Inspiration and the Experience of Order

Introduction

The subject of this book is a moment in the process of wrestling with impressions,
experiences, gathered data, emotions, when suddenly a long sought solution, a desired form, a poem with its words, rhymes and rhythms, or the form and content of a composition, present themselves, all at once coherent and as though given from the outside of the mind…

Chapter 1: Metaphysics of the Pool Table

I start in a context that excludes contamination of thought by romanticized concepts
seeping in from a culture of glorified, mythologized creativity. A perfectly objective, almost, I would say, scientific basis of inspiration, is my point of departure, a context where we can observe inspiration as “a fundamental mode of human experience” (W. James) and we can see the laws it is based on functioning “independent of any historical developments.”

Chapter 2: Johannes Kepler

Kepler’s narratives of discovery are models of inspiration: experiences of order—he receives hidden knowledge of the universe from sources outside himself; an elegant and orderly unity coalesces all of a sudden; the euphoria, the sense of unerring precision of thought, the uncanny coincidence of idea and data, the predictive ability that comes from such a vision.

Chapter 3: Isaac Newton

Here is an interesting text to invite you to read the full chapter