An Invitation to the Imaginal Path
OK friends,
I’m about to begin a series of weekly articles that chart a kind of expedition - not into a physical landscape, but into an inner territory long overlooked in our modern world. This is a journey into what the French philosopher and mystic Henri Corbin called the Mundus Imaginalis: the Imaginal World. Not to be confused with the imaginary or the made-up fictional poetic world I am creating with the Exquisite Archives though it is based in something like the imaginal realm as I understand it. The imaginal is a real and subtle realm of perception - a world of symbolic depth, archetypal presence, and intuitive meaning.
In this series, we’ll explore what it means to walk the creative path as a kind of pilgrimage through the Imaginal. Along the way, we’ll contrast Corbin’s vision with a very different terrain: the Massurreality - a term I use to describe the algorithmic, media-saturated, image-simulated reality that now surrounds us. Where the imaginal invites reverence and depth, the massurreality trades in distraction and spectacle.
I’ll be using Chatwick & Co - my Editorial and Research Dept. (AI) to do a lot of the heavy lifting on this expedition into the highlands of Nowhere. This is a place where we will find signs, traces and markers but no actual trails.
These essays will offer reflections, provocations, and practical ways to think about your creative practice as a form of seeing and listening, a way of living that’s attuned to mystery and rooted in meaning. My hope is that this journey offers a fluid map - not to answers - but to a renewed trust in your own inner vision.
We’ll look at:
What the imaginal actually is (and how it’s different from fantasy),
How to recognize when your creativity is being hijacked by the massurreality,
Ways to recover and protect your imaginal sight,
And how artists, mystics, and meaning-makers can reclaim their role as stewards of the Real.
So pack lightly. Bring your sketchbooks, your instruments, your notebooks, your listening heart. We’re headed off the map.
More soon.
I'm looking forward to this. Each one of my pieces is a story into itself and I've often thought of that 'place' where it would live if it could.......where it came from, it's life, what it's saying and meaning. I'm with you for the ride!
I appreciate this invitation to explore a deeper dimension of creativity. It's refreshing to see such attention given to the imaginal—not just as escapism, but as a real and meaningful mode of perception. The contrast you draw with "massurreality" feels spot-on, and I’m looking forward to your reflections on how we might reclaim some of that lost depth. Excited to follow along on this journey off the map.