Active Imagination
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After reading a few articles and books on active imagination a question has been growing inside my mind:
How different is the practice of active imagination, as taught by Jung, from Astral Travel with the Body of Light?
Both seems to use imagination as a door between conscience and subconscious but the necessary skills and the final results sounds different.
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It depends.
Yes, there is overlap. Yes, one can merge into the other.
But one doesn't always merge into the other (any more than even deep meditation on a Qabalistic principles necessarily results in travelling the corresponding Path astrally). Sometimes one result would interfere with the intention of the other practice.
So... yeah, similar. But not equivalent, and not necessarily desirable that they be equivalent.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
So... yeah, similar. But not equivalent, and not necessarily desirable that they be equivalent."Jim
Your answer clarified a few points and made me even more puzzled about others.
Is there a specific point that makes than distinct from each other? Something like Astral Travel goes much deeper in to subconscious or that active imagination is more tuned with my personal subconscious.
I was starting to think that active imagination was “walking around the house” and astral travel was “getting out on the street”.
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@kasper81 said
"Jung was not a magician : wouldnt you say AI is more airy-fairy and safe whilst Skrying to a particular place on TOL is vitalizing and dangerous and therefore more rewarding? AI is akin to masturbation whilst said Skrying is akin to sex i.e. you are using your genitals for what they were really made for?"
I think you understand neither Jung nor these techniques.
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@Faus said
"Is there a specific point that makes than distinct from each other? Something like Astral Travel goes much deeper in to subconscious or that active imagination is more tuned with my personal subconscious."
Well, it's a matter of whether you actually break through into full conscious participation in the World of Yetzirah, able to move to actual places - places that really, objectively exist - rather than only swimming around in your own backyard pool.
Have you read the chapter on skrying in my Visions &Voices? I think it explains the matter rather well.
"I was starting to think that active imagination was “walking around the house” and astral travel was “getting out on the street”."
I'm concerned that you are confusing a particular technique with where it takes you. What you say is true unless, while walking around the house, you happen to walk on out the door into the street.
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"Both seems to use imagination as a door between conscience and subconscious but the necessary skills and the final results sounds different."
IMHO, Imagination is the foundation of practical magick. Imagination is your interaction with the astral planes and all practical magick filters through the astral planes. So it is very important.
IMHO society teaches that imagination is BS- this is wrong. Yes the above comment is excellent- imagination is a most powerful tool for interaction between Psyche and Cupid.
What you do is practice using imagination, that is visualization- every day- as a matter of course. SEE you aura- see your chakras- imagine them, see the Prana- make it real- feel it too. strongly imagine the pentagrams, the angels, the hexagrams, the white light in your aura. Hell mate why not light the whole temple up?
Do it often, every day, walking down the street, when you talk to people. After a while you will notice something- that it takes a life of its own- that this is not just you projecting an image- that images are projected to you. That energies can be seen, intuited, perceived, that people have auras- that shape and shift.- this all happened in your 'imagination'.All practical magick is essentially done on the astral- and imagination is your link to this plane.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Have you read the chapter on skrying in my Visions &Voices? I think it explains the matter rather well."
It is exactly the chapter of your book I had in mind when asking this question. I am starting to have a better theoretical understanding of the difference.
What still eludes me is what is necessary to make this transition between personal subconscious and collective? I am thinking that it is one of those things that only personal experience can make clear.
@Jim Eshelman said
"I'm concerned that you are confusing a particular technique with where it takes you. What you say is true unless, while walking around the house, you happen to walk on out the door into the street."
I understand that although both technique use the imagination they have different goals. The difference in their performance is what I am falling to see clearly.
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Silly me! I was thinking “where is the door between the personal and collective subconscious” when I saw in the Vision and Voices and remembered:
There actually is a door, a door that you create yourself! The symbol charged with the invocation and used as a doorway is actually the crossing point. -
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@kasper81 said
"Skrying in the spirit vision necessitates a banishing ritual and knowledge of Cabbalistic god names, angelic names and appropriate elemental pentagram banishings as a shield against hostile or deceptive beings."
No, those are one particular approach to skrying in the spirit vision. In fact, it's how I'd teach the subject. But don't confuse technique with the actuality. One can, for example, drive a car without having one's hands at the 2 and 10 o'clock positions of the stearing wheel.
"Travelling (astral projection i.e. projecting ourselves into a Tarot crad or hebrew letter) in the spirit vision also necessitates such protection but this is more 3D more interactive more "real" and vital as i said whereas Skrying is more observational and 2D."
It depends on definition. The term "skrying in the spirit vision" is used by Crowley and others interchangeably with "astral travel."
BTW, I've done this kind of journeying (in my naive early days) without banishing.
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@kasper81 said
"ok so how would you define that Jungian technique AI?"
I'm doing my best not to describe it at all
- beyond the answer I first gave on this thread (which, I think, puts it exactly in right perspective). IOW it's either a process ONLY of imagination with psychological results, or it's an actual astral journeying. It depends (on the person, the situation, etc.).That is: It's not astral journeying unless it happens that it is.
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With Jung, you're talking about a guy who was absolutely determined to frame what has always been considered "mystical experience" in the language of empirical science. So, Jung is intentionally placing those limitations and expectations on the techniques he decribes. After all, he wants to present a safe, sane practice for psychotherapy without any attached esoteric doctrine. Within that empirical framework, everything that is considered "real" astral travel by mystics would be labelled "active imagination" by doctrinally strict Jungians. But they wouldn't consider the results any less important to the individual. Jung presented it all as the same thing.
So, the distinction that some are trying to make here seems to miss the mark.
It seems like people are trying to separate "active imagination" from "astral travel" by using the distinction of personal unconscious versus collective unconscious.
It would be better, imho, to consider "active imagination" empirical science's broad, all-inclusive term for "astral travel" instead of trying to understand "active imagination" as referring only to the *personal unconscious *aspect of astral travel.
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The idea that a highly charged symbol can be a “door” between the personal and collective subconscious is giving-me a lot to think. It seems to reveal something about the very structure of the mind. Maybe it can clarify others cases of “ astral communication” like telepathy, obsession and evocation.
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Just for to sake of curiosity, I am finding some curious phenomenon involving active imagination and magick. Looking back at my diary I saw that very much of what I was getting, although highly personal, had striking connections with my magical practices at the moment
I was not aware that my subconscious was actually resonating with the forces I was calling. It answers a lot of questions once you see the “magick mirror” at work.
Thank you guys and thank you Jim.
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So, just as a matter in interest, where did you get the 'Alien force' wording from?
So what would you do if you wanted to increase the strength of the muscle(if i may use that term) that receives the subconscious.(if i may use that term).
How would you become more sensitive to those subtle energies that are the very forces magick wishes to manifest?
Just wishing to throw a question at you/
Q
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@Faus said
"Jim, is it Ok if I post a few pieces of the article so we can talk about it?"
You should certainly feel free to restate things in your own words, and to quote an occassional sentence or two.