Where does creativity come from? Why do ideas and inspiration feel as if they come from “outside,” from an external source that’s separate from us but able to whisper directly into the mind? Why have so many writers throughout history — and also composers, painters, philosophers, mystics, and scientists — spoken of being guided, accompanied, and even haunted by a force or presence that not only serves as the deep source of their creative work, but exerts a kind of profound and inexorable gravitational pull on the shape of their lives?

These are all questions addressed by A Course in Demonic Creativity: A Writer’s Guide to the Inner Genius. The book’s starting point is the proposition that we all possess a higher or deeper intelligence than the everyday mind, and that learning to live and work harmoniously and energetically with this intelligence is the irreducible core of a successful artistic life. We can call this inner force the unconscious mind or the silent partner. We can call it the id or the secret self. But muse, daimon, and genius are so much more effective at conveying its subversive and electrifying emotional charge, and also its experiential reality.

Your unconscious mind truly is your genius in the ancient sense of the word, the sense that was universal before it was fatefully altered several centuries ago by historical-cultural forces. Befriending it as such, and interacting with it as if it really is a separate, collaborating presence in your psyche, puts you in a position to receive its gifts, and it in the position to give them to you.

Download the free PDF edition

Additional formats, including Kindle and epub, will be announced here in the future.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter One: Perspiration Meets Inspiration, or The Return of the Muse
  • Chapter Two: A Brief History of the Daimon and the Genius
  • Chapter Three: A Writer’s Guide to the Psyche
  • Chapter Four: Getting to Know Your Creative Demon
  • Chapter Five: The Practice of Inner Collaboration
  • Chapter Six: Divining Your Daimon’s Rhythm
  • Chapter Seven: The Art of Active Waiting
  • Chapter Eight: The Discipline of the Demon Muse
  • Conclusion
  • Afterword
  • Bibliography

As a bonus, here’s an organized list of links to additional Demon Muse articles that were not revised and expanded for inclusion in this book, but that amplify and extend its themes. I’ll probably turn some of them into a separate book in the future.

Share