The Fifth Dragons of Creative Writing- Part One of Seven, The Dragon of Putrefaction, An Introduction

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The three robed figures moved away in unison across the deck, their steps silent beneath their robes as if they floated above the planking. Crewman eyed them with uneasy glances. Several crossed themselves and quickly looked away.

A pushy, persistent wind threw shredded rags of clouds overhead, billowing them like a poor man’s laundry across a cerulean sky of textured Tiffany glass. As the pale sun disappeared behind the clouds, the Professor pulled his collar tighter to his neck.

Captain Baker pretended not to notice.
excerpted from "The Bedlamite," by Ferrel D. Moore

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"For many who work deeply with spiritual transformation, the goal may seem to be the healing of and freedom from past pain and suffering. When this goal appears to have been reached, there’s a tendency to believe that there will be no further difficult experiences. We think that because we’ve worked so hard, we’ve cleared it all out. Our life from that point will be idyllic and serene.

This is such a common experience of lulling ourselves into yet another type of unconsciousness. This sets us up for the shock of an even more challenging experience wherein the ego is again thrown into the fiery cauldron for further transformation. In alchemy, this is called the Putrefaction - Fermentation stage.

"Here, we again face the ego’s insistence on dominance, but there is an important difference in the quality, intensity, and source of the experience. Unlike the experience in the first stage of Calcination, where we were alone in our battle with the ego, this time we sense another force assisting us. Although the initial part of this fifth stage, Putrefaction, can be very disturbing, and we may be thrown into a pit of depression or despair, it feels like we are being held up, supported, even encouraged in the process."
Alchemy Journal Number 2, Volume 5 "The Alchemy in Spiritual Progress Part 5: Putrefaction" by Nanci Shanderá, Ph.D.

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But what does this mean to the writer? Let's look at this before we return to the story, because we are about to journey into the rareified air where writers and the world of spirit merge. Are you an atheist or an agnostic? No matter, I'm not talking religion. But, if you think that all there is to a writer is isolation, if you think that a writer is a mere bag of chemicals restrained by skin and with an organic computer for a brain, if you think that parsimonious economy trumps abundance and theme transcends hope, then there may not be much of interest to you from here forward.


If our hearts cannot feel the reassuring touch of spirit, we shall someday fall to self-manufactured neural networks that have no real need of poetry at all. To create a different world, where the spirit of mankind can outpace its technological assemblages, it is necessary to tap into the centers of our being. This is the true realm of the saintly and the mad- the writers, musicians, artists, and poets who fearfully descend into the darkness of their subconscious to find the pinpointed lights of starlight that float within their soul, and bring back the imageries of both to share with those of us too afraid to make the journey on our own.


In the laboratory of the human heart, as in any other laboratory, one distallation is not enough. To achieve the highest degree of purity, to become rectified, the process must be repeated over and again to remove the dross of our lives so that we may move forward free from impurities.


Consider, if you will, Walt Whitman's life work. After his initial ephiphany that produced the staggering yet slender first edition titled "The Leaves of Grass," he continued to spend his lifetime re-writing, expanding, and refining that great work. Yet, because he was fearful of facing those aspects of himself that had not been cleansed by his first illumination, the remaining editions (save, the third, which is, as even Malcom Cowley agrees, a masterwork), display the efforts of a craftsman, not a towering genius.



His initial succes, achieved by abandoning his ego, were supplanted by the return of his ego. Try as he might, he never again achieved the breadth of literary power that had called the praise-parsimonious Emerson to announce, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career..."



Even the great Whitman was afraid to attempt a second re-birth by journeying inward to face the blackest elements of himself. Calcination had been quite enough for him. Walt Whitman, the great American Poet of the Everyman, feared to face the Dragon of Putrefaction.



I once asked an elderly alchemist what I should do to become a great writer. "It is the same for anything creative," she said. "Abandon the craft and find yourself."



"That is a new-age platitude," I said. I was angry with what I thought to be her flippant response.



"I wish that were true," she said. "In truth, it is not hard to create compelling stories- if the writer stays out of the way."