shamanic journeying comes in here: shamans and mythopoeic writers often
visualise similar beings and detailed vast landscapes. Here visionary writers and
artists who tap into the collective unconscious – such as Dali, Turner, William Blake,
Dante, Milton, Keats, Shelley, Goya, Tolkien – are closer to shamans than the major
fantasy authors. Creative writing, per se, in other words, does not necessarily have
any affinity with shamanic ‘ecstasy’. Ecstasy – or the ability to step outside of
oneself and into other worlds – is the key feature of shamanic consciousness (as
Eliade writes). Again, there are vast differences with creative writing here. I n
writing my own epic mythography, for instance, I am at no time present in it; I
write rather as a God-like observer who is simply (i.e. passively) recording (here on
Earth) what I see and hear – faithfully ‘serving the vision as artist’ ... furthermore, I
have to stay focused in the present in order to employ all my technical and critical
abilities as an artist. I n shamanic work, on the other hand, I leave space-time and
actually enter via trance state the Otherworlds in an active role, on a mission to find
souls, advice, remedies, healing wisdom, whatever. And here’s the overlap with my
writing; many of my shamanic realms and Guides are also featured in my epic
mythography, set in another galaxy.
Q2. Yes, she has been influenced by the classics, science fiction and poetry,
particularly the Metaphysical poets and the Romantics: ... all of the work I love has
influenced me deeply.
Q3. Probably going off the deep end throughout 1993-94. Here I was a
borderline case and if I hadn’t been able to pull myself out of the Abyss (of the
collective unconscious), I probably would have ended up on a funny farm. I n
retrospect, I view this semi-sane period as a shamanic initiation similar to
schizophrenic breakdown.
Q4. Maureen stated that she could work only in harmonious surroundings that
have some resonance with Nature, especially in periods when she was writing
intensely.
Q5. Maureen feels that she is in a state close to that of creative-imaginal
consciousness most of the time and, ... I f it’s a good work, it extends my range of
feeling and experience of life; if it’s a great work, it’s able to evoke ‘the sensation of
the mystical (Einstein), or ‘the sublime’ that transcends emotion.
Q6. Several books have changed my life in the above ways; no I can’t exactly
describe how, since the change was transrational – beyond words to convey. The
main works are: and by far the most powerful novel I ’ve ever read; Mervyn Peake’s
ron
(Ron)
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