[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — It would be easy
to multiply indefinitely instances where authors have felt themselves to be influenced unconsciously. Indeed I doubt whether any imaginative writer can rely for inspiration on his conscious mind alone. The real divergence of opinion is whether such influences are, as Dame Edith Lyttelton believes, " messages from discarnate beings " or arise from the unconscious levels of the author's own mind. Surely the latter is the more reasonable alternative, especially if one accepts Jung's view that the " unconscious " is not merely personal but also collective.
I take Mr. Alfred Cox's protest to refer to the modern tendency not to wait for a welling up from that unconscious but to fish something up and present it as a pearl of great price whereas to the reader it appears a worthless pebble.—Yours
Previous page
