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The prolific composer Haydn, with 104 symphonies and hundreds of compositions to his credit, said: “When my work does not advance, I retire into the oratory with myself and say an Ave: immediately ideas come to me.”

Practically everyone has experienced cre- ative thinking. You have weighed pros and cons and yet couldn’t procure solutions. Later, the solutions cas- cades seemingly from nowhere.

Although the human brain weighs only two and half

mula concerning electricity. It’s said to be one of his best inventions.

“Without receptivity there can be no insight”, said Aldous Huxley, “Reading especially emotional litera- ture may produce a propitious mood.”

On the eve of impor- tant military engaga- ments, Napoleon diverted his conscious mind by playing soli- taire. Presumably, the card game left his sub- conscious mind free to work out the plans to accomplish his task

Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevski insisted that he did his finest works after he had heat- ed argument with his spouse.

Suggestive power

The French novelist Alexandre Dumas talked to his imaginary characters all alone that gave him further ideas to sketch his factitious characters.

James Watt saw how the wastage of heat in a steam engine could be prevented by condensing steam, in a flash of inspiration while walking to play his golf.

Sound sleep yielded remarkable results to Sir Walter Scott. This great novelist used to soliloquies: “Never mind. I shall have the plot of my work at 7 o'clock in the morning.”And he did have it as stated by him to himself.

Van Gogh described how he had terrible lucidity at moments which was so glorious. “In those moments, I became hardly conscious of myself and my painting came to be like pleasant dreams,” he said.

Geniuses describe the creativity moments in rapturous terms. Their spirits soar and they sometime become oblivious of their surroundings. Lord Tennyson described the experiences as a kind of walking trance.

pounds it recalls and records to it 10,000 bits of information every sec- ond, nearly 20 billion impulses dur- ing a lifespan.

“The conscious mind can recall only about 10 per cent of these data. The remaining 90 per cent lies in the subconscious that illuminates the consciousness,” said the renowned psychologist William James who regarded intuition as the highest form of creativity. ■

IN A TRANCE Geniuses describe

the creativity moments in

rapturous terms. Their spirits soar

and they sometime become oblivious of their surroundings.

Lord Tennyson described the

experiences as a kind of walking

trance.

Human sacrifice

A four-month-old baby girl was rescued from a burial ground in Ghaziabad (UP) a little before she was to be sacrificed by a so-called Tantrik (occultist). Police arrested the tantrik who wanted to do a human sacrifice to enhance his power! An accomplice was also arrested. The child’s maternal uncle was also arrested for selling her to the tantrik for Rs 40,000, said the police.

The tantrik is married and has three children. He told the police that he had just completed his ‘tantrik vidya’ and wanted to be a graduate in it! For this he had to per- form a “bali” of a human being.

Police, with the help of local intel- ligence, zeroed in on the maternal uncle of the baby and rushed to the spot where they rescued the baby, arrested the accused and also recov- ered the “sacrificial instruments.”

— Om Prakash Bajaj

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Marie Curie, the most famous female scientist of all time.

ALIVE JULY 2017 73

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