Fire in the Crucible: Understanding the Process of Creative Genius

Overview

What makes geniuses different from the rest of us? What is the difference between a prodigy and a genius? Are geniuses born or made? What is creative vision and where does it come from? What are the secrets of talent? And why do great creators seem to have so many oppositions in their personalities?

In this mind-expanding investigation of creativity, John Briggs reveals that there is no special trait of genius. Geniuses are not necessarily smarter or more talented than other ...

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Fire in the Crucible: Understanding the Process of Creative Genius

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Overview

What makes geniuses different from the rest of us? What is the difference between a prodigy and a genius? Are geniuses born or made? What is creative vision and where does it come from? What are the secrets of talent? And why do great creators seem to have so many oppositions in their personalities?

In this mind-expanding investigation of creativity, John Briggs reveals that there is no special trait of genius. Geniuses are not necessarily smarter or more talented than other people, but they give their attention to subtle nuances, contradictory feelings, and perceptions that others experience and ignore. By focusing on sensory nuances, geniuses create themselves.

Fire in the Crucible offers a compelling exploration of the roots of creativity and genius. Drawing on the lives and work of extraordinary scientists, artists, writers, composers, and inventors, Briggs shows how creative individuals exploit doubt and uncertainty, and the mental strategies and tactics they employ when they work. "In asking about creativity," he writes, "we are really asking about what is best, what is deepest in life." Fire in the Crucible draws the reader into an eyeopening journey through the inner workings of some of the greatest creative minds of all times -- and allows us to more deeply understand the nature of the creativity in our own lives and work.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781890482770
  • Publisher: Phanes Press
  • Publication date: 11/1/2000
  • Pages: 1
  • Sales rank: 541,106
  • Product dimensions: 5.56 (w) x 8.48 (h) x 0.91 (d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Prologue xiii
Introduction: Smoke from the Fire
A Parable
Some Prejudices and Premises
Sources
Genius Preliminarily Defined
Part 1 Vision and the Prima Materia 15
Overview 17
Chapter 1 Qualities of Mind
Einstein's Compass
Hidden Themes
Where the Needle Pointed
Chapter 2 Subtle Vibrations
The Light Through the Window
Other Cases of Nuance
Chapter 3 The Open Brain
Nuance Cycles
The Possibility Cloud
A Caveat: Edison's Game
Chapter 4 As Above, So Below
Part Prologue to the Whole
The Whole Truth
At the Center of Things
The Work as a Whole: the Individual-Universal Equation
Chapter 5 Contraries
Some Polar Chemistry
Ambivalence
Negative Capability
Chapter 6 Omnivalence
The Hunger of 'More'
Creators and Mystics
A Myth of Creativity
Part 2 The Distilling Agents 131
Overview 133
Chapter 7 Quicksilver
What Measure of Genius: the Search for the Brainpower Secret
In the Prodigy Lab
Lab Lessons
Chapter 8 Mercurial Maps
The Many-Intelligences Approach
Of Talents and Feedback
Three Funny Things About Talent
What Goes Around Comes Around
Chapter 9 Insight Architecture
Buttresses of Light
Thinking Like a Mirror
The Creative Mind's Sorting Processes
Panoramic Images
Chapter 10 The Absorbing Flame
On the Hot Side of Mercury
Two Apparent Paradoxes of Absorption
Absorption: Its Nature and Nurture
Child's Play, Courage and Other Conundrums
Chapter 11 To Burn with One's Time
Fires of Heaven; No, Earth
Some Trips Around the Sulphuric Mobius Strip
Co-incidence Twists
History and the Individual: Which Distills Which?
Chapter 12 Madness and the Mirror-Maker's Nightmare
How Dangerous Is It?
On the Edge of Reality
Part 3 The Great Work 249
Overview 251
Chapter 13 Constructing the Egg
Crystallizing
The Unfolding Context
The Daily Obsessions
Chapter 14 Germinations from Salt
The Final Reagent
The Whole of the Virus
Different Germ Experiences
Two Examples
Chapter 15 More Salt Grains to Stone
Turning Over a Few Germs
The Birth of a Painting
Tales of Two Composers
Where Was the Germ for Relativity?
Chapter 16 Companions in Quest
The Myth of the Lone Creator
Indirect and Domestic Collaborations
Direct Collaborations
Dance to the Grail
Epilogue 331
Notes 334
Index 375
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