It’s Not All You: Toward a Collective Experience of the Imaginal

Presented at the 2023 Conference of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies ~ July 28, 2023

What I have to say is simple, but important:
When we don’t do things together, problems arise.
That’s a concise way to put it!

By doing things together, I mean something pretty simple:

connecting and sharing experience with others, in real life,
without the intermediary of a computer

in ways that I would describe as “commonplace and ordinary” -- if they weren’t so darn rare! How can you call it commonplace if you can’t even find it?

I’m simply talking about regular acts of being and doing together, a regular common ground of social participation. Not just spectating. Not just consuming. But people coming together to do things that feel meaningful.

What grows out of this common ground of social interaction and shared experience is shared metaphorical understanding. This is instrumental to group cohesion.

Shared metaphor (myth) grows from shared experience.

Shared metaphor (myth) is instrumental to group cohesion.

Metaphorical themes and events hold culture together. And new syncretic myth and metaphor evolve through shared experience.

This is GOOD and IMPORTANT!

Only in shared experience are we able to sort out our tangled projections and troubling unconscious cultural influences, and be able to really enjoy the benefits of collective awareness.

From collective unconscious to collective awareness

The collective unconscious exists. And, in the collective just as in the personal unconscious, repressed contents without a means of expression are problematic.

But where do we get to actively explore, engage, and learn about collective awareness? Where do we get to experience it and collectively encourage that flow of unconscious material into consciousness?

Opportunities are not readily available. When even “commonplace” social interaction requires a concerted effort, opportunities to share imaginal experience are rarer still, requiring a particular type of social setting.

In this world of catastrophe, we have to create new forms that will support and sustain us. We need to apply our intellects, yeees, AND…

We need to let our dreams and jokes, ideas and what-ifs, numinosities and synchronicities mingle without judgment or ego rushing in.

Transformation needs imagination; and cultural transformation needs shared imagination. We need to create the context and opportunity

So what are the particulars of social settings that encourage the sharing of the imaginal?

Sharing the imaginal

Imaginal sharing extends quite naturally from creative engagement.

But ordinarily, when people get together

1. We don’t (by default) allow space for shared creativity.

2. Most people are not at ease with creative expression anyway.

So both of these need to be addressed.

The goal isn’t mind melding, but moments of connection, understanding, and support that are born from sharing imagery and expression in an open-ended way.

This may well be a type of experience you have regularly in your life. I hope so! I’m not inventing so much as encouraging these types of gatherings.

I’d like to spread this idea like Johnny Appleseed. This can be accessible to a wide range of people, if we keep a few basic premises in mind.

1. Healing the mind-body split

Sharing the imaginal experience is essential to a cultural healing of the subject/object, mind/body split. Restoring a natural permeability and sense of continuity between inner and outer, self and other, encouraging the imaginal flow between us, we can regenerate that social connective tissue that keeps us healthy and whole.

2. Participation

Healing the mind-body split requires participation.

I mean being present and phenomenologically engaged with inner and outer experience, not solely personal, not solely human, not completely conscious, allowing both knowns and unknowns to come into awareness.

To be healthy and happy, to enjoy a meaningful life, it’s important to be present and engaged, participants in our own lives.

Participation happens in the third.

3. Thirdness

We can define the third as any in-between space:

the space between you and me

the space between real and pretend

the space between true and false

The qualities of thirdness enhance participating and sharing. Especially ambiguity: things - ideas - images aren’t nailed down. They may shape shift and morph easily from one thing to another.

Unknowns are allowed to remain unresolved.

Boundaries are relaxed.

Judgements are softened.

It’s a YES/AND improvisational space…which can, rather magically, be expanded--or collapsed, almost as an act of will.

This space is collapsed in situations where true/false thinking is required, where ambiguity is refused; and there are situations that warrant this: life or death situations, let’s say, where clear decisions must be made, where survival depends on it. That would be one example.

Probably accounting is another good example. Figures need to go in one column or another. They add up or they don’t.

But there are many many situations where thirdness is beneficial, including relational and creative situations.

We can expand the third--

By tuning into the moment, relaxing boundaries, releasing claims of ownership, allowing unknowns and ambiguities

by engaging in reverie

by inviting the imaginal to enter…

This space is hospitable to the imaginal.

4. Imaginalia

Imagine the imaginal as non-human and nomadic. Not you. Not yours.

Not a product of your mind or your indigestion.

Not a fantasy nor a fiction.

Rather, an actual non-human emanation from a realm beyond the sensible world.

Drawing on Heidegger and Corbin, we can conceive of imaginal emanations as having their own existence, beyond the human. Though they are shaped and colored by individual projection, they originate elsewhere.

Allowing ourselves to understand the imaginal as non-personal and free-ranging, we release ownership. Not MY Idea--> but AN idea

Then we are able to engage together in shared creative experience— not to culminate in a work of art or performance, but for the connection that develops; and the recognition that we are not only individuals but also in continuity with all the world.

5. Inner+outer continuity

In participation with the world, we become more and more aware that we - mind AND body -- are continuous with the world around us; this need not contradict our sense of individual personhood, our bodies as our containers. But it is an understanding that, while quite obviously, indisputably true, is often lacking in western consciousness. This needs remediation.

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Truly i think if these premises became more widespread it would be all to the good.

But how do we get to experience sharing that wispy dreamy numinous imagery that arises from engaged creativity?

Here’s how I would do it (adapted, of course, for more or less formal circumstances:

First, shape the experience with simple limits and guidelines, and begin with grounding in location.

Creative expression is risky. Always. You don’t know what will emerge until it does. Basic ground rules ease anxiety so we can relax into expression.

First of all, establish a safe and trustworthy container, which is as simple as making clear the limits of time, space, and behavior: define the schedule, the location, the intention, the rules. Who’s the facilitator? Someone needs to be.

Secondly, simple guidelines will likely be familiar to everyone, but they nonetheless need to be clearly stated. These are some I like to use:

• practice kindness and respect to yourself and to others, real and imaginal

• allow freedom of symbolic expression: whatever wants to come out.

• no expectation of outcome We love imperfection!

• stay in the present: engage with what comes up

• listen and share

• Sharing is encouraged --and always optional

• assume confidentiality

• turn off your phones

Thirdly, I always begin imaginal exploration with grounding in location:

Where are we? Who and what is here?

Tuning in. Noticing. Listening.

beginning with the breath, the body, the skin,

the attention to the present moment

inside the body

and outside the body

Grounding in place.

where are we?

what are we noticing

with weather terrain elemental presences

with plant and animal life

being present and aware and noticing

— metaphors are built on this, and metaphors are how we understand each other.

So that’s the set up. And then what? What do we do? What sorts of group activities work well for this experience?

Activities that work well

Jung's active imagination provides a great model (as delineated here by von Franz):

1) empty the mind

2) invite the image

3) give it form

4) interact with it

Aesthetics and intellect both must relax in this process.

But Jung intended this to be used in the therapeutic dyad, so how can it be modified for group ?

--> First and foremost, this process, as I conceive it, is not therapy, though therapeutic. There is certainly room for professional facilitation, but I’m suggesting this type of gathering can prove fruitful for the general public.

I would hope to normalize such gatherings to be arranged among friends. Like a game night. Still, as we wander imaginally, we can wander into sensitive areas. Honestly, this can happen anytime people come together, although in social settings people do tend to limit their personal exposure. Care and compassion are always recommended; but mainly, creative expression, while it may be scarey, is not dangerous.

A couple of things I think work well to optimize the flow of such gatherings:

1) creating a rhythm between quiet inner activities like journaling and reverie, and outer activities, like sharing and discussion. This encourages a fluidity between exploration and expression, and allows a blend of playful and profound moments.

2) including some element of chance, game play, or divination - these bring focus or structure while simultaneously helping people to let go of control.

For example, draw a tarot card. Start with a prompt, such as “What is a helpful image for us to keep in mind in this moment?” Pick a card, and share with the group.

Now, even without venturing into interpretation, and however it resonates for each individual, that image is now circulating in the group’s collective awareness.

It may inspire or weave into the expression that people share. It’s helpful and interesting to look for common themes. Exploring different responses to one theme is a great entry into discussion.

Back to: what might we actually “do” when we gather for imaginal sharing? There are so many forms this could take, but try messing around.

Messing around is my favorite thing

Basically what i did when i was a kid, by myself and with my friends. Maybe you did too. It's kind of like “doing nothing.” Like, if someone asks you what are you doing, you would say “Nothin…”

“Just messing around”

You can start anywhere. Grab some materials --- what have you…paper paint glue scissors---or maybe music is your jam--or cooking--whatever it may be--and just start...…playing…

The point is to let it be easy and unstructured, let it flow without trying to get anywhere, without apology, without credit or blame …

So I am basically saying

1. create a space in which to “do nothing”

and then,

2. convince people to do it with you

Yes, it sounds simplistic.

But the way to get people to hang out and relax and explore and express playful but non-competitive ideas and images is to tell them to, to direct them to do so.

A lot of the time, people just need permission. And it’s a very simple thing to give permission. Explicit permission, though.

ESPECIALLY to say something silly or make something ugly, or to look foolish.

Especially because we are asking people to relax and express what’s coming up out of the unconscious psyche. In Jungian terms this will be expressed through the inferior function, so it will have an unpolished clumsy expression.

All the more important in social settings that we remember those guidelines, which are “the rules of the game,” to create a safe space for expression of these contents.

And do remember closure: It’s always good to wrap up your gatherings with another grounding activity to bring closure-- eat, touch the earth…

Possibilities

I’d like to touch on some possibilities that might arise from this idea. First of all,

What could possibly go wrong?

Here are a few I thought of:

• Social constraints

• Ego

• Projection

• Group mind

• Trauma

Social constraints: yes. This type of gathering and sharing requires us to get over some long-held social strictures against being vulnerable and embarrassing and imperfect. Yes. So this is almost unbelievably hard for some people. Yet… this is why we need it.

Ego: I’m encouraging humility. Have the courage to stop trying to impress people. It’s not about you. That doesn’t sit easily with everyone. It’s very very very hard for some people to mess around and be “less than.” Again, this is why we need it.

Projection: Yes, we all do it.
Activities like these help us to sort out our projections because we get a better sense of what’s going on for other people as well as a clearer view of our own less conscious processes. But projection can get in the way of group sharing and expression, if guidelines are not in place. It’s the facilitator who keeps tabs, holds the container and minds the limits, notices if someone is out of bounds and reels them in.

Group mind: Jung was not enthusiastic about the potential of the collective psyche. He thought that the collective unconscious would always tend towards the lowest common denominator. Indeed, we see the worst case scenario of group mind playing out all around us.

BUT doesn’t this call for some proactive intentional group process of awareness? Group consciousness isn’t going to raise itself.

Trauma: It’s evident that
- we have all been traumatized;
- some have suffered unspeakably
- this type of work can open up sensitivities that ought best to be dealt with in a professional setting.

At the same time, so widespread is the experience of trauma that we all need to know some basic things about how to support others. Like basic first aid.

Bearing compassionate witness to another person’s painful memories can offer healing that is not otherwise available.

There are risks herein but obviously as we see in culture at large, there are risks in not taking collective action as well.

Other possibilities? Great Outcomes!

• We become more compassionate!

• We feel seen and heard!

• We share our best stuff!

• We participate!

• Social wounds are healed!

• Society becomes relevant!

• Life goes on!

And I mean, that’s really what we’re all hoping for, isn’t it?

In closing,

Do things together.

I hope you’ll take a moment today to think about something you’d like to do with others, or others you’d like to do something with. And make it happen!

• It’s simple

• It’s fun

• It’s urgent

Thank you.