Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2010, Page 16
what paint colors he could and could not use and he had great fear, guilt, and shame if he
disobeyed. He writes, ―We make a transcendental idea or experience special by surrounding
it with myth, ritual, and devotion. The form and activity it takes is the cult or religion. To
me, this is similar to a creative impulse that must risk manifestation in form to succeed or
fail—to be realized, to mean something, to live or die." He notes the irony that ―Aha!‖
moments were part of both his conversion process into the cult and also of his recovery
when, triggered by a color, he was able to make new connections outside the cult
perspective.
Steven Gelberg, photographer, student of theology, and former cult member, begins with
the belief that for any action to be creative requires that the creator be relatively free,
externally and particularly internally. Using as an example his seventeen years with
ISKCON, the Hare Krishna movement, he contrasts the ways a cult member‘s freedom is
ostensibly supported but in reality is controlled. He believes most basically that artistic
creation is an expression of the personal, of the individual‘s own experience, while a cult
demands creation in service to the higher purpose of the group. The truly creative act
comes from the authentic self, from focusing on what is unique within. An independent
person is free to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the temporal world, for example, while
the cult member must avoid sensory gratification in favor of what is deemed valuable by the
leader. Growing disillusionment led to Gelberg‘s departure from ISKCON, at which point he
celebrated his discovery of the value and pleasure of uncertainty. He studied theology, and
then, wanting a more bodily involvement with the physical world, moved on to photography,
which became a means of personal healing. His article includes a personal credo of
photography that reclaims for him both the perception and expression of his authentic self.
At this juncture I present four examples of Individualist perspectives. They are
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic, Psychological Creativity Stage Models, Neuroscientific, and
Cognitive.iii
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic
Lifton (1961) writes,
The ethos of psychoanalysis and of its derived psychotherapies is in direct
opposition to that of totalism. Indeed, its painstaking and sympathetic
investigations of single human minds place it within the direct tradition of
those Western intellectual currents which historically have done most to
counter totalism: humanism, individualism, and free scientific inquiry. (p.
446)
As opposed to classical psychoanalysis, contemporary psychoanalysis fully situates itself in
a person-in-environment framework, and the unconscious is viewed not only as a site of
repression, but as the source of generative and ongoing creativity experienced in the form
of dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue, metaphor, metonymy, and so on. Reflecting this
view, Joseph Newirth (2003) discusses changes in "the psychoanalytic concept of the
unconscious, from a view of the unconscious as [only] a center of pathological relatedness
to a view of the unconscious as a developing structure that is a source of creativity,
strength, and energy‖ (p. xviii). In contemporary approaches, interpretation of symbols is
no longer attached to set meaning related to repression of sexual and aggressive drives.
Creativity researchers from other disciplines within psychology today incorporate the
concept of the unconscious within the stage of creativity they call ―incubation,‖ to be further
discussed here within the context of psychological models of creativity. This is important to
our discussion of cults and creativity because it is this unrepressed unconscious—the source
of creativity—that becomes suppressed in cults. In fact, cult leaders often proclaim that
they are the source of all creativity.
what paint colors he could and could not use and he had great fear, guilt, and shame if he
disobeyed. He writes, ―We make a transcendental idea or experience special by surrounding
it with myth, ritual, and devotion. The form and activity it takes is the cult or religion. To
me, this is similar to a creative impulse that must risk manifestation in form to succeed or
fail—to be realized, to mean something, to live or die." He notes the irony that ―Aha!‖
moments were part of both his conversion process into the cult and also of his recovery
when, triggered by a color, he was able to make new connections outside the cult
perspective.
Steven Gelberg, photographer, student of theology, and former cult member, begins with
the belief that for any action to be creative requires that the creator be relatively free,
externally and particularly internally. Using as an example his seventeen years with
ISKCON, the Hare Krishna movement, he contrasts the ways a cult member‘s freedom is
ostensibly supported but in reality is controlled. He believes most basically that artistic
creation is an expression of the personal, of the individual‘s own experience, while a cult
demands creation in service to the higher purpose of the group. The truly creative act
comes from the authentic self, from focusing on what is unique within. An independent
person is free to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the temporal world, for example, while
the cult member must avoid sensory gratification in favor of what is deemed valuable by the
leader. Growing disillusionment led to Gelberg‘s departure from ISKCON, at which point he
celebrated his discovery of the value and pleasure of uncertainty. He studied theology, and
then, wanting a more bodily involvement with the physical world, moved on to photography,
which became a means of personal healing. His article includes a personal credo of
photography that reclaims for him both the perception and expression of his authentic self.
At this juncture I present four examples of Individualist perspectives. They are
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic, Psychological Creativity Stage Models, Neuroscientific, and
Cognitive.iii
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic
Lifton (1961) writes,
The ethos of psychoanalysis and of its derived psychotherapies is in direct
opposition to that of totalism. Indeed, its painstaking and sympathetic
investigations of single human minds place it within the direct tradition of
those Western intellectual currents which historically have done most to
counter totalism: humanism, individualism, and free scientific inquiry. (p.
446)
As opposed to classical psychoanalysis, contemporary psychoanalysis fully situates itself in
a person-in-environment framework, and the unconscious is viewed not only as a site of
repression, but as the source of generative and ongoing creativity experienced in the form
of dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue, metaphor, metonymy, and so on. Reflecting this
view, Joseph Newirth (2003) discusses changes in "the psychoanalytic concept of the
unconscious, from a view of the unconscious as [only] a center of pathological relatedness
to a view of the unconscious as a developing structure that is a source of creativity,
strength, and energy‖ (p. xviii). In contemporary approaches, interpretation of symbols is
no longer attached to set meaning related to repression of sexual and aggressive drives.
Creativity researchers from other disciplines within psychology today incorporate the
concept of the unconscious within the stage of creativity they call ―incubation,‖ to be further
discussed here within the context of psychological models of creativity. This is important to
our discussion of cults and creativity because it is this unrepressed unconscious—the source
of creativity—that becomes suppressed in cults. In fact, cult leaders often proclaim that
they are the source of all creativity.
