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IMAGINATION
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"The culture of the depths, sometimes referred to as the 'mundus imaginalis', the imaginal world, or in the Arabic mystical tradition as the 'alam al-mithal', is as real as everyday, objective life – perhaps even more real, since it is the place where the forms and creations of your existential life are conceived."
The Search for the Beloved
(Jean Houston)
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"The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself." William Blake (1757-1827)
Wisdom for Life
(Lynette Evans, editor)
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"Imagination is like the Sun, the light of which is not tangible, but which can set a house on fire. Imagination leads man's life. If he thinks of fire, he is on fire; if he thinks of war, he will cause war. All depends only upon man's imagination to be Sun, i.e., that he imagines wholly that which he wills." Paracelsus
The History of Magic and the Occult
(Kurt Seligmann)
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"The imagination is to be understood as the real and literal power to create images (Einbildungskraft = imagination) – the classical use of the word in contrast to 'phantasia', which means a mere 'conceit' in the sense of insubstantial thought….Imagination is the active evocation of inner images, an authentic feat of thought or ideation, which does not spin aimless and groundless fantasies 'into the blue' – does not, that is to say, just play with its objects, but tries to grasp the inner facts and portray them in images true to their nature."
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 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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"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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"The extremest resources of the imagination are called in to lay open the deepest movements of the heart." William Hazlitt
The Empathic Imagination
(Alfred Margulies, M.D.)
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"The beginning of a cure for our ills is a revitalized imagination, one that truly recognizes that there is a sacred dimension to the everyday life that we live." Thomas Moore
Angels: The Mysterious Messengers
(Rex Hauck, editor)
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"The activity of the imagination does not resemble a static picture but rather it is closer to a kind of 'play' that includes a subtle orchestration of feelings, as well as a sense of intention and will. Imagination is thus the beginning of the entry of creative perception into the domain of the manifest. Moreover, since form is defined by proportion and ratio, the imagination must also possess these in some implicit or enfolded sense. Intuitive or perceptive reason is the act, then, of making explicit the ratio or proportion that is already implicit in creative imagination."
Science, Order, and Creativity, A Dramatic New Look at the Creative Roots of Science and Life
(David Bohm and F. David Peat)
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"There exists in the human mind a prefiguration of reality, an interior imagery of nature."
A God Within
(Rene Dubos)
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"The word disappears, the poetry is gone, but the imaginal form persists within the mind and works on the soul."
Shamanic Voices, A Survey of Visionary Narratives
(Joan Halifax, Ph.D.)
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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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"Man is given the gift of creative imagination and must create the vision of what must be done."
The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Man and Nature in Cooperation
(The Findhorn Community)
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"Imagination is a kind of mediator, opening the way to the activity of the intelligible and spiritual life of the human being."
Ramon Lull and the Secret of Life
(Amador Vega)
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"We might call the unfathomable depth in the image, love, or at least say we cannot get to the soul of the image without love for the image."
A Blue Fire
(James Hillman)
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"You know, the imagination is also a place of reality. That may sound ridiculous, but it is. I think the imagination is where we create the future. It's where we begin to know ourselves, and it's the place of creativity and knowledge." Terry Lynn Taylor
Angels: The Mysterious Messengers
(Rex Hauck, editor)
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"Imagine God beyond all beings, yet all beings and being itself."
The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space
(John C. Lilly, M.D.)
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"Every imagination of humanity comes through the heart, for this is the sun of the microcosm, and out of the microcosm proceeds the imagination into the great world….the imagination of humanity is a seed."
Isis Unveiled
(Helena P. Blavatsky)
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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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"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 a concentrated extract of the life forces, both physical and psychic." 'Psychology and Alchemy'
Collected Works
(Carl Jung)
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"The imagination is a power that is, as it were, intellectual. Appetite and impulse are obedient to imagination and to reason." Plotinus, 'The Soul'
The Essential Plotinus
(Translated by Elmer O'Brien, S.J.)
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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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"The image a society has of itself can play a crucial role in the shaping of its future. If we fill our minds with images of gloom and destruction, then that is likely to be the way we are headed. Conversely, more optimistic attitudes can actually help promote a better world. A positive vision is like the light at the end of a tunnel, which, even though dimly glimpsed, encourages us to step on in that direction."
The Global Brain, Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness
(Peter Russell)
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