Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality:
To make room for the daimons is to set a distance between us and them. This enables us to reflect, and reflect on, them; or, perhaps more accurately, allows them to reflect themselves through us. Reflection is “an act of becoming conscious.” If we become conscious of the daimons, and remain mindful of them, we avoid becoming possessed by them. For we are always vulnerable to neurotic fixations and compulsions when unconscious daimons drive us to act out, against our will, their fixed mythic patterns. Of course there is no way we can break entirely free of the compelling power of the daimons, any more than we can sever ourselves with impunity from our own souls; but we can collaborate with them, through reflection and imagination, so that their compulsion begins to resemble what we think of as an artist’s vocation. In this case, a dialogue is opened between us and our daimon, as if it were (as it often is) a Muse, so that there is struggle and passion, but also negotiation and inspirational exchange. We are no longer compelled to act out the daimonic pattern in a literal sense; rather, we are enabled to body it forth in imaginative acts—works of art, for example, or artifacts, or even ideas and hypotheses. All these, to a greater or lesser extent, contain and define the daimonic exuberance that might otherwise overwhelm us. Work of art are, in this respect, daimonic shrines, like the statues of the ancients which were wrought in order, magically, to draw down and contain a daimon or god.
This accords with some recent thoughts on co-creation.
