Embrace of the Daimon: Sensuality, Vision, and the Goddess of the Night

by Sandra Dennis

• ISBN13: 9780882143811
• ISBN10: 0882143816
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Spring Pubns

Summary

Imaginal reality touches us at moments of crisis. It may announce its presence during sleep in dreams or nightmares, or move us while awake as a muse, guardian angel, or demon. Some call the imaginal the realm of the archetypes, the home of the gods and goddesses, the land of the daimones (the forces that move us from within), or the source of creativity. Others simply call it the soul. In Embrace of the Daimon, Sandra Dennis presents the working of a realm that at once attracts and frightens us, a region we little understand in the monotheistic West where we tend to dismiss the imaginal as trivial or pathological. Dennis argues that, to the contrary, the imaginal is fundamental to consciousness, and its activities deeply influence us. Through immersion in the imaginal, we enter the world of connective unions, those relationships that seem to structure inner life. We discover the relation of consciousness to the unconscious, the connection of our mind to the hidden recesses of our body, and the dependence of our identity on both the body and consciousness. The daimonic image plays the magician, joining separate parts of ourselves. This image also links us to a sphere outside reality. But it is in the world of images -- the daimonium -- that the spirit meets the sensuality of the body, bringing us a unique human vision.