# Imagination, creation & psychic integration



## RonPrice (Nov 5, 2011)

IMAGINATION, CREATION & PSYCHIC INTEGRATION

“Man may be, in a figurative sense, in prison, but he has also been given a large bunch of keys and several files.  The fundamental and undeniable fact about the imagination is that its purpose is to intensify the life in man.” So wrote the prolific English writer Colin Wilson(1931-).1 His book is, he says, “a study of the inaccuracies of the imagination, because the inaccuracies of different imaginations tend to cancel one another out, and what is left is a perception of the general laws of imagination. Hence this book could be called an attempt at a classification of unrealities, with a view to defining the concept of reality.” –Ron Price with thanks to 1Colin Wilson, The Strength to Dream, 1962.

You published this book when
I was getting ready to write my
university entrance examinations
and beginning my travel-pioneering
for the Canadian Baha’i community.
I did not read and begin to enjoy this
book until I was teaching literature to
another set of university entrance kids.

Imagination is a great power of my soul
but stands in need of guidance&control
to be part of an eternal act of creation
for this world is all one continued vision
of fancy, imagination, psychic integration.1

1 William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Oxford UP, London, 1954, chapter 13 quoted in Dimensions of Spirituality, J.A. McLean, George Ronald, Oxford, 1994, pp. 194-5.

Ron Price
5 November 2011


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## Firemajic (Nov 30, 2011)

I feel as though I was at a class lecture...and not enjoying it very much...This has some wonderful facts, that would be great if I was writing an essay... You certainly have a way with words and I can't wait to read a poem written by you! Peace...Jul


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## RonPrice (Jan 9, 2015)

After nearly 3 years, Firemajic, it is time to say: "thanks." In the hope you will not feel like you are at another boring lecture, I'll post some more on the subject of imagination.-Ron
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                      PLAYING, TURNING AND JIHAD

We are led astray by imagination, even in violation of will and reason...It is a great power of the soul but without value unless rightly controlled and guided.-‘Abdu’l-Baha in Dimensions in Spirituality, George Ronald, Oxford, 1994, p.187.

Literature and poetry does not always tell the truth or the best kind of truth and does not always point the right way.  They can even generate falsehood and habituate us to it. They do this by dreaming things up which have no basis in experience; by transcending experience through creative invention, a quite appropriate and necessary exercise; by a literary imagination which takes pleasure as much in writing as in telling the truth; by the simple and quite necessary desire to depart from conventional social wisdoms; by the desire to play which, as Huizinga argued, has no necessary relationship with truth. -Ron Price with thanks to John Hall, The Sociology of Literature, Longman, 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Mistress of error and falsehood,
genius, home of changeability,
ambivalence and deception,
centre of the dream machine,
dulls the hard edge of the quotidian,
temporary escape, more than harmless 
wisp of fancy and simple waywardness,
powerful force driving elemental desire,
deals with the rage of carnal passion,
(only with holy spirit’s help) somewhat 
illusory and temporary, associated with
stubborn pride and truth-inhibition, turn 
from it(like the mirror), can’t fight it, 
very difficult, profound negative consequences,
mental jihad on its facile and deceptive structures 
of illusion, its sneering parasites of unbelievable 
magnitude: vision, imagination, reason in rhapsody.

Ron Price
16 January 1998


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## Firemajic (Jan 9, 2015)

Hi Ron, nice to hear from you after so many years! I am thrilled you are still writing. Peace always...Julia


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## rcallaci (Jan 9, 2015)

A confusing mix of pedantic patter with a bit of poetry thrown in. The first stanza is just a  mini journal while the second is poetry and is good. I love the subject matter. But this is the poetry section and us poets get confused when we open up a thread to read poetry and instead find ourselves in a classroom.   

The subject of imagination is fascinating  and you have a interesting take on the subject.  You can make a thread in the poetry discussion sub forum on poetry and imagination. Or go to non fiction and write an essay on the subject.  I quite enjoyed your second poem - looking forward to your future work...


my warmest
bob


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## jenthepen (Jan 9, 2015)

Hi Ron, I enjoyed your ideas about imagination. I’m going to argue in defence of dreaming and imagining and, since this is a poetry forum, I’ll attempt to present it in a loosely poetic form. Here goes…

Your faultless logic soothes my mind and,
as you say, imagination is blind
to facts of experience and 
what we can see. It flies off at tangents 
and takes us to pageants of mystical vistas 
of magical places that  shimmer and 
blend into worlds we imagine 
that fashion our thoughts
into fantasy dreams.

As you say, this is okay as it 
gives us the power to soar and explore
and maybe find more 
of the things that will lead 
to some new ways of thinking 
and living and maybe that’s why it is there;
this strange way we have of imagining nonsense
that could lead to a consequence of
improving life.

But. 
Since truth is so changing
And moving and shifting
depending on which brain
Is doing its stuff.
Supposing the real truth
is in the supposing and
in what we’re proposing
when lost in the muse.

The truth that we see
when dreaming eludes us
justs leaves us as basic
as cattle or sheep. Just staring
at simple surroundings that
touch us and use them to give us
such answers as satisfy logic and match 
information the physical senses 
are able to catch.

Our reason likes looking 
at facts and the real things
and sometimes just lacks
that extra dimension
to find the ephemeral laying behind
the visible working and measured
mechanics of sensible, 
logical physical brains.

Mechanics of engines 
Are measured and mastered
But can't show the need 
for the journey hidden behind. 

And so with the mind; 
the secrets of neurons,
electrical pulses and chemical
urges – pure ongoing research
that opens new doors.
But all this can tell us is 
how, what and where.
The secret of dreaming is
searching the scheming 
of strange background forces
that might tell of the _why_ 
and of the sources 
of this existence - if it is found.

That is why we keep pondering
and wondering and imagining. 

jen


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