Flames from the Unconscious: Trauma, Madness, and Faith (1st edition.)

Is flames too strong a word' I want to connote fire, intensity, burning, inspiration.

Our culture long associated flames with hell. Quit scary: to burn in hell forever for your sins, for the evil in you, the evil you did.

Fire, also, was associated with creativity, creative heat, in-flammation, a flame within.

Poets tend to gravitate towards the latter, inner flame.

For William Blake, the Devil, as well as Jesus, is important for fecundity of creative imagination.

We can speak of hells of creative passion, creative work, self-creation and discovery.