’s actually the cover feature, which knocks the usually fluff-filled magazine up a notch in my (probably immaterial) estimation. Among the highlights are the following points of interest: King explains why he’s not a horror writer:…
“Powerful and serious fictions”: The mythic/psychic reality of gods and other fictional characters
From a recent blog post by psychologist and author Thomas Moore, in which he elucidates one of the key insights from his mentor in depth psychology, the late, great James Hillman: âAn axiom of depth psychology asserts that what is not admitted into awareness irrupts in ungainly obsessive, literalistic ways, affecting consciousness with precisely the…
Art, creativity, fate, and the end of the world: Revisiting Joseph Campbell
When The Power of Myth, the six-part PBS television series featuring Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell, first broke upon the unsuspecting American public in 1988, it became an instant sensation and Campbell became an instant celebrity (I mean in a pop cultural sense, beyond and in addition to the substantial academic fame he had already…
Julian Jaynes and the dawn of consciousness
Published recently at n+1, a wonderful and compact introduction to the life and thought of Julian Jaynes: Jaynes published only one book, in 1976, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which tells the story of how mankind learned to think. Critics described it as a bizarre and reckless masterpiece —…
Tom Morello on creative calling, conviction, and inspiration
Last May, Bill Moyers interviewed guitarist extraordinaire Tom Morello on Moyers & Company, and in addition to providing the expected barrage of radical and impassioned political brilliance, Morello said a few things in passing that show him to be a musical artist who is gripped by a powerful sense of calling in the deep sense…
“The muses will carry us along”: John Williams on composing music and the creative process
In a 2011 interview for The New York Times‘ ArtsBeat site, John Williams, the man who has provided the glorious musical soundtrack for an enormous portion of the world’s collective cinematic experience for the past four decades, talked about his creative process and the way he deals with incipient block by trusting his impulses and…
Creativity, psi, and synchronicity: “The demon knows more than you know”
The link between creativity and the paranormal or supernatural is an old and enduring one, beginning with ancient ideas about the muse, daemon, and genius, which connected the inner world of artists and poets to the realm of the divine. For a detailed laying-out of this point, see especially chapters one and two of my…