Creativity and Transcendence in the Work of Marion Milner

Kelley A. Raab

American Imago, Volume 57, Number 2, Summer 2000, pp. 185-214 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/aim.2000.0012

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 Kelley A. Raab 185

KELLEY A. RAAB

Creativity and Transcendence in the

Work of Marion Milner
Marion Milner was a British psychoanalyst whose life
spanned the major part of the twentieth century. Unlike D.W.
Winnicott, her contemporary and friend, Milner has yet to be
discovered by scholars of religious studies.1 Like Winnicott,
her work lends itself well to the study of religious symbolism
from the perspective of the early infant-mother relationship.
In addition, Milner wrote extensively about the nature of
creativity, and, to some degree, its relationship to transcen-
dence. In this essay I investigate Milner’s view of “creativity” as
a vehicle for experiencing transcendence. In the course of
exploration, I also address the role of unconscious processes in
religious experience. To do so I look at a portion of the corpus
of Milner’s work in three parts: 1) her articles on Blake’s
Illustrations to the Book of Job, 2) Milner’s last published diary,
Eternity’s Sunrise, and 3) her published account of work with a
schizophrenic patient in The Hands of the Living God. These
three foci, along with references to other works, provide a
fairly accurate picture of Milner’s understanding of the rela-
tionship between creativity, transcendence, and the unconscious.

I) Milner’s Interest in Creativity

Marion Milner was born in London in 1900 as Marion

Blackett, in a family of modest means. Since an excellent
biography can be found elsewhere,2 in tracing Milner’s life
trajectory I will limit myself primarily to discussing her intellec-
tual interests and career pursuits. When she was seventeen,
Milner left school and obtained a position teaching a young
boy how to read. The position was extremely fortuitous, in that
Milner’s work with the boy sparked her interest in how

American Imago, Vol. 57, No. 2, 185–214. © 2000 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

185
186 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

individuals discover the ability to concentrate. Milner later

obtained a university degree in psychology and physiology at
University College, London. Upon graduation she commenced
a position in vocational guidance and mental testing for the
Vocational Guidance Department of the National Institute of
Industrial Psychology. Two years later Milner began writing a
diary exploring her own thinking processes, published in 1934
as A Life of One’s Own (under the pseudonym Joanna Field). A
second book, An Experiment in Leisure, was written while she was
on leave from a project investigating the educational system of
the Girls’ Public Day School Trust. This book also examines
the unconscious processes of her own mind. Milner’s third
book, The Human Problem in Schools (1938), resulted from the
aforementioned school project.
Upon returning to the school project, Milner entered into
part-time psychoanalysis with Sylvia Payne. This choice of
analyst put her “neither in the analytic stream led by Anna
Freud nor in that led by Melanie Klein, for I did not even know
that there was a deep controversy both in theory and practice
between these two pioneers of the psychoanalysis of children”
(Milner 1987b, 6). In 1939, the outbreak of the war put a
moratorium on Milner’s work in schools, and during this
period she wrote her fourth book, On Not Being Able to Paint.
This work is an extension of many of her earlier ideas, and it
also explores the relationship between creativity and the
analytic process. In 1940 Milner was accepted for training by
the British Psycho-Analytic Society and subsequently began a
new career as a psychoanalyst. In addition to her many
psychoanalytic papers published in The Suppressed Madness of
Sane Men: Forty-four Years of Exploring Psychoanalysis (1987),
Milner’s book The Hands of the Living God (1969) makes a
significant psychoanalytic contribution in its meticulous record
of a lengthy analysis with a schizophrenic patient. Her final
book, Eternity’s Sunrise (1987), is an account of her personal
spiritual journey and captures the main themes in her life
experience as an artist, psychoanalyst, and spiritual pilgrim.
Marion Milner died in 1998.
Both Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott significantly
influenced the direction of Milner’s work (Dragstedt 1998,
 Kelley A. Raab 187

442-450). Klein, for example, was one of Milner’s clinical

supervisors, and Milner analyzed Klein’s grandson. Dragstedt
points out that Milner only began to be less intimidated by
Klein after a disturbing experience in the grandson’s analysis
that revealed that Milner’s insights were not fully appreciated
by Klein (Dragstedt 1998, 443). Klein’s work on the early
unconscious phantasy life of the infant and small child strongly
affected Milner’s own thinking, as did Klein’s theories on
transference and counter transference. In addition, Milner was
attracted to Klein’s notion of the depressive position and its
relation to adult mourning processes. For Milner, mourning
was a vehicle for the creative impulse.
Because Milner and Winnicott had a close personal rela-
tionship, it is more difficult to separate their respective influ-
ences on one another. Winnicott was friend, mentor, and
colleague to Milner. Both Milner and Winnicott were inter-
ested in creativity, and for a brief time Winnicott was Milner’s
analyst. Dragstedt suggests that perhaps Milner was Winnicott’s
“muse”—that she planted seeds for some of his inspirations
(Dragstedt 1998, 450).3
As we can see, the corpus of Milner’s work demonstrates a
longstanding interest in the workings of the creative process.
Personally, Milner came to understand creativity in terms of
what could be called a “religious” pursuit. Psychoanalyst Michael
Eigan calls Milner a “body mystic,” a term that suggests there is
no contradiction between transcendence and embodiment in
her work. In his view, her writings explore ways that “mysteri-
ous depths” are linked with “everyday surfaces.” Symbolically,
Milner uses metaphors of the dying god, emptiness, nothing,
and yin-yang to describe aspects of creative processes (Eigan
1998, 14, 32). The first stage in the creative use of symbols, in
her view, must be a temporary giving up of the discriminating
ego, which in turn opens the way to oceanic differentiation.
Excessive fear of undifferentiation can prevent ego regression
to an oceanic state, thus making impossible a creative use of
symbols (Ehrenzweig 1957, 14:202, 204). Apparently Milner
herself experienced terror of the unknown as a primary
restriction of creativity. She had difficulty, for example, sitting
with uncertainty long enough for the fullness of a painting to
188 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

emerge into conscious awareness. Milner was convinced that

an inner experience of “emptiness” was integral to the creative
process. She compared emptiness, or “expectant waiting,” to
certain states of awareness described in eastern meditation
practices. From states of emptiness, according to Milner, mo-
ments of transcendence could arise (Dragstedt 1998, 481-482).

II) Milner’s articles on Blake’s Illustrations to

the Book of Job

Milner wrote two articles focused on Blake’s Illustrations to

the Book of Job. According to Dragstedt, Blake’s poetry stimu-
lated her interest in the relationship between mysticism and
madness as well as the origins of joyfulness in living. His Book of
Job served as a template for her explorations of blocks in
creativity in her patients and herself (Dragstedt 1998, 457). In
her article “The Sense in Nonsense (Freud and Blake’s Job),”
Milner prefaces the discussion by commenting that Blake’s
illustrations deal with the sorts of issues she encountered when
studying schools and their educational systems (Milner 1956b/
1987, 168-169). She also refers to Blake’s illustrations in her
work with her schizophrenic patient Susan in The Hands of the
Living God and in other writings. In discussing her perspective
on Blake’s illustrations, it is helpful to sort out the “layers” of
interpretation involved: the plot of the biblical story of Job,
Blake’s spin on this ancient Hebrew tale, and Milner’s own
perspective on Blake’s Job.
Like most of the stories in the Hebrew Bible, the biblical
story of Job underwent several revisions before it became
canonized in its present form. An early version, for example,
did not contain an account of God’s restoration of prosperity
to Job. The canonized version was written sometime after the
Israelites returned from exile in Babylon in 537 B.C.E. and
prior to the intertestamental period. The story is generally
thought to be a critique of traditional wisdom literature, such
as Proverbs and Song of Solomon, that give prescriptions for
God’s granting of blessings of prosperity and numerous off-
spring. Those familiar with the story will know that it begins in
 Kelley A. Raab 189

a bet: Satan cajoles God into allowing Satan to destroy Job’s

children, health, and prosperity in the hope that Job will lose
his faith and curse God. Job, however, does not curse God, only
his own life, and instead demands a hearing before his creator.
In the biblical account, Satan disappears from the story after
bringing ruin upon Job. Job’s friends turn against him, accus-
ing him of having sinned before God. When God does speak to
Job from the whirlwind, Job realizes his own ignorance and
insignificance and takes back his plea for his “day in court.”
God, in turn, restores Job’s fortune and children to him as well
as his good name.
As stated, while the book of Job was most likely meant to
dissuade the Israelites from the notion that they were the
proximate cause of any and every evil that befell them, it has
been one of the most controversial biblical texts regarding
explanations of theodicy. Why would a good and all-powerful
God let Job suffer so? Blake was not satisfied with the view that
Job’s disasters were brought on by a bet in order to test Job’s
fidelity, so he reworked the story so that Satan became an
“internal Accuser,” and Job’s sufferings a “disease of his soul.”
This was not the only aspect of the story that Blake reinter-
preted, however. Instead of the story being about Job’s quite
correct persistence in his innocence, Blake puts Job in error.
While Blake’s Job has not broken any law, his faith is mis-
placed. He believes in the letter of the law (symbolized by open
law books), but not in its spirit (symbolized by musical instru-
ments). His sin is his secret pride. For Blake, Job must
recognize and humble his secret pride before his humanity
can be awakened. In addition to altering the plot by finding
fault with Job instead of God, Blake’s 18th-century rendition of
the Job story is “Christianized.” For Blake, Christ, or Divine
Imagination, embodies the spirit of the law. Blake’s typological
interpretation of Job bears a striking resemblance to the New
Testament writer Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ teachings and
mission: we are not justified by works of the law, but by faith.
Milner spent considerable time studying Blake’s illustra-
tions (she mentions twelve years), and even made her own
rough copies of several of the pictures in order to better
understand their “feeling” dimensions (Milner 1956a/1987,
190 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

212). In “Psychoanalysis and Art” (1956), she writes that she

was not able to fully face the significance of the terror of the
“Christ figure” as shown by Job’s friends (in Blake’s illustra-
tions this is God, depicted in glory up above when Job’s friends
are accusing him of sin) prior to writing the article. Milner
states: “ Now I can link it with the fears roused in the logical
argumentative mind by the impact of the creative depths, and
see that the anxiety is not something to be retreated from, but
that it is inherent in the creative process itself” (Milner 1956a/
1987, 212). Milner felt that Blake’s Job is the story of what goes
on in all of us when we have become sterile and doubt our
creative capacities: in essence, it is about the emergence of
Imagination. In her psychological interpretation of Blake’s
illustrations, Milner largely agrees with Blake on two central
points: 1) Job, not God, is in error, and 2) Christ is the
redemptive answer to Job’s troubles. On a biographical note, it
is important to know that while Milner distrusted organized
religion, she was very attracted to the teachings of Jesus in the
gospels. In her book An Experiment in Leisure, for example,
Milner conjectures that perhaps the gospel stories are con-
cerned not with what one ought to do, but with practical rules
for creative thinking, a “handbook for the process of perceiv-
ing the facts of one’s experience” (Field 1937, 135).
Milner finds Job to be at fault in three ways: 1) he does not
recognize his own internal rage and destructiveness, 2) he
does not recognize unconscious processes (i.e., he does not
look inward), and 3) he has not accepted “femaleness” within
himself. Regarding this last point, Milner believed Blake
wished to point out that Job’s “one-sidedly male outlook” is
mistaken and that we all need a balance of maleness and
femaleness. As Milner states, “Thus Job is shown not only as
obeying the letter of the law and thinking that is all there is,
but also as a successful patriarch, a man of power . . . ” (Milner
1956a/1987, 201). While Blake’s “proto-feminism” is a point of
debate among literary critics, true to the biblical account in
the illustrations he does have God restoring Job with daughters
instead of sons (and even giving them a share of his inherit-
ance). According to Milner, because Job believes only in the
conscious life, he consistently denies there could be any
 Kelley A. Raab 191

destructiveness in himself. Not surprisingly for her, the turning

point of the story is Job’s recognition that the cause of his
troubles lies within rather than without: his own internal
“Father-God” (which he constructs in his image) contains
destructiveness. It is only when he begins to look inward that
the omnipotence of the conscious intellect (i.e., Satan) can be
cast out and Job begins to recognize his own denied rage. As
Milner puts it, when the violence of his inner whirlwind is no
longer denied, he can channel its energy for creative ends.
We now are at a point to discuss how Milner describes the
relationship between creativity and transcendence in Blake’s
illustrations. Similar to Blake, in Milner’s view Jesus signifies
Imagination. In “Psychoanalysis and Art,” Milner explains that
Blake brings the figure of Christ into the Job story because he
believes the teachings of Christ have something to do with the
creative process: in poetic terms, Christ was really talking
about creative contact with the unsplit depth mind (Milner
1956a/1987, 201). Job’s “sin” has cut him off from both Jesus
and his own creative power. It is significant for Milner that the
appearance of Jesus occurs only after Job begins to discover
the existence of unconscious processes (Plate 12 of Blake’s
illustrations). Plate 14 of Blake’s illustrations, which has been
titled both “Morning Stars” and “Job’s Senses are Opened,”
represents a kind of “transfiguration” in Milner’s view. In the
picture we see God in the middle, in cruciform position, with
the sun, stars, and angelic beings above; Job, his wife and
friends are below. To God’s right and left are the Greek moon-
goddess Selene and sun-god Helios, representing day and
night. Sequentially, this illustration is placed after God has
appeared to Job in a whirlwind, and depicts Job 38:4-7, God’s
account of creation. Milner explains: “When anyone discovers
how to stop seeing the world with the narrow focused attention
of expediency, stops interfering and trying to use it for his own
purposes, then says Blake, something like a miracle can
happen, the whole world can become transfigured” (Milner
1956b/1987, 178). She proceeds to discuss “Morning Stars” as
depicting a particular kind of imaginative concentration—a
“widespread contemplative attention.” This state, she observes,
is sometimes spoken of in Freudian language as “cosmic bliss.”
192 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

Milner interprets Blake as conveying the notion that “percep-

tion of the external world itself is a creative act, an act of
imagination . . . ” (Milner 1956b/1987, 179). She adds that this
state is surely known at moments to all of us in childhood but
is often lost in adulthood because of our purpose-driven lives.
In sum, it seems Milner believes the teachings of Jesus
have the power to open one to creativity in a way that
adherence to a prescribed morality does not. Creative capacity,
in turn, is made possible by the recognition of one’s uncon-
scious processes. The capacity to create may also be about
something more, since Milner states that moments of “cosmic
bliss” are known by everyone at some time during childhood.
Later in the essay I will explore further the possibility that
Milner is arguing for a “primal creativity,” and an inherent
“search for transcendence.” Jesus represents Imagination, be-
cause Imagination allows one to be aware of the world in a
different way, one which could be described as transcendent or
mystical. In addition, Milner believes that recognition of the
“feminine” is necessary for the full flowering of creativity.
Finally, according to Milner, experiences of creativity only
come after recognition of one’s own destructiveness, or, in
theological terms, one’s potential to sin. Thus, Milner’s read-
ing of Job infers that transcendent moments are not experi-
enced unless one has fully acknowledged one’s humanity.

III) Eternity’s Sunrise

Milner wrote three books which can be characterized as

personal journals or diaries: A Life of One’s Own (1934), An
Experiment in Leisure (1937), and Eternity’s Sunrise (1987). The
inspiration for all three books’ style of self-observation may
have come from nature diaries written during Milner’s adoles-
cence, and Dragstedt suggests that her unique personal writ-
ings in turn inspired many in England to take up journal
writing as a kind of “poor person’s psychoanalysis” (Dragstedt
1998, 426, 436). In her second and third diaries Milner refers
to points made in her earlier ones, examining them years later
after additional life experiences. Since Milner did not begin
 Kelley A. Raab 193

her own Freudian analysis until a year after the publication of

An Experiment in Leisure, only Eternity’s Sunrise reflects actual
experience with psychoanalysis (both as a client and as a
psychoanalyst). The latter was published when Milner was 87
years old.
In this final diary, Milner takes up the notion of what she
calls “Answering Activity.” She speculates that An Experiment in
Leisure was really about Answering Activity, although she did
not use the word at the time. Milner explores religious issues
throughout An Experiment in Leisure. For example, she de-
scribes the experience of going to a bullfight as a “religious
experience”: it conveyed to her the inevitability of death in a
“moment of truth.” As well, the bullfight gave her insights into
creativity, namely, that there is always a moment of truth before
the imaginative mind can bear fruit (Field 1937, 116-121).
Milner also explains that she has found images concerned with
finding out the truth of the experience of being alive in
religious traditions (although organized religion, in her view,
has not been conducive to acceptance of these new truths of
experience). Certain religious symbols are in essence con-
cerned with the creative spirit of humanity (Field 1937, 146-
148).
Imbedded in the text of An Experiment in Leisure is a
lengthy fairy tale about bringing up a skeleton from the depths
of the ocean. Milner refers to the fairy tale in her later book,
On Not Being Able to Paint, in connection to a picture she had
drawn entitled “Skeleton under the Sea.” She notes that in the
fairy tale she had given no explanation of why the skeleton was
there; the story had been chiefly concerned with how to “bring
it to life.” Milner believes the picture sheds light on the origins
of the skeleton in the earlier fairy tale: “for surely it showed
ideas of how an alien force from above could freeze up the
flow of life, congealing and fixing the free movement of
feeling into a pattern of outwardly correct behaviour and inner
lifelessness, as a young rabbit is frozen at the approaching
shadow of a hawk” (Milner 1950, 46-47). She states that
imposed rules, authority, and orderliness can be “fixing”
instead of supportive, and that authority, “appearing as an
absolute and deadening tyranny,” in this case could only be
194 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

dealt with by “committing it to the depths of the ocean”

(Milner 1950, 47). The “flow of life” and the “free movement
of feeling” to which Milner refers are prototypes of what she
later investigates as “Answering Activity.”
In Eternity’s Sunrise, Milner explores the nature of Answer-
ing Activity, or A.A. as she sometimes calls it, in part by
attempting to name it. The “love of God,” “goodness and
mercy,” “grace,” “indwelling Christ,” “Divine Body” are some
alternative titles she suggests. Others are the “inner ‘Other,”
“inner voice,” “creative unconscious,” and the “good internalised
object.” She quotes from An Experiment in Leisure: “Certainly I
had found that there was something—not one’s self in the
ordinary sense of the word ‘self’—that could be a guiding
force in one’s life; but I thought it would be insolent to call this
God” (Milner 1987a, 47).
A.A. is integrally related to the body for Milner, and it is
contacted by directing one’s attention to the body. She uses
the term “incarnation” to describe its presence:

Incarnation, that’s what it is. But just when does it

happen? I believe, if living properly, it happens every
morning when one wakes. For then the imaginative
body, which has been doing all kinds of things in its
dreams, has now to descend to indwelling in its own
flesh and bones . . . For me, it often begins with telling
myself that I can feel the weight of my feet on the bed,
detail by detail, the heel, one instep against the other
foot, the big toe joint etc., etc., and then in a minute or
two, the answering activity comes . . . If attention is held
long enough then gradually every cell comes to be alive.
(Milner 1987a, 67)

Anyone familiar with meditation practices would be likely

to say that the above passage is concerned with self-awareness.
In fact, Eternity’s Sunrise can be read as an account of Milner’s
experiences with meditative practice. At the beginning of the
book, she notes that it is her effort to develop a method of
trying to decide the high points of each day’s experience by
capturing them into words (Milner 1987a, 12). She does this
 Kelley A. Raab 195

by attending to inner silence, stopping inner chatter, wiping

her eyes free of images so that she can accept emptiness
(Milner 1987a, 38). Emptiness is a central concept in Buddhist
meditation. Emptying one’s mind of self makes possible the
experience of a greater consciousness. It also enables self-
awareness. I have mentioned that Milner believed that an
experience of emptiness was necessary to the creative process.
It was also essential to the emergence of A.A. Thus, one way
that A.A. could be contacted, for Milner, was through medita-
tive practice, which involves attention to the body and cultiva-
tion of an inner emptiness. As we shall see, this practice is
similar to her notion of prayer.
In part, I would say that A.A. is self-awareness for Milner.
Yet it is more than that. It is an inner “voice,” showing her path
in life, her own unique way of knowing. Milner is fond of using
the term “Kingdom of God” from the teachings of Jesus to
describe this inner, personalized way. A.A. is both part of her
and separate from her: “there’s an ‘other’ within that is not
just the Freudian repressed unconscious, but an UN-conscious
which is yet far more conscious, this answering activity which is
both ‘I and not I’ “ (Milner 1987a, 150). A.A. is found in the
intersection of the vertical and the horizontal (Milner 1987a,
96), and it is connected with “bodily resurrection” (Milner
1987a, 142).
How does Milner’s Answering Activity illuminate the rela-
tionship between creativity and transcendence? To call A.A.
the “creative unconscious,” a term Milner uses several times, is
useful for exploring this question. First, the creative uncon-
scious is equated with God and Christ. The creative uncon-
scious is a guiding force, an inner voice. It is the Kingdom of
God within. Second, the creative unconscious is rooted in the
body. It is significant that Milner uses the term “incarnation,”
which in a Christian context usually refers to Jesus but more
generally connotes “divinity in the flesh,” to talk about the
creative unconscious or A.A. Third, creative unconscious as
experienced through meditation enables awareness of a
“greater” or universal consciousness.
Is Milner’s creative unconscious a vehicle for glimpses of
the transcendent, or is it in some way transcendent itself?
196 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

Milner suggests that “plugging into” the creative unconscious

is really a form of prayer, which might suggest the former.
Milner’s description of prayer is as a kind of bodily concentra-
tion—not unlike the way she discusses incarnation:

But just what do I mean by praying for someone? It’s

really holding the image of the person, usually in my
middle. Not saying anything, usually. And routine pray-
ing, Church praying, isn’t any good, for me, for turning
the captivity [of egocentric preoccupations]. But it’s also
like remembering to plug into the Answering Activity,
which is also like suddenly remembering to open a kind
of little trap-door inside and finding a great expansion
of spirit. (Milner, 1987a, 52)

Prayer, for Milner, seems to be a kind of bodily attentive-

ness from which the creative unconscious emerges or is
“contacted.” She laments that at times she cannot “find it,“ and
that in these cases, she feels as though she is alone in her own
“ego-island.” Milner faults herself for occasions of absence of
the creative unconscious, for in these cases she has not been
able to give herself over to it, “wanting one’s conscious thought
and endeavor to be all there is” (Milner 1987a, 57). In this she
is like Job: she wants to deny the force of the unconscious
mind. In the Job story, God appears simultaneously with Job’s
recognition of his creative unconscious. Thus, I believe Milner
wants to suggest that A.A., at the least, is an urge towards or
seeking of transcendence, in the way she would define it.

IV) The Hands of the Living God

Interestingly, Milner’s account of her work with a schizo-

phrenic patient, Susan, can be read as a record of the process
of coming to depend on “unconscious creativity” or an Answer-
ing Activity. Dragstedt observes that Susan’s analysis with
Milner occurred over a period of at least eighteen years,
beginning when Susan was 23 years old (Dragstedt 1998, 486-
487). Previous to the analysis Susan had received two “E.C.T.”
 Kelley A. Raab 197

(Electroconvulsive Therapy) treatments while under medical

supervision. These E.C.T. treatments proved extremely de-
structive to her psychological well-being. In her first session
with Milner, Susan claimed that she “had lost her soul” since
receiving E.C.T. and that “the world was no longer outside her”
(Milner 1969, xix). She also felt that since the E.C.T. she had
had no inner world or internal perceptions as well as had lost
the power to grow mentally or spiritually (Milner 1969, xxix,
24). Milner believed that much of Susan’s pathology could be
traced to a deep splitting tendency: her disturbed childhood
had produced in her an extreme and excessive concentration
on “logic and outer things at the expense of reverie and
fantasy” (Milner 1969, 41). Milner also refers to the split as one
between “articulate and inarticulate” levels of functioning, an
“ecstasy-giving ‘God’” and “death-giving horror” (i.e., a “devil”
who “thinks he does it all himself” and her desire for “primary
undifferentiated wholeness” while at the same time needing to
face the real world of separateness) (Milner 1969, 34, 37, 41).
Milner chronicles much of Susan’s analysis by means of
interpreting selected examples of her voluminous drawings.4
Milner viewed Susan’s drawings as a “non-discursive affirma-
tion” of her internal world. During this period Milner had also
written On Not Being Able to Paint—which examines Milner’s
own explorations into drawing as a medium for expressing
unconscious processes. Dragstedt observes that it was through
drawing that Susan was able to re-enter the world for the first
time (Dragstedt 1998, 496).
A number of Susan’s drawings contain religious symbols:
particularly devils, Christ, crosses, communion cups, as well as
references to mysticism. Milner believed that before the E.C.T.
Susan had bodily experiences which could be termed mystical
(Dragstedt 1998, 489). I suggest that Milner’s interpretations
of these symbols in her drawings are consistent with her
interpretation of Blake’s Illustrations to the Book of Job. I further
propose that Milner thought that both Susan and Job had
similar pathologies. As stated, Milner was convinced that
Susan’s symptoms could be traced to a deep splitting tendency
between conscious and unconscious levels of functioning. Like
Job, who lived only at a conscious level of awareness, Susan was
198 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

cut off from her internal world. Also like Job, Susan wished to
deny her dependence on others. In other words, Susan’s
“secret pride” was her desire to be omnipotent and to rely only
on her conscious mind. The analysis thus centered around
helping Susan to accept dependence while acknowledging
separateness and destroying the illusion of omnipotence cre-
ated by her conscious mind. Despite the similarities between
Job and Susan, however, one must not forget their differences.
Susan was a bonafide schizophrenic. Unlike Job’s story, Susan’s
childhood biography was extremely troubled: “She had grown
up with a psychotic mother and a violent ‘uncle,’ whose
identity as her father was concealed from her . . . Her mother
prevented her from walking by tying her in her crib until she
was two-year-old [sic], out of fear that Susan would become
bowlegged. . . . As a young child, Susan was involved in a
lengthy series of molestations by a neighbor, an old man, and,
in her adolescence, was molested by her mother’s estranged
husband, the man whom she erroneously believed to be her
father” (Dragstedt 1998, 488). I believe Milner used Blake’s
Job—adding her own interpretation of this ancient biblical
tale—to help her understand what had happened to Susan. In
order to elucidate the spiritual themes in Susan’s analysis, in
what follows I summarize Milner’s interpretations of a number
of Susan’s drawings that include religious symbols.

Devils:
Susan explained that the haloed figure in Illustration 1 is
an angel, the kneeling figure a virgin, and the second from the
right at the top is a devil, stating “a devil tramples underfoot
everything that isn’t his” (Milner 1969, 72). Milner sees both
Susan and herself as the devil and the angel of the drawings;
she is the devil who, by sending her away, ignores her feelings
and is unfaithful to her. But the devil is also Susan, for she has
to trample on Milner for not being totally her possession.
In Figure 5 (not pictured), Susan explained that one of
the devils in the drawing is pretending to bow. Another is
walking one way and facing the other. This devil, said Susan, is
in her and what it does is “stop you seeing what you are”
(Milner 1969, 75). Milner notes that the lower devil has a hat
 Kelley A. Raab 199

Illustration 1. Figure 4. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 73. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

Illustration 2. Figure 6. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 76. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.
200 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

on. Susan later responded that her mother always put her hat
on when she went out, saying she would never return.
Another devil appears in Illustration 2 (second from left,
bottom). When Milner noted that it wears a halo with horns,
Susan replied, “‘A halo is what he offers, horns is what you
get’” (Milner 1969, 75). Milner pointed out that the devil has a
mocking look, to which Susan responded, “‘Of course he’s
mocking—that’s what devils do’” (Milner 1969, 75). She felt
she has the horned devil inside herself. Since she cannot bear
the idea of being separate, a “devil-me” inside seems better
than no one (i.e., bad internal objects are better than none).
Milner observes that while the shapes she has drawn are
devils, Susan later said they are chrysalises. Their deepest
meaning, according to Milner, must be that they have to do
with a growing capacity to differentiate out her own feelings.
Milner believes Susan feels that many of her denied feelings
were devilish because they were aggressive and defiant, and
also that to have feelings of her own is devilish because it
means an active cutting herself off from her psychotic mother,
claiming a right to be herself (Milner 1969, 95-96).
The devil’s face in Illustration 3 also looks like a vulva. On
the level of genital sexuality, Susan views her vulva as wicked. In
Illustration 4, Milner is the mocking little devil with long
earrings (better this for Susan than for Milner to be the
powerful Christ-devil that Susan at times feels herself to be).

Christ:
Susan had a dream early in analysis that Christ was being
taken down from the cross by five men and his head was then
cut off (Milner 1969, 19). Later Milner observes that Susan
must have been envisaging analysis as a process of becoming
freed from being nailed to the torturing internal “mother-
tree,” of no longer having to be the nailed-up God who
sacrifices herself for the sake of a depressed mother. Was not
the head a symbol of her headstrong pride in her own fantasy
of omnipotence, a pride that had become crystallized into her
feeling of being possessed by the devil who “thinks he does it
all himself” (Milner 1969, 230-231)?
 Kelley A. Raab 201

Illustration 3. Figure 22. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 103. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

Illustration 4. Figure 24. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 106. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.
202 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

Illustration 5. Figure 23. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 105. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

The bottom left-hand figure in Illustration 5 looks like a

baby devil; the right-hand one suggests a primitive carving of
the face of Christ (horns grow out of the halo as they did in
Illustration 2). Is Susan the devil who defecates out the fecal
object? By the Christ symbol, is she trying to depict her sense
of the power and glory in her acts of defecation (but this too is
devilish because she feels she does it all herself and mocks help
from Milner)? Milner notes that the Christ-devil-turd seems to
dramatize the theme of omnipotence, i.e., Susan’s anal need to
control Milner and her dread of being controlled. Susan fears
that Milner, who should be the savior, will turn her out
(evacuate her).
During one session, Susan made an unrecognizable scribble
that she said is the tomb in which the dead Christ was put, but
it is now empty. She added a cross and a confused line, and
explained that it is someone waiting for Christ to turn up
 Kelley A. Raab 203

Illustration 6. Figure 105. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 284. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

(Milner 1969, 283). In Illustration 6, Milner observes that the

Three Kings in this Nativity scene look more like prostitutes
waiting at the street corner. It seems that Susan is expressing
her conflict over whether to surrender her kingly state (Three
Kings, Three Magi)—her magically omnipotent clinging to the
“all-wants satisfied autarchy of the illusory foetal-placental
relationship—and instead pay homage to the image of the
God become incarnate as a helpless infant in the mother’s
arms” (Milner 1969, 284). There is, suggests Milner, an im-
plied doubt over whether she might not be in danger of only a
bogus self-giving (like the prostitute).

God:
The caption in Figure 88 (not pictured) says: “Dear God,
help, please do, for me to see myself as I did once, with . . . my
heart. Please do. People are so silly, they think they know more
than the Saints, because they won’t accept their littleness. I did
once, but how to again? I don’t know because without a heart
where are you?” (Milner 1969, 205). Milner’s observation is
that it is Susan herself who must accept her littleness—and
penislessness.
One day Susan brought a written prayer: “Dear Lord, help
me to get back my heart, please do. You did so help me once,
didn’t you? All the birds and trees and flowers and sky and stars
and moon and everything—You were there in everything. Even
the rhubarb, when I used to save it up till I really wanted to and
then I liked the look of it and the scrunch when it was picked,
and crunch when you cut it up—and the beauty of it.” Milner’s
204 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

interpretation is, Here was a remembered sensory pleasure.

Was this God her now lost capacity for compassion (Milner
1969, 211-212)?
The sun symbol in Figure 107 (not pictured) not only
represents the life-giving “other” that Susan sought contact
with, but it is also a picture of the burning and rolling
sensations inside her own head (the something in her that
seeks to burst through the rigidities of her defenses against
loving).

Crosses:
The mouth of the drawing in Illustration 7 is made up of
a cross with a smile superimposed on it. It seems the smile in
the drawing represents denial of the cross (dependence),
denial of the necessity of facing crucifixion (sorrow and
suffering), denial of the “beheading “ of her omnipotence
required to find the true ground of her being.
In Illustration 8, the cross itself is nailed with many nails
and is resting on a square divided into four and numbered.
Milner first thought of this picture in terms of Susan’s nailed-
up humanity, compassion, capacity for forgiveness, nailed up
by her devil self, for whom to let go a grudge would be like
death. Later Milner thought that her devil-self may be raging
against the idea of her human self winning (If so, her hard-as
nails self would have to melt). Did this show her dread of
giving up the only integration she has felt sure of?
The numbers on the bottom of the crucifix suggest for
Milner that in spite of everything, Susan must have been
closely in touch with an inner integrating force at the time of
drawing (4 and a square represent completeness). Prime
numbers on the sides stand for Susan’s idea of people who
have achieved full psychic rebirth. Number 13 evokes the
notion of Judas and the betrayal (her accepting the E.C.T. had
been a betrayal because it had made her worse instead of
better).
On the theme of nails, Milner suggests that it could be an
expression of Susan’s attempt to control her fantasies of
tearing to pieces (both tearing Milner to pieces and being torn
to pieces) by keeping everything immobile. She also queries
 Kelley A. Raab 205

Illustration 7. Figure 50. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 153. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

Illustration 8. Figure 99. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 229. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.
206 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

whether it could express her deep intuitive awareness of how

she is nailed to the cruel internal mother-me. As well, for
Milner, when Susan described herself as “hard as nails,” surely
she was describing the defense against being moved by feelings
(Milner, 1969, 230).
The eight-pointed star of figure 117 (not pictured) is
made from two superimposed crosses. Milner asks whether
Susan is perhaps expressing here her intuition of how two
people, both having accepted their separateness (through
accepting the crucifixion of their birth), can come together
again in a re-discovered unity? This star is still far above Susan,
for she has not yet achieved the incarnation in her body that is
the crucifixion of her omnipotence.

Communion cups:
In Illustration 9, Susan says the cross in the top left corner
also represents Christ. The dot on the circumference of the
circle represents herself (“It’s both inside and outside you and
there whether you know it or not” [Milner 1969, 372]). She is
trying to become aware of what is “behind her eyes” (the eye
symbol)—without this she cannot feel safe in communion. In
Illustration 10, Milner says that the cup and the bowl being
placed astride the diagonal have to do with recovered sensory
memories. Later Susan told her that on that day she wrote in
her diary: “I am in the world for the first time for sixteen years”
(Milner 1969, 375).

Mysticism:
“Aura” (as shown in Illustration 11) emphasizes an inten-
sity of outraying forms, the body itself rigid and wooden.
Milner speculates that the moments when Susan felt transfig-
ured (before the E.C.T.) were in part based on a process of
identifying herself with an all-glorious phallus, a defense
against feminine feelings. Another way of looking at the Aura
drawing is that the bodily excitement (either in loving or
hating) was too great to be contained within her body, so it
escaped through her eyes and animated the surrounding
world.
 Kelley A. Raab 207

Illustration 9. Figure 152. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 371. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

Illustration 10. Figure 153. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 374. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.
208 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

Illustration 11. Figure 58. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 165. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.
 Kelley A. Raab 209

Illustration 12. Figure 117. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-
analytic Treatment. New York: International Universities Press. 301. Used with
permission from International Universities Press.

In Illustration 12, the “Nun’s treasure” drawing also has

meaning in terms of Susan’s interest in mystical experience.
Her calling the path at its base “the way to the stars” could
mean that she knew intuitively that instinct satisfaction and
ego development are related. Milner states, “It was through
material like this that I gradually came to try formulating her
deepest problem in terms of her denial to become nothing,
denial of that urge that can surely be the necessary opposite
and complement of the urge to become something” (Milner
1969, 301).
Given Susan’s traumatic childhood and the severe degree
of her pathology, I find it noteworthy that Milner’s analysis
210 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

with her was at least moderately successful. Susan in fact went

on to enjoy a long marriage to a man who had renounced the
priesthood. While their lives were supported by the Catholic
church, Susan was able to hold down a job in an art museum
until she reached retirement (Dragstedt 1998, 500). After
exploring Milner’s interpretations of the religious symbols in
Susan’s drawings, it is not surprising to learn that Milner had
become increasingly interested in Blake’s Illustrations to the
Book of Job during the time she was analyzing Susan. The
picture in which Job’s God appears as the devil (Plate 11 of
Blake’s illustrations) in particular held her attention, and she
used it to help build her own bridges to psychoanalytic theory
(Milner 1969, 53). Thus, Milner’s interpretation of Blake’s Job
may in fact be Susan’s analysis discussed through an aesthetic
medium.
Susan did recover her inner world. To further quote from
her diary towards the end of her eighteen-year analysis:

It is very difficult to communicate things which, al-

though we are aware of so clearly in our minds, are
somehow not transferable into words—and yet the aware-
ness is unmistakable—the awareness of a reality that I
have not been in contact with for sixteen years. . . . I can
remember them now as years of blackness. Blackness in
mind and heart. Being unaware of oneself and conse-
quently of other people makes it impossible to observe
and question one’s own actions so one behaves as one
will, with no consideration for anybody or anything. This
realization is awful to be conscious of. Not only has one
violated the sense concerning others, but one has also
gone against any duty to oneself and one’s own integ-
rity—and if you believe in God then it is intensely
against him that you have turned—and your predes-
tined self, the self you know not of, the self which thinks
and grows regardless of conscious choice, this you have
had to put out of existence. (Milner 1969, 375-376)
 Kelley A. Raab 211

One can almost picture Blake’s Job saying these words

after his realization that his God has not been the true God,
while reflecting on his earlier acts of “false charity” (Plate 5 of
Blake’s illustrations). Milner’s choice of the title for the book is
taken from a poem by D.H. Lawrence titled “The Hands of
God”: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.” In
using these lines, Milner illustrates what happened to both Job
and Susan when they lost touch with modes of unconscious
reality, and hence the “true God” within. Significantly, I believe
Milner views unconscious modes of awareness as “feminine,” as
opposed to the masculine “letter of the law” discussed earlier
regarding Job. Even though Job and Susan are different
genders, both were cut off from their inner femininity, or
unconscious creativity.
This brings me to elaborate on Susan’s recovery of her
Answering Activity, or creative unconscious, in her analysis
with Milner. Milner states that progress was not made in
analysis until Susan had become able to conceive of, through
finding a symbol for, an “undifferentiated ‘something’ either
surrounding her or supporting her” (Milner 1969, 47). Susan
spoke of this as an inner surrender to “God” (Milner 1969,
408). Milner in turn states that all of her patients seemed to be
moving toward a “direct kind of inner face-to-face contact with
the ‘other’ in themselves which is yet also themselves” and
suggests that this driving force (or “inner voice”) be called
“unconscious integrating aspect of the ego” or “primal undif-
ferentiated ego-id force” (Milner 1969, 384). On several occa-
sions Milner refers to Susan’s rediscovered contact with a
primary ‘other’ as a bodily recovery: where the inside of one’s
body becomes a source of “true psychic nourishment, once the
Satanic pride in the illusion of autarchy has been swallowed”
(Milner 1969, 393). Indeed, in the preface to the book Milner
explains that in this record of her experience with Susan, she is
attempting to communicate certain ideas essentially regarding
aspects of the relation between body and mind (Milner 1969,
xxii). The above descriptions sound very much like the An-
swering Activity presented in Eternity’s Sunrise.
212 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner

I believe exploration of the three aspects of Milner’s work

I have discussed—her reflections on Blake’s Illustrations to the
Book of Job, her diary Eternity’s Sunrise, and her work with a
schizophrenic patient in The Hands of the Living God—suggests
that she believes in both the notion of a “primal creativity” and
an inherent “urge towards transcendence.” As well, I think
Milner would argue that both creativity and the transcendent
are experienced through the interplay of conscious and uncon-
scious modes of functioning. However, I do not believe Milner
is suggesting that creativity “equals” transcendence, or that
either creativity or the transcendent are “equal to” the uncon-
scious. In my reading of her work, there is a psychological
drive towards integration in all individuals, and this drive can
be understood equally well in spiritual or psychological terms.
Viewed spiritually, the drive towards integration manifests itself
as a reaching toward, or a seeking of, transcendence. We see
this search expressed artistically in Blake’s Job, through the
notion of Answering Activity in Eternity’s Sunrise, and again
aesthetically in Susan’s drawings. Whether or not the transcen-
dent is actually experienced by Blake, Milner, or Susan is
beyond the purview of Milner’s work, because, in my opin-
ion—and I believe in Milner’s as well—it is beyond the bounds
of psychology to know.
Significantly, there are many parallels between theology
and Milner’s understanding of the creative process. Milner
suggests that creativity in the arts, for example, is “making a
symbol for feeling”; a work of art, in her view, is necessarily a
symbol (Milner 1950, 148, 158). Thus, while religion offers
symbols for God, art offers symbols for “feeling,” or “the
experience of how it feels to be alive” (Milner 1950, 148, 159).
God-symbols, of course, are never perceived without affect. In
addition, art, like religion, functions in the realm of illusion,
facilitating acceptance of both illusion and disillusion (Milner
1950, 67). Milner has observed that “ . . . what verbal concepts
are to the conscious life of the intellect, what internal objects
are to the unconscious life of instinct and phantasy, so works of
art are to the conscious life of feeling; without them life would
be only blindly lived, blindly endured” (Milner 1950, 159-160).
Theologians would concur that without religious understand-
 Kelley A. Raab 213

ing, individuals live “blindly,” either without purpose or mean-

ingful purpose in life. Theologically, the paradox of living a
spiritual life is to be able to live “in the world but not of it”—to
live as a self but without ego. Similarly, according to Milner the
paradox of creativity is to break down the barrier of space
between self and other while simultaneously maintaining it
(Milner 1950, 144). Thus, for Milner the creative process is
essentially a spiritual process.
In sum, I believe Milner’s work has much to offer the field
of religious studies. Her emphasis on the body offers encour-
agement for an immanent theology, one that focuses on body
and nature. Also, by giving unconscious creativity a feminine
connotation, Milner’s work suggests feminine symbols for
deity. As well, Milner brings together eastern and western
religious teachings, finding nuggets of psychological truth in
both. Her notion of art as a fundamentally spiritual enterprise
has much to contribute to a religious understanding of aes-
thetics. Finally, Milner’s idea of an inherent urge towards
transcendence, originating from the unconscious but only
truly pursued through an integration of conscious and uncon-
scious forces, offers a psychological foundation for an impor-
tant theological concept: that the search for transcendence is a
universal characteristic of human nature.5

Department of Religious Studies

Saint Lawrence University
Canton, New York 13617

Notes
1. I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for providing me
with a grant to participate in a 1999 Summer Seminar for College Teachers,
“Literature, Aesthetics, and Psychoanalysis: The Legacy of British Object Rela-
tions,” directed by Mary Jacobus, Cornell University.
2. Naomi Dragstedt has written an extremely helpful overview of Milner’s life and
work. Dragstedt, Naomi Rader. “Creative Illusions: The Theoretical and Clinical
Work of Marion Milner,” The Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations, 16.3
(September 1998), 425-536.
3. I do wish to point out one important theoretical difference between Milner and
Winnicott. Whereas Winnicott insisted on the essential incommunicableness of
the self, Milner held that because the self could be observed, it could also be
known (Dragstedt 1998, 449).
4. Milner states that of the four thousand drawings, there are no exact repetitions
(Milner 1969, 257).
214 Creativity and Transcendence and Marion Milner
5. Catholic theologian Karl Rahner has made this suggestion. See DiNoia, J.A.,
OP. “Karl Rahner,” in Ford, David R., ed., The Modern Theologians: An Introduc-
tion to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1, 183-204. Oxford:
Blackwell, 1989.

References
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Work of Marion Milner.” In The Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations. 16.3
(September). 425-536.
Ehrenzweig, Anton. 1957. “The Creative Surrender.” In American Imago. 14.3. 193-
210.
Eigan, Michael. 1998. The Psychoanalytic Mystic. London: Free Association Books.
Field, Joanna (Milner, M.). 1937. An Experiment in Leisure. London: Virago.
Milner, Marion. 1950. On Not Being Able to Paint. Madison, Conn.: International
Universities Press, Inc.
———. 1987 [1956a]. “Psychoanalysis and Art.” In M. Milner, The Suppressed Madness
of Sane Men: Forty-four Years of Exploring Psychoanalysis. 192-215.
———. 1987 [1956b]. “The Sense in Nonsense (Freud and Blake’s Job).” In M.
Milner, The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men: Forty-four Years of Exploring Psycho-
analysis. 168-191.
———. 1969. The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psycho-analytic Treatment.
New York: International Universities Press, Inc.
———. 1987a. Eternity’s Sunrise: A Way of Keeping a Diary. London: Virago.
———. 1987b. The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men: Forty-four Years of Exploring
Psychoanalysis. London: Tavistock Publications.