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IMAGINATION
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"Imagination is the instrument of discovery. The poet and the scientist agree. Discovery is conceiving in imagination, or, more succinctly, discovery IS imagined conception."
Imagination
(Harold Rugg)
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"Every primordial image is the bearer of a message of direct relevance to the condition of humanity, for the image unveils aspects of ultimate reality that are otherwise inaccessible."
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, The Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities
(Mircea Eliade)
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"We are fish caught in a magic net – imagenetic – because our genes remember, our cells remember, the source, the origin, the beginning – imagenesis – creation out of image – creation of the image – from the image all is born – all is magic – imagnosis – this, through what we imagine, we know."
The Spiral Dance, A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess
(Starhawk (Miriam Simos))
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"Imagination (imaginatio is related to 'magnet', magia, imago) is a tool for the knowledge of the self, of the world, of myth; it is the eye of fire penetrating the surface of appearances in order to make meanings, connections, burst forth, to render the invisible visible…and to forge a link with a treasure that contributes to the enlargement of our prosaic vision."
Modern Esoteric Spirituality
(Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman, editors)
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"The image is a principle of our knowledge. It is that from which our intellectual activity begins, not as a passing stimulus, but as an enduring foundation…An image implies the idea of origin." Thomas Aquinas, 'Commentary on Boethius's The Trinity', vi, 2, ad 5, & I, q. 35, a. 1
Sheer Joy, Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
(Matthew Fox)
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"Vision or imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists, Really and Unchangeably." William Blake (1757-1827), English poet, 'A Vision of the Last Judgment in MS Note-Book p. 95
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 4th edition
(Angela Partington, editor)
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"If we can imagine the world as God's body, we not only include all people,…we include the whole of created reality." Catharina J. M. Halkes, Dutch Feminist theologian
The Lion Christian Quotation Collection
(Hannah Ward & Jennifer Wild, compilers)
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"You instantly color physical experience and nature itself with the tints of your unique imaginative processes."
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events
(Jane Roberts)
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"Of all the ways in which we try to picture the world, that one alone is real which most completely satisfies our thirst for unity."
Science and Christ
(Pierre Teilhard deChardin)
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"Certain basic images are universal. From culture to culture, they may vary somewhat in surface details, or content, but in underlying form they are basically the same. These include the archetypes of figures such as the Hero, the Wise Old Man, the Great Mother, the Self, the Sun-God, the Demon, and events such as Birth, Death, the Initiation Rite, the Sacred Marriage."
The Sphinx and The Rainbow: Brain, Mind and Future Vision
(David Loye)
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"The imagination is able to look beyond the mundane image to the Reality itself." Karen Armstrong
The Schocken Book of Jewish Mystical Testimonies
(Louis Jacobs, Compiler)
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"Images have their own potency and their own persistence; they testify to human need and desire, but also to a transcendent frontier."
Omens of Millennium
(Harold Bloom)
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"Every act of understanding or thought involves imagination."
The Great Ideas, A Syntopicon, vol. 1
(Mortimer J. Adler, editor)
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"Images are the compelling source of morality and religion as well as the conscientiousness of art."
A Blue Fire
(James Hillman)
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"Imagination is the mother of creativity." Rubem Alves, Brazilian philosopher
The Lion Christian Quotation Collection
(Hannah Ward & Jennifer Wild, compilers)
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"Imagination is the star in man, the celestial or supercelestial body." Ruland's 'Lexicon Alchemiae' (1612)
Alchemy, The Medieval Alchemists and their Royal Art
(Johannes Fabricius)
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"Through enlivened thinking and the exercise of living imagination, humans will return light to the cosmos. Something will be added to the world through our cognitive activity."
The Imagination of Pentecost: Rudolf Steiner & Contemporary Spirituality
(Richard Leviton)
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"There is no power on earth like imagination." Laurens van der Post, 'Venture to the Interior'
Macmillan Dictionary of Religious Quotations
(Margaret Pepper, editor)
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"Imagine, if you will, a time when human beings lived in intimacy with God, and so with all other living beings and with one another. Imagine, then, that humankind emerged and separated itself from God, and from intimacy with other living beings. Imagine further that in their separateness, individuals imagined themselves as autonomous beings, distant not only from God but from their own common humanity. Imagine, finally, that these autonomous individuals were to rediscover their common humanity, their connections to other living beings – and eventually reuinite with God. This could be the story of the religions of the West. It could also…be the story of the religions of India. It might, perhaps, even be the story of the world. In that case, it would be the story of stories, the myth of all myths – and no less true for that."
The Book of Miracles
(Kenneth L. Woodward)
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"Let thy imagination be guided wholly by nature. And observe according to nature, through whom the substances regenerate themselves in the ..earth. And imagine this with true and not with fantastic imagination." Rosarium philosophorum, Art. Aurif., II, p. 214 (medieval alchemical text),
Collected Works
(Carl Jung)
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"We all work near and drink from the same reservoir of imagination that forms from our collective creativity."
Breaking the Mind Barrier
(Todd Siler)
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"The image is the seed that contains both the psychic DNA and the motivating forces that shape the fully bloomed flower that you become."
A Mythic Life, Learning to Live our Greater Story
(Jean Houston)
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"Depth psychologies have recognised the dimension of the imaginary as one of vital value, as of primordial importance to the human being as a whole. Imaginary experience is constitutive of man, no less certainly than everyday experience and practical activities."
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, The Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities
(Mircea Eliade)
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"A particular image will surface in many people when that image is needed to solve a common cultural problem or give inspiration. One way to look at images is that they are the homeostatic mechanism of the universe."
Seeing With the Mind's Eye
(Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels)
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"Image: A pattern of forms and figures endowed with unity and significance. It is implied in the theory of form – and is true, also of melody – that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts being, in a sense, their origin and justification…..Also to be borne in mind is the thory propounded by Sir Herbert Read in 'Icon and Idea', according to which every creation in the visual arts – and, in fact, every kind of pattern – is a form of thought and therefore corresponds to an intelligible mental concept. This leads us towards an intuition of the world as a vast repertoire of signs that await being 'read'."
A Dictionary of Symbols
(J. E. Cirlot)
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