Books

Feeding the imagination…

Sue Vincent

osiris

“We were not Gods, but were of God, the strands of our existence
not yet teased apart by Becoming, our function not yet defined.”

So much for a Saturday evening… the night of the week most folk sit relaxing by the hearth or meet with friends. Me? I was taking dictation from a Goddess… or that was what it felt like as I wrote.

I had done plenty of research, burying myself under a small mountain of respectable tomes to remind me of the details of the great story I was working with as I wrote The Osiriad. The names on the spines… Budge, Spence and Frazer, Iamblichus and Herodotus… suggested that ancient Egypt had something to do with the whole process, as would the printed papyri that littered the table. I had been feeding my imagination on tales of Egypt for years.

“There was a time we did not walk the earth.
A time when our nascent essence flowed, undifferentiated, in the Source of Being.”

But research isn’t everything. There are scholarly accounts in abundance out there with an academic weight I could never match. Nor did I intend to try. I hoped to speak to the emotions and imagination instead, so it was enough to get a broad overview of the subject. Having immersed myself in the  scholarly works, I set them aside to write, hoping to weave the disjointed myths of Egypt into a single story. Which is where it began to feel as if I was taking dictation… and I wrote non-stop until the book was done.

“We wore flesh like a garment, clothing our immanence…”

It is a curious process when, with the first keystrokes, the tenor of language changes and takes on a flavour all of its own. Even stranger when the character who is speaking in the narrative comes to life under your fingers and starts to ‘dictate’ and you find yourself typing concepts you were not consciously aware of before writing them down. I think I speak for many who write with this. It is a well-known phenomenon that our heroes and heroines begin to act independently in the imagination and the writer becomes little more than an observer and reporter of events over which, it almost feels, they have no control.

I found as I wrote that tale that I was tapping into areas of understanding that had lain unexplored in mind and memory, shrouded in the cobwebs of neglect. There is far more stored away in our minds than we notice. We tap into it through practices like meditation and the creative process. The two, I think, are more closely aligned than we generally realise. Many who paint  slip into another state of mind, very similar to that experienced in meditation. Many who write will go back and find things they barely remember having written, things beyond their usual scope that they hardly recognise as their own. Things that surprise them with their depth or intensity.

Imagination is such a powerful thing. It is at the root of so many aspects of our lives yet we often dismiss it or fail to notice it. We even train our children away from its magic by telling them not to daydream or imagine things, pulling them back to reality. Yet every design, every concept, begins the process of its manifestation within the imagination of its creator. Every object we use began with a ‘what if’, every story was once just the germ of an idea.

It is imagination that fuels our emotions. What would we fear without that mental picture that haunts us? Would we strive to attain a goal without the image of success imprinted upon our mind? Yet it is a two-way process, for imagination feeds on memory and emotion too and they paint a vivid picture for it to work with. Think of the possibilities for change we could have by consciously harnessing these natural gifts we all have in abundance. It is this power of the imagination that is drawn upon by all the methods of positive thinking, and though many of the concepts they present may be flawed by the desire for profit and worldly success, the basic premise, that we can shape our own vision of reality through imagination, is sound.

Mystery Schools, including the Silent Eye, have always taught the power of the controlled imagination. Very often, though, in my experience, the power of the heart is neglected by the student, overlooked in their concentration on study, with the result that the focus becomes purely intellectual and loses the true meaning of such a path, which is to take understanding out into the life of the world and live it. It is by engaging the emotions in full awareness, in conjunction with the imagination, that the inner vision opens to allow exploration of the hidden corners of the mind and the realisations that come in this way can be truly astounding.

***

 

 Available for Kindle and in Paperback via Amazon UK, US and worldwide

Published by Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and a Director of The Silent Eye. She was immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintained a popular blog and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.M.Vasey. Sue lived in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She had a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. Sue  passed into spirit at the end of March 2021.

34 thoughts on “Feeding the imagination…”

  4. I think there are definitely two distinct sides of my imagination and creativity. One is learning about words or places I know nothing about, or perhaps significant people I know nothing about. But when I am in my creative zone, I don’t think about it not being right, or perhaps not as good as that of others. I don’t think about competition. I don’t like it at all. I like to make things that speak to my heart and my soul – my spiritual being. I know some folks refer to it as being “in the zone,” and that is somewhat what happens. I do have to know a certain amount of information about creativity and imagination before I go into the zone. For example, if I am going to make pottery, I need to know about kilns and how to operate and load them or I might get physically hurt very badly. And if I am going to create a structure even for myself, I have to know a few principles of building structures or perhaps I will hurt myself or others. So there is a certain amount of learning whether we are writers, artists, or perhaps engineers, etc. But then once creativity and imagination takes over, it does need to be free to trust our imagination, etc. to create whatever it is we want to do.

    I think when people fail to succeed in creativity/imagination even when they have it, it is not because of the fear of failure, but the fear of success.

    So it is sort of a partnership to be creative or use your imagination. You may have to learn some things along the way, but then you are free to take your knowledge and your intuition and create freely. I agree with everything everyone else has said. There is no right way and wrong way. There are children born who are savants, and without any training or special learning, they can sit down and play a piano, for example, at a professional level.

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      1. That “dictation” occurs.
        People used to say, “how did you get the idea for this?” – all I could say was, “I get the canvas and paint out and then see who shows up on it.” Some understand that – other are clueless – and laugh at your “joke”

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        2. I can so relate once again. When you see some of my things I have created, people think I am being funny, but they really have no clue what is going on in my head at any given time. It’s ok though because that is the difference between the person doing the creation and the viewers. It means something different to each of them.

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    2. I can so relate to that. I do my best painting straight from my mind. I don’t worry about it being “right,” or “proportional,” etc. It is definitely a very other worldly experience. Sometimes I am lying in bed looking into the clothes stacked, etc. in the closet and I suddenly see cool faces or heads or bodies doing all kinds of interesting things. If I sketch what I see, I can be sure that I will not see the same thing in the morning. Very cool!

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        1. When I am painting or making an art quilt, mixed media or urban or interactive art, I am at one in the universe with the universe, and it with me – it is as though I might be the only person left on earth. No one is making any demands of my time,

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  6. I too am fascinated by Egypt, I have been since I was a child, but my Egypt is a land of green, leafy trees and vines and pools of water as deep and dark as the sky filled with so many stars. xxx

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  8. Very clear, knowledgeable and powerful.post.
    We mostly have work with passion, and have a want to better ourself from a spiritual perspective, i feel. Our imagination should be free to believe, explore and improve our current understanding a world view.

    I love your post such a beautiful powerful post. So very beautifully written.

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