active imagination, n.Definitions

Active imagination (n.) dismisses ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the objection “it's all made up” as the anxiety of an ego that brooks no master besides itself in its own house.

Active imagination (n.) came ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠to a stuck young artist through a railway poster: he walked into the picture, over the hill, into a chapel, and saw something with pointed ears vanish behind the Madonna — and it did so again the next time.

Active imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠not a plaything for children: it can stall in sterile free association, dissolve into mere aesthetic phantasmagoria, or flood the mind into a psychotic interval.

Active imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠what the alchemical rite amounted to, individuation pictured through substances; it arises when analysis has set the opposites against each other so sharply that a synthesis of the personality becomes imperative.

Active imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠one of the highest forms of psychic activity: conscious and unconscious flow together into one product — and it may even create the individuality it expresses.

Active imagination (n.) uses ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the fact that unconscious contents, concentrated on, become charged and lit from within until they are a kind of substitute reality, as in Loyola's Exercises.

Active imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠contemplating one fragment of fantasy until its context grows around it — not free association, but letting the fantasy add to itself.

Active imagination (n.) and ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠alchemy are the same irrigation of the conscious mind by the unconscious — ultimately the process of individuation.