"Creative power is used for destructive purposes. Nearly all modern arts are blasphemy."
This is a quotation from Towards the Mysteries by Swami Omananda (Maud McCarthy) which is presented as a record of communications from elevated spiritual beings. Most of this sort of stuff is spiritually sub-standard and not what it purports to be, but this is one of the rare exceptions that carries the ring of truth.
Anyway, back to the quote which can stand on its own, regardless of claimed provenance. It suggests that human creativity in the 20th century, and by extension the 21st since that has carried on in the same vein only more so, is not in line with divine being but goes against it. I don't see how any sane person could dispute this. For a while the idea of something being new and different as modern art was could perhaps justify it to some extent, but that period was over by the 1920s. Thereafter, most human creativity, and especially that which was lauded by the art establishment and cognoscenti, dismantled divine order and sometimes spat in its face. In terms of popular art, especially music, the trend was backwards, reviving primitive forms of expression that should have been outgrown, though with technological sophistication giving it greater potentcy. I am not saying that none of this had any artistic merit but overall the form in which these musicians worked rendered the content spiritually harmful. As the composer and Theosophist Cyril Scott said in his book Music, its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages, "After the dissemination of Jazz, which was definitely "put through" by the Dark Forces, a very marked decline in sexual morals became noticeable." We don't like to admit this now but the reality is that the influence of less evolved groups pulled down the standards and level of consciousness of Western society in general.
Even when art flirted with the so-called spiritual it was rarely on the level of aspiring to true divine understanding as with the music and cathedrals of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Instead it sought to expand the circle of personal experience and consequently was just as likely to plumb the depths as scale the heights. The creativity involved did not explore truth and beauty and the good, but the supposed wholeness of human nature which effectively means delving into the ugly and the diabolical, and that inevitably damaged and degraded the culture. Human creativity was not aligned with divine order but actually worked against it. As a result it did not refresh or revitalise the human spirit. It exhausted it because it was only attuned to the human mind separated from God and that is a self-consuming, decaying source of inspiration. It retains a certain amount of energy from its origin in divine being but that dissipates over a period and we seem to be coming near the end of that period which is why so much in the field of art and culture just recycles what came before.
People are acclaimed as great artists today who might have a certain skill and talent but do not have what truly makes an artist which is attunement to the level of Forms, using that word in its Platonic sense. What this means is an awareness of the pattern of divine being and this can unfold in a multitude of ways depending on the individual qualities of the artist. But now we have creative people falling back on themselves and their own minds, and where there is some inspiration from a non-material source it is from the lower levels of being though, as is the way with these things, often mistaken for or claimed to be from higher levels. But by their fruits shall you know them, and the fruit of most art over many decades now is rotten to the core. Humanity is possibly more creative than it ever has been but so often what is created or produced is spiritual poison. This is certainly the case with what gets taken up and promoted. Hence many people seek out the art and beauty of the past which still has the power to inspire.
I'll tell you why this is done. It's because Satan (using that name to describe the central core of the powers of evil) knows that if he can deform people's idea of beauty he can deform their idea of God and the good. They will consider themselves more sophisticated and 'advanced' than those who don't get it and then they are his toys to do with as he wishes. Unfortunately, he finds plenty of willing egotists in this world to carry out his will.
4 comments:
It sounds to me from this excellent post the answer may be that we shouldn't *try* to be creative as such rather we should focus on doing things *well* and leaving any resulting creativity or lack thereof to take care of itself. Similarly I used to believe in progress but now I think if we aim at progress then this will get in the way of understanding things as they are now (which is what we have to work with).
That makes sense. Alternatively, we have to seek proper inspiration from beyond ourselves for our creativity. What we can add to that is the form it takes but even that form should be somewhat determined by the inspiring source to be creatively constructive.
It has now been a century or more since "modernism" - in this anti-art sense - became dominant in literature, visual arts, and music.
And killed high achievement in all of these! (with the exception of fiction). The first major modernists were the last officially-recognized "genius" greats e.g. Schoenberg and Stravinsky, who killed centuries of tradition in classical music; Picasso, who did the same for painting.
If it had just been a fashion, it would long since have disappeared - but the fact is that "modernism" remains dominant in the Artistic Establishment, where influence, money and status are conferred.
This is clearly something very deep and strategic that is being deliberately pushed - and which is, as you say, very obviously destructive (as well as incoherent non-sensical).
Of course there is still "popular" art; and *some* small percentage of this is enjoyable and worthwhile and even aiming-at "good".
But the fact that the prestigious social institutions are consistently favouring anti-God, anti-Good High Arts, has a drip-drip effect - and tends to draw in most of those with the most talent, sooner or later.
There have been occasional reactions against the celebration of ugliness that art has become but they are always suppressed which confirms your point that there is something strategic behind this. No one really likes it but it fits in well with our spiritual abandonment and that is why it is so relentlessly pushed.
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