I consider myself an extremely creative person. I love to both participate and observe many art forms. First and foremost, the flute is my passion. I have received several awards at state level, attended Coe College in Iowa on a flute scholarship, and still occasionally play publicly. Words cannot adequately express how rich of an experience performing in an orchestra concert or even a simple recital is. I am sure many musicians know what I am talking about. It is addictive and missed if/when a musician stops. After modeling overseas in my early 20’s, I have also appeared in several plays, commercials, bits in movies, etc. I have always studied with extremely talented, well-respected people, most of them holding doctorates.
I bought The Artist’s Way’s deceitful claim to be a passport to a greater state of freedom for artists. This book is very popular in Hollywood and amongst other artistic groups. I ended up catching myself living by some very dangerous “new age” philosophies. I really should have known better. After all, Julia Cameron mentions teaching a “spiritual workshop” on the first page of the introduction. It should really be called “The Selfish Way” and I will explain why.
The prerequisite of this book is to not believe in a knowable God and to have no faith. Just in case you do, these are the first items Cameron addresses in an attempt to destroy both. God according to Julia Cameron:
“Remind yourself that to succeed in this course, no god concept is necessary. In fact, many of our commonly held god concepts get in the way. Do not allow semantics to become one more block for you. Do not allow semantics to become one more block for you.
When the word God is used in these pages, you may substitute the thought good orderly direction or flow. What we are talking about is a creative energy. God is useful shorthand for many of us, but so is Goddess, Mind, Universe, Source, and Higher Power. . . . The point is not what you name it. The point is that you try using it. For many of us, thinking of it as a form of spiritual electricity has been a very useful jumping-off place.” [Emphasis not added]
Spiritual Electricity? Energy? I have heard that some are willing to “sell their soul to the devil” for a career. I do not know how else to interpret these statements of Cameron’s that appear on the second page of the introduction except by instructing the reader to take their soul out of Christ’s hands or if it was not there to begin with, make sure that the existence of Jehovah is never even considered.
Why do I say “The Selfish Way”? Cameron claims God can be defined by anyone. Can you describe me without knowing me or even of me in an accurate way? Can you state that I am a 60 year old bald male? Sure. Would that be truth. No. Why would Cameron want the reader to do this? So that the reader can throw out faith, responsibility, consequences, and love while replacing them with “success” and materialism. I have heard so many artist’s say that they do something questionable because “I’m an artist.” What a cop-out!
A great quote from “New Testament Survey” by Merrill C. Tenney speaks of this attitude of depersonalizing God, of this claim that stating a definition regarding God would be equivalent to limitation – in this case of your precious creativity: “God thus becomes an actual but a vague and shadowy being concerning whose character and attitudes no definite assertions can be made … this uncertainty about the nature of God, which sprang originally from a hesitation to limit him … [but] Christianity … presenting a God who was not only sole God and real, but who was also personal and knowable.”
The “mantra” of this book is pretty much summed up in the “Basic Principles” as listed in Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles on page 3. Keep in mind, the “creator” is now “energy”:
1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.
2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life-including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.
5. Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.
8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.
Our yearnings are supposedly “from a divine source”. I have known people my whole lifetime, including myself, that would make this claim alone insult God’s character to an unbearable degree.
There is no mention of God’s will anywhere.
“We open ourselves to God” when we open ourselves to exploring our creativity? On what planet? I have seen nothing point to knowing God better except through His Word, prayer, circumstance and the church. Please do not get me wrong, being creative is wonderful. So is eating, biking and swimming. The senses, the mind and the body are incredible. God is on an eternal plane, dealing with our souls. When I worship God with music, I am sure He enjoys it. It is the act of worship that draws me to Him. I can be extremely creative at the same time as being extremely ungodly. Think about it. How can “When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God, good orderly direction.” be even partially true?
This all leads to “synchronicity.” I could write forever regarding this, but suffice it to say that it takes quite a bit of brainwashing through writing repetitive “affirmations” to reach this so-called “spiritual” experience. I really want to warn you that once you have delved into this book this far and are experiencing these new things, be careful. It is very hard to come back and you are playing with some fiercely powerful things that you may not know anything about and you are doing so willingly to be more creative. I believe what causes these experiences is incredibly evil, nothing knew, hates you and wants to keep you as far from the real God as possible. It is “good orderly direction” to death, both physical and spiritual. The consequence is that if you want to change, it will be hard. It is spiritual. You will need the real, personal God to help, and even then, it will probably not happen overnight.
A telling quote that appears in The Artist’s Way is by Claude Bernard: “Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.” True knowledge begins with the fear (not redefinition of) God. Yes, many things you may not know. Do you want to know what it is like to be demonized, unknowingly? I do not believe that just because something is unknown to you, that it is healthy or good. I really have a hard time believing that Claude Bernard believes this statement. Rape, coma, mental illness, etc. may be unknown to her. I doubt she would want this for the sake of “knowledge.”
The words “my” and “I” are the most common words to appear in this book and it is so telling. When I first started reading this book, I thought “wow”, I really do have more time for the arts, myself and am more creative. When I reread the beginning of the book, I realized the author requests you cut “crazy-makers” out of your life, along with other distractions. When I rethought this out, I realized I was neglecting some true responsibilities. Like it or not, our responsibilities do not always fall in the peaceful categories Cameron would like us to live in. Cameron promotes extreme selfishness instead in exchange for a more successful career. What a price to pay!
By the end of the book, Cameron has instructed the reader on building an alter and having a sacred circle. Yes, these are as cultish as they sound. After all, in numbers it is much easier to stay trapped. Part of the description of the Sacred Circle is as follows: We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape … As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. Scary. And we wonder why the media is so anti-family, anti-morals, etc. . .
You will be a much healthier person if you do not focus completely on yourself and you can still access your creativity fully. Practice, learn, encourage others and have a group of friends that you find encouraging.
I realize this is lengthy and I appreciate your patience. This is an incredibly important subject to me. With respect to this “ancient and holy tribe” of artisans, I would like to wrap up with the following quote that appeared in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. These are the insightful, imagined words of a demon:
“It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual “taste.” This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses, and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. This aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females-and there is more in that than you might suppose. As regards the male taste we have varied a good deal. At one time we have directed it to the statuesque and aristocratic type of beauty, mixing men’s vanity with their desires and encouraging the race to reed chiefly from the most arrogant and prodigal women. At another, we have selected an exaggeratedly feminine type, faith and languishing, so that folly and cowardice, and all the general falseness and littleness of mind which go with them, shall be at a premium . . . we now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty even more transitory than most, we thus aggravate the female’s chronic horror of growing old (with many excellent results) and render her less willing and less able to bear children. And this is not all. We have engineered a great increase in the license which society allows to the representation of the apparent nude (not the real nude) in art, and its exhibition on the stage or the bathing beach. It is all a fake, of course; the figures in the popular art are falsely drawn; the real women in bathing suits or tights are actually pinched in and propped up to make them appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full-grown woman to be. Yet at the same time, the modern world is taught to believe that it is being “frank” and “healthy” and getting back to nature. As a result we are more and more directing the desires of men to something which does not exist – making the role of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible. What follows you can easily forecast!
Hopefully now you can see why The Artist’s Way is referred to by many as The Actor’s Bible. It is a spiritual guide down a dark and lonely path.
- Cindy
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