CREATIVE PROCESS
Dynamic Creative Process
Dynamic Creative Process
Creative Process Profiling Image Streaming Demiurgic Field Adult Development John Curtis Gowan Gowan Collected Works Northridge Developmental ScaleExpressive Arts Creativity Dr. E. Paul Torrance Dr. Paul Henrickson Dr. Stanley Krippner Dr. Paul Wildman Emotional Alchemy Dr. Charles Tart Dr. Stanislav GrofMichael Washburn Artistic Field Consciousness Dr. Marshall Gilula F. David Peat Science-Art Edge Artists
The CREATIVE PROCESS site summarizes work on CREATIVITY and EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN DEVELOPMENT and potential by Iona Miller with her mentors, friends and colleagues, including Dr. John Curtis Gowan, Dr. Stanley Krippner (California), Dr. Paul Wildman (Australia), Dr. Marshall Gilula (Miami), Dr. Paul Henrickson (Malta), Professor E. Paul Torrance, and other creativity experts.
Iona Miller is a creative geyser -- a writer, hypnotherapist, and multimedia artist whose specialty is extraordinary human potential. She continues the work of her mentors (Dr.Stanley Krippner and Professor John Curtis Gowan) in trance, art and creativity by promoting deep understanding of the complex territory of human expression. Creativity is a combination of drive and flow and she embodies this thesis in her own creative behavior and professional performance.
Art is a flow state. We cover taxonomies or maps of consciousness, creative typology, healing, ontological and epistemological notions of creativity--from first causes to root metaphors--cosmic creativity and personal creativity, including how we know what we know and how to use that to heal with metaphor therapy. Healing is a form of creativity.
Consciousness is a dynamic field that has the dual aspect of primordial process and appearance. Process is conscious dynamic energy. Process and perception lead to an understanding of appearance. Our consciousness oscillates at the fundamental level between the inherent drive for change and our attempt to maintain identity and stability.
We are creative beings and that creativity is an emergent process from cradle to grave. We offer a self-test for self-actualization and some suggested milestones for the developmental process that continues throughout adult life. We provide a context for nurturing creativity and honor the multitude of creative experiences, forms and media. Span the realms of Trance, Art, and Creativity into the genius of expression of human potential. First we get hints of emerging talents which are later stabilized into a creative steady-state through integration. Genius can be awakened in everyone.
Higher art must be intensely personal while being universal and universally accessible. It must show refined knowledge, understanding and respect for the art that has come before to enrich those around us. Much the same can be said for an artfully and heartfuly lived life. We can apply a similar strategy to our spirituality, drawing on the best of what the past offers while keeping our practice and service contemporary and relevant. Our lives become multidimensional artful expressions without frames, embodied in living Light. Process-oriented spirituality is eclectic and intensely personal.
The connection we have with the inspirational Source that nourishes creative life is the same source that sustains our spirits and funds our compassion. It is a deep well from which we can drink at will, the abundant lifesprings of our essential being. The Romantics, arguably beginning with Blake, turned art into a kind of substitute for religion. The East emphasizes a mystical-magical orientation, the West a humanist-rationalist POV. Romanticism is an essentially gnostic spirituality, a Mystery religion. But now there is no inter-generational priesthood to have our visions for us; we have them for ourselves.
Rather than anti-scientifically considering cognition and technofacility an anti-artistic dirty little secret, digital art and multimedia embrace the fusion. There is no Romantic terror of human cognition nor need for anti-technical transcendence with direct interface on the horizon. Knowledge is power...over yourself. Mind your mind; control yourself with self-awareness and self-responsibility. There is no artificial distinction between the pursuit of knowledge and self-knowledge and aesthetics. Beauty is an affair of the heart but speaks to our whole being.
Creative Process Profiling Image Streaming Demiurgic Field Adult Development John Curtis Gowan Gowan Collected Works Northridge Developmental ScaleExpressive Arts Creativity Dr. E. Paul Torrance Dr. Paul Henrickson Dr. Stanley Krippner Dr. Paul Wildman Emotional Alchemy Dr. Charles Tart Dr. Stanislav GrofMichael Washburn Artistic Field Consciousness Dr. Marshall Gilula F. David Peat Science-Art Edge Artists
The CREATIVE PROCESS site summarizes work on CREATIVITY and EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN DEVELOPMENT and potential by Iona Miller with her mentors, friends and colleagues, including Dr. John Curtis Gowan, Dr. Stanley Krippner (California), Dr. Paul Wildman (Australia), Dr. Marshall Gilula (Miami), Dr. Paul Henrickson (Malta), Professor E. Paul Torrance, and other creativity experts.
Iona Miller is a creative geyser -- a writer, hypnotherapist, and multimedia artist whose specialty is extraordinary human potential. She continues the work of her mentors (Dr.Stanley Krippner and Professor John Curtis Gowan) in trance, art and creativity by promoting deep understanding of the complex territory of human expression. Creativity is a combination of drive and flow and she embodies this thesis in her own creative behavior and professional performance.
Art is a flow state. We cover taxonomies or maps of consciousness, creative typology, healing, ontological and epistemological notions of creativity--from first causes to root metaphors--cosmic creativity and personal creativity, including how we know what we know and how to use that to heal with metaphor therapy. Healing is a form of creativity.
Consciousness is a dynamic field that has the dual aspect of primordial process and appearance. Process is conscious dynamic energy. Process and perception lead to an understanding of appearance. Our consciousness oscillates at the fundamental level between the inherent drive for change and our attempt to maintain identity and stability.
We are creative beings and that creativity is an emergent process from cradle to grave. We offer a self-test for self-actualization and some suggested milestones for the developmental process that continues throughout adult life. We provide a context for nurturing creativity and honor the multitude of creative experiences, forms and media. Span the realms of Trance, Art, and Creativity into the genius of expression of human potential. First we get hints of emerging talents which are later stabilized into a creative steady-state through integration. Genius can be awakened in everyone.
Higher art must be intensely personal while being universal and universally accessible. It must show refined knowledge, understanding and respect for the art that has come before to enrich those around us. Much the same can be said for an artfully and heartfuly lived life. We can apply a similar strategy to our spirituality, drawing on the best of what the past offers while keeping our practice and service contemporary and relevant. Our lives become multidimensional artful expressions without frames, embodied in living Light. Process-oriented spirituality is eclectic and intensely personal.
The connection we have with the inspirational Source that nourishes creative life is the same source that sustains our spirits and funds our compassion. It is a deep well from which we can drink at will, the abundant lifesprings of our essential being. The Romantics, arguably beginning with Blake, turned art into a kind of substitute for religion. The East emphasizes a mystical-magical orientation, the West a humanist-rationalist POV. Romanticism is an essentially gnostic spirituality, a Mystery religion. But now there is no inter-generational priesthood to have our visions for us; we have them for ourselves.
Rather than anti-scientifically considering cognition and technofacility an anti-artistic dirty little secret, digital art and multimedia embrace the fusion. There is no Romantic terror of human cognition nor need for anti-technical transcendence with direct interface on the horizon. Knowledge is power...over yourself. Mind your mind; control yourself with self-awareness and self-responsibility. There is no artificial distinction between the pursuit of knowledge and self-knowledge and aesthetics. Beauty is an affair of the heart but speaks to our whole being.
CREATIVITY: The Nature of the Creative Process
The cartography of the psyche is linked to the process of self-discovery in Trance, Art and Creativity. Understanding increases along with creative organization. Taxonomies of consciousness, from ancient Kabbalah to those of Ken Wilber shed light on the developmental process and our place and expression within the creative field. One gains in ability to combine the familiar in new and innovative ways. To be truly creative requires at least four traits according to Fromm: "capacity to be puzzled, ability to concentrate, capacity to accept conflict, and willingness to be reborn everyday."
Maslow extended creative traits to include "spontaneous, expressive, effortless, innocent, unfrightened by the unknown or ambiguous, able to accept tentativeness and uncertainty, able to tolerate bipolarity, able to integrate opposites." Whelan (1965) added, "energy, autonomy, confidence, openness, preference for complexity," etc. Creativity also brings a sense of destiny and personal worth. This brings a sense of joy, contentment and acceptance of self, which show its transformative ability. Creative people, who accept themselves, also have the further ability for compassion or brotherly love, (agape).
Gowan concludes that "creativity has a holistic quality, which restores the balance between right and left hemisphere function, between analog and digital computer aspects of thinking...Man's mind is a device for bringing infinite mind into manifestation in time; creativity is the commencement of this actualization." Like fractal patterns emerging on the computer screen, no process-oriented therapist can fail to notice the aesthetic beauty of the unfolding process of the creative imagination. Experiential psychotherapy facilitates the participating, rather than observing self.
Therapy is an art, and as such, it yields esthetic and physical pleasure as by-products. When the therapist joins with the participant, rather than remaining "objective observer", a co-creative shared reality emerges. This shared reality is more than mutual hypnosis, or shared subjectivity. It is a virtual world that is essentially an artistic, expressive form--a "living form." Art embodies imagination. A work of art is an expressive form created for our perception through sense or imagination, and it expresses human feeling. A work of art expresses a conception of life, emotion, inward reality--the logic of consciousness itself.
The therapeutic art is designed to elicit a full response: sensuous, intellectual, and emotional, not separated but interfused. It has an air of intimacy, of immediacy. The fullness of presentation matches the fullness of response--yielding a sense of lived experience--personal experience. Like art, experiential therapy is inherently humanistic--concerned with human feelings and values. It helps us embody those values, and the nature of beauty.
Beauty is an emotional value which affects our volitional and appreciative nature. It is not inherent in any thing, but is our own pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing or event. It is neither intrinsic nor objectified. It is the first-hand experience of a state of consciousness. It may not be in the eye only, but beauty is in the beholder. Yet the beholder doesn't stand on the outside looking in, but becomes the object of contemplation. When the focus of contemplation is the self, a complex feedback loop manifests of self contemplating self manifesting self, contemplating self.
The therapeutic art is designed to elicit a full response: sensuous, intellectual, and emotional, not separated but interfused. It has an air of intimacy, of immediacy. The fullness of presentation matches the fullness of response--yielding a sense of lived experience--personal experience. Like art, experiential therapy is inherently humanistic--concerned with human feelings and values. It helps us embody those values, and the nature of beauty.Beauty corresponds with healing, creativity, genius, and bliss states or unitive experiences.
Art had its origin in magic. It is the path of transcendence from personality to Self, through the Middle Way. Art is the explication of the transformative process. Through art, common experience is transformed to archetypal, timeless experience. Art is nature transformed. Art shapes our perception of things outside ourselves, and embodies the workings of inner life.
Archetype, ritual, myth, and dream are other manifestations of this same parataxic mode, as is expressive therapy. It is characterized by the production of images who meaning is not clear or categorical (Gowan, 1975). In parataxic mode, symbols or images are used in a private or idiosyncratic manner. Through art, they can be shared with others, expressing feeling and transmitting understanding. In contrast, in the creative mode (Tiphareth) meaning is more or less fully cognized symbolically, with ego present. The dynamic union of chaos and order is symbolic of our human process of transformation: old outworn forms break down (ego death), and that chaos is fertile ground for creative rebirth, rejuvenation. This Royal Wedding means nothing less than finding the lost soul--the alienated part of oneself which we normally call "Not-I." Soul retrieval is healing.
Maslow extended creative traits to include "spontaneous, expressive, effortless, innocent, unfrightened by the unknown or ambiguous, able to accept tentativeness and uncertainty, able to tolerate bipolarity, able to integrate opposites." Whelan (1965) added, "energy, autonomy, confidence, openness, preference for complexity," etc. Creativity also brings a sense of destiny and personal worth. This brings a sense of joy, contentment and acceptance of self, which show its transformative ability. Creative people, who accept themselves, also have the further ability for compassion or brotherly love, (agape).
Gowan concludes that "creativity has a holistic quality, which restores the balance between right and left hemisphere function, between analog and digital computer aspects of thinking...Man's mind is a device for bringing infinite mind into manifestation in time; creativity is the commencement of this actualization." Like fractal patterns emerging on the computer screen, no process-oriented therapist can fail to notice the aesthetic beauty of the unfolding process of the creative imagination. Experiential psychotherapy facilitates the participating, rather than observing self.
Therapy is an art, and as such, it yields esthetic and physical pleasure as by-products. When the therapist joins with the participant, rather than remaining "objective observer", a co-creative shared reality emerges. This shared reality is more than mutual hypnosis, or shared subjectivity. It is a virtual world that is essentially an artistic, expressive form--a "living form." Art embodies imagination. A work of art is an expressive form created for our perception through sense or imagination, and it expresses human feeling. A work of art expresses a conception of life, emotion, inward reality--the logic of consciousness itself.
The therapeutic art is designed to elicit a full response: sensuous, intellectual, and emotional, not separated but interfused. It has an air of intimacy, of immediacy. The fullness of presentation matches the fullness of response--yielding a sense of lived experience--personal experience. Like art, experiential therapy is inherently humanistic--concerned with human feelings and values. It helps us embody those values, and the nature of beauty.
Beauty is an emotional value which affects our volitional and appreciative nature. It is not inherent in any thing, but is our own pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing or event. It is neither intrinsic nor objectified. It is the first-hand experience of a state of consciousness. It may not be in the eye only, but beauty is in the beholder. Yet the beholder doesn't stand on the outside looking in, but becomes the object of contemplation. When the focus of contemplation is the self, a complex feedback loop manifests of self contemplating self manifesting self, contemplating self.
The therapeutic art is designed to elicit a full response: sensuous, intellectual, and emotional, not separated but interfused. It has an air of intimacy, of immediacy. The fullness of presentation matches the fullness of response--yielding a sense of lived experience--personal experience. Like art, experiential therapy is inherently humanistic--concerned with human feelings and values. It helps us embody those values, and the nature of beauty.Beauty corresponds with healing, creativity, genius, and bliss states or unitive experiences.
Art had its origin in magic. It is the path of transcendence from personality to Self, through the Middle Way. Art is the explication of the transformative process. Through art, common experience is transformed to archetypal, timeless experience. Art is nature transformed. Art shapes our perception of things outside ourselves, and embodies the workings of inner life.
Archetype, ritual, myth, and dream are other manifestations of this same parataxic mode, as is expressive therapy. It is characterized by the production of images who meaning is not clear or categorical (Gowan, 1975). In parataxic mode, symbols or images are used in a private or idiosyncratic manner. Through art, they can be shared with others, expressing feeling and transmitting understanding. In contrast, in the creative mode (Tiphareth) meaning is more or less fully cognized symbolically, with ego present. The dynamic union of chaos and order is symbolic of our human process of transformation: old outworn forms break down (ego death), and that chaos is fertile ground for creative rebirth, rejuvenation. This Royal Wedding means nothing less than finding the lost soul--the alienated part of oneself which we normally call "Not-I." Soul retrieval is healing.
Roots of Artistic Expression
ART
Art expresses feelings and understanding. It is the fulfillment of sensation in an audible or visual form. It is an expression of an archetypal process in relationship with life. Art is philosophy expressed in symbols and imagery. For the sensation function, art serves the same purpose that science does for thinking. Other analogies for art include philosophy and psychology for the intuitive function, and the emotions of human society for feelings.
The characteristic procedures of the Parataxic Mode include archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and art. Art forms include dance, drama, music, painting, ceremonial magick, alchemy, perfumery, sculpture, poetics, etc.
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will an personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense -- he is 'collective man' -- one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind. --C. G. Jung
Art embodies a rhythmic flux of the psyche through a process, performance or a "product." The artist combines his technical skill or craftsmanship with the constraints of his artform. Thus, the creation is not merely the production of his free will, but also reflects the discipline imposed by training and materials. As such, art is the result of a unique combination of consciousness, or cognitive abilities, and subconscious drives or inspiration.
In the Parataxic Mode, there is progressive replacement of Prototaxic dread with creativity in the service of archetypal patterns. If the artist has talent, his works also take on collective, as well as personal value, and reflect the transformative process in society. It frequently happens that artists are "ahead of their time", in that their work receives no wide recognition in their own lifetimes. Yet, great art has an ageless quality. Jung distinguished between two types of artistic creation. He termed one of these psychological and the other visionary. The psychological mode draws its inspiration from the phenomena and lessons of life, or human experience (such as life drawing).
The visionary mode, on the other hand, contains something of the Divine, and its subject matter is definitely out-of-the-ordinary. Terrific modern examples include the work of Mati Klarwein, H. R. Giger, Alex Grey, Gilbert Williams, and Robert Venosa. One distinction between the two lies in the degree of psychological activity or passivity of the participant. In the first mode, the artist "thinks up" and develops the forms pretty much on his own, even it is emergent. But in the visionary mode his own will seems to defer to an apparently foreign inspiration, and it can feel like it simply comes through of its own will. There may be an element of passivity in both modes, but in a visionary experience it is more pronounced. Visionary art is also generally considered more profound.
"Art" is most properly considered a process, not a product, though it results in artifacts often valued by society. The transformative process can be as strong during the creation of an unskilled or underappreciated piece as for a master-work. It is all relative. Even the performing arts, which were previously exempt, may now be preserved through recordings and film. John Gowan has classified the arts in a scale of increasing order from performing arts, to visual arts, to compositions in mathematics and music (which are Syntaxic in nature), and finally verbal creativity. This does not imply that one form is better or "more advanced" than another. But it is an aid in determining nuances of the creative process.
HOMO LUMEN:
Self-actualization was defined by Maslow as the act of manifesting the capabilities for which one had the potentiality. The structure of our language predisposes us to think in terms of those who finally reach self-actualization, as contrasted with those who merely get to the vestibule of the mansion and wait. But like other more mathematical limits, self-actualization is better measured by the differential than the functional. Hence, a better way of conceptualizations is to look at the process, not the end product, and to distinguish those in which the process is wholly developed as self-actualized.
In discussion of the sixth (creative), seventh (psychedelic), and eighth (illuminative) cognitive stages, we are on new and insufficiently explored ground; hence, the reader must be prepared for some confusion in terms. Here the phrase "self-actualization" will be used indiscriminately to refer to operations at all three levels. Actually, the upper reach of the continuum from the stage of creativity onward is open ended, for once an individual reaches the creative stage cognitively, his conscious mind is opened and enlarged, and he gains new horizons and options. The theory of stages becomes much less significant than the study of the process, and for all we know, looking at the system as it were from below, there may be advanced stages or processes that we cannot yet conceive.
We have tried to make tentative identification of the three advanced stages - the sixth or creative, the seventh or psychedelic, and the eighth or illuminative. The creative stage has been well described in the literature. The psychedelic is just now being described in the literature of psychology (Tart, 1969), though it has long been known in the literature of mysticism. The eighth stage is still pretty much unknown territory. Although we can say little about the cognitive processes of the final stage, those processes which are occasional and transitory in the psychedelic period become habitual and fixed in the eighth stage, and thus the doors or barriers between the conscious and preconscious are done away with almost entirely. This stage or process may be referred to as "integral," since the person is truly "whole" or "holy."
Alchemy begins and ends in the quest for eternal life. It is a spiritual art and technology of rebirth using natural methods that in their effect transcend nature by amplifying that which is immortal within us. It does not exist in nature but must be prepared by Art. Art is a form of manifesting, making and objectifying the world - spiritual physics.
Artists and mystics are aware of their own internal space and thus able to enter it, playing the mindbody like a musical instrument. Looking inside, they see the true nature of reality and can express that literally and symbolically. We all possess the creative potential. All creative acts are a marriage of spirit and matter, reaching down into the body as the source of our essential being and becoming.
Today, we might describe this resonance as accessing energy that regenerates the mindbody. Healing is an aspect of creativity; nature is within and without us. The Magus does not dominate reality but develops embodied psychophysical equilibrium, clarity, wisdom and compassion.
Creative work originates in the body and is projected out into the world. The projections are then internalized into awareness. The bodymind of the artist is an alchemical vessel containing the creative flux and lux during the process of transformation.
Awareness and consciousness form a continuous alchemical movement. The creative gold is generated and embodied in the alembic of the mindbody. The mindbody is the same substance as the Cosmos and contains and reveals its mysteries.
Alchemy reduces all to the first state, the ground state of being - original experience that is timeless, infinite. The classical Void, the quantum vacuum is a carrier of information.
The energy body or the field body, along with the scalars of our holographic blueprint, connect us directlywith the negentropic potential of the zero-point field. Radiant light literally emerges from this mystic void. Primordial structuring processes are common to both psyche and matter, working in the gap or empty interval between intention and action.
So, alchemy refines the way the mindbody generates and processes inherent light as medicine. It refines the aspirant's ability for tapping and amplifying Medicine Light. This primordial state is the luminous ground of our being, hidden deep in the heart of things.
All other goals are subordinate to this prime directive which includes meditative techniques for continuing consciousness after death. This Philosopher's Stone is also the Universal Medicine, the regenerative Elixir of Life. The greatest mystery is Life After Death: we don't die but continue in transcendent form. This is the secret of man and nature.
Art expresses feelings and understanding. It is the fulfillment of sensation in an audible or visual form. It is an expression of an archetypal process in relationship with life. Art is philosophy expressed in symbols and imagery. For the sensation function, art serves the same purpose that science does for thinking. Other analogies for art include philosophy and psychology for the intuitive function, and the emotions of human society for feelings.
The characteristic procedures of the Parataxic Mode include archetype, dreams, myth, ritual, and art. Art forms include dance, drama, music, painting, ceremonial magick, alchemy, perfumery, sculpture, poetics, etc.
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will an personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense -- he is 'collective man' -- one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind. --C. G. Jung
Art embodies a rhythmic flux of the psyche through a process, performance or a "product." The artist combines his technical skill or craftsmanship with the constraints of his artform. Thus, the creation is not merely the production of his free will, but also reflects the discipline imposed by training and materials. As such, art is the result of a unique combination of consciousness, or cognitive abilities, and subconscious drives or inspiration.
In the Parataxic Mode, there is progressive replacement of Prototaxic dread with creativity in the service of archetypal patterns. If the artist has talent, his works also take on collective, as well as personal value, and reflect the transformative process in society. It frequently happens that artists are "ahead of their time", in that their work receives no wide recognition in their own lifetimes. Yet, great art has an ageless quality. Jung distinguished between two types of artistic creation. He termed one of these psychological and the other visionary. The psychological mode draws its inspiration from the phenomena and lessons of life, or human experience (such as life drawing).
The visionary mode, on the other hand, contains something of the Divine, and its subject matter is definitely out-of-the-ordinary. Terrific modern examples include the work of Mati Klarwein, H. R. Giger, Alex Grey, Gilbert Williams, and Robert Venosa. One distinction between the two lies in the degree of psychological activity or passivity of the participant. In the first mode, the artist "thinks up" and develops the forms pretty much on his own, even it is emergent. But in the visionary mode his own will seems to defer to an apparently foreign inspiration, and it can feel like it simply comes through of its own will. There may be an element of passivity in both modes, but in a visionary experience it is more pronounced. Visionary art is also generally considered more profound.
"Art" is most properly considered a process, not a product, though it results in artifacts often valued by society. The transformative process can be as strong during the creation of an unskilled or underappreciated piece as for a master-work. It is all relative. Even the performing arts, which were previously exempt, may now be preserved through recordings and film. John Gowan has classified the arts in a scale of increasing order from performing arts, to visual arts, to compositions in mathematics and music (which are Syntaxic in nature), and finally verbal creativity. This does not imply that one form is better or "more advanced" than another. But it is an aid in determining nuances of the creative process.
HOMO LUMEN:
Self-actualization was defined by Maslow as the act of manifesting the capabilities for which one had the potentiality. The structure of our language predisposes us to think in terms of those who finally reach self-actualization, as contrasted with those who merely get to the vestibule of the mansion and wait. But like other more mathematical limits, self-actualization is better measured by the differential than the functional. Hence, a better way of conceptualizations is to look at the process, not the end product, and to distinguish those in which the process is wholly developed as self-actualized.
In discussion of the sixth (creative), seventh (psychedelic), and eighth (illuminative) cognitive stages, we are on new and insufficiently explored ground; hence, the reader must be prepared for some confusion in terms. Here the phrase "self-actualization" will be used indiscriminately to refer to operations at all three levels. Actually, the upper reach of the continuum from the stage of creativity onward is open ended, for once an individual reaches the creative stage cognitively, his conscious mind is opened and enlarged, and he gains new horizons and options. The theory of stages becomes much less significant than the study of the process, and for all we know, looking at the system as it were from below, there may be advanced stages or processes that we cannot yet conceive.
We have tried to make tentative identification of the three advanced stages - the sixth or creative, the seventh or psychedelic, and the eighth or illuminative. The creative stage has been well described in the literature. The psychedelic is just now being described in the literature of psychology (Tart, 1969), though it has long been known in the literature of mysticism. The eighth stage is still pretty much unknown territory. Although we can say little about the cognitive processes of the final stage, those processes which are occasional and transitory in the psychedelic period become habitual and fixed in the eighth stage, and thus the doors or barriers between the conscious and preconscious are done away with almost entirely. This stage or process may be referred to as "integral," since the person is truly "whole" or "holy."
Alchemy begins and ends in the quest for eternal life. It is a spiritual art and technology of rebirth using natural methods that in their effect transcend nature by amplifying that which is immortal within us. It does not exist in nature but must be prepared by Art. Art is a form of manifesting, making and objectifying the world - spiritual physics.
Artists and mystics are aware of their own internal space and thus able to enter it, playing the mindbody like a musical instrument. Looking inside, they see the true nature of reality and can express that literally and symbolically. We all possess the creative potential. All creative acts are a marriage of spirit and matter, reaching down into the body as the source of our essential being and becoming.
Today, we might describe this resonance as accessing energy that regenerates the mindbody. Healing is an aspect of creativity; nature is within and without us. The Magus does not dominate reality but develops embodied psychophysical equilibrium, clarity, wisdom and compassion.
Creative work originates in the body and is projected out into the world. The projections are then internalized into awareness. The bodymind of the artist is an alchemical vessel containing the creative flux and lux during the process of transformation.
Awareness and consciousness form a continuous alchemical movement. The creative gold is generated and embodied in the alembic of the mindbody. The mindbody is the same substance as the Cosmos and contains and reveals its mysteries.
Alchemy reduces all to the first state, the ground state of being - original experience that is timeless, infinite. The classical Void, the quantum vacuum is a carrier of information.
The energy body or the field body, along with the scalars of our holographic blueprint, connect us directlywith the negentropic potential of the zero-point field. Radiant light literally emerges from this mystic void. Primordial structuring processes are common to both psyche and matter, working in the gap or empty interval between intention and action.
So, alchemy refines the way the mindbody generates and processes inherent light as medicine. It refines the aspirant's ability for tapping and amplifying Medicine Light. This primordial state is the luminous ground of our being, hidden deep in the heart of things.
All other goals are subordinate to this prime directive which includes meditative techniques for continuing consciousness after death. This Philosopher's Stone is also the Universal Medicine, the regenerative Elixir of Life. The greatest mystery is Life After Death: we don't die but continue in transcendent form. This is the secret of man and nature.
THE CREATIVITY PACKET & CREATIVITY PUZZLES
"
http://www.tcp.com.mt/henrickson.htm
Boston expatriate by way of Santa Fe, Paul Henrickson, a productive artist in his own right is a contributing author to journals in the fields of education, art education, anthropology, psychology, and is a published art critic. He has written an opera libretto in collaboration with a Maltese composer and been the local manager for such performing artists as George Verdak, Isaac Stern, Theodor Ullmann, and Daniel Nagrin.
Different approaches to looking, when viewed in an unbiased way, enable the viewer to considerably enlarge, however temporarily, the stockpile of available interpretations of whatever it is that is being viewed and judged. That is why one of the major aims of this book is to assist in the process of education, that is, that is, the drawing out of one’s perception. What happens whenever this approach is used to look at the reality of our environment is that the process of making a decision is drawn out like a fine thread more sensitive to breezes, a final decision is delayed and a greater richness in the components of that decision assured.
The Creativity Packet people wish to offer 3 examples of creative production. From time to time this section of the Creativity Packet website will change to introduce various types of creative thought. At this point we are presenting examples of creative thought in 2 dimensions, in 3 dimensions and in time. At this time the 2-dimensional works of Paul Henrickson are being presented and in 3-dimensions are being presented the works of Bradford Hansen-Smith. As creative efforts in time (music) we are presenting the works of Mro. John Galea.
"Many pursue IQ as the Holy Grail indicator of Intelligence. In my experience, this is an unfortunate blind alley, up which most people go, perhaps never to return. I suggest to you the REAL INDICATOR is not IQ, but CQ, the CREATIVITY QUOTIENT. CQ trumps IQ every time, as indicator of an individuals capability, usefulness and probable future success, fulfillment and self-satisfaction. IQ is important, yes, but it is only a subset of CQ, part of the story, so to speak. Don't limit yourself. Go for the real thing... Creativity. The Father of Creativity (my term) was E. Paul Torrance, (the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia was built for and named after him) and for information on him I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Paul_Torrance
The current Father of Creativity is Dr. Paul Robert Henrickson, who did much research together with E. Paul Torrance. I myself am highly pleased with his Creativity Puzzles which enhances the CREATIVITY of my grandchildren."
THE PERCEPTIVE & SILENCED MINORITIES
http://www.wbabin.net/philos/henrickson.pdf
CREATIVITY PUZZLES
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7078463/How-We-See-What-We-See
A.C.D.= AMERICAN CREATIVITY IN DECLINE
by Paul Henrickson, Ph.D. 2010
The section below is taken from a recently published report which deals with aspects of a field about which I am relatively well-informed. I have lifted sections from this report which are in black type or red type but not boldfaced and have presented my responses in red type in bold face.
Education | “Creativity can be taught,” says a professor quoted by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in Newsweek. And it’s a good thing, they report, since for the first time creativity is in decline among American students — as measured by the Torrance tests, the “gold standard in creativity assessment.” With the United States now at a disadvantage in the global innovation sweepstakes, they write, the key to reversing the decline is schools. But schools are also the problem: nb: THE STATEMENT “CREATIVITY CAN BE TAUGHT” SUGGESTS THAT 1) THE ”TEACHER” IS AWARE OF WHAT CAN BE TAUGHT, OR SHOULD BE TAUGHT. If it can be taught it must be known what it is that can or will be taught. Since the creative person is most often specifically unaware of what it is he seeks to prove, the end result is unknown, therefore, the statement suggests that the “teacher” is also performing as a “seer” ...one who knows what the creative answer will be...or is. I hope the reader perceives the logical inconsistency here. Had the statement read “the teacher cannot teach creativity but can provide an environment where it might flourish.” I would have no quarrel.
To reverse the decline in creativity in the schools it would, I believe, require a totally open investigation into the hiring practices, retention procedures, and some changes in the concepts of acceptable behaviour. “The ‘X’ Report” available on Scribd.com details the characteristics which should not be a part of a curriculum or class attitudes . The earlier work “The Perceptive and Silenced Minorities” also available on www.scribd.com makes clear the responses made by individuals in their accession to peer and societal pressures. They lie in order to achieve, they deceive in order to get a job and lying and deceiving is what they transmit to their students.
More specifically creativity might be better encouraged if school administrators and school boards paid more attention to the implications of hiring independent contractors to facilitate the P.R. image of the schools. These digital minded, algorithmically-minded new-age computer types decide who is to contact the faculty and who is not when they automatically do not allow email messages from people not on a pre-selected list. Such a decision is based on the assumption that the faculty need not learn anything new...and most especially from people they’ve never heard of. This implies, it would appear, that there is an operating socio-political system functioning which has determined apriori what in the future will happen and not happen. Aside from the obvious fact that reality does not function that way it is, in the event no one has noticed, contrary to the published American ideal...the ideal of freedom of expression.
By the way, it is California, that, in my experience reveals this manner of imprisoning the minds not only of the students but of the teachers as well. The territory of Guam which usually follows California’s lead went a step further by inactivating the published email for teachers and school administrators and the superintendent at the time, now dismissed, is suing the Government for improper firing. I am uncertain as to whether there is a relationship, but now Guam is finding it extremely difficult to find money to pay its teachers...or to do anything else for that matter.
This has occurred before as in the late 60’s a leading educational expert in Iowa advocated administering drugs to over active and imaginative students “whom any elementary school teachers could identify as a potential rapist or murderer”. This Iowa school department official when confronted by me on this matter responded with the comment that art teachers should keep up” their good work”. That is an unintelligent and politically dangerous “brush off”.
It was during this same time period that I was conducting research into creative behaviour and had been gathering material and collating it over a two year period when one faculty raised the question with the Head of the Department, Dr. Harry Guillaume, that I was basing my work on the questionable accomplishments of one J.P. Guildford. I was at first perplexed, until Guillaume mentioned that “her” work was not much respected. When I commented that I had always thought Guilford to be a man and saw the confusion on Guillaume’s face I recognized I was dealing with a naive and ignorant man and felt distinctly disadvantaged being placed in a position to defend my work to someone, although my “boss”, who was not qualified to be. The doctorate degree is no true measure of intelligence, as those who have one probably know and some of those without the degree also know. It is only the naive and deluded public that believes in this fabrication.
In the mean time the University of Northern Iowa, at least in that division was experiencing an academic and political upheaval and Guillaume was replaced by a non-advanced-degreed person by the name of Kenneth Lash as Head of the Art Department and with an artist, non-degreed, as a visiting artist, Doris Cross. The Chairman of the Division was one Dr. Ausprich who came in all rather bushy-tailed. Lash immediately announced that he was illuminating my research responsibilities. I was not concerned about that since I had already evolved other plans, but the time available to me did not allow me to properly locate a publisher of academic research findings for my discoveries which I found to be important. I found them important enough, however, to go beyond the academic field and accepted the offer of the publishers of “REASON” magazine which had its own reasons for being interested in the material. Besides, I have most often found myself inhibited by my early training to refrain from disagreement and to offer no defence whatever, that is, I have been so inhibited until very recently or sorely pressed.
Tony Keeler You don’t have to be a Dali to be creative.
Overwhelmed by curriculum standards, American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class. Kids are fortunate if they get an art class once or twice a week. But to scientists, this is a non sequitur, borne out of what University of Georgia’s Mark Runco calls “art bias.†The age-old belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded. When scholars gave creativity tasks to both engineering majors and music majors, their scores laid down on an identical spectrum, with the same high averages and standard deviations. Inside their brains, the same thing was happening—ideas were being generated and evaluated on the fly.
Dr. Runco, as quoted, appears to be stating that art studies are superfluous to creative action. He is wrong in this regard for as the school curriculum exists, it is mostly structured so that art is the ONLY venue for creative expression..although, it must be stated that there are exceptions to this rule...at least from time to time there are exceptions. A generous spirit would rather reinterpret Dr. Runco’s comments as meaning that the creative mind can engage in many operations . in which case, of course, he would be absolutely correct
I do not know how old the “age-old” belief Dr. Runco refers to may be, but the information his claim presents is misleading. It suggests two things, that art does not have a special claim to encouraging creativity when it, very clearly, has demonstrated the opposite, but then we might remember that Dr Runco is not an
artist. The second suggestion, even as subliminal as it is, carries the notion that only recent ideas have value. This attitude may explain, why Dr. Runco fails to respond to professional offers to cooperate on research regarding creativity measures. The “age-old” custom of a written “brush off” was not chosen over not answering at all. This sort of response, or non-response as was the case, however, may be the style of institutional control the Torrance Center has adopted for whatever reason.
New ideas and xenophobic responses of all types are often seen as threats, but it remains, that the age-old response of stating that “we are too busy at the moment, “ “it is not our cup of tea” or some innocuous thing of that sort, would have left Runco with some mask of politesse. When Bonnie Cramond was the Head of the Torrance Center she gave the same sort of inappropriate response to a fellow professor but I tended to forgive as she evidenced other ways of behaving unprofessionally. However, it should be noted that Torrance would never have behaved that way.
On the other hand it may simply be one more, rather left-handed support of the research I conducted at the University of Northern Iowa which pointed up the fact that the most assured way of getting an appointment is to lie about who you are.
It was there where, merely by chance, for it was not part of the original hypothesis, it was learned that there were two rather distinct groups of students . One group that was characterized by having achieved a grade point average in both the high school and the undergraduate levels at the University of under 2.2. This was the cut off point for admission into the teacher preparation program. These students when compared with those who were allowed to enrol in the teacher preparation program told fewer lies, significantly agreed with professional artists on the aesthetic value of informally produced compositions and achieved higher scores on their own production as judged by art faculty. The conclusion that the proudfull university was, in fact, providing teachers for the field who were uncreative and liars was not a popular conclusion. To extrapolate on that finding might prove to be extremely disheartening to those naively believing we are being properly led in any area.
The statement by Runco quoted above is misstated. It can be corrected , however, by replacing the word “special” with “only” .
However, these comments, as reported , suggest a reverse bias on the part of the “researchers” referenced (whoever they may be).
When one considers the entire school curriculum art, along with, perhaps, physical education, may be the ONLY curriculum experiences that allow any degree of freedom of choice in decision making and, with emphasis, I would add it is ONLY in decision making that anything approaching creative behaviour can take place. All other school tuitional involvements generally require a firm algorithmic base...including physical education programs which emphasize the learning to play a sport which possesses rules of procedure. Creative activity creates rules it rarely follows them.
It is herein where the answer to the question posed by the article, this report, on the alleged decline in creativity, As one of your published commentators said: there is no decline in creative behaviour, there is as much as there ever has been. If this observation is true and, in general, I believe it is, then the appearance of a decline in creativity may lie in the way in which creative effort and its product are being assessed.
A clue to the answer to that, as yet, unasked question is in the evidence presented by The report available on www.scribd.com under the title ”The Perceptive and Silenced Minority”
The following is from the internet published report:
In the 50 years since Schwarzrock and the others took their tests, scholars—first led by Torrance, now his colleague, Garnet Millar—have been tracking the children, recording every patent earned, every business founded, every research paper published, and every grant awarded. They tallied the books, dances, radio shows, art exhibitions, software programs, advertising campaigns, hardware innovations, music compositions, public policies (written or implemented), leadership positions, invited lectures, and buildings designed.
Mr. Millar wrote a book entitled “The Creativity Man” which refers to Paul Torrance and he correctly, but not fully, credits me with my efforts. It should be added, on page, I believe, page 53, that not only did I do the drawings, I also created the improbable situations. None of the drawings I did for “The Just Suppose Task” while I was assisting Torrance at The Bureau of Educational Research were published at that time, but another publication perportedly dealing with the same subject substituted for mine one done by the 14 year-old son of the book’s author. While I am in total sympathy with a father’s love for his child when the father is reporting on a specific topic substitutions of this nature are out of place.
The matter of the importance of the drawings originally intended for “The Just Suppose Task” lies in the drawings middle ground between realism and non-objectivity leaving, it was hoped, room for the child to “play with the impetus”. It was a decision by that author, which ultimately distorted the meaning of the report.
I once asked Paul whether he had ever used birth charts as a measure of creativity in terms of any correlations with other more established assessments. As i recall he said he hadn’t, but that he was open to it. I include this one for those who creatively curious enough to play with the idea.
Click here: HOWARD's DRUM SHOW
I have included this video here because it dramatically illustrates the sort of focused attention a person achieves when creatively engaged in dealing with sensual input. What this kid might achieve in another decade when he is 14 years old might be very satisfying to himself as well as many other people if there any who can perceive the significance.
http://www.tcp.com.mt/henrickson.htm
Boston expatriate by way of Santa Fe, Paul Henrickson, a productive artist in his own right is a contributing author to journals in the fields of education, art education, anthropology, psychology, and is a published art critic. He has written an opera libretto in collaboration with a Maltese composer and been the local manager for such performing artists as George Verdak, Isaac Stern, Theodor Ullmann, and Daniel Nagrin.
Different approaches to looking, when viewed in an unbiased way, enable the viewer to considerably enlarge, however temporarily, the stockpile of available interpretations of whatever it is that is being viewed and judged. That is why one of the major aims of this book is to assist in the process of education, that is, that is, the drawing out of one’s perception. What happens whenever this approach is used to look at the reality of our environment is that the process of making a decision is drawn out like a fine thread more sensitive to breezes, a final decision is delayed and a greater richness in the components of that decision assured.
The Creativity Packet people wish to offer 3 examples of creative production. From time to time this section of the Creativity Packet website will change to introduce various types of creative thought. At this point we are presenting examples of creative thought in 2 dimensions, in 3 dimensions and in time. At this time the 2-dimensional works of Paul Henrickson are being presented and in 3-dimensions are being presented the works of Bradford Hansen-Smith. As creative efforts in time (music) we are presenting the works of Mro. John Galea.
"Many pursue IQ as the Holy Grail indicator of Intelligence. In my experience, this is an unfortunate blind alley, up which most people go, perhaps never to return. I suggest to you the REAL INDICATOR is not IQ, but CQ, the CREATIVITY QUOTIENT. CQ trumps IQ every time, as indicator of an individuals capability, usefulness and probable future success, fulfillment and self-satisfaction. IQ is important, yes, but it is only a subset of CQ, part of the story, so to speak. Don't limit yourself. Go for the real thing... Creativity. The Father of Creativity (my term) was E. Paul Torrance, (the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia was built for and named after him) and for information on him I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Paul_Torrance
The current Father of Creativity is Dr. Paul Robert Henrickson, who did much research together with E. Paul Torrance. I myself am highly pleased with his Creativity Puzzles which enhances the CREATIVITY of my grandchildren."
THE PERCEPTIVE & SILENCED MINORITIES
http://www.wbabin.net/philos/henrickson.pdf
CREATIVITY PUZZLES
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7078463/How-We-See-What-We-See
A.C.D.= AMERICAN CREATIVITY IN DECLINE
by Paul Henrickson, Ph.D. 2010
The section below is taken from a recently published report which deals with aspects of a field about which I am relatively well-informed. I have lifted sections from this report which are in black type or red type but not boldfaced and have presented my responses in red type in bold face.
Education | “Creativity can be taught,” says a professor quoted by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in Newsweek. And it’s a good thing, they report, since for the first time creativity is in decline among American students — as measured by the Torrance tests, the “gold standard in creativity assessment.” With the United States now at a disadvantage in the global innovation sweepstakes, they write, the key to reversing the decline is schools. But schools are also the problem: nb: THE STATEMENT “CREATIVITY CAN BE TAUGHT” SUGGESTS THAT 1) THE ”TEACHER” IS AWARE OF WHAT CAN BE TAUGHT, OR SHOULD BE TAUGHT. If it can be taught it must be known what it is that can or will be taught. Since the creative person is most often specifically unaware of what it is he seeks to prove, the end result is unknown, therefore, the statement suggests that the “teacher” is also performing as a “seer” ...one who knows what the creative answer will be...or is. I hope the reader perceives the logical inconsistency here. Had the statement read “the teacher cannot teach creativity but can provide an environment where it might flourish.” I would have no quarrel.
To reverse the decline in creativity in the schools it would, I believe, require a totally open investigation into the hiring practices, retention procedures, and some changes in the concepts of acceptable behaviour. “The ‘X’ Report” available on Scribd.com details the characteristics which should not be a part of a curriculum or class attitudes . The earlier work “The Perceptive and Silenced Minorities” also available on www.scribd.com makes clear the responses made by individuals in their accession to peer and societal pressures. They lie in order to achieve, they deceive in order to get a job and lying and deceiving is what they transmit to their students.
More specifically creativity might be better encouraged if school administrators and school boards paid more attention to the implications of hiring independent contractors to facilitate the P.R. image of the schools. These digital minded, algorithmically-minded new-age computer types decide who is to contact the faculty and who is not when they automatically do not allow email messages from people not on a pre-selected list. Such a decision is based on the assumption that the faculty need not learn anything new...and most especially from people they’ve never heard of. This implies, it would appear, that there is an operating socio-political system functioning which has determined apriori what in the future will happen and not happen. Aside from the obvious fact that reality does not function that way it is, in the event no one has noticed, contrary to the published American ideal...the ideal of freedom of expression.
By the way, it is California, that, in my experience reveals this manner of imprisoning the minds not only of the students but of the teachers as well. The territory of Guam which usually follows California’s lead went a step further by inactivating the published email for teachers and school administrators and the superintendent at the time, now dismissed, is suing the Government for improper firing. I am uncertain as to whether there is a relationship, but now Guam is finding it extremely difficult to find money to pay its teachers...or to do anything else for that matter.
This has occurred before as in the late 60’s a leading educational expert in Iowa advocated administering drugs to over active and imaginative students “whom any elementary school teachers could identify as a potential rapist or murderer”. This Iowa school department official when confronted by me on this matter responded with the comment that art teachers should keep up” their good work”. That is an unintelligent and politically dangerous “brush off”.
It was during this same time period that I was conducting research into creative behaviour and had been gathering material and collating it over a two year period when one faculty raised the question with the Head of the Department, Dr. Harry Guillaume, that I was basing my work on the questionable accomplishments of one J.P. Guildford. I was at first perplexed, until Guillaume mentioned that “her” work was not much respected. When I commented that I had always thought Guilford to be a man and saw the confusion on Guillaume’s face I recognized I was dealing with a naive and ignorant man and felt distinctly disadvantaged being placed in a position to defend my work to someone, although my “boss”, who was not qualified to be. The doctorate degree is no true measure of intelligence, as those who have one probably know and some of those without the degree also know. It is only the naive and deluded public that believes in this fabrication.
In the mean time the University of Northern Iowa, at least in that division was experiencing an academic and political upheaval and Guillaume was replaced by a non-advanced-degreed person by the name of Kenneth Lash as Head of the Art Department and with an artist, non-degreed, as a visiting artist, Doris Cross. The Chairman of the Division was one Dr. Ausprich who came in all rather bushy-tailed. Lash immediately announced that he was illuminating my research responsibilities. I was not concerned about that since I had already evolved other plans, but the time available to me did not allow me to properly locate a publisher of academic research findings for my discoveries which I found to be important. I found them important enough, however, to go beyond the academic field and accepted the offer of the publishers of “REASON” magazine which had its own reasons for being interested in the material. Besides, I have most often found myself inhibited by my early training to refrain from disagreement and to offer no defence whatever, that is, I have been so inhibited until very recently or sorely pressed.
Tony Keeler You don’t have to be a Dali to be creative.
Overwhelmed by curriculum standards, American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class. Kids are fortunate if they get an art class once or twice a week. But to scientists, this is a non sequitur, borne out of what University of Georgia’s Mark Runco calls “art bias.†The age-old belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded. When scholars gave creativity tasks to both engineering majors and music majors, their scores laid down on an identical spectrum, with the same high averages and standard deviations. Inside their brains, the same thing was happening—ideas were being generated and evaluated on the fly.
Dr. Runco, as quoted, appears to be stating that art studies are superfluous to creative action. He is wrong in this regard for as the school curriculum exists, it is mostly structured so that art is the ONLY venue for creative expression..although, it must be stated that there are exceptions to this rule...at least from time to time there are exceptions. A generous spirit would rather reinterpret Dr. Runco’s comments as meaning that the creative mind can engage in many operations . in which case, of course, he would be absolutely correct
I do not know how old the “age-old” belief Dr. Runco refers to may be, but the information his claim presents is misleading. It suggests two things, that art does not have a special claim to encouraging creativity when it, very clearly, has demonstrated the opposite, but then we might remember that Dr Runco is not an
artist. The second suggestion, even as subliminal as it is, carries the notion that only recent ideas have value. This attitude may explain, why Dr. Runco fails to respond to professional offers to cooperate on research regarding creativity measures. The “age-old” custom of a written “brush off” was not chosen over not answering at all. This sort of response, or non-response as was the case, however, may be the style of institutional control the Torrance Center has adopted for whatever reason.
New ideas and xenophobic responses of all types are often seen as threats, but it remains, that the age-old response of stating that “we are too busy at the moment, “ “it is not our cup of tea” or some innocuous thing of that sort, would have left Runco with some mask of politesse. When Bonnie Cramond was the Head of the Torrance Center she gave the same sort of inappropriate response to a fellow professor but I tended to forgive as she evidenced other ways of behaving unprofessionally. However, it should be noted that Torrance would never have behaved that way.
On the other hand it may simply be one more, rather left-handed support of the research I conducted at the University of Northern Iowa which pointed up the fact that the most assured way of getting an appointment is to lie about who you are.
It was there where, merely by chance, for it was not part of the original hypothesis, it was learned that there were two rather distinct groups of students . One group that was characterized by having achieved a grade point average in both the high school and the undergraduate levels at the University of under 2.2. This was the cut off point for admission into the teacher preparation program. These students when compared with those who were allowed to enrol in the teacher preparation program told fewer lies, significantly agreed with professional artists on the aesthetic value of informally produced compositions and achieved higher scores on their own production as judged by art faculty. The conclusion that the proudfull university was, in fact, providing teachers for the field who were uncreative and liars was not a popular conclusion. To extrapolate on that finding might prove to be extremely disheartening to those naively believing we are being properly led in any area.
The statement by Runco quoted above is misstated. It can be corrected , however, by replacing the word “special” with “only” .
However, these comments, as reported , suggest a reverse bias on the part of the “researchers” referenced (whoever they may be).
When one considers the entire school curriculum art, along with, perhaps, physical education, may be the ONLY curriculum experiences that allow any degree of freedom of choice in decision making and, with emphasis, I would add it is ONLY in decision making that anything approaching creative behaviour can take place. All other school tuitional involvements generally require a firm algorithmic base...including physical education programs which emphasize the learning to play a sport which possesses rules of procedure. Creative activity creates rules it rarely follows them.
It is herein where the answer to the question posed by the article, this report, on the alleged decline in creativity, As one of your published commentators said: there is no decline in creative behaviour, there is as much as there ever has been. If this observation is true and, in general, I believe it is, then the appearance of a decline in creativity may lie in the way in which creative effort and its product are being assessed.
A clue to the answer to that, as yet, unasked question is in the evidence presented by The report available on www.scribd.com under the title ”The Perceptive and Silenced Minority”
The following is from the internet published report:
In the 50 years since Schwarzrock and the others took their tests, scholars—first led by Torrance, now his colleague, Garnet Millar—have been tracking the children, recording every patent earned, every business founded, every research paper published, and every grant awarded. They tallied the books, dances, radio shows, art exhibitions, software programs, advertising campaigns, hardware innovations, music compositions, public policies (written or implemented), leadership positions, invited lectures, and buildings designed.
Mr. Millar wrote a book entitled “The Creativity Man” which refers to Paul Torrance and he correctly, but not fully, credits me with my efforts. It should be added, on page, I believe, page 53, that not only did I do the drawings, I also created the improbable situations. None of the drawings I did for “The Just Suppose Task” while I was assisting Torrance at The Bureau of Educational Research were published at that time, but another publication perportedly dealing with the same subject substituted for mine one done by the 14 year-old son of the book’s author. While I am in total sympathy with a father’s love for his child when the father is reporting on a specific topic substitutions of this nature are out of place.
The matter of the importance of the drawings originally intended for “The Just Suppose Task” lies in the drawings middle ground between realism and non-objectivity leaving, it was hoped, room for the child to “play with the impetus”. It was a decision by that author, which ultimately distorted the meaning of the report.
I once asked Paul whether he had ever used birth charts as a measure of creativity in terms of any correlations with other more established assessments. As i recall he said he hadn’t, but that he was open to it. I include this one for those who creatively curious enough to play with the idea.
Click here: HOWARD's DRUM SHOW
I have included this video here because it dramatically illustrates the sort of focused attention a person achieves when creatively engaged in dealing with sensual input. What this kid might achieve in another decade when he is 14 years old might be very satisfying to himself as well as many other people if there any who can perceive the significance.
A NEW TRANCE PHENOM: iOn
Quotes
Csikszentmihalyi's message, FINDING FLOW, encompasses an inspiring and challenging truth: that "it is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art."
"It is useful to know that the members of the young tribal horde are not the victims of a conspiracy nor are they prompted by any theories…their organs of perception have been altered by the electronic environment" (1). -McLuhan, "Tribal warfare in the 1970's" – manuscript.
"In a sense, artists are creators of counter-environments. They provide society with analogical models which enable them to escape from their unconscious immersion in their environment. So also with critics. They are the last frontiersmen." - Eugene McNamara, Editor's Introduction to The Interior Landscape: The Literary Criticism of Marshall McLuhan 1943-1962, p.182
"While in the process of executing an idea, creativity happens not with one brilliant flash but in a chain reaction of many tiny sparks." -R. Keith Sawyer
"Stay young by taking inspiration from the young in spirit who remained creatively active all their lives: Goethe completing Faust at 80; Titian painting masterpieces at 98; Toscanini conducting at 85; Justice Holmes writing Supreme Court decisions at 90; Edison busy in his laboratory at 84; and Benjamin Franklin helping to frame the American Constitution at 80."-- Author Unknown
It is difficult to separate spirituality and creativity, as both are tied to the notion of self actualization, stepping beyond oneself, transcendence. Creativity is viewed to have universal meaning that extends beyond time and self. Creative activity combines the energies of feelings imagination and thought. Some believe that the approach of one’s end of life actually stimulates creativity with increased urgency, intensity and energy.
"It is useful to know that the members of the young tribal horde are not the victims of a conspiracy nor are they prompted by any theories…their organs of perception have been altered by the electronic environment" (1). -McLuhan, "Tribal warfare in the 1970's" – manuscript.
"In a sense, artists are creators of counter-environments. They provide society with analogical models which enable them to escape from their unconscious immersion in their environment. So also with critics. They are the last frontiersmen." - Eugene McNamara, Editor's Introduction to The Interior Landscape: The Literary Criticism of Marshall McLuhan 1943-1962, p.182
"While in the process of executing an idea, creativity happens not with one brilliant flash but in a chain reaction of many tiny sparks." -R. Keith Sawyer
"Stay young by taking inspiration from the young in spirit who remained creatively active all their lives: Goethe completing Faust at 80; Titian painting masterpieces at 98; Toscanini conducting at 85; Justice Holmes writing Supreme Court decisions at 90; Edison busy in his laboratory at 84; and Benjamin Franklin helping to frame the American Constitution at 80."-- Author Unknown
It is difficult to separate spirituality and creativity, as both are tied to the notion of self actualization, stepping beyond oneself, transcendence. Creativity is viewed to have universal meaning that extends beyond time and self. Creative activity combines the energies of feelings imagination and thought. Some believe that the approach of one’s end of life actually stimulates creativity with increased urgency, intensity and energy.
