I believe that to create something is a spiritual act. Whether that be children, a family, a business, a building, a car, a novel, or a painting. Sometimes it's the act of turning off all the filters of your ego, the self criticism, and listening to the deepest and quietest parts of yourself. The parts where the gold glimmers in that darkness because those are the truest parts of you. The most sincere. The most vulnerable. Creating with that level of honesty and intentionality is spiritual.
The human desire to create is not just a fundamental desire of human nature, but THE fundamental human desire.
In this post, I'll explain why I believe that creating is the fundamental human purpose, how it may be divinely ordained, how the act of creation not only requires faith but can also be an act of faith in itself, and I'll share my own Prayer to the Muse.
(If the title of this post did not tip you to it, this post and my prayer is akin to some of the messages in Stephen Pressfield's book The War of Art.)
The Human Drive to Create: Three Psychological Portraits
You do not have to be a believer in a Supreme Being or fit nicely into a religion to recognize that the desire to create something meaningful and value-adding to the world is the main motivator of the human experience. Consider the psychologists Becker, Nietzsche, and Jung, and what they think of creativity and the artist.
In his seminal work, The Denial of Death, Becker posits a stark thesis: that the primary, often unconscious, driver of humanity is a profound and pervasive terror of death. Unlike animals, humans have the ability to imagine the future and reflect on the past. It is not merely a fear of the physical process of dying, but a deeper anxiety of complete annihilation, of the final erasure of one's significance in the cosmos.
To manage this terror, we create what he called "immortality projects". These are meaningful endeavors to create something of transcendence, like art or businesses or families, that our minds believe will allow a part of us to live on after our mortal bodies.
Therefore, artistic creation emerges as a particularly sophisticated form of an immortality project. The artist, according to Becker, confronts the same terror as everyone else but possesses a unique talent in the ability to create and express a new reality that others may appreciate and value. This act secures a form of heroic individuality, a symbolic triumph over the limitations of a finite existence, but this model of creativity is a defense mechanism-a way to compensate for our fear of being forgotten.
It originates not from a place of strength and abundance, but from a position of lack and fear. Saying the creative act is a response to the threat of non-being, of death, Becker believes that the artist creates to fill the void left by the awareness of his mortality. Consequently, the creative process is is haunted by the fear of failure, and if the art does not achieve the symbolic immortality for which it was conceived, the creator is forced to face their 'creatureliness' and slide into despair and depression.
To Becker, the creator is an anxious hero. This is the push against mortality.
His model seems to be seated in realism, but to me it seems overwhelmingly negative. While the fear of death may be a very primal motivator, I do not subscribe to the idea that every artist creates only as an immortality project or that it is the primary motivator for most.
An artist creates an immortality project by placing their work on a pedestal as a defense against an approaching annihilation.
For Nietzsche, Will to Power is a drive towards self-mastery, self-determination, and most importantly creativity. It is not a rational, conscious choice but a primordial force within us. It propels everyone to grow, expand, and 'discharge ones strength'. The drive is not self-preservation, but self-enhancement, to overcome resistance, expand its sphere of influence, and to feel its power increase.
For an artist, these implications can be impactful. The creative act is no longer an escape from a terrifying reality, but a direct engagement with the Will to Power. The artist harnesses the powerful drives of sexuality, passion, aggression, and channels them into a 'creative spiritual activity' that is not a repression of instinct but a masterful redirection of raw impulses into a higher creative goal.
Zarathustra teaches the battlefield for the Will to Power is not the external world, but the inner one. This is a path of perpetual, and often painful, transformation.
"Creating-that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's alleviation, but for the creator to appear suffering itself is needed, and much transformation. ... Much bitter dying must be there in your life, ye creators!"
The artist must be willing to "burn yourself in your own flame: how can you become new if you have not first become ashes!
Nietzsche's model of creative drive culminate's in the concept of the Overman, or the individual who has overcome the smallness of humanity, rejected herd morality, legislates new values, and is an ultimate creator who gives 'meaning to the earth'. The psychological state of this creator is Amor Fati-the love of fate.
Amor Fati is an active, joyful embrace of everything that has been and will be. The creator looks back at the past, with all its accidents and suffering, and says, "but I willed it thus!" and transforms every "it was" into a chosen necessity that affirms one's existence without reservation.
To Nietzsche, the creator is not merely a craftsman but a force of nature driven by the Will to Power to impose their own vision on the world, transfigure suffering into beauty, and create new values. This is the pull of self-overcoming.
I believe that this model closer to the truth of humanity's motivation to create than Becker's. Not only is it more positive, which is a motivator in and of itself, but I find it healthy to engage in the Amor Fati view of life. Yet I believe Nietzsche still falls short to capture the source of creativity in humanity.
The process of creation is a "redemption from suffering" and the greatest stimulus to life.
Jung's model of the human mind is not a single entity but a dynamic, multi-layered one in constant interplay. The three domains are the Ego, the Personal Unconscious, and the Collective Unconscious.
The Ego is the center of the conscious field. It is the source of our identity, the part of our minds that we recognize as "I", is responsible for our decision-making in the external world, and the maintenance of our personal narrative over time. It organizes our thoughts, feelings perceptions and memories.
Beneath the consciousness is the Personal Unconscious. This is unique to each individual and contains all not currently conscious, including memories that were forgotten, subliminal perceptions, and content that has been repressed because it was too painful or incompatible with one's self-image. The emotional shocks, passions, personal crises that shape an individual's life are stored here.
Jung's most controversial part of his three-piece model is the concept of the Collective Unconscious. This is the deepest and most universal layer of the psyche, a shared psychic inheritance common to all human beings. Its contents were never conscious and are not individual acquisitions; they are inherited from the psychic life of our ancestors. Jung saw it as the "womb of all his sciences and arts" which predisposes us to experience and perceive the world in universally human ways.
The existence of the collective unconscious, for Jung, explains the astonishing parallels found in the myths, religious symbols, and fairy tales of disparate cultures across the globe. To chart this territory is to map the very origins of art, myth, and religion.
From this shared psyche rises the Archetypes. Jung considered them the "psychic counterpart of instinct"; just as a bird is born with an instinct to build a nest of a particular kind, a human is born with an innate predisposition to form a "mother" image, a "hero" concept, or a fear of the dark. They are invisible psychic molds that, when activated by life experiences, give a definite and recognizable shape to our perceptions, emotions, and fantasies.
The Archetypes are The Hero (Luke Skywalker), The Shadow (Darth Vader), The Anima/Animus (One's Ideal Opposite Sex), The Sage (Obi-Wan), The Creator/Magician (Power of Transformation). While symbols and images are consciously recognized in dream, art, or religious visions, the underlying archetypes are the unseen DNA of the human psyche and influence our behavior and strive for realization in the world. But that does not mean that all art springs from the same psychic depth.
The Two Modes of Creation
Jung made a distinction between the sources of creative works and the role the artist plays in the creative process. He called one the Psychological Mode and the other the Visionary Mode.
The Psychological Mode of creation pulls from the conscious human experience and the individual's personal unconscious. Its materials are familiar to human life: "the lessons of life, with emotional shocks, the experience of passion and the crises of human destiny in general". The artist working in this mode takes these common experiences and raises them to the level of art and form that illuminates or interprets their meaning to give the audience greater clarity and depth into their own lives by bringing into consciousness what is normally overlooked or only dimly sensed. This art is an interpretation of the contents of consciousness and the known world with little left over to explain.
In contrast, the Visionary Mode of creation pulls its inspiration not from the familiar world but from the collective unconscious. The experience is "no longer familiar" and a "primordial experience which surpasses man's understanding". It is an encounter with the raw power of the archetypes and a glimpse into the "timeless depths" that "rend from top to bottom the curtain upon which is painted the picture of an ordered world".
The implications are paradoxical. The artist in the Visionary Mode of creating is not the master of the work, but the servant.
"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument".
The artist is one who "allows art to realize its purpose through him".
This creative process is described as ruthless. A "war takes place within every artist" between the human longing for happiness and security and a "ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire". It "battens on their humanity", demands everything to the service of the work even at the cost of health and personal fulfillment and to the point where the artist's personal life is at most a help or a hindrance but "is never essential to his creative task".
This presents tension in the nature of creative works. The purpose of the artist is, on one hand, the ultimate expression of individuality and a deeply personal and unique undertaking. Yet, on the other hand, the visionary artist, the one who produces the most profound and impactful work, is described as a depersonalized vehicle, a channeler, a radio antenna picking up a signal that broadcasts to all humanity.
For Jung, the highest form of creative agency is not an act of Nietzsche's Will to Power but an act of surrender. The artist's unique contribution is expressed not in the content of the vision, which comes from the collective, but in their courage and capacity to become the vessel for that vision.
To Jung, the artist is a channeler of a collective, transpersonal source.
The creative act is thus a paradoxical one: true, unique selfhood is achieved not by asserting the ego, but by allowing the ego to be subsumed in service to the greater psychic reality of the collective unconscious. Creativity becomes a dialogue, a form of spiritual receptivity, where the artist's ultimate choice is to listen and to serve the image that seeks to be born through them.
The artist is an instrument, a vessel through which the collective unconscious speaks to the age, whose burden is one of sacrificing personal happiness, health, and egoic desires to serve the creative work that has seized them.
Ernest Becker provides us with our foundation: the sobering biological context for the creative act. In his view, creation is fundamentally an "immortality project," a desperate and noble rebellion against the terror of human mortality.
Nietzsche adds a philosophical layer and gives us the engine: the artist's Will to Power is not a will to dominate others, but a will to master the chaos within, to overcome personal limitations, and to affirm life in all its tragic beauty. He claims that the highest human calling is to transform one's existence into a work of art.
And Jung gives us a bridge between ourselves and the infinite. In his perspective, the artist is a modern-day shaman, venturing into the depths of the collective unconscious—the shared psychic inheritance of humanity—to retrieve the symbols and visions necessary. The artist gives voice to the archetypal forms of the collective unconscious and the raw, primal forces of inspiration.
You see, creativity is not a peripheral luxury but a central and necessary human function, a vital engagement with the ultimate questions of existence, and perhaps a link between us and something greater.
The artist is a courageous figure who uses their craft to transcend personal doubt and serve a higher purpose.
We arrive at the heart of the argument: the creative act is not only a fundamental human drive but a divine mandate, a primary means by which we fulfill our highest purpose. This understanding is rooted in one of the most profound and foundational concepts in Abrahamic theology: the Imago Dei.
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27)
This concept, known as Imago Dei in Latin or tzelem Elohim in Hebrew, is the cornerstone of theological anthropology.
It asserts that humanity, unique among all of creation, bears a special likeness to the Creator.Theologians have debated for centuries what this "image" consists of—whether it is our rationality, our moral capacity, our ability to form relationships, or our spiritual nature.
However, if we consider the context of Genesis 1, the very first and most foundational characteristic revealed about God is that of Creator. Before God is a lawgiver, a judge, or a redeemer, God is a maker. The narrative is a sublime poem of divine artistry, of bringing order from chaos, light from darkness, and life from nothingness. Therefore, if we are made in the image of a God whose primary revealed act is creation, it follows that our own innate capacity to create is the most direct and powerful reflection of that divine image.
Our ability to imagine, design, innovate, and bring something new into existence is not merely an evolutionary advantage or a psychological quirk; it is the divine spark, the imprint of the Creator, within us.As
Rabbi Adina Allen states, "If God is, first and foremost, a creator, and we are created in God's image, then we too are created to be creators".
This perspective transforms the artist's studio, the writer's desk, or the musician's practice room into a holy space—a place where the divine image is actively being realized and expressed.
Co-Creators With God
In Jewish mystical tradition, this idea is central. The human being is seen as a shutaf la'kadosh baruch hu—a partner with the Holy One, Blessed be He—who is "destined to help repair the world" (tikkun olam).This concept, particularly prominent in the Kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria, posits that the original act of creation resulted in a cosmic "shattering," and that it is humanity's sacred task to gather the scattered sparks of divinity through righteous and creative acts, thereby restoring harmony to the cosmos.
In this view, every act of creation that brings beauty, truth, or goodness into the world is an act of cosmic repair. The Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah further maps this process through the Sefirot, the ten divine emanations that form the Tree of Life. Creativity is understood as a divine flow of energy moving through these channels, from the initial, unfiltered spark of inspiration (Chochmah or Wisdom) through the process of shaping and structuring (Binah or Understanding) to its final manifestation in the world (Da'at or Knowledge).
If we accept that we are created in the image of a Creator and are called to be co-creators, then the conclusion is inescapable: the act of creation is a profound form of worship. It is an offering of our deepest selves, a tangible expression of the divine spark within us. Every brushstroke, every note of music, every line of poetry becomes a prayer offered back to the source of all creativity.
As one Christian writer puts it, "each act, from painting to cooking to woodworking to gardening, is an act of worship that points back to the Ultimate Creator."
This form of worship is not one of passive obedience but of active, courageous faith—a true spiritual discipline. This is the faith required to begin. When you start a novel or a painting, you act on a belief in something that doesn't yet exist, an "unseen" concept you trust you can bring into being.
It's the faith to proceed when every creator faces the blank page, the empty canvas, or the silent instrument, with no guarantee the work will be "good," understood, or successful. Self-doubt is a constant companion, and to move forward requires a leap of faith in the process, in your abilities, and in the intrinsic value of the act itself.
This faith often demands surrender. Many artists describe moments of feeling like a conduit, where the work "flows through them" or the story "wants to go" in a certain direction. This requires letting go of rigid control and trusting the emergent nature of creativity—the "muse."
This is the same faith Jung’s visionary artist must have to surrender their ego to the transpersonal power of the collective unconscious, and the same faith a mystic needs to step into the darkness of the unknown.
Ultimately, this dedication—pouring hours, emotion, and resources into your work with no guarantee of external validation—transforms the creative act. It is a constant dialogue with the divine, a process of listening for the "new song" (shir chadash) that can only emerge when we open ourselves to what is bigger than us. The "worship" aspect elevates creation from a solely personal craft into a devotional act, an offering, and a form of communion.
Universal Mystical Traditions
This sacred understanding of creativity is not confined to the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a universal insight found at the heart of the world's mystical paths, which reinforces its status as a fundamental spiritual truth.
In Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam, beauty is considered a primary attribute of God. A central Hadith (a saying of the Prophet Muhammad) states, "God is beautiful and He loves beauty" (Innallaha jamilun yuhibbul jamal).God is known as Al-Jamil, "The Beautiful".
Consequently, the universe is seen as a reflection of this divine beauty, and the artist's role is to act as a conduit for that beauty, to create works that lift the veils of ordinary perception and allow the viewer to glimpse the divine essence.
For the Sufi, creativity is a spiritual path, an inner exploration to connect with the divine. Art forms like music, poetry, and dance are not mere entertainment but sacred expressions of faith, designed to produce in the participant an intense love for God and an awareness of the divine presence.
Exploring these ideas of cosmic repair and divine beauty is one thing, but to truly live them, we must embody them in our practice. Faith, after all, is not just a belief system but an action. For the artist, the spiritual work begins when we quiet the noise of the world and face the blank page.
It requires ritual. For me, that ritual often takes the form of a quiet prayer, a conscious act of inviting a power greater than my own ego into the sacred space of creation. It is a way of saying, 'I am ready to listen.'
Tweak my prayer below as you see fit. If you can't see it, that means you're not a free member. (What are you waiting for?)
My Prayer to the Muse
Don't Leave Without Your Map
'The Warden's Way' is my free gift to you—a minimalist journal and guide for your journey.
