{"id":5616,"date":"2013-06-12T15:48:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T21:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5616"},"modified":"2013-06-12T16:50:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T22:50:39","slug":"active-imagination-scrying-creative-visualization-guided-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5616","title":{"rendered":"Active Imagination, Scrying, Creative Visualization, Guided Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trying to get a good handle on what the Jungians mean by “active imagination,” I have been reading Robert A. Johnson’s<\/a> Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth<\/em> <\/a>this past month.\u00a0 And I am learning some things. One is that active imagination, while a good technique, is definitely a product of the modern era. For starters, it requires a room of one’s own, quiet time, and literacy, even if done without an analyst.<\/p>\n

My professor side started thinking of this as analytical topic for a paper \u2014 which I do not intend to write, but maybe someone else can. Take active imagination, scrying, creative visualization, and guided meditation.<\/p>\n

Could you do a four-cell diagram with two axes, such as ego \u2014 unconscious or guided \u2014 unguided?<\/p>\n

Johnson himself says this, after stressing that active imagination deals with the surprising and unexpected:<\/p>\n

We need to grasp this clearly because there are no so many systems around that can be confused with Active Imagination but are completely distinct from it. The main difference is that they work with a prepared script; everything is determined in advance. These systems are sometimes called “guided imagery,” “creative imagery,” or by something else. What they have in common is that everything is predetermined<\/em>. You decided in advance what is going to happen in your imagination. The ego decides what it is trying to get out of the unconscious and prepares a script. The idea is to “program” the unconscious so that it will do what the ego wants it to do. In one system, the whole avowed purpose of using the imagery is to get what you want<\/em>.” (Italics in the original.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coincidentally (“there are no coincidences,” my old teacher said) Christina Hoff Kraemer posted recently on similar topic.<\/a><\/p>\n

Often people use the terms visualisation, meditation and pathworking interchangeably, but they are different techniques, with different purposes and histories of development.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That would be part of my hypothetical paper too: what are the intellectual roots of these practices? Some go back (in the written record) to the Middle Ages, at least \u2014 think of the Spiritual Exercises<\/em><\/a> of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, who prescribed a guided imagery (or meditation) exercise where you place yourself as an observer of Jesus’ crucifixion and other significant events of his life, attempting to experience them through all your senses (there is more, of course).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trying to get a good handle on what the Jungians mean by “active imagination,” I have been reading Robert A. Johnson’s Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth this past month.\u00a0 And I am learning some things. One is that active imagination, while a good technique, is definitely a product of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-5616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1sA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7237,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7237","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":0},"title":"Call for Papers: The Occult Imagination in Britain","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford, both of the University of Glasgow, seek contributors for an edited collection, The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947. We seek proposals for an essay collection entitled The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947, to be proposed to Ashgate\u2019s new Among the Victorians and the Modernists series.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11644,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11644","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":1},"title":"Fashion Designers Borrowing from Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In her Pomegranate article \"High Glamour: Magical Clothing and Talismanic Fashion,\" designer Charlotte Rodgers asks, \"Why now?\" The iconography and visuals associated with magic are highly evocative and responsible for a major part of its appeal. The strong, often iconoclastic imagery exerts a particularly powerful draw for the artist or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Figure-9-Breen-Down.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":731,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=731","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":2},"title":"Why the Pope hired the Swiss","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"You did not know that the Swiss did the drumline thing? Give these guys pikes and halberds and use your imagination. (YouTube video--fast connection required.)","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1836","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":3},"title":"Need to Put a Little Zip into Your Initiations?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Try the giant human centipede. As the man said, Do you wish to separate the jolly good fellows from the dour sour pusses from those who seek to ASCEND TO THEIR SIDE DEGREES \u2014 but you suffer from lack of imagination when it comes to constructing elaborate hazing rituals and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"magick\"","block_context":{"text":"magick","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=magick"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2692,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2692","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":4},"title":"Creative Visualization Doesn’t Work?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Or so claim researchers who publish in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Or is it just fantasies (winning the lottery, etc.) that don't work? But ultimately, Happes and Oettingen believe that positive fantasies are likely to scupper your changes of obtaining your goals. \"Instead of promoting achievement, positive fantasies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"magick\"","block_context":{"text":"magick","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=magick"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14101","url_meta":{"origin":5616,"position":5},"title":"Are the House Wights Studying the Renaissance?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 17, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of my stories about how the \"critters,\" the house wights, the Borrowers (to borrow a term), or whatever they are like shiny objects. There was the still-missed Norwegian salad-serving fork. Corkscrews vanished a couple of time. Another big serving fork disappeared and then reappeared, lying in plain view in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Pagan-Dream-Godwin.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5616"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5622,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616\/revisions\/5622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}