The dark side of creativity includes creative acts and products generated by negativity or negative energy that are motivated by self-interest (selfishness), leading to counterproductive results, destruction, or harm of some kind. The harmful results could be intentional or unintentional and be inflicted on others or the self. 

Creativity in general, is a tool and a skill and as such people use it to accomplish their goals, meet their needs and carry out their intentions. Therefore what they produce is an extension and an amplification of who they are. The creative output is the energy of that person in material form. In other words, you are what you create.

​Given that creativity is an extension of the self, the person's intentions are manifested through their creative output. The reality is that some people, and I dare say most people, have negative intentions…(at least some of the time). At times, people are selfish and use what they have to meet their own needs and this can unfortunately be at the detriment of others. As humans we are creative beings and we are therefore ALL capable of negative creativity. 

The purpose of this topic is not to judge, but rather increase awareness of our capabilities as creators, understand our individual responsibility as creators, and explore human nature with curiosity.   

The dark side of creativity resides within the person through intention or motivation. This is the energy under the surface that become the subconscious drivers of human behavior. These energies are the catalyst for negative creativity. Without it negative results do not occur. Then there is the creative product, which is the outcome or result of the person’s negative intention or energy.

Energy can be determined by exploring the intentions of a person and whether or not their intentions are self-serving or selfless. This doesn’t mean you have to concern yourself with others all the time to maintain positive energy, but from a place of negativity getting your own needs met is primary despite the harm caused to others.

This is really where it all starts…we all have needs and desires and our primary goal in life is to get our needs met, which requires problem solving. Creativity serves as the bridge to accomplishing these goals. The more creative you are the more options you have for reaching your goals.

With positive energy we can accomplish our goals and have a positive effect on those around us. From a state of negative energy, we may accomplish our goals but it also has negative consequences and often results in harm to the self and/or others (to some degree - in the smallest way it could cause discomfort or a guilty conscience).

The energy from which we operate colors our perspective and shapes the way we see the world. Each energy comes with its own operating system which include feelings, beliefs, and thought processes that in turn drive creativity and behavior. For the purpose of this discussion we will include four energies using umbrella terms derived from David Hawkins' consciousness research:

Fear is characterized by overwhelming anxiety, worry, helplessness, and uncertainty. It can drive people to create ideas and things to avoid some potential unwanted future. In many cases, fear is paralyzing and limits people’s ability to act and create but it is also responsible for numerous inventions:

Vaccines: Vaccines developed for diseases like smallpox, polio, measles and more recently, COVID-19 are examples of how the fear of widespread illness drives scientific innovation and the creation of a preventative nature.

Personal protective equipment and safety equipment: Personal protective equipment has evolved over centuries, beginning with armor during ancient times. This was used to protect the body from the very real threat of being wounded in battle. 

Security Coffins: Coffins with escape mechanisms were invented due to the fear of premature burial, known as taphophobia. These inventions were popularized in the 18th and 19th century during cholera epidemics and before modern medicine could accurately determine death. Several different versions of this such as air tubes, windows, ladders, escape hatches, bell systems to alert the night watchman should the person inside still be alive

Clearly, many inventions developed from the energy of fear are useful and productive, therefore, it is important to emphasize that negative energy and what is created from it is not "bad", but there are times when the energy of fear and it's creative products can be harmful.  

An example from pop culture: In the hit series, Breaking Bad , Walter White, who was a high school chemistry teacher, was diagnosed with cancer. He was afraid his family would go broke due to medical bills and devised a plan to manufacture and sell methamphetamine to sustain them. Although this is a fictional tale, it is not uncommon for people to resort to unethical, immoral, or even criminal behavior to earn a living or provide for their families, due to fear loss. This could be loss of their family/loved one, status or lifestyle, or even loss of their reputation as a capable provider. ​

Desire is characterized by a sense of lack, craving and the belief that happiness is contingent upon acquiring something external. The need and the goal at this level is to feel happy or fulfilled, but the problem is that from a state of desire, fulfillment isn’t achieved because when something is attained it is replaced by yet another desire or craving.

You hear the energy of desire operating through comments like…"I’ll be happy when ___________ (fill in the blank)...I become a millionaire, I buy a house, I get a promotion"...the list goes on.

It does motivate behavior so it can be a catalyst for change, but what makes it negative is that often the desire drives behavior that can be harmful to self and others.

Money is arguably the most common desire and can motivate criminal behavior, such as robbery. Some of the most famous examples reflect impressive creative abilities.

The Great Train Robbery: In August, 1963 a train was robbed by a gang of 15 criminals. They used information from an inside informant to disrupt the train’s progress. They cut the phone lines to prevent alerts then attacked the train. They stole 2.6 million, which would be nearly 300 million in today's dollars.

Desire also results in more subtle forms of harm, such as, overconsumption. Addiction to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling are rooted in desire, but the desire here is to avoid or suppress emotional pain or discomfort. Moreover, the people and industries profiting from these behaviors are also driven by the energy of desire; the desire for money and profit. While these industries are legal, they fuel negative creativity and do cause intentional and unintentional harm in the way of poor health outcomes, mental health issues, and even overdose or death.

This energy also fuels the entertainment industry and advertising; yet another form of escape that consumes large amounts of our limited resources such as time, attention, and money. This industry brings in billions of dollars by way of movies, television, video games, music, streaming content, and book publishing. While this can be an effective way of learning it is often results in overconsumption and avoidant behavior.  

Anger is the voice of the unheard or misunderstood often due to experiencing prolonged unmet desires or needs. Those operating from anger react with subtle or overt aggression when facing inconvenience or stressors. Anger is often accompanied by resentment or contempt of others and expressed through aggression or violence. The need at this level is to be heard and the goal is to win by force and making others pay for the hurt they have experienced. People at this level may have a victim mentality meaning that what they are experiencing (or how they feel) is someone else’s fault. They are driven by the need to make people understand by force. Creativity from this level is to aid in their goal to make others feel their pain.

Oklahoma City Bombing: Timothy McVeigh’s intense hatred of the federal government led to the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal building, causing 168 deaths.

Serial Killing: Carl Panzram was a serial killer around the 1900s and was the sixth of seven children. He worked on a farm at a young age and didn’t attend school until truancy laws came into effect. Their parents were angry about their children going to school so they forced them to work the fields at night. Panzram reported that he would get two hours of sleep a night before having to get up for school. He endured a range of punishments at the hands of his parents from being bound by chains to being starved. His father abandoned the family when he was seven years old and around that time he suffered an infection of his temporal bone (located at the base of the skull) resulting in surgery, which could have caused brain damage. He began to have trouble with the law at age 8. Panzram wrote an autobiography that described numerous abuses at the hands of staff at a reform school he was sent to at the age of twelve. He described himself as anger/rage personified, which fueled his crimes.

At this energy lies social injustice, discrimination, and oppression, which are often used as justification for violence against oppressors or perceived responsible parties. Anger can be utilized in a productive way when it is rooted in a greater purpose of galvanizing movements or motivating positive change, but when it is not channeled appropriately it could lead to violence and destruction in the name of justice. 

Pride is characterized by a sense of superiority and self-importance. The needs of this energy are to maintain status, keep up appearances, and inflate one's sense of self-worth by being better than or superior to others. This is a vulnerable and fragile state because it is maintained through external validation and comparison to others. It requires division on an individual (me versus you) or collective (us versus them) level.

This state is arguably the most dangerous because it carries a lot of energy and people in this state have a lot to lose and are often willing to manipulate or hurt others to maintain their status. 

This is the level where Narcissism resides: Narcissistic people are often more focused on themselves and thus spend more time developing their own ideas without worrying what others think. They tend to think their own ideas are more creative than others and that others cannot accurately evaluate creativity. In turn, narcissists are often more enthusiastic about their creative outputs, so even if they are not actually more creative they are able to deceive others because they are better able to sell their ideas by manipulating others. This works because people are more easily deceived by individuals who seem more confident and enthusiastic about their ideas. These skills can be incredibly useful and powerful when channeled in the right way; People with these skills can be great leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs.

On the positive side this ability can create great change (ex. Human rights movements) but on the negative side this can cause great destruction (ex. Cults and The Holocaust).

Dictators & Tyrants: Hitler and Stalin, who caused great destruction, were to some considered great leaders due to ability to coerce the masses and galvanize a movement. They introduced high levels of effective novelty (including systems for suppressing opinions differing from their own and previously unknown systems for murdering people) and had a substantial impact on their societies. Although negative and destructive some praise these men with a focus on their novelty and impact (effectiveness) of what they did. They were indeed creative but lacked moral goodness - although moral goodness is subjective it is grounded in reason, sound judgement and wisdom, which seeks to maximize the common good over selfish interests (that is to say rooted in universal principles or truths). This is the dividing line between positive and negative creativity.

Torture Devices: Creative products used to inflict pain and/or suffering. Those who operate such devices do so from a state of pride because from this level one can justify direct and intentional harm. People at a level of pride may believe that the person receiving torture are deserving of such treatment and the operator, being “better than”, can execute this harm.

The Brazen Bull: A torture device designed in ancient Greece by Perilaus. It was a hollow statue of a bull made entirely of Bronze with a door on the side of the bull that can be locked from the outside. He proposed his design to Phalaris (someone in power) as a means of execution by lighting a fire underneath and cooking the person trapped inside. An even more disturbing feature of this devices It was equipped with a horn in the nose of the bull so when the person inside screamed it sounded like the bellows of a bull. And when the person was cooked the steam and smoke poured from the bull’s nostrils giving it the illusion of the bull coming alive during the execution.