The Sexual Chemistry of Creativity: King Solomon's Masterclass

PART 6 – AN INVITATION TO EXCELLENCE 195

29 – YOUR IMMENSE POTENTIAL 197

30 – THE INVITATION 199

THE POWERTHINK WORKSHOP 201

A: Creative Problem SolvinG 201

B: Problem Exploration 205

C: ANALYSIS– Why? Why? Why? 207

D: Brainstorming 209

E: Adaptation, Reversal & Assumptions 211

F: Random Word Searching 213

G: Synectics 215

HEBREW POETIC STRUCTURE OF THE SONG 219

SOLOMON AND THE SONG 223

THINKING ABOUT THINKING 235

PREFACE – How This Book Got Written

Some twenty years ago when I was teaching physics in what Tony Blair would call a ‘bog standard’ comprehensive school, I snapped an achilles tendon playing in the staff tennis tournament in the last week of the summer term. As a result, I had to spend the break hobbling about on crutches.

Consequently, when my family and I went on holiday to Weston-super-mare that year, instead of playing tennis, I spent my time exploring the local second-hand bookshops – where I was fortunate to discover a copy of Applied Imagination by Alex E. Osborn, the ‘father of brainstorming’. Having been interested in invention since I was a teenager, I was immediately excited by the book and the concept of creative problem solving.

Confident that I could carry out the lateral thinking procedures described by Osborn, I toyed with the idea of becoming a business consultant. However, being at heart an educator, I soon became more interested in trying to write a book on the creative process, and so began reading any and everything I could find on the subject. As part of my research, I discovered a little book in the British Library entitled Creative Action, written by the late Edward Matchett. Having already read the works of many writers, I realized that he was onto something special that no other author seemed to understand.

Matchett, an aeronautical engineer by training, had been commissioned in the 1960’s by the Science Research Council of Great Britain to research the nature of creative genius, in the interest of sharpening the competitive edge of British industry. As a result, he travelled the world, interviewing the likes of Albert Einstein – and was astonished to find that the working methods of genius was far removed from the analytical systems he had earlier been promoting as an industrial trainer. To describe his experiences, he then wrote two mystical little books -- The Journeys of Nothing in the Land of Everything and Creative Action.

During the research for my own book, I had the opportunity to visit Matchett at his home in Bristol and spend some time sharing his experiences. During that discussion, he made an aside about the famous Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, a book in the Bible that I had tried to read on several occasions, but had always found to be confusing mumbo-jumbo. However, as a result of Matchett’s comment, I later began to study the Song again -- and was amazed to find sections that seemed to resonate with the very creative principles I had been writing about.

Over the following months I discovered that all the principles were indeed woven into the Song, and that Solomon’s poetic masterpiece was in reality a logically structured masterclass in creativity, amounting even genius. Evidently, as already mentioned, the purpose of the Song was to complement Proverbs and Ecclesiastes to complete a practical wisdom trilogy, tools intended to transform that ancient bunch of debased slaves into the world’s most successful nation. Had Israel responded, no doubt the technology we now enjoy would have been rapidly developed back then, and world history would have been very different.

Eisegesis

In such situations there is always the danger of ‘eisegesis’, which is the process of imposing your own meaning on a text, making it say what you want it to say. This is the opposite of ‘exegesis’ which attempts to explain the true message of a document. If any reader is concerned about this possibility, as they sensibly should be, I would direct them to the appendix which lays out the Hebrew poetic structure of the Song – showing the creative principles to be meticulously organized in a manner that simply could not be imposed by this author or by blind chance.

INTRODUCTION

My thesis in this little book is that some three thousand years ago, King Solomon of ancient Israel, the wisest person who ever lived, was inspired to discover the principles of creativity and preserved them for posterity in the often erotic verse of his enigmatic masterpiece, the Song of Songs. That sacred book of Hebrew scripture has come to be regarded by many as the most beautiful poetry ever written – and until very recently, the ‘greatest puzzle in all literature.’

Hopefully, that puzzle has now been solved, affording any interested person, even the lowliest of peasants, the means of raising their personal achievement to the level of excellence we now call genius.

Creative Excellence

But just what is creativity? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to create means to involve the imagination in bringing something new into existence, for example, a poem, a painting, a piece of music, but probably more importantly, a business, a product or service, a design, a scientific breakthrough, or an invention – and to achieve excellence in so doing.

Creative excellence is not a singular entity, however, but depends on, rather, an appropriate blend of a range of factors like the flavour of a piece of cake or a cup of coffee – not just originality or novelty, but also elegance of form, effectiveness of function, economy and efficiency, simplicity and perfection of detail.

It is helpful, also, to appreciate that creative projects vary greatly in their complexity, from that of a jingle to that of a symphony, from that of an improved paper clip up to a new type of engine or computer. That diversity is typified in the plant and animal kingdoms, whose flora and fauna encompass the amoebae and the elephant, the blade of grass and the mighty redwood tree.

A Clue in the Title

Perhaps the first clue to the true significance of the Song is found in the first line of the Hebrew text which acts as its title in the ancient scrolls: The Song of all Songs, which is Solomon’s, a phrase which can signify not simply the most excellent of all songs, which is how many have regarded it -- but also a song about songs and the way they are created, which is, I believe, Solomon’s intention. Since a song can deal with any subject and convey both meaning and emotion, and because every single note and word has to be a perfect fit, it provides an appropriate metaphor for creative excellence in any field.

The Song Baffles the Scholars

Commenting on the Song’s enigmatic literary structure, Abraham Cohen, in The Five Megilloth says: ‘The various sections succeed one another without logical sequence, giving the appearance of incongruous fragments.’ Not surprisingly then, the Song has remained a puzzle throughout the centuries, and its often erotic poetry greatly disturbed the celibate scholars of the Early Christian Church, prompting Origen, who considered it dangerously suggestive, to say: ‘These things seem to me to afford no profit to the reader . . . It is necessary, therefore, rather to give them a spiritual meaning.’ He could not have been more wrong!

Is the Song of Songs a Religious Book?

According to the editor of the Jerusalem Bible: ‘People have found it surprising that a book that makes no mention of God and whose vocabulary is so passionate should figure in the sacred canon.’ Scholar Charles Ellicott says: ‘From the beginning to the end there is not a single word in it which suggests any connection with religion. The whole theme,’ he says, ‘is one of folly, vanity and looseness.’ He concludes by asking: ‘How did the vigilance of those who watched the formation of the Canon allow it?’

Such has been the confusion over the significance of the Song that Jewish scholars in the first century sought to have it removed from the canon of scripture, but the Rabbi Akiba

insisted on its retention, saying: ‘All the ages are not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.’

The Sexual Chemistry of Creativity

In The Song of Fourteen Songs, leading scholar Michael Goulder concluded that ‘titillation is the keynote’ – that the girl in the Song is portrayed ‘from the first verse as a nymphomaniac’, and that the whole book could well be regarded as ‘nothing else than a piece of high-class pornography.’ No wonder another scholar quite recently described it as ‘an embarrassment’.

What Goulder and others failed to grasp is the simple fact that Solomon, like creative individuals since ancient times, clearly understood the uncanny parallels that exist between creativity and sex in general and human and plant reproduction in particular – the sexual chemistry of creativity.

Multiple Meanings

Amazingly, it seems also that the original Hebrew text, which is composed only of consonants, is framed in such an inspired manner that different but complementary insights can sometimes be generated from the same phrases by the insertion of different vowels, which is why different translators often offer radically different, but often complementary, renderings of the same verses.

The confusion is not helped by that fact that In their captivity the people of Israel all but lost contact with their Hebrew language, with the result that some of the verses in the Song are extremely obscure with some of the words not being used anywhere else in the Bible.

The basic text used in this book is that of the Revised Standard Version, but a range of other versions have been consulted on occasions for the sake of sense and clarity.

Multifaceted Metaphors

In explaining the principles of creativity, Solomon makes use of a range of metaphors, based on what at first appears to be a bewildering miscellany of natural subjects, including foxes, lions, horses, gazelles, sheep, a garden and a vineyard, a king and a virgin, and even a young flat-chested girl. This metaphorical method of teaching and learning is of course the approach of the modern quantum physicist who attempts to understand and describe the weird complexity of ultimate physical reality, such as the behaviour of light and electrons for example, by comparing them with familiar everyday phenomena such as the motion of waves on water.

The Key that Never Turned

There can be little doubt that had the people of Israel remained faithful to God, and the nation been preserved, there would have been an explosion of knowledge and a rapid cultural and technological revolution surpassing anything that has occurred since. I suspect that the key intended to unlock the door to that new age was the Song of Songs -- but sadly that key never turned and the door remained closed for several thousand years.

A Personal Exodus

I suspect that significant corroboration of Solomon’s intent in the Song is afforded by the fact that some now unknown person or persons of authority, at some time in the distant past, saw fit to assign sections to be read to the congregations of Israel on the eighth day of the Passover festival, at the end of the days of unleavened bread. The Passover, which was instituted under Moses, commemorates Israel’s exodus from Egypt – a glorious deliverance from slavery -- and their entry into the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. Deliverance, I believe, is also the message of the Song of Songs.

Personal development gurus such as Anthony Robbins and many psychologists now recognize that much of mankind – even in the so-called civilized world – remains in a kind of mental bondage to mediocrity, fear and failure, unknowingly enslaved by negative attitudes, ignorance, and illusion. Through the inspired writings of Solomon, they are offered the opportunity to escape, and encouraged to undertake a personal exodus into a new and more satisfying life of creative excellence and enduring achievement.

PART 1 – THE OPTION OF EXCELLENCE

Solomon apparently perceived that all human beings, even the lowliest of peasants, possess the potential to achieve creative excellence and make valuable contributions to society in some appropriate field – a truly revolutionary vision in an age where the idea that ordinary people were even capable of learning to read, write, and do arithmetic would have been regarded by most rulers as bizarre beyond belief. As bizarre, perhaps, as cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky’s more recent assertion that there is little, if any, difference between the average person and a Mozart or Beethoven.

In his wisdom, Solomon saw that the creative excellence achieved by the few is in fact an ordinary expectation of the human mind, and attainable by the many – once they are enlightened to the possibilities of the magical potential they already possess.

Enlightenment

The creative genius, Solomon saw, is born as ignorant as the fool, but by somehow discovering and developing the creative treasure in the human heart, they find and follow the path that leads to excellence.

Appropriately, then, the first four principles of the Song focus on enlightenment – the simple fact that creative excellence, in the very broadest sense, is an option open to all human beings, no matter what their race, colour or creed, and no matter how humble their social origins or their present state of knowledge.

1 – FIRST FALL IN LOVE

The song of all songs, which is Solomon’s.

That you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!

For your caresses are better than wine

Your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out

Therefore the virgins love you.

Draw me after you, and I will follow you eagerly.

Be my king and take me to your chambers.

We will be happy together; we will extol your love more than wine;

Rightly do they love you.

Song of Songs 1:1-4

In these very first verses, Solomon seemingly describes a girl yearning for the presence of her lover -- but as in every other section of the Song, there is something ever so slightly odd about the scenario he presents. Here, for example, the girl wants the mysterious un-named lover to draw her after him, so that she can follow eagerly. She also wants him to be her king. There is far more going on here than is immediately apparent at first reading.

King Solomon’s Master class

It is the occurrence of odd little phrases like these in each section that show that the Song of Songs is not a series of love poems at all, but an inspired master class in creativity – each clever metaphor or scenario being packed with a variety of complementary insights into the creative process, all waiting to be drawn out by quiet reflection and discussion, ideally in consultation with a trained mentor.

Some insights will be more obvious, and some less so, perhaps only becoming visible to the reader in the light of practical experience.One lesson here, for example, is the uncannily close parallel between creative action and sex – and the fact that both processes are triggered by emotions, such as excitement, desire and love, and that both involve male and female roles. Although this parallel has been informally observed since ancient times, sex and reproduction do not afford a complete picture of the creative process, which is why Solomon also draws supplementary lessons, later in the Song, from gardens, vineyards, lions, gazelles, foxes, horses and even a flat-chested young girl.

What Do You Love?

If creativity begins with love and desire, what do you love? What draws you? What subject, problem or purpose excites you and stirs your heart like a fine perfume? What fascinates you, and what do you enjoy doing? What would you love to devote your life to? What is the significantly un-named love of your life? When you find it, it will change the way you think and behave — as when boy meets girl.

Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that during a TV interview, the wise and experienced president of a leading international bank offered this simple advice to ambitious young people: ‘Find something you love to do – and do it!’ The great man was not saying find something you ‘like’ or ‘enjoy’, but something you love with a consuming passion.

Creative people are in love, obsessed, infatuated, sometimes from a very young age. Such infatuation is evidenced in the following extract from by David Weiss’ biography of the great sculptor August Rodin: ‘What makes you think you can be an artist?’ . . . ‘I have been drawing since I was five.’ . . . ‘On canvas?’ . . . ‘On wrapping paper.’

The Giant Within

Perhaps the most fundamental insight in this introductory section is the fact that creative success is not achieved by mentally striving and intellectualizing, but by working in partnership with your creative mind, your creative self, as typified by a marriage union – by working with what Anthony Robbins calls ‘the Giant Within’ and what Solomon more accurately describes as a king, and a lover.

Inspired poems and pop songs are not written, symphonies are not composed, fine pictures are not painted, and exciting new theories and innovative designs are not developed by grit and determination – but by relaxed play and interaction with the creative king within each one of us.

The King’s Chamber

Notice that our king has a chamber, an inner room, which is simply an appropriate metaphor for the part of the mind that contains the creative mind – a chamber that is somewhat removed, like a bedroom in a big house, from those areas where the more mundane workaday activities take place.

In Nine Chains to the Moon, engineering genius Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, makes the following significant comment: ‘Common to all such humans is their guidance by a phantom captain . .