I'm Turning Myself to a Demon

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 12 August 2015.

Emily Dickinson

But seriously, I guess it's that old Dickinson tack of "tell the truth but tell it slant."

Art needs to approach these things obliquely (and I don't mean Art Art, just art). As Oedipus says, "When the stealthy plotter moves on me, I must be quick with my counterplot." I always think that I'm closing in on the murderer, but the artist and mystic realizes that he too is possessed by this same murderous spirit. I can try to rationalize myself to higher ground, distance myself from the demon as it were.

But I can't name it until I've fully seen it in myself, that I am "the accursed defiler of this land." That may be the religious reason for identifying myself with Farthington. After the collapse of "old polar schema," to what extent does reflecting "the devil we are possessed by" necessitate identifying with that devil?

How tempting to fall back into the old polarities!

So, it's been weird because sometimes I feel like I am the demon, that I simulate and dissimulate like a demon, that I sound demonic. But then again, to what extent does this approach partake in the cunning used by Christ: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
by Fleet Foxes  

Dear shadow, alive and well
How can the body die?
You tell me everything
Anything true 

Jessie, I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself into a demon
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon

Art Art