Saturday ramblings: Uncertainty of the Imaginal Realm:Some reflections for novices & old hands alike
I wrote the following to my "Spiritual Psychology of the Human Heart" class, just for fun, not as an assignment ;-)
Hi Everyone!
Quick note on my semantic orientation: I agree with Alfred Korzybski, the founder of modern semantics, that "the map is not the territory." I may use certain terminology, e.g., "Soul" or "psyche," but I am merely labelling something, not stating that I know absolutely about a thing. I'm just trying to describe my own experience, but I don't mean to exclude anyone else's conception of what I describe. Our reality (both the shared and the individual) is open to interpretation, and I honor that truth. I believe that the human community just has many different names, for the same thing. Thus, semantics are very important to me.
Your feedback on any or all of this is welcome and appreciated!!
I thought I would share a few musings with the interested, on the uncertainties of the imaginal realm.... I feel the need to point out that all my observations are trapped within the worldview in which I was raised, and are therefore not statements of the absolute truth. I just hope this might be of use to those who haven't worked with their imagination and its imagery before.
I would say that, socially speaking, ours is an age of mistrust, or distrust. I often wonder at what point humanity lost faith in itself? I can't help but notice the parallels between Western European religious dogma of premodern times (let's say, before 1500) and our own orientation to the limits and usefulness of human ways of knowing, particularly anything which falls outside of the strictures of "rational thought." Religious dogma insisted that the body is sin ("sin" simply means error), and when Copernicus shattered the idea of a geocentric solar system, which was part of the authoritative knowledge of "absolute truth" shepherded by the Church, it eventually happened that science became separated from the aegis of the Church, and became its own sphere of knowledge, its own locus of "absolute truth" in human society. The Church didn't much care for this, because, heretofore, absolutely every human activity was encompassed by, and was intended to serve, the religious institution, and the religious beliefs of the societies and cultures under the rule of the Church. In our cultural tradition, the Copernican schism saw the first split of the human knowledge of our circumstances away from the Church, and its "god-given" authority.
A feller named Rene Descartes (1596-1650) came along, and, employing a meticulous philosophy, segregated the "material" world and the "spiritual" world. In this way, the Church could retain its sovereignty over the "spritual" world, and science could speak with authority about the "material" world. This is known as "Cartesian dualism," or the alienation of spirit and matter. This way of viewing the world and humanity's place within it remains with us today, as a precept of the mainstream cosmological beliefs in our culture and society, but also within the vast majority of the "legitimate" scientific realm. (cosmology in this sense is simply the conception of what a human being is, and humanity's place in the universe)
To me, the most hilarious aspect of this separation is that science ALSO agrees with Church dogma that the body is "sin," or error. Descartes is the father of rationalism (branch of philosophy which emphasises reason or intellect, rather than observation or sensory perception, as the basis for knowledge and truth), which assumes that humanity makes choices based on reason. Hhhhmmmm..... Well, I won't go into an evisceration of that notion (I think it's pretty easy to call that assertion "false" just on its own (lack of) merit), but, if we start to think about this bit of history in light of our own experience of the world - and of our own imaginations - I think some interesting insights start to unravel.
Believe it or not, it was skepticism which caused me to first become acutely aware of my own alienation from myself. I must interject that I knew I was alienated from myself by EXTERNAL forces (oppression in our society - I may be white, but I'm still a woman, and bisexual at that), but I didn't know how much I was INTERNALLY alienated from myself (one might call this "internalized oppression" but I think it's a little more complex - and universal - than that.) I took the "Psychology and Spirituality" course in Spring 2006, and approached it as the scientist I was raised to be. (See the aforementioned worldview based on Cartesian dualism.) But, I know that skepticism doesn't exist for the sake of skepticism; it exists so that we may be OPEN to new information, or new ideas. I absolutely love this description of the faculty of skepticism, from the preface of Richard Tarnas's magnum opus, Cosmos and Psyche:
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, Santayana declared, and the metaphor is apt. The mind that seeks the deepest intellectual fulfillment does not give itself up to every passing idea. Yet what is sometimes forgotten is the larger purpose of such a virtue. For in the end, chastity is something one preserves not for its own sake, which would be barren, but rather so that one may be fully ready for the moment of surrender to the beloved, the suitor whose aim is true. Whether in knowledge or in love, the capacity to recognize and embrace that moment when it finally arrives, perhaps in quite unexpected circumstances, is essential to the virtue. Only with that discernment and inward opening can the full participatory engagement unfold that brings forth new realities and new knowledge. Without this capacity, at once active and receptive, the long discipline would be fruitless. The carefully cultivated skeptical posture would become finally an empty prison, an armored state of unfulfillment, a permanently confining end in itself rather than the rigorous means to a sublime result.
It is just this tension and interplay - between critical rigor and the potential discovery of larger truths - that has always informed and advanced the drama of our intellectual history.
So, when we entered into meditations and active imagination practices in the Psy/Spirit class, I approached it with a posture of "I don't expect anything to happen at all. But maybe something will." I was completely skeptical, but I was also completely open. Who knows? There might be something to this, right?? I believe that the lack of expectation is EXACTLY what allowed me to see the truth of myself, and to peer into my own inner depths. If I had had some pre-existing idea of what I might or might not experience, whether through my own fantasies or through listening to others' experiences, I might have merely projected whatever desires, latent or active, I may have harbored, into my own internal, psychological world. Instead, I experienced an amazing encounter with my self.
So, for those of you who are skeptical, I say: Fantastic!! It's not an incorrect feeling, especially given our enculturation. I suppose it's important to note that while we may all have different personal biographies, ethnic roots, regional or cultural differences, the modern-day scientific orientation straddles the globe, and imposes its will upon the many, through what I would call "scientism" or "scientific imperialism." In fact, it is particularly in this postmodern age that the imperialism of science might exert itself most effectively, since we are all so globally interconnected, and desperately need a shared or common language, through which to interact. "Progress" is seen as "spreading more high technology" to "lift the masses out of their delusions and misery." Thus "human progress" is tied to science, or "scientific progress." One need only deconstruct the Western ideological phrase "the developing world," which denotes the Global South, to see what I mean. Imperialism, it seems, knows no bounds.
And it is in this spirit, with this historical background, that I hope that everyone who feels that they are having trouble with our meditations will open up to their own selves, and try to trust their own imaginations, and their own experiences and knowledge. We are very thoroughly taught to DISBELIEVE ourselves, and to look outside ourselves for the truth, the Absolute Truth. Naturally, this is predicated upon the idea that "the body is sin," and, in my view, it is a profoundly misanthropic orientation to life. (misanthropy is the fear or hatred of humankind)
By seeking the "Absolute Truth" outside of our own selves, we become very alienated from our own selves, from our own Truth! Which is just as valid as anyone else's Truth. This is where I see the separation of the material and the spiritual planes of existence to be so incredibly violent and coercive to the human condition (as well as very, very contrived). To me, the material world represents knowledge (knowledge studies "others," or "objects"), and the spiritual world represents experience (that subjectivity we all have, the very act of knowing one's own existence, and all consciousness; it is the source of human wisdom (self-knowledge)).
I think that the trouble we might experience with the imaginal realm in this time and place in human history, is based upon a lack of trust of oneself. To trust yourself is to eventually come to know yourself, and once you know yourself, then you will know wisdom. This takes a great deal of compassion, primarily for your own self, because, for instance, I know that there's a TON of stuff that I don't like about myself, including some very good, humane qualities. The only way for me to approach this sort of inner work is with great compassion and forgiveness; otherwise, I won't dare look inside at all!! It's too scary - too unknown - in there!! But, after some careful soul-searching, I have found that my dissatisfaction does not arise from within that core of me, that authentic Me, but from without; from the endless judgments of the external world, be they of my society, my culture, my family, my friends, etc etc. It has a social source, not a personal source. But, aye, there's the trick! How to get to know oneself? Particularly if you are taught that you must conform to some outside ideal of "perfection," of what you should be, in order to be a fully realized and competent member of human society?
The most amazing thing about true self-discovery - that assertion that YES, I DO EXIST - is that once you find and claim your true Soul, absolutely NO ONE can take it away from you. You yourself can lose your grip on it, but NOBODY can take it from you. Nor does it need any validation from an outside source, nor do you need permission to claim the reality of Who You Are. And I guarantee you, that you, Who You Authentically Are, is one incredibly beautiful human being, with such a gift and a talent and a light to bring to this world, and to the whole human community. I do not say this out of "sentimentality," because the whole process is ANYTHING but sentimental. It's more like complete existential hell for a lot of us!!! To undo the illusions you have about yourself, whether someone fed you a line of bullshit about yourself, or it's your own story....wow, that is to enter into a freefall at times. But here we are, back to trust again. If you trust yourself, and in your own beauty, then you can find the Courage, which is truly the spawn of Love, and the Compassion, to enter into the imaginal realm - YOUR imaginal realm - with eyes, and especially heart, wide open.
This is not a thing for validation by "others," and you would do well to honor and respect your own imagery, howsoever it may appear to you. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, sit with it, don't judge it or apply labels (whether you label it "good" or "bad," that label is 99.9% of the time self-serving, and feeds some illusions). The "Ego" has a way of justifying everything (via the oft-misused rational function), and making things fit into some kind of "happy" (or "unhappy") storyline. To truly encounter your self, that's a very personal, very subjective thing. But its subjectivity doesn't make it invalid, because it sure can tell you something, and you ARE important.
I'm still working on trusting and using my own inner imagery - and it's a never-ending process, a lot like Life - but I have found that having this deep imagery to work with is like having a navigational system for my own psyche. The images, the archetypal forces and spiritual presences (from wheresoever they may emanate), all support me in my journey of self-knowing, and self-reconciliation - and here I have to quote a fellow student, Deborah Nelson, that "reconciliation seems like it is a rebirth." And I am reaching into the depths of Jung's observation that the psyche is a self-regulating system. Ponder that for a moment, it's a very radical (radical just means "root") idea in our culture, and in our modern history. You don't need some technician to come in and fix you, as if you were a machine of interchangeable parts and identical to every other human. No. Your own healing can come from within, and MUST come from within, because you are a unique iteration of the human spirit. And no one can possibly know you better than your own self (although this is a tricky, and arduous process - and it does benefit from, or even require, social support of some kind).
I feel I should include something about modern social power dynamics (particularly when I'm using the words "absolute truth," "subjective truth" and "trust"), but this is already long, and I hope anyone will read it. ;-) I'll get to that later, to be sure, since it has been my life's preoccupation. For now, I'll just say that our society and culture currently believes that "power" is something located outside of oneself, an object that someone "has," so that it must be wrested from another. Whereas I believe that the ultimate source of power comes from within, and it is something that each individual already possesses, and which can be obtained through self-discovery.... but it's a long, drawn out topic....
namaste,
~~eJ
--
Art for art's sake never meant to mean anything, anyway
"Nobody's free until everybody's free."
--Fannie Lou Hamer
Hi Everyone!
Quick note on my semantic orientation: I agree with Alfred Korzybski, the founder of modern semantics, that "the map is not the territory." I may use certain terminology, e.g., "Soul" or "psyche," but I am merely labelling something, not stating that I know absolutely about a thing. I'm just trying to describe my own experience, but I don't mean to exclude anyone else's conception of what I describe. Our reality (both the shared and the individual) is open to interpretation, and I honor that truth. I believe that the human community just has many different names, for the same thing. Thus, semantics are very important to me.
Your feedback on any or all of this is welcome and appreciated!!
I thought I would share a few musings with the interested, on the uncertainties of the imaginal realm.... I feel the need to point out that all my observations are trapped within the worldview in which I was raised, and are therefore not statements of the absolute truth. I just hope this might be of use to those who haven't worked with their imagination and its imagery before.
I would say that, socially speaking, ours is an age of mistrust, or distrust. I often wonder at what point humanity lost faith in itself? I can't help but notice the parallels between Western European religious dogma of premodern times (let's say, before 1500) and our own orientation to the limits and usefulness of human ways of knowing, particularly anything which falls outside of the strictures of "rational thought." Religious dogma insisted that the body is sin ("sin" simply means error), and when Copernicus shattered the idea of a geocentric solar system, which was part of the authoritative knowledge of "absolute truth" shepherded by the Church, it eventually happened that science became separated from the aegis of the Church, and became its own sphere of knowledge, its own locus of "absolute truth" in human society. The Church didn't much care for this, because, heretofore, absolutely every human activity was encompassed by, and was intended to serve, the religious institution, and the religious beliefs of the societies and cultures under the rule of the Church. In our cultural tradition, the Copernican schism saw the first split of the human knowledge of our circumstances away from the Church, and its "god-given" authority.
A feller named Rene Descartes (1596-1650) came along, and, employing a meticulous philosophy, segregated the "material" world and the "spiritual" world. In this way, the Church could retain its sovereignty over the "spritual" world, and science could speak with authority about the "material" world. This is known as "Cartesian dualism," or the alienation of spirit and matter. This way of viewing the world and humanity's place within it remains with us today, as a precept of the mainstream cosmological beliefs in our culture and society, but also within the vast majority of the "legitimate" scientific realm. (cosmology in this sense is simply the conception of what a human being is, and humanity's place in the universe)
To me, the most hilarious aspect of this separation is that science ALSO agrees with Church dogma that the body is "sin," or error. Descartes is the father of rationalism (branch of philosophy which emphasises reason or intellect, rather than observation or sensory perception, as the basis for knowledge and truth), which assumes that humanity makes choices based on reason. Hhhhmmmm..... Well, I won't go into an evisceration of that notion (I think it's pretty easy to call that assertion "false" just on its own (lack of) merit), but, if we start to think about this bit of history in light of our own experience of the world - and of our own imaginations - I think some interesting insights start to unravel.
Believe it or not, it was skepticism which caused me to first become acutely aware of my own alienation from myself. I must interject that I knew I was alienated from myself by EXTERNAL forces (oppression in our society - I may be white, but I'm still a woman, and bisexual at that), but I didn't know how much I was INTERNALLY alienated from myself (one might call this "internalized oppression" but I think it's a little more complex - and universal - than that.) I took the "Psychology and Spirituality" course in Spring 2006, and approached it as the scientist I was raised to be. (See the aforementioned worldview based on Cartesian dualism.) But, I know that skepticism doesn't exist for the sake of skepticism; it exists so that we may be OPEN to new information, or new ideas. I absolutely love this description of the faculty of skepticism, from the preface of Richard Tarnas's magnum opus, Cosmos and Psyche:
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, Santayana declared, and the metaphor is apt. The mind that seeks the deepest intellectual fulfillment does not give itself up to every passing idea. Yet what is sometimes forgotten is the larger purpose of such a virtue. For in the end, chastity is something one preserves not for its own sake, which would be barren, but rather so that one may be fully ready for the moment of surrender to the beloved, the suitor whose aim is true. Whether in knowledge or in love, the capacity to recognize and embrace that moment when it finally arrives, perhaps in quite unexpected circumstances, is essential to the virtue. Only with that discernment and inward opening can the full participatory engagement unfold that brings forth new realities and new knowledge. Without this capacity, at once active and receptive, the long discipline would be fruitless. The carefully cultivated skeptical posture would become finally an empty prison, an armored state of unfulfillment, a permanently confining end in itself rather than the rigorous means to a sublime result.
It is just this tension and interplay - between critical rigor and the potential discovery of larger truths - that has always informed and advanced the drama of our intellectual history.
So, when we entered into meditations and active imagination practices in the Psy/Spirit class, I approached it with a posture of "I don't expect anything to happen at all. But maybe something will." I was completely skeptical, but I was also completely open. Who knows? There might be something to this, right?? I believe that the lack of expectation is EXACTLY what allowed me to see the truth of myself, and to peer into my own inner depths. If I had had some pre-existing idea of what I might or might not experience, whether through my own fantasies or through listening to others' experiences, I might have merely projected whatever desires, latent or active, I may have harbored, into my own internal, psychological world. Instead, I experienced an amazing encounter with my self.
So, for those of you who are skeptical, I say: Fantastic!! It's not an incorrect feeling, especially given our enculturation. I suppose it's important to note that while we may all have different personal biographies, ethnic roots, regional or cultural differences, the modern-day scientific orientation straddles the globe, and imposes its will upon the many, through what I would call "scientism" or "scientific imperialism." In fact, it is particularly in this postmodern age that the imperialism of science might exert itself most effectively, since we are all so globally interconnected, and desperately need a shared or common language, through which to interact. "Progress" is seen as "spreading more high technology" to "lift the masses out of their delusions and misery." Thus "human progress" is tied to science, or "scientific progress." One need only deconstruct the Western ideological phrase "the developing world," which denotes the Global South, to see what I mean. Imperialism, it seems, knows no bounds.
And it is in this spirit, with this historical background, that I hope that everyone who feels that they are having trouble with our meditations will open up to their own selves, and try to trust their own imaginations, and their own experiences and knowledge. We are very thoroughly taught to DISBELIEVE ourselves, and to look outside ourselves for the truth, the Absolute Truth. Naturally, this is predicated upon the idea that "the body is sin," and, in my view, it is a profoundly misanthropic orientation to life. (misanthropy is the fear or hatred of humankind)
By seeking the "Absolute Truth" outside of our own selves, we become very alienated from our own selves, from our own Truth! Which is just as valid as anyone else's Truth. This is where I see the separation of the material and the spiritual planes of existence to be so incredibly violent and coercive to the human condition (as well as very, very contrived). To me, the material world represents knowledge (knowledge studies "others," or "objects"), and the spiritual world represents experience (that subjectivity we all have, the very act of knowing one's own existence, and all consciousness; it is the source of human wisdom (self-knowledge)).
I think that the trouble we might experience with the imaginal realm in this time and place in human history, is based upon a lack of trust of oneself. To trust yourself is to eventually come to know yourself, and once you know yourself, then you will know wisdom. This takes a great deal of compassion, primarily for your own self, because, for instance, I know that there's a TON of stuff that I don't like about myself, including some very good, humane qualities. The only way for me to approach this sort of inner work is with great compassion and forgiveness; otherwise, I won't dare look inside at all!! It's too scary - too unknown - in there!! But, after some careful soul-searching, I have found that my dissatisfaction does not arise from within that core of me, that authentic Me, but from without; from the endless judgments of the external world, be they of my society, my culture, my family, my friends, etc etc. It has a social source, not a personal source. But, aye, there's the trick! How to get to know oneself? Particularly if you are taught that you must conform to some outside ideal of "perfection," of what you should be, in order to be a fully realized and competent member of human society?
The most amazing thing about true self-discovery - that assertion that YES, I DO EXIST - is that once you find and claim your true Soul, absolutely NO ONE can take it away from you. You yourself can lose your grip on it, but NOBODY can take it from you. Nor does it need any validation from an outside source, nor do you need permission to claim the reality of Who You Are. And I guarantee you, that you, Who You Authentically Are, is one incredibly beautiful human being, with such a gift and a talent and a light to bring to this world, and to the whole human community. I do not say this out of "sentimentality," because the whole process is ANYTHING but sentimental. It's more like complete existential hell for a lot of us!!! To undo the illusions you have about yourself, whether someone fed you a line of bullshit about yourself, or it's your own story....wow, that is to enter into a freefall at times. But here we are, back to trust again. If you trust yourself, and in your own beauty, then you can find the Courage, which is truly the spawn of Love, and the Compassion, to enter into the imaginal realm - YOUR imaginal realm - with eyes, and especially heart, wide open.
This is not a thing for validation by "others," and you would do well to honor and respect your own imagery, howsoever it may appear to you. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, sit with it, don't judge it or apply labels (whether you label it "good" or "bad," that label is 99.9% of the time self-serving, and feeds some illusions). The "Ego" has a way of justifying everything (via the oft-misused rational function), and making things fit into some kind of "happy" (or "unhappy") storyline. To truly encounter your self, that's a very personal, very subjective thing. But its subjectivity doesn't make it invalid, because it sure can tell you something, and you ARE important.
I'm still working on trusting and using my own inner imagery - and it's a never-ending process, a lot like Life - but I have found that having this deep imagery to work with is like having a navigational system for my own psyche. The images, the archetypal forces and spiritual presences (from wheresoever they may emanate), all support me in my journey of self-knowing, and self-reconciliation - and here I have to quote a fellow student, Deborah Nelson, that "reconciliation seems like it is a rebirth." And I am reaching into the depths of Jung's observation that the psyche is a self-regulating system. Ponder that for a moment, it's a very radical (radical just means "root") idea in our culture, and in our modern history. You don't need some technician to come in and fix you, as if you were a machine of interchangeable parts and identical to every other human. No. Your own healing can come from within, and MUST come from within, because you are a unique iteration of the human spirit. And no one can possibly know you better than your own self (although this is a tricky, and arduous process - and it does benefit from, or even require, social support of some kind).
I feel I should include something about modern social power dynamics (particularly when I'm using the words "absolute truth," "subjective truth" and "trust"), but this is already long, and I hope anyone will read it. ;-) I'll get to that later, to be sure, since it has been my life's preoccupation. For now, I'll just say that our society and culture currently believes that "power" is something located outside of oneself, an object that someone "has," so that it must be wrested from another. Whereas I believe that the ultimate source of power comes from within, and it is something that each individual already possesses, and which can be obtained through self-discovery.... but it's a long, drawn out topic....
namaste,
~~eJ
--
Art for art's sake never meant to mean anything, anyway
"Nobody's free until everybody's free."
--Fannie Lou Hamer