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One of my intentions this year is to slowly, carefully, and meditatively read through Carl Jung’s famous Red Book. Jung has enormously influenced me, particularly his concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes. However, I don’t think that even those monumental concepts would have had as much influence on me if Jung had not also utilized art and image as the pathway to the unconscious, collective unconscious, archetypes and ultimately to the divine.
The Red Book is itself a work of art while simultaneously containing individual works of art within it. Jung never considered himself an artist and actively resisted identifying as such. Yet he used art-making as a powerful means of self-exploration and personal individuation. I love this as a model because it opens up the potential and power of working with images to everyone, not just professional artists or even talented crafty people; it is an invitation and methodology absolutely anyone can use.
There are many ways to begin working with images as you pursue inner and outer knowledge and wisdom. Dreamwork is one way, active imagination is another, and sorting through a large pile of randomly gathered images, allowing those that catch your eye or spark a reaction to float to the surface of the pile, into your hands and your art, is another way.
The image above, created in 2021, is an example of the merging of all of those ways. This imagery grew out of a dream, and while the dream did not contain the symbol of the Orphic Egg (the egg with the snake coiled around it), it did contain a snake that morphed into a lion. However, while I was sorting through books and piles of images, the egg and the snake powerfully and persistently presented themselves to me.
Three years later, during an active imagination session, I made a link between the Orphic Egg, the Caduceus of Hermes, the Bronze Snake Moses lifted up in the wilderness to cure the people from venomous snake bites (Book of Numbers), Eve, and the Empty Tomb from the Christian story of Easter. Those insights pulled me back to this piece. These deeper insights and connections can be made because I routinely revisit my art and explore the images more over time.
What is Active Imagination?
As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into images, narratives or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious “ego” and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. “The Transcendent Function” (1958) is Jung’s first paper about the method he later came to call active imagination. It has two parts or stages: Letting the unconscious come up and Coming to terms with the unconscious. He describes its starting points (mainly moods, images, bodily sensations); and some of its many expressive forms (painting, sculpting, drawing, writing, dancing, weaving, dramatic enactment, inner visions, inner dialogues). In this early essay he links his method to work with dreams and the therapeutic relationship. The term “transcendent function” encompasses both the method and its inborn dynamic function that unites opposite positions in the psyche.
The theosophy of post-Renaissance Europe embraced imaginal cognition. In this tradition, the active imagination serves as an “organ of the soul, thanks to which humanity can establish a cognitive and visionary relationship with an intermediate world”.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge distinguished imagination, which expresses realities of an imaginal realm transcending any personal existence, and “fancy”, or fantasy, which expresses the creativity of the artistic soul. For Coleridge, “imagination is the condition for cognitive participation in a sacramental universe“.
C.S. Lewis considered that “reason is the organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning. “
Rudolf Steiner suggested cultivating imaginative consciousness through meditative contemplations of texts, objects, or images. The resulting imaginal cognition he believed to be an initial step on a path leading from rational consciousness toward ever-deeper spiritual experience.
(To delve more deeply into the intermediate universe, read Liminal Moments, a post from just a few weeks ago.)
In The Red Book Jung writes that words are not sufficient to express the depths of the soul. Have you found that to be true? I have. It’s hard to describe the subtle beauty of shining dew drops on blades of tender green grass in the first ray of sun just after dawn on a spring morning let alone the depths of the soul. Our words fail us at many points of experience. We are unable to clearly articulate experiences we feel, and emotions that are aroused in our “organ of meaning” as C.S. Lewis puts it or with the “organ of the soul” as the Theosophists called it. There are things we sense, feel and know beyond our five senses and our intellect that move us in ways that are indescribable using words.
In the quote in the graphic above Jung points out that there are images concealed in emotions and by finding them and expressing those emotions as images you can find comfort and reassurance. This is the brilliance and power of working with images as part of inner healing work, shadow work, the exploration of self-knowledge and ultimately in pursuit of meaning and Divinity.
How do we find meaning in our lives? How do we find ourselves? How do we find God? Jung says, through images.
My speech is imperfect, not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths. ~ C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition pg. 232
The wealth of the soul exists in images my friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart. ~ C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition pg. 232
The devils and dragons that are apt to grow in our hearts are exorcised when we work with them through images. We are not adequately able to express them with words even to ourselves, yet imagery, and especially when imagery is used in conjunction with personal myth or narrative work, we can discern their true nature, tame them if necessary, harness them to our advantage or expel them all together.
While this may all seem like very dark shadow-work, images can also open us up to the most ineffable and sublime encounters with our soul and the spiritual realms. Beautiful imagery, color, and highly aesthetic combinations of images get us much closer to the high places than words alone.
The God Image
In the years after 1912 Jung began to make a clear distinction between the God image and the metaphysical reality of God. As he developed his ideas he began to place more and more emphasis on this distinction.
This clarification is an enormously helpful distinction that can facilitate proper development of the soul. Our relationship to the divine is of critical importantance if we are to, as Jung puts it, “become who we truly are.” Who we are, and who we are not is a critical distinction to make.
Whether you understand your nature as being made in the image of God, or you lean more towards a gnostic interpretation and see a divine spark trapped in a body of matter, you embrace the theology of apotheosis or theosis, or you understand yourself as one who has received the Holy Spirit and has the life of Christ within, or any other variant of this idea it is important to be clear about where you fit in the cosmic scheme.
Caitlín Matthews from A HallowQuest Sanctuary recently wrote an article titled WE ARE NOT THE GODDESSES, Of Hubris and Self-Cherishing which is worth the read.
Jung sees the unconscious as the seat of the "numinous," where the God archetype lives. He describes the Self as the transcendent, divine quality within. He often refers to the Self as the "Imago Dei," or the image of God residing within the psyche or soul.
The Sacred and the Shamanic
I recently heard Brett Weinstein speak about the sacred and the shamanic. He made a distinction between that which you hold sacred or holy and the spiritual field in which you can experience and explore. The sacred are those foundational beliefs that are non-negoatiable. They are the bedrock of your faith, have been around for a long time and hold the authority of ancestral assent, in short within your culture they are the things that have everywhere and always been acknowledged as holy and true. Therefore, you would not be inclined to redefine or reorder them let alone replace or eliminate them all together. They are beyond the meddling of humans, in short they are sacred.
The shamanic is used as a loose term to designate as Weinstein puts it the spiritual field in which you play. For some this will be a very narrow space with defined boundaries. For others (like me) it is going to be a vast place with multiple territories, ever expanding and filled with all manner of experiences, images and spiritual beings. This shamanic field is the intermediary universe, the imaginal realm, that can be entered in dreams, active imagination and art making. To travel there you will need to cultivate your imaginative consciousness. As Coleridge indicates “imagination is the condition for cognitive participation in a sacramental universe“.
It’s when you are in the intermediary universe that you can explore the god image within the Self, and if your shamanic field is deep and wide you can do that by exploring everything from your inner Persephone, Hecate, Apollo or Pan to dialoging with your inner mystic, magician, emperor, hermit or fool. You can inwardly engage with saints, sages, angels and ancestors. You may also have to fight dragons and demons. The imaginal realm is filled with both allies and adversaries, so approach this work with soberness, humility and respect. The imaginal is not an imaginary, un-real world of make-believe and self-generated fiction. It is real and it is perilous. It is the home of the god image within you.
I encourage you to find the images that speak directly to your soul. Find them within yourself during meditation or active imagination or find them in the world in books, magazines, and works of art. Gather these images to yourself and then create something with them. Let them merge, constellate, activate, and communicate. An art journal is a perfect place to collect these images. It need be nothing more than a blank sketchbook in which you glue images that strike a chord with you. Like a dream journal, over time you are likely to find themes emerging. Your art journal will be your passport into the intermediary universe, the world of the archetypes and the place you can find the god image within your Self.
Tell me about your experiences with images. Do you keep an art journal? Do you work on JourneyCircles or have a SoulCollage practice? Do you have questions about using images for inner explorations? Let me know in the comments.
The comments section is a safe and welcoming space to share your insights and experiences.
Comments and conversation are always appreciated and enjoyed, so feel free to let your voice be heard. I read all of them and endeavor to respond to each one.
Tarot Offerings
Tarot cards are all about images and archetypes. They allow you to enter into the intermediate universe and gain self-knowledge and insight. With help and guidance from a Tarot Reader you can learn a great deal about yourself and your situation. My training as a Jungian Tarot Reader equips me to bring you safely into the realm of the imaginal.
Learn more about Jungian Tarot Readings and what I offer HERE
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
this was a very intring post . Thanks so much for sharing it!
Beautiful post filled with love and imagination. It invites me to explore deeper and I am grateful for that.