Demon Muse: Farewell and forward

Matt Cardin — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:35:14 +0000

In February 2013, Demon Muse was hacked by an unknown individual or individuals who uploaded unauthorized materials to the site. After some investigation, it emerged that the best way to address the situation would simply be to nuke the entire site and start over from scratch. Along the way, I decided to take the opportunity to make some permanent changes.

The sole function of Demon Muse is now simply to provide access to A Course in Demonic Creativity: A Writer’s Guide to the Inner Genius, the ebook that I developed from articles originally published here between 2009 and 2011. At last count, the book had been downloaded more than 3000 times and was still being accessed several more times per day by individuals hailing from various parts of the globe. The feedback from readers has been rather passionately positive, so I’m happy to continue giving the book away free of charge for the indefinite future.

The other content that formerly appeared here — the dozens of articles about awakening to your own muse/daimon/genius and learning to discover your creative work and destiny by living and working in harmony with this presence or force — may or may not appear some day in a forthcoming book to be titled (perhaps) Daemon Muse: A Guide to the Inner Genius.

Until then, you can read some of my additional writing about these matters in various places:

“In Search of Higher Intelligence: The Daemonic Muse(s) of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson” appears in the October 2012 issue of the journal Paranthropology. The same essay will also appear in the forthcoming book Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, edited by Angela Voss and William Rowlandson for Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
“5 Reasons Why You Need a Muse” is available at Lateral Action.
“Perspiration Meets Inspiration, or The Return of the Muse” appears at Talent Development Resources.
“Nexus of Nightmares: Fuseli, Sleep Paralysis, and Horror’s Master Image” appears at Dream Studies.
“Liminalities” — A series of blog posts at The Teeming Brain.
The Teeming Brain’s ongoing series of articles and posts about daemonic creativity and creativity in general.
The long interview that I gave to my friend and fellow horror writer T. E. Grau at The Cosmicomicon in 2012.

Additionally, you can listen to my radio interview on the October 14, 2012 episode of the Expanding Mind radio show, titled “Daemonic Creativity.”

I would like to issue a public thanks to all of my readers and commenters who responded to the original Demon Muse site and the ebook with such enthusiasm and insight.

-Matt Cardin