Homospatial Thinking and Significant Moments: Passing Biblical

Reference

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.

In a section of my book Significant Moment I discuss Richard Wagner's

composition of his opera Parsifal. Superimposed on a brief passage of the
writing is a biblical image: the story of the birth of the Patriarch
Isaac. When Sarah was beyond child-bearing age, God told Abraham and
Sarah that she would still give birth, at which she privately laughed (Gen.
18:10–12). Wagner himself was 56 years old when Cosima, 24 years his
junior, gave birth to their son, Siegfried. Parsifal was Wagner's last opera;
the opera was a product of the composer's old age. (Arthur Rubinstein's
father was already old when his last-born child Arthur was born; Arnold
Schoenberg was old when his son Ronald was born.)

The reference to the Biblical Isaac refers to both Wagner's son Siegfried
and to his opera Parsifal: and perhaps to Arthur Rubinstein and Arnold
Schoenberg. Coincidentally, Arthur Rubinstein's father was named Isaac.
_______________________

Wagner, an artist who in general had built upon and summarized

the achievements of his contemporaries, was . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner, The Man, His Mind, and His
Music.
. . . in his old age . . .
Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary.
. . . following new paths.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner, The Man, His Mind, and His
Music.
He would jokingly repeat . . . —
Edmund Engelman, Berggasse 19: Freud’s Home and Offices, Vienna
1938.
Whoever hears will laugh at me . . .
Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary.
. . . but I like to remind people . . .
Terry Rager, Live From . . . the Stratosphere.
Parsifal . . .
Siegfried Wagner, Erinnerungen.
. . . is not an old work of my youth but a youthful work of my old
age . . .
Conrad Susa, Music of Unseen Worlds quoting Wagner.
. . . a legacy I am proud to leave.
Isaac Stern and Chaim Potok, My First 79 Years.
Parsifal, . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . . a work that was unlike anything he—or anyone else—had done before .
..
Helen A. Cooper, Thomas Eakins The Rowing Pictures.
. . . is probably the most highly personal musical invention of Wagner—it
places the emphasis for the first time on uncertainty, on . . .
Lucy Beckett, Richard Wagner: Parsifal quoting Pierre Boulez.
. . . fluctuating chromatic harmonies . . .
Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920’s.
. . . on indetermination . . .
Lucy Beckett, Richard Wagner: Parsifal quoting Pierre Boulez.
—and I tell you that . . .
Hermann Levi, Letter to His Father (Rabbi Levi of Giessen).
. . . a patient listener . . .
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Legends of the Province House: II.
Edward Randolph's Portrait.
. . . will palpably sense the distinct quality conferred by the
actual experience . . .
Leonard Shengold, Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse
and Deprivation.
. . . of delayed disclosure . . .
Alwyn Berland, Light in August: A Study in Black and White.
. . . of tonality—
Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea.
. . . which creates initially a sense of discontinuity.
Alwyn Berland, Light in August: A Study in Black and White.