The concordance 23 witnesses
Also traced as image primacy
Orientation
Imagination occupies a contested and generative centre in the depth-psychological corpus. The term refuses reduction to a mere cognitive faculty or decorative supplement to reason; across the texts surveyed, it figures as a primary organ of psychic reality, a threshold between sensory and intelligible worlds, and, in the most ambitious formulations, a cosmogonic force. Corbin, drawing on Ibn Arabi, advances the most radical claim: the imagination is the ‘intermediary’ faculty — barzakh — that confers existence on spiritual realities, making it ‘a pillar of true knowledge’ without which gnosis collapses into abstraction. This Sufi-Neoplatonic lineage, in which Imago and Magia stand in primal juxtaposition, is distinguished sharply from mere fantasy, which Paracelsus already condemned as thought ‘without foundation in nature.’ Hillman inherits and radicalises this insistence: imagination is not a mental faculty lodged in a skull but a cosmic power following the Romantics, the ground of certainty, the ‘great beast’ of anima mundi. Johnson and Tozzi situate imagination more clinically, as the communicative medium of active imagination in Jungian individuation. Bosnak holds that imagination ‘deforms and transforms our experience’ even in ordinary perception. McNiff grants it quasi-theological primacy as the ‘faculty of faculties’ coordinating creative transformation. Giegerich, dissenting sharply, argues that imaginal psychology’s ‘as-if’ manoeuvre prevents genuine logical engagement with the soul. What unites even disagreeing voices is the recognition that imagination cannot be bracketed: it is the site where psychology’s most fundamental wagers are placed.
In brief
Imagination is a primary organ of psychic reality, mediating image, symbol, soul, and the intermediate field between sense and meaning.
The page draws from 23 source passages, including Corbin, Henry, Hillman, James, Johnson, Robert A..
Seba places Imagination near related terms such as Active Imagination, Image, Archetype.
the disorder of the Imagination presupposes at least its existence, and what these men of theoretical knowledge are unaware of is the intermediary character of the Imagination, which places it at once in the sensible and the intelligible
Corbin argues that the Imagination’s ‘intermediary character’ — mediating between sense and intellect — makes it an indispensable pillar of gnostic knowledge, not a cognitive pathology.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the notion of the Imagination as the magical production of an image, the very type and model of magical action, or of all action as such, but especially of creative action
Corbin distinguishes Imaginatio as a creative magical potency from mere fantasy, insisting the world itself is the Magia divina ‘imagined’ by the Godhead.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
The Imagination as a creative magical potency which, giving birth to the sensible world, produces the Spirit in forms and colors; the world as Magia divina ‘imagined’ by the Godhead
In this parallel passage Corbin reiterates the cosmogonic function of Imagination and the categorical warning that it must not be confused with fantasy, the ‘madman’s cornerstone.’
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
I do not consider imagination to be a mental faculty only. Here, I follow the Romantics, who took the power of imagination right out of the head and into the cosmos.
Hillman relocates imagination from private mentality to cosmic reality, treating it as the medium through which character and image become inseparable.
, The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life, 1999thesis
the image, a subtle animal; the imagination, a great beast, a subtle body, with ourselves inseparably lodged in its belly: imagination, an animal mundi and an anima mundi
Hillman fuses imagination with instinct and world-soul, presenting it as a living entity within which human subjectivity is embedded rather than a tool the subject wields.
, A Blue Fire: The Essential James Hillman, 1989thesis
it baffles many people at first to hear that the imagination is an organ of coherent communication, that it employs a highly refined, complex language of symbols to express the contents of the unconscious
Johnson positions imagination as the second great channel from the unconscious alongside dreaming, grounding active imagination practice in a semiotic theory of symbolic expression.
, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, 1986thesis
The imagination is the intelligence that integrates and guides the creative transformation… imagination is not the flower, but the flower-goddess, who arranges the flower calyxes with their mingling pollens for new hybrids
Drawing on Jean Paul Richter’s Romantic formulation, McNiff elevates imagination to the ‘faculty of faculties,’ the governing intelligence of all creative and therapeutic transformation.
, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, 2004thesis
The science of the Imagination is also the science of mirrors, of all mirroring ‘surfaces’ and of the forms that appear in them.
Corbin maps imagination’s domain across theosophy, mystical geography, and specular theory, showing it as the science through which spiritual forms receive their visible manifestation.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
imagination continually deforms and transforms our experience; that imagination plays a central role in perception, no matter how objective we think we are
Bosnak extends the reach of imagination beyond the consulting room to ordinary perception itself, arguing through the figure of Mercury that imagination is the ‘healing poison’ at the heart of dreamwork.
, A Little Course in Dreams, 1986supporting
being and power and reality are invested in images. They are numinous because they are animated, soul-charged, whether shaped into external icons or imagined and spoken with in soul.
Hillman defends an iconophil position against Jasperian iconoclasm, arguing that imagination’s numinosity derives from the animation of images, not from abstract transcendence.
, Healing Fiction, 1983supporting
By recognizing the primacy of the image, archetypal thought frees both psyche and logos to an Eros that is imaginal
Hillman identifies the primacy of the image as the axiomatic move that liberates archetypal psychology from analytical reductionism and opens psyche and logos to imaginal Eros.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983supporting
By recognizing the primacy of the image, archetypal thought frees both psyche and logos to an Eros that is imaginal
A parallel statement from the briefer monograph confirms that image-primacy is the founding axiom of archetypal psychology’s approach to all psychic phenomena.
, Archetypal Psychology, 1983supporting
The vital role of active imagination for individuation was established by Jung himself, and its centrality was rooted in his personal experience.
Stein’s contribution to Tozzi’s volume grounds active imagination clinically and biographically, presenting it as the primary bridge between ego-consciousness and the archetypal unconscious in individuation.
, Active Imagination in Theory, Practice and Training, 2017supporting
psyche becomes aware by means of an imaginal method: the ostentation of images, a parade of fantasies as imagination bodies forth its
Hillman describes an imaginal epistemology in which psyche achieves self-knowledge not through philosophical introspection but through the display and interlocution of images.
, A Blue Fire: The Essential James Hillman, 1989supporting
imagination is a different thing from both perceiving and thinking. Imagination cannot occur without perception, nor supposition without imagination.
Aristotle’s tripartite distinction — imagination as intermediate between perception and thought — supplies the philosophical baseline against which all depth-psychological expansions of the term are measured.
, De Anima (On the Soul), -350supporting
the ‘as-if’ is the partition wall that keeps objective positing safely apart from the subjective retraction of it. It prevents the retraction from hitting home to that which is to be retracted
Giegerich critiques imaginal psychology’s ‘as-if’ logic as a device that immunises itself from genuine dialectical confrontation with psychic reality, thus foreclosing rigorous soul-work.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
the imagination is condemned to take the soul and soulfulness literally
Giegerich argues that the imaginal mode’s reliance on features and parallels prevents it from grasping the logical status — the dialectical element — in which psychological meaning actually resides.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
Jung’s emphasis on the primacy of the mental image, and, on the other, in Zen’s use of the koan
Clarke identifies the primacy of the mental image as the structural analogue linking Jung’s depth psychology to Zen’s transrational epistemology.
, Jung and Eastern Thought: A Dialogue with the Orient, 1994supporting
imagery tasks in modalities such as visual and auditory usually evoke brain activity patterns that overlap to a considerable extent with the patterns observed during actual perception
Damasio provides neuroscientific support for imagination’s quasi-perceptual status, showing that imagining and perceiving share overlapping neural substrates — an empirical parallel to the depth-psychological claim that images are real.
, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain, 2010supporting
The old ego offers a one-sided adaptation; it is inadequate to archetypal psychology because it restrains and ignores the imaginal part of the ego complex.
Hillman argues that a purely analytical ego neglects the imaginal dimension of the ego-complex, making it inadequate to the demands of archetypal reality.
, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology, 1972supporting
you look at the fantasies that have been going through your mind today and you choose an image, an inner person, or a situation… convert this passive fantasy into genuine Active Imagination
Johnson provides a practical clinical distinction between passive fantasy and active imagination, prescribing conscious engagement with images as the method for relieving unconscious pressure.
, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, 1986supporting
Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism
A bibliographic notice signals Moore’s application of the imaginal method to Sadeian phenomena, extending image-based psychology into the domain of dark eros.
, Echo’s Subtle Body: Contributions to an Archetypal Psychology, 1982aside
active imagination in analysis (Whitehouse 1954–1979; Chodorow 1974–1991). The process involves a mover, a witness, and the dynamics of their relationship
Chodorow’s entry situates active imagination as the theoretical foundation for authentic movement practice, documenting its expansion into somatic and arts-based therapeutic modalities.
, The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications, 2006aside