31 March, 2011

Qoutes on Imagination, the Otherworld and the Imaginal Realm

Imagination:

"To know the world of true imagination, you must go
there yourself." -Robert Moss

"The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It
is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after
the death of the vegetative body." - William Blake

"The concern of the Primary Imagination, its only
concern, is with sacred beings and events....A sacred
being cannot be anticipated; it must be
encountered....All imaginations do not recognize the
same sacred beings or events, but every imagination
responds to those it recognizes in the same way....The
response of the imagination....is a passion of awe." -
W.H. Hudson

"The quality of Imagination is to flow, it cannot be
contained, it is limitless." - Don't know who said
this, but I saw it on one of those inspirational
posters and its stuck with me ever since.

"The Divine Imagination dwells in a realm of Pure
Intent and Contemplation. The Divine Imagination gives
form to things of a spiritual nature. A realm seperate
from that of the mundane imagination: a realm that
leads into fantasy. In the realm of Divine Imagination
one is impressed with images that arise from within
the dark creative void!" - Patrick Larabee

(The following is taken from 'Natural Magic' by Doreen
Valiente)

The following is taken from what was called a 'Flying
Roll', which were short lectures and rituals that were
distributed amongst the members of the Order of the
Golden Dawn. The following in particular is titled 'A
Few Thoughts on Imagination' written by 'Resurgam':

"The uninitiated interpret imagination as something
"imaginary"in the popular sense of the word: that is,
something unreal. But imagination is reality.

When a man imagines, he actually creates a form on the
astral or even on some higher plane; and this form is
as real and objective to intelligent beings on that
plane as our earthly surroundings are real and
objective to us.

This form which imagination creates may have only a
transient existence, productive of no important
result; or it may be vitalized and thus used for good
or evil.

To practise Magic both imagination and will must be
called into action. They are co-equal in the work. Nay
more, the imagination must precede the will, in order
to produce the greatest possible effect.

The will, unaided, can send forth a current, and that
current cannot be wholly inoperative; yet its effect
is vague and indefinite because the will unaided sends
forth nothing but the current of force.

The imagination unaided can create an image, and this
image must have existence of varying duration, yet can
do nothing of importance unless vitalized and directed
by the will.

When, however, the two are conjoined, when the
imagination creates an image and the will directs and
uses that image, marvellous magical results may be
obtained..."

Then some notes were added to the above by 'Non Omnis
Moriar', in which he said:

"Imagination must be distinguished from fancy; from
mere roving thoughts, or empty visions. By it we now
mean an orderly and intentional mental process and
result. Imagination is the creative faculty of the
human mind, the plastic energy, the formative power.

(This 'plastic energy' should be compared with the
definition that is given in 'Ars Philtron', in which,
Daniel Schulke defines 'desire' as possessing a
unique, though plastic, momentum toward fruition.)

In the language of the esoteric Theosophists, the
power of imagination to create thought forms is called
Kriya Sakti, that is, the mysterious power of thought
which enables us to produce external, phenomenal,
perceptible results by its own inherent energy when
fertilized by the will.

It is the ancient Hermetic dogma that any idea can be
made to manifest externally, if only by culture the
art of concentration is obtained; just as an external
result of action produced by a current of will force."

(The following is taken from an article written by
Robert Taylor entitled 'Magick and Imagination'.)

"MAGICK must, by definition, be creative. Creativity
has to result from Magick, and inform Magick;
otherwise, there is no Magick. Creativity stems from
the Imagination, the faculty to conceive in the mind.
The imaginative faculties of Humanity have atrophied
over the millennia as we have, with our greater and
greater advances in technology, become bound to only
one aspect of reality, to the exclusion of all others.
It is the work of creative magicians to restore this
faculty, both in themselves and human consciousness at
large. Imagination is the Key to Magick, just as it is
to Art. It is no coincidence that Magick is often
referred to as an Art, as are many other activities
where the action has become automatic, i.e. from a
deeper source than the so-called conscious mind. By
Imagination is meant that which is commonly called the
Unconscious, both personal and collective. I have
dwelt extensively on the Unconscious in a previous
essay.

It is a common misconception that the term
'Unconscious' has come to imply something inside
ourselves, in contrast with other terms which often
imply something purely external. Imagination, in the
sense that Coleridge and Blake used it, has no such
restriction; it has a much wider scope. It implies
something existing between the external and internal
perception, and inhabiting both. Nothing, after all,
exists outside consciousness. Imagination precedes
perception, raising it to the level of Vision. It
intrudes into our 'normal' perceptions and suffuses
them, thereby revealing itself - whether internally as
dreams and inspirations or externally as visions or
phenomena. Seen from this light, Imagination is not a
passive thing, a passing fancy or a whimsical mental
construct. It is something more dynamic - wider and
deeper ranges of consciousness than that which we
think of as human. These ranges of consciousness
intrude ofttimes into human consciousness; they
inspire, energise, initiate. This sense of Imagination
as intruding into consciousness has been experienced
by many creative artists in all sorts of fields of
endeavour, and goes under a variety of terms. The
intrusion will be interpreted by a religious person as
the hand of God; by a poet as the Muse; by the artist
as inspirational creativity; by the Jungian
psychologist as the Collective Unconscious; by the
magician as supra-human or extra-terrestrial entity.
Whatever the term used to describe it, human
consciousness has been charged by an infusion of
something beyond its bounds."

"...this sense of alien intrusion into consciousness
was articulated thus by the author H.P. Lovecraft in
one of his letters:

"The true function of phantasy is to give the
imagination a ground for limitless expansion, & to
satisfy aesthetically the sincere & burning curiosity
and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind
feel towards the alluring & provocative abysses of
unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in
upon the known world from unknown infinities & in
unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force,
dimensionality, & consciousness. "

"All too often, Imagination has been dismissed as mere
mental invention by the rational mind. On the
contrary, it is often the frenetic activity of that
rational mind which prevents Imagination from being
perceived as the fertile influx which it could so
easily become. Many traditions, for instance,
epitomise the sleep of that rational mind as the time
when communication with informing Imagination holds
sway. Dreams are often dismissed as a mish-mash of
thoughts and reflections on daily events during the
waking hours. That there is a large element of this is
undeniable on the basis of what we know as our own
consciousness. Yet, something more may use the
opportunity to slip past the rational censor. Once
again, Lovecraft expressed this very succinctly. As
has been well documented, the inspiration for
Lovecraft's remarkable stories came from dreaming. His
letters reveal him to be a romantic at heart, but
crippled with a compulsive, reductionist rationalism.
Little wonder, then, that his dreams and stories
assumed almost a life of their own. Rather than
conscious creations, they are a vivid illustration of
the intrusion of Imagination into human consciousness.
Lovecraft was aware of this, as the following extract
from Beyond the Wall of Sleep suggests:

"From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when
lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed
sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far
different nature from the life we know, and of which
only the slightest and most indistinct memories exist
after waking ... We may guess that in dreams life,
matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things,
are not necessarily constant; and that time and space
do not exist as our waking selves comprehend them.
Sometimes I believe that this less material life is
our truer life, and that our vain presence on this
terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely
virtual phenomenon."

This passage articulates magical doctrine precisely,
whereby 'human' consciousness is an aspect of a
boundless field of consciousness, one aspect amongst a
myriad. Human consciousness seems to us to be
individualised, with fixed boundaries separating us
from the world outside those boundaries. In reality
there are no boundaries; there is a constant shifting,
a flux and flow of awareness, as 'our' field of
consciousness contracts or expands. The field is one
amongst a vast number of ranges of consciousness,
which often impinge upon 'our' consciousness. Kenneth
Grant uses the term 'Beyond' or 'Outside' in this
sense, meaning that which lies beyond the perceived
boundaries of individualised consciousness.
Imagination is the catalyst whereby these wider and
deeper ranges of consciousness can be accessed, and
the self-imposed boundaries of individualised
consciousness are pushed outwards. Magick is a means
for such integration, for such expansion of
consciousness."

"All too often, Imagination has been dismissed as mere
mental invention by the rational mind. On the
contrary, it is often the frenetic activity of that
rational mind which prevents Imagination from being
perceived as the fertile influx which it could so
easily become. Many traditions, for instance,
epitomise the sleep of that rational mind as the time
when communication with informing Imagination holds
sway. Dreams are often dismissed as a mish-mash of
thoughts and reflections on daily events during the
waking hours. That there is a large element of this is
undeniable on the basis of what we know as our own
consciousness. Yet, something more may use the
opportunity to slip past the rational censor. Once
again, Lovecraft expressed this very succinctly. As
has been well documented, the inspiration for
Lovecraft's remarkable stories came from dreaming. His
letters reveal him to be a romantic at heart, but
crippled with a compulsive, reductionist rationalism.
Little wonder, then, that his dreams and stories
assumed almost a life of their own. Rather than
conscious creations, they are a vivid illustration of
the intrusion of Imagination into human consciousness.
Lovecraft was aware of this, as the following extract
from Beyond the Wall of Sleep suggests:

"From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when
lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed
sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far
different nature from the life we know, and of which
only the slightest and most indistinct memories exist
after waking ... We may guess that in dreams life,
matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things,
are not necessarily constant; and that time and space
do not exist as our waking selves comprehend them.
Sometimes I believe that this less material life is
our truer life, and that our vain presence on this
terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely
virtual phenomenon."

This passage articulates magical doctrine precisely,
whereby 'human' consciousness is an aspect of a
boundless field of consciousness, one aspect amongst a
myriad. Human consciousness seems to us to be
individualised, with fixed boundaries separating us
from the world outside those boundaries. In reality
there are no boundaries; there is a constant shifting,
a flux and flow of awareness, as 'our' field of
consciousness contracts or expands. The field is one
amongst a vast number of ranges of consciousness,
which often impinge upon 'our' consciousness. Kenneth
Grant uses the term 'Beyond' or 'Outside' in this
sense, meaning that which lies beyond the perceived
boundaries of individualised consciousness.
Imagination is the catalyst whereby these wider and
deeper ranges of consciousness can be accessed, and
the self-imposed boundaries of individualised
consciousness are pushed outwards. Magick is a means
for such integration, for such expansion of
consciousness."

"...but remember, it can also produce the impossible:
statues that weep tears of real human blood etc.
Demons and bleeding statues (and UFO's, lake-monsters,
aliens, fairies etc.) inhabit a reality other than
ours, a reality of the Imagination, a world between
fact and fiction. They are fully capable of acting
independently and autonomously, and have, since the
beginning of time, been crossing over from their world
into ours, as countless examples testify. They are a
personification of Imagination, but it is not always
'us' doing the personifying. Imagination is fully
capable of personifying itself."

"Imagination desires to be utilised, its function is
to be fulfilled. Ignored, it will do its own
utilising, of repressed ideas, cultural icons,
archetypal images, symbolism, images from the mass
media, anything to get itself across. The definition
of 'conceiving in the mind' is an apt one, for it is a
direct analogy to the sexual urge to create.
Repressed, the sexual instinct strikes back, often in
ever more bizarre ways. The most potent form of
Imagination is the sexual Imagination, which is the
basis for sexual magick. It is via the sexual magick
of the O.T.O. that Imagination can be harnessed, but
the Imagination has to be active in the first place.
Sex magick without an actively stimulated Imagination
is barren, as countless creatively redundant magical
groups testify.

Seen in this light, specific traditions are not
passive modes of working, but a living charge of
current upon which the Initiate of that tradition
draws, and to which he or she contributes, by virtue
of his or her magical and mystical workings. To that
extent he or she is a transmitter of that tradition;
he or she is charged by the current, and throws off a
force. An excellent example of this is the Typhonian
Current, which as Kenneth Grant has demonstrated is of
an extremely ancient lineage. Initiates of that
tradition stand as inheritors of that lineage, that
accumulation of inspiring energy. In drawing upon the
inspiration of that current, it is also their role to
transmit that current, adapted to prevailing
conditions. They also thereby strengthen it, adding to
the reservoir of creativity that their successors will
draw upon in their turn."

******************************************************************************************************************
The Otherworld:

"The Otherworld begins at the limits of the familiar
world."

"Smooth the descent and easy the way
(The Gates of Hell stand open night and day);
But to return and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labour lies."
- Aeneid VI, 126-129, Translated by John Dryden

"What is outside is also inside; and what is not
outside man is not inside. The outer and the inner are
one thing, one constellation, one influence, one
concordance, one duration...one fruit." - Paracelsus

"Celtic seers say that Fairyland actually exists as an
invisible world within which the visible world is
immersed like an island in an unexplored ocean, and
that it is peopled by more species of living beings
than this world, because its incomparably more vast
and varied in its possibilities." - W.Y. Evans-Wentz,
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

(All that follows was taken from 'Dreamgates' by
Robert Moss)

"If we are spiritually alive, we will also discover
our links to the spirits of our ancestors and of the
land we inhabit."

"Yet the deepest connection, for someone who is
strongly called to a spiritual path, may be to a
teaching ordrer or lineage that transcends time and
place, thought it may bear the stamps of a distinctive
mindset."

"The right place to begin is the twilight zone.
Twilight states of consciousness provide ideal
conditions for the creative flash: the spontaneous
birth and coupling of images, an at-onceness of
perception, a mingling of ways of sensing and
perceiving, an alliance with helpers from the imaginal
realm."

"The way to the formless Oneness of God is through
the world of Forms from which physical reality is
projected. It is not correct to dismiss the imaginal
realm as a world of illusion. Though its forms are
"creations of the created," they may recall those of
higher reality as well as earth and may be models for
what is brought into being on the physical plane."

"What is alien is what is "other." And what is most
profoundly other, for many of us, is our own larger
Self. The reality we encounter is our mirror, but our
perception is fogged. We fail to recognize how the
thoughts and feelings we send out develop a life of
their own, like unacknowledged children. We disclaim
any relationship with our shadow selves - the aspects
we have denied or rejected - to the point where we end
up being stalked by them, in the dream world and the
surface world. Worst of all, we regard as utterly
"other" the messengers from the big Self who are
forever trying to get us to look squarely at the
mirror and see our own true face. And to remember that
our spirits are starborn."

(The following excerpts are from 'Walkers Between the
Worlds' by Caitlin and John Matthews)

"As the esotericist Dion Fortune says, "What you
contemplate, you touch. What you enter into in
imagination, you make yourself one with."- pg. 16

"In entering the inner worlds, we are not running away
or hiding from the outer world, but rather are seeking
to deepen and enrich our awareness of a
multidimensional universe. Fantasy opens our lives. It
is a laboratory where the alchemical possibilities are
first tested and tasted. It is the magical waking of
our lives. This is our quest: the search for the
reality behind the gods and beings of the Otherworld.
Regardless of the technique you use to contact them,
you will find yourself led inevitably to the realm of
the Otherworld and to the figures of the gods who rule
it. There are as many entrances as there are stars in
the heavens - indeed, some of those stars are
themselves entrances."- pg. 101

"...but what is the Otherworld? Our perceptions
readily inform us about the physical reality of our
world, but they are less capable of telling us much of
the reality of the Otherworld. In actuality, there is
one reality, but it has two sides: our everyday realm
of appearences that we apprehend with our senses and
the Otherworld, which, though our ordinary senses
cannot apprehend it, is just as real as our own world.
Together they form one sacred continuum of life. In
our everyday arena we move and exist in our physical
bodies; when we enter the Otherworld, we exist in our
spiritual bodies. Most important, everyone of us
bridges these two sides of reality, even if only in
our dreams." - pg. 107

"The Underworld is the foundation of the Otherworld
reality and the deepest stratum of native
consciousness, where we meet with the most
uncompromising inhabitants. R.J. Stewart prefers not
to call these beings archetypes, which implies a set
of psychological personae. Like the gods, the
Otherworld's inhabitants are real in their own world
and in their own right, not the result of our
imaginative state." - pg. 108

"The Otherworld is a place not only where the dead go,
but also where heroic mortals still live in the
fullness of their powers. It is the place of
traditional learning and wisdom, where springs the
well of inspiration." - pg. 111

"Atlantis, like Eden, was a place where inspirational
knowledge was always available. The myth of Atlantis,
like that of the Fall of Man, is concerned far more
with the end of communion with the Otherworld than
with the consequences of sinfulness. The realization
that it is our essential birthright to contact this
Otherworld has been the impetus for meditational
exploration in every time and place, among every
people." - pgs. 111-112

"Paradise and heaven, however, are not one and the
same place. Paradise has its roots in the Persian
paerodaeza, meaning "park" or "enclosed garden," and
is a perfectly appropriate synonym for the Otherworld
- an intermediate state between incarnation and bliss.
The enclosed garden or island paradise is a primal
state, an interior reality in which every vital
component of life is in potentiality. It still has its
first wildness, yet it also has its own grace and
rules of governance. There is no human trickery or
deception there - nor will such debased currency serve
in our transactions with the Otherworld. It is a
waiting place, a place of learning and nourishment."-
pg. 112

"As Joan Halifax explains in her book 'Shamanic
Voices':

This special and sacred awareness of the universe is
codified in song and chant, poetry and tale, carving
and painting...it gives structure and coherence to the
unfathomable and intangible. By "making" that which is
the unkown, the shaman attains some degree of control
over the awesome forces of the mysterium."

(The line above ties into the idea of the universe
having no meaning until one creates it for
him/herself, the 'Luciferian Arcanum', as mentioned by
Chalkedris Nimbrotheus, on 'The Witches Sabbath'
forum.)

"Although there is a definite interaction or communion
among those of the otherworldly realms, to "see" them
we use an inner state of perception rather than the
five physical senses. This should not imply, however,
that otherworldly beings - the Shining Ones - are
unreal. As the seer says, they belong "in their own
world and nature."- pg. 114

"Every generation finds its metaphor for a condition
that is understandably difficult to express in human
terms. We leave it to you to find your own means of
understanding, as long as it allows for archetypes to
inhabit the Otherworld as well as the psyche and
acknowledges that the Shining Ones are real in their
own world and not inventions of a disturbed mind or
rich imagination." - pg. 114

"Deity or pure spirit has no form; but in order for it
to have any communication with humankind, it must
assume an acceptable form or symbol. There is no way
any of us can escape the language of symbolism lying,
sometimes deeply hidden, within our cultural and
genetic memory. In the Foretime the world was visited
and guarded by homely, familiar spirits whose
manifestations came in numerous forms and varying
gradations of intensity.

The Shining Ones range in nature and kind from primal
elemental forces of air, fire, water, and earth to
distinct spirits that we know as gods, with many
variations - angels or tutelary spirits - in between.
Some native traditions have lost access to the full
range of the Shining Ones through a shifting
religious focus. The beings of the elemental forces
are usually the first to suffer, being regarded as
less "evolved." It is truism - and one to be
remembered - that the gods of an outgoing religion
become the devils of the incoming one. "- pg. 114-115

(This could be a key as to why demonological names and
spirits are used in the craft. These "demons" are
really the old gods in disguises created by the new
religious cults of the time. Some of which might lead
to states of consciousness that have not been
experienced for hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of
years.)

"We find that some gods have made more successful
translations to the modern world than others because
of their aspects and symbolism remain vital to our
time. But what becomes of those god forms that remain
dormant? Do their energies merely await renewed human
attention? Whether sleeping or active, the energies of
god forms are always available to those who
familiarize themselves with their call signs and
symbolism - and the Otherworld journey can help us
contact the primordial current behind all god forms."-
pg. 116

"A personal experience of the Otherworld and its
inhabitants can promote spiritual growth, making us
aware that we belong to the sacred continuum and
giving us a sense of our spiritual family. The inner
guardian is the initiator for each of us - and it need
not be a monumental figure. The link for you may be
someone familiar to whom you have never given a face,
perhaps an inner voice or secret companion. The innner
guardian is our true north, the keeper of the charts,
the one who shows the way. He or she is the one who
has already traveled the paths we are walking for the
first time and thus has a wealth of wisdom for us to
draw upon." - pg. 117


***************************************************************************************************************

The Imaginal Realm:

The Imaginal Realm is the place where the images of
the Divine are located, there are so many images that
they are beyond any number we have in our modern forms
of articulation. They are the images I use to contact
Spirit. The Imaginal are the pictures the Soul uses,
to connect with/communicate with, energies present in
the Spiritual Worlds.

My Soul, my Heart, does indeed feel a kinship with the
Cainite Mythos,as well as the Luciferian Gnosis: the
idea of Light fallen in Matter. Thus, these are the
images I use in ritual. These masks are really symbols
that through ritual praxis and devotional work have
become alive by pulling energies from the astral that
are in accord with the symbol so projected.

The Imaginal is the "bridge" one uses to establish
communication between the Worlds of Spirit and the
Worlds of Matter.

In 'The Pillars of Tubal Cain', at the begginning of
Chapter 6, one of the authors qoutes Charles
Baudelaire as saying "Nature is a temple where living
pillars let sometimes emerge confused words: Man
crosses it through forests of symbols, which watch him
with intimate eyes."

The Imaginal Path is in essense the Symbols, the Masks
of Divinity, the Heirarchy of the Spiritual Universe,
the Modes of Praxis, the Beliefs, and other things
that I can not currently bring to the forefront of my
mind, that creates a road that I can walk back towards
the Divine. This places me within a working construct
of a Universe that is both physical and spiritual.
~ P.J.L.

(The following was also taken from 'Dreamgates' by
Robert Moss)

"We will discover that the inhabitants of the imaginal
world - gods and daimons, ancestors, nature spirits,
angels and aliens - are much more diverse than those
of the physical world and are quite real in their own
orders of reality. We will learn how to contact master
teachers on these planes and investigate how
collective and personal environments - including
heavens and hells - are generated by thought and
desire.

If we call something "imaginary," we usually mean it
is "made up," something other than real. Yet poets and
mystics have always known that the world of
imagination is a real world - a third kingdom between
the physical universe and the higher realms of spirit
and that it is possible to travel there and bring back
extraordinary gifts. The medieval Persian philosophers
called this world the Alam al-Mithal, or Imaginal
Realm. Kabbalists called it Olam Hademut, which means
the same thing. In both conceptions, this realm is
ontologically real. "It's reality is more irrefutable
and more coherent than that of the empirical world,
where reality is perceived by the senses." The soul is
released into this kingdom after physical death and
may go there in visionary journeys.

The Persian mystic philosophers teach that there are
three kingdoms of experience: the first is our
physical universe, the realm of the sensory experience
and space-time. There is a realm of pure Spirit,
presided over by higher intelligences. Between the
physical and spiritual realms is the Third Kingdom:
the immense realm of soul, where cities and temples,
heavens and hells, are formed by the power of active
imagination, which is the faculty of soul.

Henry Corbin, the great French scholar of Islam,
described the imaginal realm as "a world as
ontologically real as the world of the senses and the
world of the intellect, a world that requires the
faculty of perception belonging to it.... This faculty
is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid
confusing with the imagination that modern man
identifies with 'fantasy' and that, according to him,
produces only the 'imaginary.'"

The Persian philosophers also call the Alam al-Mithal
the Place Outside of Where - Na-koja-Abad. It is "a
climate outside of climates, a place outside of place,
outside of where." In its eastern region, in the city
of Jabalqa, is the realm of the archetypal images,
"preexistent to and ordered before the sensory world."
In its western region, in the city of Jabarsa, is the
realm of the spirits who have moved beyond physical
existence, and "the forms of all works accomplished,
the forms of our thoughts and desires."

Sohrawardi insisted both on the objective reality of
the imaginal realm and on the fact that the way to
grasp it is the way of experience: "pilgrims of the
spirit succeed in contemplating this world and they
find there every object of their desire."

Medieval Kabbalists also spoke of the Olam Hademut,
the imaginal world , as a seperate reality. In their
cosmology, it is one of five worlds. "There are five
worlds, which in descending order are: The World of
Divinity, the World of the Intellect, the World of the
Souls, the World of Images, and the World of the
Senses."

For the Kabbalists, as for the Persian Sufis, the
imaginal world occupies an intermediate position
between the physical universe and the higher spiritual
realms. The later Kabbalists approach it with
ambivalence. It offers great gifts, such as prophecy,
and is part of the road to knowledge of the divine.
But it is also the home of illusions and temptations
that can captivate you and prevent you from rising to
higher planes. Its gatekeeper is Sandalphon, "the
master of images" and archangel of the planet Earth,
who gives form to the body the soul enters at
incarnation.

The imaginal realm is, par excellence, the realm of
the soul. And it is here that true imagination, the
faculty of the soul, comes into its own. In this order
of reality, imagination is not passing fancy, the
fabricator of what is merely "made up." It is maker
and creator. Blake understood that authentic
imagination creates worlds, while reason only analyzes
them. Coleridge wrote of "primary" imagination as "the
living power and prime agent of all human perception"
and "a repetition in the human mind of the eternal act
of creation in the infinite I AM."

"The imaginal world contains many evironments created
by human desire and imagination.”