There are moments in life when you have deep epiphanies, creative thoughts, or an unrelenting desire to understand something. It might feel as if a divine force is communicating with you, but a closer look reveals that those are the unconscious parts of you that have been craving attention.
German psychologist Erich Newmann coined the term “states of possession” to describe profound experiences that reveal something new and raise new possibilities about the self. In his book, “Art and the Creative Unconscious: Four Essays,” he explores the connection between creativity and the unconscious mind, and how artistic expressions arise from the collective unconscious.
States of Possession
“To be moved, captivated, spellbound signifies to be possessed by something; and without such a fascination and the emotional tension connected with it no concentration, no lasting interest, no creative process, are possible. Every possession can justifiably be interpreted either as a one-sided narrowing or as an intensification and deepening.”
Newmann dedicated his life to researching these unseen processes. Transformations comprise stages of possession. That is why Newmann calls it possession, because once you are possessed by an idea, apart from involving your entire being, all your creative forces, it transforms the self by including the suppressed, abandoned parts of us that have been yearning for inclusion in our conscious experience.
Moments of Irruptions
These abandoned parts of us also become a source of transformation. “Most striking are those transformations which violently assail an ego-centered and seemingly airtight consciousness, i.e., transformations characterized by more or less sudden ‘irruptions” of the unconscious into consciousness.”
According to Newmann, in the primitive culture, men were more open to the unconscious, more connected with the archetypal images, and they were better equipped to handle these ‘irruptions.’
But in a modern society that is so disconnected with its own self, such “irruptions” would feel different. We experience such moments in times of suffering – illness, pain, extreme hunger, and thirst.
During these moments, the unconscious starts to emerge through the small openings, resulting in experiences of revelation, transformation, and sudden clarity.
These personal transformations, despite their sudden nature, do not apply to the total personality – it is only a fractal of the whole.
“What we encounter most often are partial changes, partial transformations of the personality… Unless changes in consciousness go hand in hand with a change in the unconscious components of the personality, they do not amount to much… Possession by a personal complex, an emotional content, leads only to a partial transformation that overpowers consciousness and its center, the ego… Whereas partial changes in the personal unconscious, in the “complexes,” always influence consciousness at the same time, and changes effected through the archetypes of the collective unconscious almost always seize upon the whole personality.”
Flow State and the Collective Unconscious
What we know as the ‘Flow state’ begins as an “irruption”. Neumann noted that although all creative endeavors involve a degree of possession, what sets exceptional art apart is that this ownership is not the ultimate goal of the creative journey; rather, it serves as a foundation for a higher purpose that transcends self-fulfillment and aims at understanding universal truths.
“When we consider the totality of the human psyche, in which consciousness and the unconscious are interdependent both in their development and in their functions, we see that consciousness can develop only where it preserves a living bond with the creative powers of the unconscious… It must not be forgotten that the outside world that we apprehend with our differentiated consciousness is only a segment of reality, and that our consciousness has developed and differentiated itself as a specialized organ for apprehending this particular segment of reality… We pay a heavy price for the sharpness of our conscious knowledge, which is based on the separation of the psychic systems and which breaks down the one world into the polarity of psyche and world. This price is a drastic curtailment of the reality that we experience.”
Creativity flourishes at the intersection of ownership and openness, where our psychological processes drive us toward a specific path that aligns with the readiness to explore outside, embracing the wholeness and limitless nature of reality.
“Always and everywhere [the creative person] is driven to rediscover, to reawaken, to give form to this world. But he does not find this world as though seeking something outside him; rather, he knows that this encounter with full reality, the one world, in which everything is still “whole,” is bound up with his own transformation toward wholeness. For this reason he must, in every situation, in every constellation, refresh the openness into which alone the open world can enter.”
Further Reading
Creativity and the Unconscious – research paper
