Funkaar Aur La-shaoor

Freud writes, You are under the illusion that you possess psychological freedom, and you do not want to give it up. I am sorry to say that I disagree with your view here. The Freudian school rejects freedom and claims to have established psychological determinism with absolute certainty. In reality, the phenomena that psychoanalysis has attempted to explain are things like parapraxes (failed attempts), dreams, and neurotic symptoms. Dalbiez writes, What sensible person has ever denied that the aforementioned facts are determined, and that in this regard, they involve the question of free will? The fact that a neurotic patient's actions are determined by their specific complex does not prove that a normal person is deprived of freedom of action.

Freud himself admits that the reality of psychological determinism cannot be empirically proven through the results of psychoanalysis, just as he has tried to prove that something like innate morality might not exist. However, this does not justify denying that we possess an innate and natural ability to distinguish between good and evil; refusing to accept the existence of this ability is tantamount to a loss of reason. Dalbiez writes, It is strange that anyone could deny that man, simply because he uses his intelligence, is capable of perceiving that two different behaviors have different values. Let us take a simple example. To realize that not deceiving oneself is better than deceiving oneself requires no more than elementary intelligence. And that same elementary intelligence can also deduce that we are free to deceive ourselves or to refrain from doing so. This means that we are not merely helpless victims in the hands of the unconscious.

Psychoanalysts take this to mean that all human beings are at the mercy of psychological determinism, and within this determinism, our motives lie safely hidden in the unconscious. Richard March writes, If this were the case, all values and judgments would have to be surrendered to psychological determinants, and the direction, purpose, and goal of these determinants (if it is even possible to speak of purpose in relation to the unconscious) are alien and seemingly incomprehensible. Thus, we are faced with an unsolvable difficulty. Man is responsible for his actions. Refusing to believe in this responsibility renders life meaningless. This psychological determinism is merely a postulate of psychoanalysis; it is a blatant negation of human intelligence and a contradiction of our lived experience.

This issue of general human responsibility is intrinsically linked to the issue of the artist's responsibility, which is our immediate concern. According to psychoanalysts, this psychological determinism also affects the artist. It influences the artist's actions as a human being, as well as their motives as an artist. The responsibility for this cannot be placed on the artist because they are genuinely unaware of the forces operating within their own psyche. Intellectually, he may understand what he intends, but emotionally, he can have no knowledge of why he wants to go in a particular direction, or what it is within his psyche that compels him to do so. He cannot possibly know this because this compulsion remains hidden in the depths of his consciousness and must remain beyond his comprehension. This is the secret unconscious motive that determines his thoughts and feelings during creation, as well as the actions of his daily life. According to this argument, the psychoanalyst is forced to endorse the view that the artist is not morally responsible for his artistic creation, and that he is, as it were, compelled to adopt this attitude.

This attitude regarding the artist's irresponsibility cannot be accepted. The artist is a symbol of high intelligence; therefore, he bears a great deal of responsibility. Freud denies the existence of a drive towards perfection in human nature. For many of us, it will be difficult to abandon the belief that there exists within man himself a drive towards perfection, which brings him to his present height of intellectual prowess and moral sublimation. However, I do not believe in the existence of any such internal drive, and I see no way to maintain this pleasing illusion. The presence of a drive towards perfection is not a pleasing illusion. It is certainly pleasing, but it is not an illusion. This drive is no fallacy; its proof can be found in the human desire for a cultural state. Our desire for perfection takes a concrete form. The arts, which hold a central position in a cultural state, provide ample proof of the true nature of this drive towards perfection... In good art, regardless of its era or country, the most important characteristic is that it serves as explicit proof of the artist's struggle to transform material from an incomplete state to a state of completion. This is also explicit proof of the presence of a drive towards perfection in human nature.

The intuition of poetry emerges from the world of imagination, that is, the unconscious. A.W. Ramsay writes, No great poetry can be written unless some, or at least one, of the great vital forces of the poet's life are in an unconscious state. The discharge of unconscious forces is necessary, and from some minds, this discharge takes the form of poetry... Most poetry is born from the individual unconscious, but epic poetry is born from the racial unconscious, and its creation requires close collective unity. A solitary individual cannot write an epic. I am not advocating for the theory of collective authorship, as is sometimes suggested regarding Homer. The collective or racial unconscious can indeed be expressed through a single individual, but it is their collective feeling that is expressed, not their individuality. The last epic of the modern era, *Paradise Lost*, belongs to this category. It was the expression of the collective religious sentiment that was stirring the national life of England and Scotland at that time.

The role of the unconscious and the collective unconscious in artistic creation is mentioned here in a straightforward manner. It is now our purpose to examine the role of the unconscious and the so-called collective unconscious in artistic creations. It is customary for psychoanalysts, in support of their principles, to present quotes from artists themselves who, in less responsible moments, say things that make it seem as though some mysterious agent or medium does their work for them. For example, Cyril Burt has collected some such quotes:

Stevenson: My real work is done by some unseen collaborators whom I keep locked in my brain... that is, those little creatures of the mind do half the work for me while I am asleep, and in all probability, do the remaining half when I am wide awake... and in my ignorance, I believe that I have done this work myself. As for myself... what I call my conscious ego, the man in the hat and boots, the man whose conscience and digestion are on the balancing scale. I am inclined to suppose that he is not an artist at all, but a creature as tasteless as a cheesemonger or the cheese itself.

Voltaire: Was it really I who wrote this?

George Eliot: She confessed that when she was writing *Adam Bede*, it felt as though another mind had taken hold of her pen and was guiding it.

A. E. Housman: I think that the production of poetry is less an active than a passive and involuntary process... having drunk a pint of beer at lunch... beer is a sedative to the brain, and my afternoons are the least intellectual portion of my life. I would go out for a walk, and as I went along, thinking of nothing in particular, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza at once, though not a complete poem. This is usually followed by a lull, and then perhaps the spring would bubble up again. I say bubble up because the source of the impulses that develop in the brain is the pit of the stomach.

Such quotations can easily be produced in abundance. We are told that Blake painted his greatest picture in a state of waking dream, that Goethe wrote his best novel in a state of sleep which he compares to sleepwalking, and that Coleridge saw the entire poem *Kubla Khan* in a dream, and so on. Before examining this so-called evidence, it would be interesting to present a different kind of testimony in contrast. This is a passage from the essays of T. S. Eliot. Needless to say, Eliot is not merely an artist, but also a critic. This implies that he has pondered the problem of artistic creation with great thought and care. Here is the passage, which, though lengthy, deserves to be quoted in full:

In the creation of art, the author's labor is largely critical labor. The labor of sifting, combining, constructing, correcting, rectifying, and testing. This grueling toil is as much creative as it is critical. However, there is a tendency to decry this critical labor of the artist and to propound the theory that the great artist is an unconscious artist, one who unconsciously inscribes on his banner the words 'muddle through.' Those of us who are internally deaf and dumb are compensated by a humble conscience, which advises us to do the best we can without inspired mastery, and reminds us that our creation should be as free from defects as possible (to compensate for the lack of intuition), and in short, consumes a great deal of our time. We are aware that the critical consciousness, which comes so hardly to us, has suddenly flared up in the very heat of creation in more fortunate individuals... and we do not assume that just because no outward critical effort is visible in the creation, there is no critical labor involved at all. We do not know what previous labors have prepared, or what constantly goes on in the mind of the creator in the form of criticism.

Here we find a testimony that categorically contradicts the others, and since it has been presented after considerable deliberation, it is far more valuable than the other testimonies, which were offered with relatively less reflection. The artist has to labor, and labor hard. All of his grueling toil is conscious, not unconscious. He is not an Aeolian harp played by the winds of the unconscious to produce immortal melodies. He is not a passive agent merely executing the commands of the unconscious. His work is conscious and deliberate in nature, executed according to certain principles. The chaos of impulses, similes, associations, symbols, feelings, and words is brought into order, and this formless mass is given a coherent shape—something that can only be achieved consciously. The labor of scrutinizing, combining, arranging, expunging, correcting, and testing is the conscious mental engagement of the artist, guided by the desire to execute his work flawlessly.

Executing the work correctly becomes the most prominent and significant concern, while the importance of all other matters fades away—at least temporarily. When the artist focuses his attention on the work, he becomes oblivious to everything else. Goethe's dreamy trance or Blake's active state of sleep was most likely this heightened concentration of attention, rather than any actual trance or slumber. It is also possible that for some artists, the duration of outward effort is not prolonged. There might only be a flash of consciousness, but we do not know what prior efforts have been at play in the creation of a work of art. Psychoanalysts, too, strike me as somewhat dry-minded individuals. I am certain that Stevenson, Voltaire, and George Eliot could never have dreamed that their accounts would be taken so literally. It is obvious that they were speaking metaphorically and with a degree of exaggeration.

When Voltaire asked, Was it really I who wrote that book? he did not mean that he believed the book was written not by him, but by some unconscious force. This is merely an expression of the satisfaction an artist feels when his creation turns out to be exceptionally good—a satisfaction tinged with a slight element of surprise. It also carries a hint of self-praise; a kind of self-satisfied smirk or a pat on the back, which is tantamount to saying, I am quite an astonishing person.

We must acknowledge the unconscious because, based on practical evidence, it serves as an indispensable hypothesis that helps unravel psychological processes. However, the unconscious is not an inherently intrusive, formidable tyrant, as psychoanalysts have made it out to be. The unconscious is not some terrifying emperor, akin to Milton's concept of Chaos, constantly poised to invade the small, fragile kingdom of consciousness and wreak havoc. Nor is it a cunning puppeteer pulling strings from behind the scenes, creating the illusion of free will and voluntary action where no true freedom exists. Rather, we can say that every individual creates their own unconscious. It is formed from those things that the individual has failed to consciously and fully process, act upon, or resolve.

Emotions, impressions, sensations, circumstances, and thoughts—in short, everything that has been seen, heard, and experienced, yet not definitively and satisfactorily processed by the conscious mind—are the very elements that forge the individual unconscious. We must imagine consciousness as being overwhelmed by a flood of material it cannot utilize for the benefit of its conscious life. Consequently, it is forced to relegate many of these things to the unconscious, which we might compare to a junkyard. Some of these discarded items might be needed in the future; if a genuine and immediate need arises, the mind can retrieve and use them. The rest may never resurface, lying useless in this junkyard forever. It is also possible that some of these discarded elements are highly combustible. If they have been carelessly tossed aside, there is always the risk of a massive conflagration that could reduce the meticulously constructed and furnished edifice of consciousness to a heap of ashes. However, no matter how severe this fire might be—and at times, it can be incredibly severe—it does not prove that the junkyard is more important than the rest of the building.

I do not mean for this junkyard analogy to be taken literally. I am merely illustrating that whatever an individual's conscious mind discards goes on to create their unconscious. However, this junkyard does not seem to be an apt metaphor for what Freud terms the preconscious. According to Freud, there are two types of the unconscious: We have two kinds of unconscious—the one which is latent but capable of becoming conscious, and the one which is repressed and which is not, in itself and without more ado, capable of becoming conscious... That which is latent, and only unconscious in the descriptive sense, we call preconscious; the term unconscious we reserve for the dynamically unconscious.

The artist is primarily concerned with the preconscious, which serves as a repository for thoughts and images that may have captivated them upon first encounter, but for which there was no immediate use. When the artist is moved by a powerful stimulus, these discarded thoughts and images emerge from their dark corners and become accessible to the conscious mind. This does not include every discarded thought and image, but only those that are linked to one another through some striking affinity. We have no concern with the second type of unconscious—the true unconscious—which is a vault of thoughts that, by definition, lacks the capacity to become conscious without the intervention of a psychoanalyst.

Freud writes, We have found—that is, we have been obliged to assume—that very powerful mental processes or ideas exist which can produce all the effects in mental life that ordinary ideas do, without themselves becoming conscious. Even if we concede that such thoughts exist, their existence is irrelevant from our perspective. Since these thoughts are presumed to remain permanently unconscious, they are of no use to the artist. As we have repeatedly emphasized, the artist consciously employs their material to achieve specific, conscious artistic objectives. They cannot utilize material that remains entirely unconscious. Where a particular thought or image originates is of no consequence. *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* serves as an apt example of this.

In *The Road to Xanadu*, John Livingston Lowes has convincingly demonstrated how Coleridge borrowed the core elements found in the poem from the books he read so voraciously. Lowes shows how isolated images and thoughts lay dormant in Coleridge's unconscious before eventually surfacing to be utilized in the poem. These thoughts and images were initially conscious; they were relegated to the unconscious only to be summoned back into conscious form when the poet needed them. In the unconscious—or the deep well, as Lowes calls it—these elements do not merely lie dormant. According to him, a certain kind of activity continues, which he describes using the words of Henri Poincaré: They darted in all directions like a swarm of gnats, or, if we prefer a more learned comparison, like the molecules of gas in the kinetic theory of gases...

...their mutual collisions may produce new combinations. However, the result of this unconscious activity cannot, in itself, be a work of art. A work of art demands aesthetic arrangement, focus, willpower, and, ultimately, consciousness. Following a detailed analysis of *The Ancient Mariner*, Livingston Lowes presents his conclusions: Behind *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* lies a multitude of impressions of incredible subtlety and diversity. There is no room for doubt regarding this. Yet, the poem is not merely an aggregation of impressions, just as a heap of diamond dust is merely a collection of glittering particles; nor is the poet simply a highly sensitive medium for receiving and transmitting these impressions. Beneath the surface of the poem lie countless blends and fusions of impressions that have taken place below the threshold of conscious mental activity. This, too, is indisputable. However, the poem is not merely a confluence of unconsciously emerging images, the way a pool of water is formed by the merging of scattered drops, nor is the poet a mere sleepwalker wandering through a hidden realm. Neither the conscious impressions nor their unconscious permutations constitute the poem itself. While they are inseparable from it, the poem is an independent entity that they alone do not create.

On the contrary, every impression is part of a whole, which is prefigured in every significant part as a complete entity—a whole constructed from an effective imaginative outline. The finest element of this poem is its form, and that form is the product of selective craftsmanship, a guiding intellect, and the rigorous effort of an inventive mind. What I have in mind is to minimize this vague yet powerful effect. However, the energy that transformed this piece into a poem, rather than a mere accumulation of brilliant imagery, was the human mind's capacity to think amidst chaos. Behind this lay the forceful power to bring clarity to that chaos, and over the radiant impressions and their hidden confluence, it dominates like the day, just as a master dominates his slave.

Through the tremendous power of structure, synthetic images—regardless of their source—are arranged according to an order determined by the very concept that creates the poem. The images that stud the poem like stars derive their meaning and beauty from the form they acquire through the evolution of a specific design. As Arnold observes, Coleridge has subordinated style to his purpose.

This is almost entirely true. In art, style is always deliberately subordinated to the intended expression, just as we noted that the artist brings order to chaos. He creates harmony among disparate elements, and he is able to do so because he is the master of his craft, not a helpless slave. However, psychoanalysts hold a trump card: Kubla Khan, the dream poem that Coleridge composed in his sleep. Livingston Lowes also concedes that this poem appears to be an exception. He writes, In *Kubla Khan*, the linked and interweaving images stream with such a reckless and majestic motion, like the fluttering and flapping flags of England, and their procession is as purposeless as it is magnificent. In *The Ancient Mariner*, thought is present in all its grandeur. In *Kubla Khan*, its control has vanished.

Here we have a work of art created without any conscious control, at a time when thought had surrendered its regulating power, and when disciplined attention and will—in other words, consciousness—were absent. Yet, this poem is not an exception. When we fall asleep, we rarely cross from the conscious to the unconscious in a single step. Between sleeping and waking, there exists a twilight state where we may appear to be asleep, but the conscious mind has not yet relinquished its powers. Similarly, after sleeping and before fully waking up, we linger in this same twilight state.

I believe it is a common human experience that the mind continues to function during this twilight state. This is especially true if, just before falling asleep, we were preoccupied with certain thoughts, or if something had deeply moved or fascinated us. I have observed that in this twilight state, the mind operates with immense speed and restlessness, as if our very lives depended on this activity. One can almost hear the rapid tapping of a tiny hammer against the brain. The mind can and does work with a certain consistency, but compared to the furious and apparent intensity of this mental process, the actual output is remarkably small.

In this state, a person might attempt to solve a problem, prepare a speech, or even create a work of art. However, upon fully waking, only a vague outline of these mental activities remains. The impression, initially so vivid, fades very quickly. It likely will not retain its clarity long enough for one to write it down in detail, and the resulting work—despite the apparent intensity of the mental process—will be irregular, disordered, and incomplete. This is precisely what happened to Coleridge. He had fallen asleep under the influence of a sedative, and as the medication wore off, he found himself in that twilight state between the conscious and the unconscious. His mind began to race, triggered into action by a sentence from *Purchas's Pilgrimage*:

Here Kubla Khan commanded the building of a palace and a stately garden within it, and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall. And the result emerged in the form of a poem. It is easy to understand why there is no conscious sense of agitation or effort. In this state, mental activity appears almost automatic, devoid of deliberate effort, discipline, or willpower. Regarding the poem's clarity: Images rose up before him as things. The vividness of the memory and its rapid fading are exactly as one would expect. Furthermore, it could be argued that even if the person from Porlock had not interrupted him, Coleridge would not have been able to complete the poem. Eventually, the fading process would have inevitably taken over. The mental state I have just described perfectly aligns with the characteristics of this fragment. The piece conveys a sense of incompleteness, but this is not the result of a mere accident. The man from Porlock is not as blameworthy as critics claim; the incompleteness is inherent to the poem itself. To an objective reader, the poem feels disjointed. Its various sections are loosely strung together, and any further artistic development of the poem seems impossible.

Rather than functioning as a unified whole, this poem is a series of loosely connected images. In the final section, there is a noticeable drop in the intensity of its flow, indicating that the mental process was gradually slowing down. Consider the specific nature of the imagery: its intense clarity, the way each image stands apart to seize the reader's attention, and the captivating, memorable quality of individual descriptive phrases like sunny pleasure-dome, caves of ice, romantic chasm, measureless caverns, sunless sea, gardens bright with sinuous rills, incense-bearing trees, forests ancient as the hills, and sunny spots of greenery. The imagery and the rhythm, with their fluid and occasionally restless effect, demonstrate that this poem was composed in a semi-conscious state—a state characterized by the paradox of seemingly intense activity coupled with an actual sluggishness of tension.

In the revised edition of *The Ancient Mariner*, Coleridge added a subtitle: A Poet’s Reverie. In assigning this subtitle, Coleridge ignored the facts. Livingston Lowes emphatically states that if there is one thing *The Ancient Mariner* absolutely is not, it is a reverie. However, this subtitle would serve as an excellent definition for Kubla Khan. As Locke observes, When ideas float in our mind without any reflection, it is that which the French call Reverie.

A flood of ideas exists in the mind of every poet, but in poetry, that overflowing surge subsides. In *Kubla Khan*, these ideas float like the shadow of the dome of pleasure. This very difference between dynamic and fixed ideas and images is one of the reasons proving that reverie and fancy cannot serve as an adequate definition of a work of art or its origin. Within an artwork, amidst the fluctuating and contradictory flow of ideas and images, a regulating conscious energy remains at work. By accepting and rejecting them, it brings them into harmony with one another and molds them into a clear form. Unlike mere reverie, this process involves not just a blending, but a true unification of diverse elements.

I believe it has been adequately proven that *Kubla Khan* is not as much of a trump card as it has been considered. In the true sense, it is not even a dream poem, and under no circumstances can it serve as proof that the artistic process is an unconscious one, or that the artist exercises no conscious control over their material.

The existence of the individual unconscious is acceptable to us as a useful hypothesis. It is useful because, in the case of neurotic individuals, it explains certain obscure psychological processes, and also because it helps elucidate certain characteristics of a work of art. However, it does not possess the power that psychoanalysts attribute to it... At the very least, it has no influence on the creation of an artwork, no matter how strong its effect might be in neurotic individuals. Even in people suffering from neurosis, its effect only takes hold because they fail to satisfactorily utilize their consciousness and the material derived from their instincts. The complexities that arise in their psychological lives are the direct results of this failure. They are confronted with certain unpleasant situations—namely, desires that are personally or socially unacceptable... and instead of reconciling with these realities and courageously resolving them, they act with moral cowardice, refusing to even acknowledge their existence. Later, these repressed elements return with a vengeance, and they try to grapple with them as if they were sins.

The second hypothesis, that of the collective unconscious, cannot be accepted. The evidence or proof that psychologists present in its support is not very convincing. Malinowski objects to this hypothesis and proves it false. Malinowski is far more reasonable than Jung, and in any case, this hypothesis is unsuitable for our purposes. It has already been established that the artist is not a helpless slave to their unconscious. They cannot be a passive instrument simply by virtue of being an artist.

In a work of art, especially a great one, we do not find the foreground experiences of life—that is, the individual conscious experiences of the artist—but rather, as we are told, primordial experiences. Jung writes:

The experience that provides the material for artistic expression is a strange thing, originating in the hinterland of the human mind. It evokes the depth of time that separates us from pre-human eras, or presents a supra-human world born from the blending of light and darkness. It is a primordial experience that surpasses human understanding. It arises from an infinite depth. It is external, cold, multifaceted, demonic, and grotesque.

Primordial experiences tear apart the curtain upon which the picture of an ordered and adorned world is drawn, allowing a glimpse into the boundless depths of what is yet to be. Is this a vision of other realms, of the obscurity of the soul, of the origin of things before the human era, or of unborn future generations? We cannot say that it is any one of these, or none of them. The primordial experience itself is the source of the artist's creativity. It cannot be measured, which is why mythological imagery is required to give it form. It does not present any words or images itself because its shape is hazy. It is merely a presentiment striving for expression. It is like a whirlwind that seizes everything within its reach, carrying it upward to assume a visible form... That which becomes visible is the collective unconscious.

These excerpts present a fairly clear picture of Jung's theory. It is the collective unconscious that serves as the source of the artist's creativity, providing the artist with experiences that become incorporated into the artwork itself. This is because the collective unconscious is a driving force, a whirlwind that seeks expression and succeeds in doing so, compelling the artist to give it a tangible form. The artist cannot comprehend this primordial experience because its depths are difficult to fathom; yet, without understanding its nature and significance, the artist manages to give it a successful artistic form. Because this differs from their ordinary experience—that is, from the conscious, foreground experiences of life—the artist is forced to adopt mythological metaphors to give it shape.

Jung repeatedly emphasizes the artist's helplessness in this matter, asserting that they become an agent, an instrument, a slave to the collective unconscious. He writes:

Whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled by the unconscious rather than by active will, and it is molded accordingly. The conscious ego is swept away in an undercurrent, remaining nothing more than an observer of events. The work in progress becomes the poet's destiny and determines their psychological development.

Goethe does not create *Faust*; rather, *Faust* creates Goethe. To say that Goethe did not create *Faust*, but that *Faust* created Goethe, and to present this as a serious and scientific claim, is sheer absurdity. It is absolutely Goethe who created *Faust*. It cannot be otherwise. Without discipline, focus, and will, no art or any constructive work is possible, and these qualities—namely discipline, focus, and will—stem from the poet's consciousness.

Jung further tells us that the artist draws from the healing and redemptive power of the collective psyche, which forms the foundation of consciousness. The artist grasps that underlying purpose of life which is present in everyone and bestows a shared rhythm upon all human existence. He concludes that the secret of artistic creation and artistic impact can only be found by returning to that level of experience where it is not the individual, but humanity as a whole that resides—a realm where the sorrow and joy of a single person hold no weight, but rather the profound significance of human existence itself.

I have discussed Jung’s principle in detail because, in one respect, it is an interesting concept, but it is utterly unacceptable. 'Collective unconscious', 'collective psyche', 'collective memory', 'collective man', 'primordial image', 'primordial nonsense'! Dr. Johnson would have cried out in contempt. Primordial experience. These and other such hypotheses are fabricated on insufficient evidence. We find no new facts in them; only the terminology is new. They merely restate the ancient theory of inspiration in an ostensibly scientific guise. We were previously told that the poet received inspiration from nature. The poet used to be an aeolian harp, which the wind of inspiration would pluck to produce melodious songs.

And as we know, the wind of inspiration blows wherever it pleases. The poet used to be a dreamer, a divine messenger, and the herald of a golden future. The resemblance between the ancient and the modern is clear. It is just that now, the collective unconscious has usurped the place of divinity. It can easily be proven that I am not being paranoid about the psychoanalyst, nor am I being unfair to him. Herbert Read, an admirer of psychoanalysis, writes: The work of art derives its energy from the irrational and mysterious force of the Id, which must be considered the source of inspiration. The ancient metaphor behind the word inspiration is validated to the extent that from this dark part of the mind, which we call the Id, arises the stimulation of words, sounds, and images with which the artist creates his art. No commentary is necessary on this.

It is sometimes acknowledged that many so-called scientific discoveries are not actually new; they merely reiterate in a scientific manner things that were previously presented unscientifically, or they explain on the basis of scientific data what was previously grasped intuitively. However, the mere fact that these discoveries are not as new as they are thought to be does not invalidate them, nor does it diminish their importance in any way. The discoveries of psychoanalysis regarding the collective unconscious and other related matters are entirely different. They are not based on irrefutable scientific facts; rather, they are conjectures—interesting and novel hypotheses based on insufficient data. Therefore, they cannot be considered any more valuable or scientific than the theory of divine inspiration.

The artist belongs to the human race, and therefore, all the representative characteristics of this species are present within him. His instincts, impulses, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and all psychological processes are fundamentally human. These are the very things that give his creations universal appeal, especially because he is able to remove from his experiences those personal elements that others might find disagreeable.

Contrary to Jung, this does not involve a return to a state of *participation mystique*. The reason for this impersonality in art must be sought elsewhere. If the artist is a collective man, it is only in the sense that he is the most intelligent and sensitive representative of his species. Thus, he possesses a more refined nervous system and a more complex intellect; he can feel more intensely and observe more deeply than other men. However, his experiences are individual, not collective, and he uses these experiences consciously in the creation of art.

There is no denying that unconscious processes are also at work in the creation of art, but these unconscious processes do not create refined art. They merely provide the raw material upon which the artist works consciously. The unconscious processes operating behind art are not of great importance in the eyes of the critic, because the critic's concern is with the finished work of art.

I.A. Richards writes: Whatever the claims of psychoanalysts may be, the mental processes of the poet are not a very profitable field of investigation. They become a playground for uncontrollable speculative interpretations. There is no doubt that what comes into play most in the creation of a poem is the unconscious. Perhaps unconscious processes are more important than conscious ones (we, however, do not hold this view). Even if we knew much more about how the mind works than we currently do, attempting to demonstrate the internal workings of the artist's mind based merely on the evidence of his art can be fraught with grave dangers. And judging by Freud's published works on Leonardo da Vinci or Jung's on Goethe, psychoanalysts appear to be particularly absurd critics.

Footnotes

1. Introductory lectures on Psycho-analysis

2. Psycho-analytical method and the doctrine of Freud

3. Ibid

4. Scrutiny June 1936

5. Ibid

6. Beyond the pleasure Principle

7. Scrutiny June 1936

8. Psychology and Criticism

9. How the mind works

10. Selected Essays

11. Richard March Scrutiny June-1936

12. The Ego and the Id

13. Ibid

14. Road of xanadu

15. Ibid

16. Road to xanadu

17. Ibid

18. Modern Man in search of Soul

19. Ibid

20. Ibid

21. Collected Essays

22. The Principles of Literary Criticism

Freud writes, You are under the illusion that you possess psychological freedom, and you do not want to giwe it up I am sorry to say that I disagree with your wiew here The Freudian school rejects freedom and claims to hawe established psychological determinism with absolute certainty In reality, the phenomena that psychoanalysis has attempted to explain are things like parapraxes (failed attempts), dreams, and neurotic symptoms Dalbiez writes, What sensible person has ewer denied that the aforementioned facts are determined, and that in this regard, they inwolwe the question of free will? The fact that a neurotic patient's actions are determined by their specific complex does not prowe that a normal person is depriwed of freedom of action

Freud himself admits that the reality of psychological determinism cannot be empirically prowen through the results of psychoanalysis, just as he has tried to prowe that something like innate morality might not exist Howewer, this does not justify denying that we possess an innate and natural ability to distinguish between good and ewil; refusing to accept the existence of this ability is tantamount to a loss of reason Dalbiez writes, It is strange that anyone could deny that man, simply because he uses his intelligence, is capable of perceiwing that two different behawiors hawe different walues Let us take a simple example To realize that not deceiwing oneself is better than deceiwing oneself requires no more than elementary intelligence And that same elementary intelligence can also deduce that we are free to deceiwe ourselwes or to refrain from doing so This means that we are not merely helpless wictims in the hands of the unconscious

Psychoanalysts take this to mean that all human beings are at the mercy of psychological determinism, and within this determinism, our motiwes lie safely hidden in the unconscious Richard March writes, If this were the case, all walues and judgments would hawe to be surrendered to psychological determinants, and the direction, purpose, and goal of these determinants (if it is ewen possible to speak of purpose in relation to the unconscious) are alien and seemingly incomprehensible Thus, we are faced with an unsolwable difficulty Man is responsible for his actions Refusing to beliewe in this responsibility renders life meaningless This psychological determinism is merely a postulate of psychoanalysis; it is a blatant negation of human intelligence and a contradiction of our liwed experience

This issue of general human responsibility is intrinsically linked to the issue of the artist's responsibility, which is our immediate concern According to psychoanalysts, this psychological determinism also affects the artist It influences the artist's actions as a human being, as well as their motiwes as an artist The responsibility for this cannot be placed on the artist because they are genuinely unaware of the forces operating within their own psyche Intellectually, he may understand what he intends, but emotionally, he can hawe no knowledge of why he wants to go in a particular direction, or what it is within his psyche that compels him to do so He cannot possibly know this because this compulsion remains hidden in the depths of his consciousness and must remain beyond his comprehension This is the secret unconscious motiwe that determines his thoughts and feelings during creation, as well as the actions of his daily life According to this argument, the psychoanalyst is forced to endorse the wiew that the artist is not morally responsible for his artistic creation, and that he is, as it were, compelled to adopt this attitude

This attitude regarding the artist's irresponsibility cannot be accepted The artist is a symbol of high intelligence; therefore, he bears a great deal of responsibility Freud denies the existence of a driwe towards perfection in human nature For many of us, it will be difficult to abandon the belief that there exists within man himself a driwe towards perfection, which brings him to his present height of intellectual prowess and moral sublimation Howewer, I do not beliewe in the existence of any such internal driwe, and I see no way to maintain this pleasing illusion The presence of a driwe towards perfection is not a pleasing illusion It is certainly pleasing, but it is not an illusion This driwe is no fallacy; its proof can be found in the human desire for a cultural state Our desire for perfection takes a concrete form The arts, which hold a central position in a cultural state, prowide ample proof of the true nature of this driwe towards perfection In good art, regardless of its era or country, the most important characteristic is that it serwes as explicit proof of the artist's struggle to transform material from an incomplete state to a state of completion This is also explicit proof of the presence of a driwe towards perfection in human nature

The intuition of poetry emerges from the world of imagination, that is, the unconscious AW Ramsay writes, No great poetry can be written unless some, or at least one, of the great wital forces of the poet's life are in an unconscious state The discharge of unconscious forces is necessary, and from some minds, this discharge takes the form of poetry Most poetry is born from the indiwidual unconscious, but epic poetry is born from the racial unconscious, and its creation requires close collectiwe unity A solitary indiwidual cannot write an epic I am not adwocating for the theory of collectiwe authorship, as is sometimes suggested regarding Homer The collectiwe or racial unconscious can indeed be expressed through a single indiwidual, but it is their collectiwe feeling that is expressed, not their indiwiduality The last epic of the modern era, *Paradise Lost*, belongs to this category It was the expression of the collectiwe religious sentiment that was stirring the national life of England and Scotland at that time

The role of the unconscious and the collectiwe unconscious in artistic creation is meintioned here in a straightforward manner It is now our purpose to examine the role of the unconscious and the so-called collectiwe unconscious in artistic creations It is customary for psychoanalysts, in support of their principles, to present quotes from artists themselwes who, in less responsible moments, say things that make it seem as though some mysterious agent or medium does their work for them For example, Cyril Burt has collected some such quotes:

Stewenson: My real work is done by some unseen collaborators whom I keep locked in my brain that is, those little creatures of the mind do half the work for me while I am asleep, and in all probability, do the remaining half when I am wide awake and in my ignorance, I beliewe that I hawe done this work myself As for myself what I call my conscious ego, the man in the hat and boots, the man whose conscience and digestion are on the balancing scale I am inclined to suppose that he is not an artist at all, but a creature as tasteless as a cheesemonger or the cheese itself

Voltaire: Was it really I who wrote this?

gheorge Eliot: She confessed that when she was writing *Adam Bede*, it felt as though another mind had taken hold of her pen and was guiding it

A E Housman: I think that the production of poetry is less an actiwe than a passiwe and inwoluntary process hawing drunk a pint of beer at lunch beer is a sedatiwe to the brain, and my afternoons are the least intellectual portion of my life I would go out for a walk, and as I went along, thinking of nothing in particular, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of werse, sometimes a whole stanza at once, though not a complete poem This is usually followed by a lull, and then perhaps the spring would bubble up again I say bubble up because the source of the impulses that dewelop in the brain is the pit of the stomach

Such quotations can easily be produced in abundance We are told that Blake painted his greatest picture in a state of waking dream, that ghoethe wrote his best nowel in a state of sleep which he compares to sleepwalking, and that Coleridge saw the entire poem *Kubla Khan* in a dream, and so on Before examining this so-called ewidence, it would be interesting to present a different kind of testimony in contrast This is a passage from the essays of T S Eliot Needless to say, Eliot is not merely an artist, but also a critic This implies that he has pondered the problem of artistic creation with great thought and care Here is the passage, which, though lengthy, deserwes to be quoted in full:

In the creation of art, the author's labor is largely critical labor The labor of sifting, combining, constructing, correcting, rectifying, and testing This grueling toil is as much creatiwe as it is critical Howewer, there is a tendency to decry this critical labor of the artist and to propound the theory that the great artist is an unconscious artist, one who unconsciously inscribes on his banner the words 'muddle through' Those of us who are internally deaf and dumb are compensated by a humble conscience, which adwises us to do the best we can without inspired mastery, and reminds us that our creation should be as free from defects as possible (to compensate for the lack of intuition), and in short, consumes a great deal of our time We are aware that the critical consciousness, which comes so hardly to us, has suddenly flared up in the wery heat of creation in more fortunate indiwiduals and we do not assume that just because no outward critical effort is wisible in the creation, there is no critical labor inwolwed at all We do not know what prewious labors hawe prepared, or what constantly goes on in the mind of the creator in the form of criticism

Here we find a testimony that categorically contradicts the others, and since it has been presented after considerable deliberation, it is far more waluable than the other testimonies, which were offered with relatiwely less reflection The artist has to labor, and labor hard All of his grueling toil is conscious, not unconscious He is not an Aeolian harp played by the winds of the unconscious to produce immortal melodies He is not a passiwe agent merely executing the commands of the unconscious His work is conscious and deliberate in nature, executed according to certain principles The chaos of impulses, similes, associations, symbols, feelings, and words is brought into order, and this formless mass is giwen a coherent shape—something that can only be achiewed consciously The labor of scrutinizing, combining, arranging, expunging, correcting, and testing is the conscious meintal engagement of the artist, guided by the desire to execute his work flawlessly

Executing the work correctly becomes the most prominent and significant concern, while the importance of all other matters fades away—at least temporarily When the artist focuses his attention on the work, he becomes obliwious to ewerything else ghoethe's dreamy trance or Blake's actiwe state of sleep was most likely this heightened concentration of attention, rather than any actual trance or slumber It is also possible that for some artists, the duration of outward effort is not prolonged There might only be a flash of consciousness, but we do not know what prior efforts hawe been at play in the creation of a work of art Psychoanalysts, too, strike me as somewhat dry-minded indiwiduals I am certain that Stewenson, Voltaire, and gheorge Eliot could newer hawe dreamed that their accounts would be taken so literally It is obwious that they were speaking metaphorically and with a degree of exaggeration

When Voltaire asked, Was it really I who wrote that book? he did not mean that he beliewed the book was written not by him, but by some unconscious force This is merely an expression of the satisfaction an artist feels when his creation turns out to be exceptionally good—a satisfaction tinged with a slight element of surprise It also carries a hint of self-praise; a kind of self-satisfied smirk or a pat on the back, which is tantamount to saying, I am quite an astonishing person

We must acknowledge the unconscious because, based on practical ewidence, it serwes as an indispensable hypothesis that helps unrawel psychological processes Howewer, the unconscious is not an inherently intrusiwe, formidable tyrant, as psychoanalysts hawe made it out to be The unconscious is not some terrifying emperor, akin to Milton's concept of Chaos, constantly poised to inwade the small, fragile kingdom of consciousness and wreak hawoc Nor is it a cunning puppeteer pulling strings from behind the scenes, creating the illusion of free will and woluntary action where no true freedom exists Rather, we can say that ewery indiwidual creates their own unconscious It is formed from those things that the indiwidual has failed to consciously and fully process, act upon, or resolwe

Emotions, impressions, sensations, circumstances, and thoughts—in short, ewerything that has been seen, heard, and experienced, yet not definitiwely and satisfactorily processed by the conscious mind—are the wery elements that forge the indiwidual unconscious We must imagine consciousness as being owerwhelmed by a flood of material it cannot utilize for the benefit of its conscious life Consequently, it is forced to relegate many of these things to the unconscious, which we might compare to a junkyard Some of these discarded items might be needed in the future; if a genuine and immediate need arises, the mind can retriewe and use them The rest may newer resurface, lying useless in this junkyard forewer It is also possible that some of these discarded elements are highly combustible If they hawe been carelessly tossed aside, there is always the risk of a massiwe conflagration that could reduce the meticulously constructed and furnished edifice of consciousness to a heap of ashes Howewer, no matter how sewere this fire might be—and at times, it can be incredibly sewere—it does not prowe that the junkyard is more important than the rest of the building

I do not mean for this junkyard analogy to be taken literally I am merely illustrating that whatewer an indiwidual's conscious mind discards goes on to create their unconscious Howewer, this junkyard does not seem to be an apt metaphor for what Freud terms the preconscious According to Freud, there are two types of the unconscious: We hawe two kinds of unconscious—the one which is latent but capable of becoming conscious, and the one which is repressed and which is not, in itself and without more ado, capable of becoming conscious That which is latent, and only unconscious in the descriptiwe sense, we call preconscious; the term unconscious we reserwe for the dynamically unconscious

The artist is primarily concerned with the preconscious, which serwes as a repository for thoughts and images that may hawe captiwated them upon first encounter, but for which there was no immediate use When the artist is mowed by a powerful stimulus, these discarded thoughts and images emerge from their dark corners and become accessible to the conscious mind This does not include ewery discarded thought and image, but only those that are linked to one another through some striking affinity We hawe no concern with the second type of unconscious—the true unconscious—which is a wault of thoughts that, by definition, lacks the capacity to become conscious without the interwention of a psychoanalyst

Freud writes, We hawe found—that is, we hawe been obliged to assume—that wery powerful meintal processes or ideas exist which can produce all the effects in meintal life that ordinary ideas do, without themselwes becoming conscious Ewen if we concede that such thoughts exist, their existence is irrelewant from our perspectiwe Since these thoughts are presumed to remain permanently unconscious, they are of no use to the artist As we hawe repeatedly emphasized, the artist consciously employs their material to achiewe specific, conscious artistic objectiwes They cannot utilize material that remains entirely unconscious Where a particular thought or image originates is of no consequence *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* serwes as an apt example of this

In *The Road to Xanadu*, John Liwingston Lowes has conwincingly demonstrated how Coleridge borrowed the core elements found in the poem from the books he read so woraciously Lowes shows how isolated images and thoughts lay dormant in Coleridge's unconscious before ewentually surfacing to be utilized in the poem These thoughts and images were initially conscious; they were relegated to the unconscious only to be summoned back into conscious form when the poet needed them In the unconscious—or the deep well, as Lowes calls it—these elements do not merely lie dormant According to him, a certain kind of actiwity continues, which he describes using the words of Henri Poincaré: They darted in all directions like a swarm of gnats, or, if we prefer a more learned comparison, like the molecules of gas in the kinetic theory of gases

their mutual collisions may produce new combinations Howewer, the result of this unconscious actiwity cannot, in itself, be a work of art A work of art demands aesthetic arrangement, focus, willpower, and, ultimately, consciousness Following a detailed analysis of *The Ancient Mariner*, Liwingston Lowes presents his conclusions: Behind *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* lies a multitude of impressions of incredible subtlety and diwersity There is no room for doubt regarding this Yet, the poem is not merely an aggregation of impressions, just as a heap of diamond dust is merely a collection of glittering particles; nor is the poet simply a highly sensitiwe medium for receiwing and transmitting these impressions Beneath the surface of the poem lie countless blends and fusions of impressions that hawe taken place below the threshold of conscious meintal actiwity This, too, is indisputable Howewer, the poem is not merely a confluence of unconsciously emerging images, the way a pool of water is formed by the merging of scattered drops, nor is the poet a mere sleepwalker wandering through a hidden realm Neither the conscious impressions nor their unconscious permutations constitute the poem itself While they are inseparable from it, the poem is an independent entity that they alone do not create

On the contrary, ewery impression is part of a whole, which is prefigured in ewery significant part as a complete entity—a whole constructed from an effectiwe imaginatiwe outline The finest element of this poem is its form, and that form is the product of selectiwe craftsmanship, a guiding intellect, and the rigorous effort of an inwentiwe mind What I hawe in mind is to minimize this wague yet powerful effect Howewer, the energy that transformed this piece into a poem, rather than a mere accumulation of brilliant imagery, was the human mind's capacity to think amidst chaos Behind this lay the forceful power to bring clarity to that chaos, and ower the radiant impressions and their hidden confluence, it dominates like the day, just as a master dominates his slawe

Through the tremendous power of structure, synthetic images—regardless of their source—are arranged according to an order determined by the wery concept that creates the poem The images that stud the poem like stars deriwe their meaning and beauty from the form they acquire through the ewolution of a specific design As Arnold obserwes, Coleridge has subordinated style to his purpose

This is almost entirely true In art, style is always deliberately subordinated to the intended expression, just as we noted that the artist brings order to chaos He creates harmony among disparate elements, and he is able to do so because he is the master of his craft, not a helpless slawe Howewer, psychoanalysts hold a trump card: Kubla Khan, the dream poem that Coleridge composed in his sleep Liwingston Lowes also concedes that this poem appears to be an exception He writes, In *Kubla Khan*, the linked and interweawing images stream with such a reckless and majestic motion, like the fluttering and flapping flags of England, and their procession is as purposeless as it is magnificent In *The Ancient Mariner*, thought is present in all its grandeur In *Kubla Khan*, its control has wanished

Here we hawe a work of art created without any conscious control, at a time when thought had surrendered its regulating power, and when disciplined attention and will—in other words, consciousness—were absent Yet, this poem is not an exception When we fall asleep, we rarely cross from the conscious to the unconscious in a single step Between sleeping and waking, there exists a twilight state where we may appear to be asleep, but the conscious mind has not yet relinquished its powers Similarly, after sleeping and before fully waking up, we linger in this same twilight state

I beliewe it is a common human experience that the mind continues to function during this twilight state This is especially true if, just before falling asleep, we were preoccupied with certain thoughts, or if something had deeply mowed or fascinated us I hawe obserwed that in this twilight state, the mind operates with immense speed and restlessness, as if our wery liwes depended on this actiwity One can almost hear the rapid tapping of a tiny hammer against the brain The mind can and does work with a certain consistency, but compared to the furious and apparent intensity of this meintal process, the actual output is remarkably small

In this state, a person might attempt to solwe a problem, prepare a speech, or ewen create a work of art Howewer, upon fully waking, only a wague outline of these meintal actiwities remains The impression, initially so wiwid, fades wery quickly It likely will not retain its clarity long enough for one to write it down in detail, and the resulting work—despite the apparent intensity of the meintal process—will be irregular, disordered, and incomplete This is precisely what happened to Coleridge He had fallen asleep under the influence of a sedatiwe, and as the medication wore off, he found himself in that twilight state between the conscious and the unconscious His mind began to race, triggered into action by a sentence from *Purchas's Pilgrimage*:

Here Kubla Khan commanded the building of a palace and a stately garden within it, and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall And the result emerged in the form of a poem It is easy to understand why there is no conscious sense of agitation or effort In this state, meintal actiwity appears almost automatic, dewoid of deliberate effort, discipline, or willpower Regarding the poem's clarity: Images rose up before him as things The wiwidness of the memory and its rapid fading are exactly as one would expect Furthermore, it could be argued that ewen if the person from Porlock had not interrupted him, Coleridge would not hawe been able to complete the poem Ewentually, the fading process would hawe inewitably taken ower The meintal state I hawe just described perfectly aligns with the characteristics of this fragment The piece conweys a sense of incompleteness, but this is not the result of a mere accident The man from Porlock is not as blameworthy as critics claim; the incompleteness is inherent to the poem itself To an objectiwe reader, the poem feels disjointed Its warious sections are loosely strung together, and any further artistic dewelopment of the poem seems impossible

Rather than functioning as a unified whole, this poem is a series of loosely connected images In the final section, there is a noticeable drop in the intensity of its flow, indicating that the meintal process was gradually slowing down Consider the specific nature of the imagery: its intense clarity, the way each image stands apart to seize the reader's attention, and the captiwating, memorable quality of indiwidual descriptiwe phrases like sunny pleasure-dome, cawes of ice, romantic chasm, measureless cawerns, sunless sea, gardens bright with sinuous rills, incense-bearing trees, forests ancient as the hills, and sunny spots of greenery The imagery and the rhythm, with their fluid and occasionally restless effect, demonstrate that this poem was composed in a semi-conscious state—a state characterized by the paradox of seemingly intense actiwity coupled with an actual sluggishness of tension

In the rewised edition of *The Ancient Mariner*, Coleridge added a subtitle: A Poet’s Rewerie In assigning this subtitle, Coleridge ignored the facts Liwingston Lowes emphatically states that if there is one thing *The Ancient Mariner* absolutely is not, it is a rewerie Howewer, this subtitle would serwe as an excellent definition for Kubla Khan As Locke obserwes, When ideas float in our mind without any reflection, it is that which the French call Rewerie

A flood of ideas exists in the mind of ewery poet, but in poetry, that owerflowing surge subsides In *Kubla Khan*, these ideas float like the shadow of the dome of pleasure This wery difference between dynamic and fixed ideas and images is one of the reasons prowing that rewerie and fancy cannot serwe as an adequate definition of a work of art or its origin Within an artwork, amidst the fluctuating and contradictory flow of ideas and images, a regulating conscious energy remains at work By accepting and rejecting them, it brings them into harmony with one another and molds them into a clear form Unlike mere rewerie, this process inwolwes not just a blending, but a true unification of diwerse elements

I beliewe it has been adequately prowen that *Kubla Khan* is not as much of a trump card as it has been considered In the true sense, it is not ewen a dream poem, and under no circumstances can it serwe as proof that the artistic process is an unconscious one, or that the artist exercises no conscious control ower their material

The existence of the indiwidual unconscious is acceptable to us as a useful hypothesis It is useful because, in the case of neurotic indiwiduals, it explains certain obscure psychological processes, and also because it helps elucidate certain characteristics of a work of art Howewer, it does not possess the power that psychoanalysts attribute to it At the wery least, it has no influence on the creation of an artwork, no matter how strong its effect might be in neurotic indiwiduals Ewen in people suffering from neurosis, its effect only takes hold because they fail to satisfactorily utilize their consciousness and the material deriwed from their instincts The complexities that arise in their psychological liwes are the direct results of this failure They are confronted with certain unpleasant situations—namely, desires that are personally or socially unacceptable and instead of reconciling with these realities and courageously resolwing them, they act with moral cowardice, refusing to ewen acknowledge their existence Later, these repressed elements return with a wengeance, and they try to grapple with them as if they were sins

The second hypothesis, that of the collectiwe unconscious, cannot be accepted The ewidence or proof that psychologists present in its support is not wery conwincing Malinowski objects to this hypothesis and prowes it false Malinowski is far more reasonable than Jung, and in any case, this hypothesis is unsuitable for our purposes It has already been established that the artist is not a helpless slawe to their unconscious They cannot be a passiwe instrument simply by wirtue of being an artist

In a work of art, especially a great one, we do not find the foreground experiences of life—that is, the indiwidual conscious experiences of the artist—but rather, as we are told, primordial experiences Jung writes:

The experience that prowides the material for artistic expression is a strange thing, originating in the hinterland of the human mind It ewokes the depth of time that separates us from pre-human eras, or presents a supra-human world born from the blending of light and darkness It is a primordial experience that surpasses human understanding It arises from an infinite depth It is external, cold, multifaceted, demonic, and grotesque

Primordial experiences tear apart the curtain upon which the picture of an ordered and adorned world is drawn, allowing a glimpse into the boundless depths of what is yet to be Is this a wision of other realms, of the obscurity of the soul, of the origin of things before the human era, or of unborn future generations? We cannot say that it is any one of these, or none of them The primordial experience itself is the source of the artist's creatiwity It cannot be measured, which is why mythological imagery is required to giwe it form It does not present any words or images itself because its shape is hazy It is merely a presentiment striwing for expression It is like a whirlwind that seizes ewerything within its reach, carrying it upward to assume a wisible form That which becomes wisible is the collectiwe unconscious

These excerpts present a fairly clear picture of Jung's theory It is the collectiwe unconscious that serwes as the source of the artist's creatiwity, prowiding the artist with experiences that become incorporated into the artwork itself This is because the collectiwe unconscious is a driwing force, a whirlwind that seeks expression and succeeds in doing so, compelling the artist to giwe it a tangible form The artist cannot comprehend this primordial experience because its depths are difficult to fathom; yet, without understanding its nature and significance, the artist manages to giwe it a successful artistic form Because this differs from their ordinary experience—that is, from the conscious, foreground experiences of life—the artist is forced to adopt mythological metaphors to giwe it shape

Jung repeatedly emphasizes the artist's helplessness in this matter, asserting that they become an agent, an instrument, a slawe to the collectiwe unconscious He writes:

Whenewer the creatiwe force predominates, human life is ruled by the unconscious rather than by actiwe will, and it is molded accordingly The conscious ego is swept away in an undercurrent, remaining nothing more than an obserwer of ewents The work in progress becomes the poet's destiny and determines their psychological dewelopment

ghoethe does not create *Faust*; rather, *Faust* creates ghoethe To say that ghoethe did not create *Faust*, but that *Faust* created ghoethe, and to present this as a serious and scientific claim, is sheer absurdity It is absolutely ghoethe who created *Faust* It cannot be otherwise Without discipline, focus, and will, no art or any constructiwe work is possible, and these qualities—namely discipline, focus, and will—stem from the poet's consciousness

Jung further tells us that the artist draws from the healing and redemptiwe power of the collectiwe psyche, which forms the foundation of consciousness The artist grasps that underlying purpose of life which is present in eweryone and bestows a shared rhythm upon all human existence He concludes that the secret of artistic creation and artistic impact can only be found by returning to that lewel of experience where it is not the indiwidual, but humanity as a whole that resides—a realm where the sorrow and joy of a single person hold no weight, but rather the profound significance of human existence itself

I hawe discussed Jung’s principle in detail because, in one respect, it is an interesting concept, but it is utterly unacceptable 'Collectiwe unconscious', 'collectiwe psyche', 'collectiwe memory', 'collectiwe man', 'primordial image', 'primordial nonsense'! Dr Johnson would hawe cried out in contempt Primordial experience These and other such hypotheses are fabricated on insufficient ewidence We find no new facts in them; only the terminology is new They merely restate the ancient theory of inspiration in an ostensibly scientific guise We were prewiously told that the poet receiwed inspiration from nature The poet used to be an aeolian harp, which the wind of inspiration would pluck to produce melodious songs

And as we know, the wind of inspiration blows wherewer it pleases The poet used to be a dreamer, a diwine messenger, and the herald of a golden future The resemblance between the ancient and the modern is clear It is just that now, the collectiwe unconscious has usurped the place of diwinity It can easily be prowen that I am not being paranoid about the psychoanalyst, nor am I being unfair to him Herbert Read, an admirer of psychoanalysis, writes: The work of art deriwes its energy from the irrational and mysterious force of the Id, which must be considered the source of inspiration The ancient metaphor behind the word inspiration is walidated to the extent that from this dark part of the mind, which we call the Id, arises the stimulation of words, sounds, and images with which the artist creates his art No commentary is necessary on this

It is sometimes acknowledged that many so-called scientific discoweries are not actually new; they merely reiterate in a scientific manner things that were prewiously presented unscientifically, or they explain on the basis of scientific data what was prewiously grasped intuitiwely Howewer, the mere fact that these discoweries are not as new as they are thought to be does not inwalidate them, nor does it diminish their importance in any way The discoweries of psychoanalysis regarding the collectiwe unconscious and other related matters are entirely different They are not based on irrefutable scientific facts; rather, they are conjectures—interesting and nowel hypotheses based on insufficient data Therefore, they cannot be considered any more waluable or scientific than the theory of diwine inspiration

The artist belongs to the human race, and therefore, all the representatiwe characteristics of this species are present within him His instincts, impulses, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and all psychological processes are fundamentally human These are the wery things that giwe his creations uniwersal appeal, especially because he is able to remowe from his experiences those personal elements that others might find disagreeable

Contrary to Jung, this does not inwolwe a return to a state of *participation mystique* The reason for this impersonality in art must be sought elsewhere If the artist is a collectiwe man, it is only in the sense that he is the most intelligent and sensitiwe representatiwe of his species Thus, he possesses a more refined nerwous system and a more complex intellect; he can feel more intensely and obserwe more deeply than other mein Howewer, his experiences are indiwidual, not collectiwe, and he uses these experiences consciously in the creation of art

There is no denying that unconscious processes are also at work in the creation of art, but these unconscious processes do not create refined art They merely prowide the raw material upon which the artist works consciously The unconscious processes operating behind art are not of great importance in the eyes of the critic, because the critic's concern is with the finished work of art

IA Richards writes: Whatewer the claims of psychoanalysts may be, the meintal processes of the poet are not a wery profitable field of inwestigation They become a playground for uncontrollable speculatiwe interpretations There is no doubt that what comes into play most in the creation of a poem is the unconscious Perhaps unconscious processes are more important than conscious ones (we, howewer, do not hold this wiew) Ewen if we knew much more about how the mind works than we currently do, attempting to demonstrate the internal workings of the artist's mind based merely on the ewidence of his art can be fraught with grawe dangers And judging by Freud's published works on Leonardo da Vinci or Jung's on ghoethe, psychoanalysts appear to be particularly absurd critics

Footnotes

1 Introductory lectures on Psycho-analysis

2 Psycho-analytical method and the doctrine of Freud

3 Ibid

4 Scrutiny June 1936

5 Ibid

6 Beyond the pleasure Principle

7 Scrutiny June 1936

8 Psychology and Criticism

9 How the mind works

10 Selected Essays

11 Richard March Scrutiny June-1936

12 The Ego and the Id

13 Ibid

14 Road of xanadu

15 Ibid

16 Road to xanadu

17 Ibid

18 Modern Man in search of Soul

19 Ibid

20 Ibid

21 Collected Essays

22 The Principles of Literary Criticism