Alton Wasson offers a brief exploration of Carl Jung and the origins of Active Imagination, the transcendent function and the invitation to experience “both/and”. This talk was recorded during the annual Contemplative Dance/Authentic Movement Week I Introductory workshop, held in June 2016 at Hampshire College.
“Active imagination is thus THE most powerful tool in Jungian psychology for achieving wholeness – far more efficient than dream interpretation alone…It is a form of play, but a bloody serious one…But I think that nobody who has once discovered active imagination would ever want to miss it, because it can literally achieve miracles of inner transformation.
We also know that many alchemists used an IMAGINATIO VERA ET NON PHANTASTICA in their work, which was a form of active imagination. This gives us the satisfaction of knowing that we are dealing here not with a weird innovation, but with human experience, which has been lived through before. It is actually a new from of one of the oldest forms of RELIGIO, in the sense of “giving a careful consideration to the numinous powers.”
~Marie-Louise von Franz