Free The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Page A

picking up their cues, their entrances and exits, from the crazymaker’s (crazy) whims.
    Some of the most profoundly destructive crazymakers I have ever encountered are themselves famous artists. They are the kind of artists that give the rest of us bad names. Often larger than life, they acquire that status by feeding on the life energies of those around them. For this reason, many of the most crazy artists in America are found surrounded by a cadre of supporters as talented as they are but determined to subvert their own talent in the service of the Crazymaking King.
    I am thinking of a movie set I visited several years ago. The filmmaker was one of the giants of American cinema. His stature was unmistakable, and so was his identity as a crazymaker. Given that all filmmaking is demanding, his sets are far more so: longer hours; long bouts of paranoia; intrigue and internecine politics. Amid rumors that the set was bugged, this Crazymaker King addressed his actors over a loudspeaker system while he, like the Wizard of Oz, secreted himself away in a large and luxuriously equipped trailer cave.
    Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
    E LISABETH K ÜBLER -R OSS
    Over the past two decades, I have watched many directors at work. I was married to a profoundly gifted director, and I have directed a feature myself. I have often remarked how closely a film crew resembles an extended family. In the case of this Crazymaker King, the crew resembled nothing so much as an alcoholic family: the alcoholic drinker (thinker) surrounded by his tiptoeing enablers, all pretending that his outsized ego and its concomitant demands were normal.
    On that crazymaker’s set, the production lurched off schedule and over budget from king baby’s unreasonable demands. A film crew is essentially a crew of experts, and to watch these estimable experts become disheartened was a strong lesson for me in the poisonous power of crazymaking. Brilliant set designers, costume designers, sound engineers—not to mention actors—became increasingly injured as the production ran its devastating course. It was against the crazymaking director’s personal dramas that they struggled tocreate the drama that was meant to go onscreen. Like all good movie people, this crew was willing to work long hours for good work. What discouraged them was working those hours in the service of ego instead of art.
    The crazymaking dynamic is grounded in power, and so any group of people can function as an energy system to be exploited and drained. Crazymakers can be found in almost any setting, in almost any art form. Fame may help to create them, but since they feed on power, any power source will do. Although quite frequently crazymakers are found among the rich and famous, they are common even among commoners. Right in the nuclear family (there’s a reason we use that word), a resident crazymaker may often be found pitting family member against family member, undercutting anyone’s agenda but his or her own.
    I am thinking now of a destructive matriarch of my acquaintance. The titular head of a large and talented clan, she has devoted her extensive energies to destroying the creativity of her children. Always choosing critical moments for her sabotage, she plants her bombs to explode just as her children approach success.
    The daughter struggling to finish a belated college degree finds herself saddled with a suddent drama the night before her final exam. The son with a critical job interview is gifted with a visitation just when he needs to focus the most.
    â€œDo you know what the neighbors are saying about you?” the crazymaker will often ask. (And the beleaguered student mother will hear a horrific round of gossip that leaves her battered, facing her exam week beset by feelings of “What’s the use?”)
    â€œDo you realize you’re ruining your own marriage