I came across a wonderful presentation** by the author Elizabeth Gilbert. It was a discourse about inspiration and how we view it in the modern world. She compared our view with a more ancient one and wonders if we shouldn’t return to the views of those before us. By the end of her presentation, I had to ask myself if she wasn’t right.

We perceive genius as individual, internal, something that stems from the soul. It is an extension of the person, an appendage of beauty and cognition. It may be seen in many forms but often it is an accolade to those that work in the arts: writers, artists, performers, and poets. It is an adjective that we associate with greatness and definition. Most importantly, it is something that comes from an innate form of inspiration.

In the ancient world of Greece (and later Rome), inspiration did not come completely from the individual. The ancient Greeks believed in attendant spirits that inspired. They called these spirits daemons. The ancient Romans later called them genii. These beings were responsible for the formation of great works. They guided the artist to inspiration, and were—in the end—co-creators.

This idea that inspiration is a team endeavor; one that involves man and the divine is a beautiful thought. In Elizabeth’s estimation, this attendant spirit helps to rid the artist of the pressure she may live with once her best work has been created. After all, books that may come after the best book may not be the fault of the writer. That attendant spirit may just be getting old and rusty.

I suppose my own feelings have aligned with Elizabeth’s. To place all the burden on the individual has (in her view), produced five hundred years of tormented geniuses. Many of them have taken their own lives. To see inspiration as a third party, allows the inspiration to remain separate from the individual; gives it a place outside of control; establishes an autonomy that is present when it wants to be.

There is something more at work in this history of inspiration. It touches on etymology and religion. The word daemon, after all, isn’t something we now consider a good spirit. If we were to reclaim its original meaning from the Greeks, then maybe we could inspire a new world of artists.

**You may view this presentation in the media box above.