“The first thing we notice in a creative act is that it is an encounter… As I would put it, [true artists] are the ones who enlarge human consciousness… Escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter… This leads us to the second element in the creative act – namely, the intensity of the encounter… By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness… Nietzsche, in his important book The Birth of Tragedy, cites the Dionysian principle of surging vitality with the Apollonian principle of form and rational order as the two dialectical principles that operate in creativity… Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act. But it is not to be thought of merely as a Bacchic ‘letting go’; it involves the total person, with the subconscious and unconscious acting in unity with the conscious. It is not, thus, irrational; it is, rather, suprarational. It brings intellectual, volitional, and emotional functions into play all together.”
