Spencer Heath Archive

Item 431

Taping by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath in Albuquerque NM.

May 1959

 

White envelope contains item 432 and item 464 also.

 

THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE INTELLECT

     There are two fields of creative human endeavor, springing from such freedom as men have above their wholly necessitous activities. Primarily and primitively, we have the art instinct. Under this, men are inspired towards something worthy of worship beyond themselves. They shape or otherwise create something concrete which symbolizes to them the thing that has inspired them, gives some concrete form to their inspiration. Others, being exposed to these works of art, derive a portion of the inspiration whence it sprang. This is the motivation to art, and the technical social functioning of the art form and process.

     Other men, sensing something transcendent to themselves and inspired to pursue it, when they have gained it, do not embody it in any concrete form. They pursue the realization of their ideal not by their feeling for it alone but also through their rational faculties and thereby quantitative evaluations. The product of this second kind of creative artistry is called a natural law, a more or less universal fact of nature. It usually takes expression in some mathematical form.

     This abstraction becomes an instrumentality of the mind, and not any concrete product. It becomes an instrumentality of any and many minds. Not any concrete creation itself, but the kind of knowledge that is creative power. It is not private to any person, but universal and available to all. It is an instrumentality whereby men can rationally and quantitatively build their dreams and ideals — plans and specifications — into their objective world.

     There are many differences between the technique of the artist and that of the scientist. The artist gives to mankind a concrete child of his hand and mind. The scientist gives him the abstract rationality wherewith to exercise a creative dominion over his entire objective world.

     Scientific technology is the instrument whereby the intuitions are quantified by the intellect and the creative power is no longer private to the individual creator but is available to all mankind. There is, however, one further condition. The artist works unaided and alone. But the scientist, including the engineer, must have the cooperation of many men. The artist depends upon his emotions throughout, but the scientist must, through division of labor, coordinate the labors of many to achieve his creative results. The transformation of the world through science is a social product.