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Creative insight and mystical union differ as to depth of withdrawal, which is a way of saying how closely they are bound to the phenomenal world. The difference between the creative and the mystical reflects disparities in the descent. The similarities reflect the common process through which descent is achieved. Neuropsychology is critical in revealing the imaginal undersurface of veridical objects as phases through which descent occurs. Religious and nature mystics share similar patterns of personality, preparation, austerities, concentration, withdrawal and de-structuration. The major difference is the ground of union with god or nature, which for many amounts to the same thing. The religious mystic overcome with god's love is like the nature mystic who drowns in a mother-sea of elation. In both, the self is relinquished for a categorical primitive prior to individuality. In mystical retreat, the ground of drive preserves the core self and a totality of felt emotion that is experienced as oneness with god or the Absolute. The descent is less pronounced in creative reflection, when the empirical self enjoys subtler feelings or affect-ideas. In the suspension of the intentional, the indefiniteness of aim, passivity and openness, ideas and images rise into consciousness out of syncretic or metaphorical thought. A MICROGENETIC APPROACH