Imaginal Reality

by Daniels, Aaron B., Ph.D.; Daniels, Laura M.

• ISBN13: 9781904658498
• ISBN10: 1904658490
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-30
• Publisher: Aeon Books Ltd

Summary

Our world is a far wilder, weirder and more mysterious place than we ever admit, yet the magic we perform every day hides beneath the countless explanations' we foist onto life. In the face of these convincing yet empty explanations, we displace our hunger for a sense of the magical onto other goals, addictions, and distractions. Left at odds with the very sublimity that animates our every moment, we have turned "magic" into an exception, a collection of superstitions, a historical backwater, and a cinematic spectacle, rather than the very fabric of life as lived. This book is about recovering the imagination of magic and the magic of imagination. This, the first of two volumes, introduces the landscape of the imaginal and the existential voids. Through illustrative stories and self-assessment exercises, this book brings the often-obscure language of existentialism, esotericism, and imaginal psychology to life.

Author Biography

Aaron B. Daniels, Ph.D. teaches psychology at New England College in New Hampshire. He holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College (BA), Duquesne University (MA), and Pacifica Graduate Institute (Ph.D.). He prefers, however, to claim a Doctorate in Metaphysics from Lovecraft's eldritch Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. After working for a decade in clinical psychology, he transitioned into academia. This is his first book. Laura M. Daniels, M.Ac. practices Chinese medicine in New England, and is also a tai chi and qi gong practitioner, graphic designer and editor. She holds degrees from Baylor University (BA in Anthropology), and the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (M.Ac. in Chinese Medicine).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. 1
Author's Foreword to Volumes One and Two: A Few Words about (and to) Those for Whom I Intend These Texts	p. 5
Three Philosophical Persepectives	p. 5
Why a Grimoire?	p. 6
Looking to the Psyche within Psychology	p. 10
Magic Rooted in Human Experience	p. 12
Whom Are We Actually Talking About?	p. 14
The Circle Expands	p. 15
Conclusion and Belated Dedication	p. 16
Casting the Circle	p. 18
A Sort of Rock Bottom: An Opening Image	p. 20
Introduction to Volume One: The Book as Sigil	p. 23
Bones and Flesh	p. 27
Grimoires and Alphabets of Desire	p. 27
A Brief Word on Words Such as 'Magick'	p. 32
Mere-ness and Magic: An Informing Image	p. 33
The Great Work	p. 38
A First Go at the Central Idea: Moving Back to the Moment	p. 40
Numerology and Esotericism	p. 41
The Numbers of the Moment	p. 41
The Point within the Circle	p. 44
The Crystalline Moment	p. 44
Dyads, Dichotomies, and Other Entrapping Problems	p. 46
Hermeticism and Tragedy	p. 48
Evocation and Invocation	p. 50
The Morningstar	p. 53
Language and the Unconscious	p. 55
Application 1: Meditation	p. 58
Mala: Images of Sex, Death, and Letting Go	p. 62
The Structure of the Moment: A Sidelong Glance at the Voids	p. 71
Secrets and the Sacred	p. 71
Experience and Things	p. 72
The Voids	p. 73
The Broken Vessels of Schematics and Cosmologies	p. 74
Pseudo-Neo-Gnostic-Anti-Theist-Anarcho-Romanticism: An Image That Made Sense at the Time	p. 76
Peering into the Voids	p. 80
Immediacy: The First Void	p. 83
Regarding Experience and No-one	p. 84
Frontiers to the Voids	p. 85
Defenses against the Frontiers to the Voids	p. 86
Application 2: What Are You Doing Right Now?	p. 90
Undifferentiation: The Second Void	p. 95
The House of Our Personality	p. 95
A Brief Session of Psychoanalysis	p. 96
Prophets and Religion	p. 97
Undifferentiation and Responsibility	p. 99
As to Multiplicity	p. 100
Lacan and Lovecraft (and Kristeva, too)	p. 101
The Relevance of Existentialism	p. 105
Individuation and the Ubiquity of the Mystical Path	p. 106
No-one and Everyone	p. 109
The Ego and the Demiurge	p. 111
Desire, Difference, and Seeking	p. 112
Gender, Sex, and Intimacy	p. 113
In Conclusion	p. 115
Mystery and Imagination	p. 117
Puzzles and Secrets: The First Type of Mystery	p. 119
Insights: The Second Type of Mystery	p. 121
The Ineffable: The Third Type of Mystery	p. 123
The Imagination of Ritual	p. 125
Application 3: Stories about Your Selves	p. 130
Unconstellated Stars: Three un-Images	p. 132
Descent into Madness	p. 140
Madness: The Third Void	p. 143
Mental Illness and the Well	p. 143
Foucault and Folly	p. 144
Impossibility and the Bell Curve	p. 145
Foucault in a Nutshell	p. 146
Games People Play	p. 147
Banishing and Shifting Contexts	p. 151
Letting Go and Willing Violation	p. 153
Suffering and the World	p. 155
Application 4: Love, Intimacy, Sex	p. 156
A Tale of Two Clients: Images of Therapy	p. 160
Chaos: The Fourth Void	p. 171
Fortuna and Kairos	p. 174
The Threads of Fate	p. 175
Capitalism, Chaos, and Statistics	p. 176
The Scientific Method	p. 179
Chaos and Health	p. 180
Systems and Tones	p. 183
Statements of Intent (SOI)	p. 184
Some First Thoughts on Divination	p. 186
Spontaneity and Kairos	p. 187
On Archetypes and Resonance	p. 187
Synchronicity	p. 189
Application 5: Semi-colon-oscopy	p. 192
Conclusion to Volume One: Another Janus Gaze	p. 195
Appendix: The Prophets of Imaginal Reality: Creators of Imaginative Fictions	p. 197
Index	p. 203
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