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Jungian
Active Imagination & Hypnagogia
"the royal road to
the unconscious"
-C.G. Jung
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James Hillman on Active
Imagination
James Hillman has spent the last several decades as
a radical. Radical in the sense of fighting for simplicity
when dealing with the unconscious. Hillman sees that
the contents of the unconscious as something natural
and organic, not as material to be forced into therapy
or overly shaped by some psychological practice. The
image rules.
His philosophy can be
easily heard in his longest piece about Active Imagination
(perhaps it could be said that most of his work is but
one long writing on Active Imagination).
Active Imagination
Is Not A Spiritual Discipline
It is not a discipline
because there are no prescribed images that one must
follow. One works with the images that arise.
Active Imagination
Is Not An Artistic Endeavor, Nor A Creative Production
Of Paintings And Poems
Active Imagination
Is Not Done To Silence The Mind, But To Give It Greater
Speech
Active Imagination
Should Not Be Used To Pursue A End, Even If It Goes
By The Name Enlightenment, Samadhi, Satori, or Other
Statement of Ultimate Spiritual Achievement
This would be giving the
process a Spiritual basis rather than following it as
a statement of the Soul.
Active Imagination
Should Be Used For Breaking Free Of The Literalism Of
Our Daily Lives
We need to discover within
the power to see mythically and poetically. Once contact
is made, this view is brought to our world and balances
our literalist, mechanistic view of ourselves and the
world.
Source: Hillman, James.
Healing Fiction, (Spring, 1983), 78-81.
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