Significant Moments: Homospatial Thinking -- Elective Affinities

Albert Rothenberg, M.D. first described or discovered a process he

termed "homospatial thinking," which consists of actively conceiving two
or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a conception leading
to the articulation of new identities. Homospatial thinking has a salient
role in the creative process in the following wide variety of fields:
literature, the visual arts, music, science, and mathematics. This cognitive
factor, along with "Janusian thinking," clarifies the nature of creative
thinking as a highly adaptive and primarily nonregressive form of
functioning.

There is a section of my book Significant Moments whose manifest content

depicts a conversation between the composer Richard Wagner and his
wife, Cosima. Superimposed on the text is a metaphor: a novel by
Goethe titled Elective Affinities, a novel that features a scene in which a
child drowns in a lake. I draw connections between the manifest content
of the text and the underlying metaphor -- to the extent that the
underlying metaphor and the manifest content are nearly
indistinguishable.

Wagner’s wife, Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner. “She was, to
be sure, still very young.”
___________________________

Alone in the evening, we become involved in a deep and far-

ranging conversation.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Monday, October 30, 1882).
Life was an enigma to them whose solution they could discover only
with each other.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
It was one of those . . .
Rich Cohen, Lake Effect.
. . . quiet moments when petty concerns seem to melt away.
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of
a Psychoanalyst.
I then find it difficult to recapture the right mood for Elective Affinities.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Monday, October 30, 1882).
The sun had set, and already twilight and mist were settling on the lake.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
R. says, "How curious—when I was thinking today about Levi's visit,
there came into my mind the verse . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Monday, July 1, 1878).
. . . of Schiller’s . . .
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
‘ . . . the lake is wild and wants its sacrifices.’”
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Monday, July 1, 1878).
Wagner . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (Part II).
. . . could not deny there were other thoughts too, of things
permissible and impermissible, which would not be stilled.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
“ . . . What will she do when she has lost me? Will she . . .
Paul Roazen, Freud and His Followers quoting Sigmund Freud.
. . . she was, to be sure, still very young—
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
. . . Will she lead a life of ascetic austerity?”
Paul Roazen, Freud and His Followers quoting Sigmund Freud.
And then, working on these thoughts, his imagination would evoke
one possibility after another. If he was not to . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
. . . survive her . . .
W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions.
. . . then he would make over to her the possession of his estate. There she
would live as an independent person, there she should be happy, even—
when his self-tormenting imagination took him that far—happy with
somebody else.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
On going to bed, very dismal thoughts . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, September 30, 1869).
. . . an alien state of mind, anxious and disturbing . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson and T. C. Masson, Buried Memories on the
Acropolis: Freud's Response to Mysticism and Anti-Semitism.
For a moment . . .
William Faulkner, Light in August.
. . . as fate would have it, . . .
Thomas Hardy, Two on a Tower.
. . . we find ourselves . . .
Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm.
. . . staring out the window . . .
Randall Parrish, Love Under Fire.
. . . towards the lake.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
We are reminded of the words of the poet:

All that is to live in endless song

Must in life-time first be drown'd.
Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism quoting Friedrich
Schiller, The Gods of Greece.