Active Imagination

In 1912, after discovering he had "lost touch with the creative spirit" (1997, p. 1), Jung began engaging in what he called his "most difficult experiment" (2009, p. 198), involving a "voluntary confrontation with the unconscious" (1989, p. 178). He recalled a childhood memory that was "filled with a rush of emotion, and he realized the child was alive [and] had to develop an ongoing relationship to this lively spirit within himself" (1997, pp. 1-2). Thus, Jung began recording his dreams and visions in notebooks, which he called the Black Books. Years later, he "faithfully transcribed most of the fantasies [to The Red Book] and to each…added a section explaining the significance of each episode, combined with a lyrical elaboration" (2009, p. 202). By transcribing and amplifying the material, Jung discovered his "method of self-healing" that later became known as “active imagination” (1997, p. 1). 

In the same manner that Jung’s emotional memory compelled him “to return in his imagination to that time and enact the fantasies that came to him” (1997, p. 2), I regularly engage in active imagination dialogue through writing as a way to process psychological material. The analysis of what comes through is a profound way to reflect on the parts of ourselves that may not be aligned with our most authentic selves. Such work reflects the tradition within depth psychology of engaging personal material in service of tending to the soul of the world.

• It certainly doesn’t begin like all other mornings. But as I sat there at the red light, I looked up and saw a white dove perched on a telephone wire. I didn't have my phone with me for obvious reasons, so I couldn't take a picture of it. But there it was, for a couple of minutes, just white and still and radiating peace in the middle of an intersection.