Meditations using "active imagination"
I've lately been reading Joseph Campbell's Thou Art That. As someone whose career has been built on comparing the variad mythological traditions of mankind, he early on makes the argument that any theological tradition sets up "game rules" and that after that point, any insight or religious vision must be brought into accord with these "game rules" to be accepted, no matter what specific limitations the religious tradition might command.
However, there is a loophole so to speak as well - specifically the ability for the imagination to bridge the gap between mystical insight and logical discourse enforced by the game rules. He sites Botticelli, Leonardo, and Titian as examples during the Renaissance period of mastering this technique. As interesting as this is, he sites Carl Jung technique of "active imagination" as a means of personally "fathoming one's own creative depths."
"One way to activate the imagination is to propose to it a mythic image for contemplation and free development. Mythic images-from the christian traditions or from any other, for that matter, since they are all actually related-speak to very deep centers of the psyche. They come forth from the psyche originally and speak back to it. If you take in some traditional image proposed to you by your own religious tradition, your own society's religious lore, proposing it to yourself for active meditation, without any strict game rules defining the sort of thoughts you must bear in mind in relation to it, letting your own psyche enjoy and develop it, you may find yourself running into imageries, experiences, and amplifications that do not fit exactly into the patterns of the tradition in which you have been trained."
As someone not trained in any particular religious tradition in the strict sense of the word, I found this idea very exciting. I think it will be a terrific exercise for someone like me who needs to move away from the subject-object/scientific discourse into a more metaphorical discourse, in order to better understand and participate in the religious/mystical.
However, there is a loophole so to speak as well - specifically the ability for the imagination to bridge the gap between mystical insight and logical discourse enforced by the game rules. He sites Botticelli, Leonardo, and Titian as examples during the Renaissance period of mastering this technique. As interesting as this is, he sites Carl Jung technique of "active imagination" as a means of personally "fathoming one's own creative depths."
"One way to activate the imagination is to propose to it a mythic image for contemplation and free development. Mythic images-from the christian traditions or from any other, for that matter, since they are all actually related-speak to very deep centers of the psyche. They come forth from the psyche originally and speak back to it. If you take in some traditional image proposed to you by your own religious tradition, your own society's religious lore, proposing it to yourself for active meditation, without any strict game rules defining the sort of thoughts you must bear in mind in relation to it, letting your own psyche enjoy and develop it, you may find yourself running into imageries, experiences, and amplifications that do not fit exactly into the patterns of the tradition in which you have been trained."
As someone not trained in any particular religious tradition in the strict sense of the word, I found this idea very exciting. I think it will be a terrific exercise for someone like me who needs to move away from the subject-object/scientific discourse into a more metaphorical discourse, in order to better understand and participate in the religious/mystical.