Henry
Corbin the French philosopher and an expert in Sufi mysticism wrote the Mundus
Imaginalis; in which he explored the idea of the imagination as a real place
that can affect this world. His work was a great influence on James Hillman,
and possibly Carl Jung with his ideas on ‘active imagination’.
The
imaginal world,as Corbin stated, has been believed by all cultures through
time, apart seemingly for our own. Over the 200 years we think of this as
progress, or for the majority of the people on the planet it is considered
stupidity!
For
many it is the central point of belief which makes sense to their life, and
also gives them some form of control of the vagaries of life. In other words it
becomes a fundamental tool for life like some sort of compass and sextant that
would have been of use to navigators. Let us consider this as a fundamental
tool for creative people. It lies in the ability to navigate the imaginal
realm, without which you may not be able to create. So how and why have we
arrived at this form of poverty, discussed many times, that the creative
process does not exist within the intellectual rational aspect of thinking;
that it is the role of the editor in the tidy up, but in contrast creativity
lies in the imaginal landscape of the unconscious.
Where
would the film industry, music, dance, forms of artwork, storytelling, myth
telling, religion or your own narrative of who you are, be without imagination?
This for me is a crucial question! In this day and age it is not so much a case
of who you are, but what can we imagine ourselves to be, or better still what
do we imagine ourselves to become! So let us try a little experiment,
imagine that we are £10,000 or $10,000 better off. Do not imagine that you can
get it tomorrow or the day the day after, imagine you have it now! Imagine that
you have just banked the cheque, see it in your bank account, in whatever
form you find and easy to experience, plan on how to spend it. What are you
going to get for the £10,000? What would you do with it to make you feel good?
The more emotional content and sensory input that we give to this , will assist
the experiment.
Then
once have you used your imagination forget about it, but accept that it is on
its way just like you have made an order for something, and you are just awaiting
its delivery. Over the next few weeks see what transpires, generally what
happens to me is a lot of peripheral things start to fall into place. I start
noticing the things that I thought about spending my money on in bizarre ways,
I start seeing adverts for it, articles in a magazine in a dentist’s waiting room;
it might be a program on the radio talking about something connected to what
ideas I have put out.
For
our experiment make sure the alleyways are open for that money to manifest, so
that fortune may shine upon you. Now a word of caution; I experienced receiving
money virtually down to the last pound to what I asked for, but in my case it
came as a result of an accident and I suggest that you have a way of that money
arriving, like you do a few competitions, you may have premium bonds or some
other lottery involvement, you may be applying for a raise, but just keep an
open mind to what you have just done, and see what happens.
If the
£10,000 doesn’t turn up, but some other peripheral weirdness happens through
this creative process, that is cool anyway! This is because it starts to point
to the fact that creative processes can walk reality, and bring
things into being, even if it is only the weird stuff, and if it doesn’t you
have not lost anything, so it is worth a shot! For those of you who have
success with this little experiment, think about what you’re going to write
your next song, play, poem or choreography about? It will certainly be more
optimistic!
Vic
www.bluescampuk.co.uk three days playing in a rock band now in its 14th year,
held in the UK
