Jung on Active Imagination
I really prefer the term [active] 'imagination' to 'fantasy', because there is a difference between
the two which the old doctors had in mind when they said that 'opus nostrum', our work, ought to
be done 'per veram imaginationem et non phantastica' - by true imagination and not by a
fantastical one. In other words, if you take the correct meaning of this definition, fantasy is mere
nonsense, a phantasm, a fleeting impression; but imagination is active, purposeful creation. And
this is exactly the distinction I make too. A fantasy is more or less your own invention, and
remains on the surface of personal things and conscious expectations. But active imagination, as
the term denotes, means that the images have a life of their own and that the symbolic events
develop according to their own logic - that is, of course, if your conscious reason does not
interfere.
You begin by concentrating upon a starting point...When you concentrate on a mental picture, it
begins to stir, the image becomes enriched by details, it moves and develops. Each time, naturally,
you mistrust it and have the idea that you have just made it up, that it is merely you own
invention. But you have to overcome that doubt, because it is not true. We can really produce
precious little by our conscious mind. All the time we are dependent upon things that literally fall
into our consciousness; therefore in German we call them Einfalle. For instance, if my
unconscious should prefer not to give me ideas, I could not proceed with my lecture, because I
could not invent the next step. You all know the experience when you want to mention a name or
a word which you know quite well, and it simply does not present itself; but sometime later it
drops into your memory. We depend entirely upon the benevolent co-operation of our
unconscious. If it does not co-operate, we are completely lost. Therefore I am convinced that we
cannot do much in the way of conscious invention; we over-estimate the power of intention and
the will. And so when we concentrate on an inner picture and when we are careful not to interrupt
the natural flow of events, our unconscious will produce a series of images which make up a
complete story.
...Often in the later stages of analysis, the objectivation of images replaces the dreams. The images
anticipate the dreams, and so the dream material begins to peter out. The unconscious becomes
deflated in so far as the conscious mind relates to it. Then you get all the material in a creative
form and this has great advantages over dream-material. It quickens the process of maturation, for
analysis is a process of quickened maturation...Since by active imagination all the material is
produced in a conscious state of mind, the material is far more rounded out than the dreams with
their precarious language. And it contains much more than dreams do; for instance, the
feeling-values are in it, and one can judge it by feeling.
...By objectifying his impersonal images, and understanding their inherent ideas, the patient is able
to work out all the values of his archetypal material. They can really see, and the unconscious
becomes understandable to him. Moreover, this work has a definite effect upon him. Whatever he
has put into it works back on him and produces a change of attitude which I tried to define by
mentioning the non-ego centre.
...The work has a fascination for them; it is the fascination which the archetypes always exert
upon consciousness. But by objectifying them, the danger of their inundating consciousness is
averted and their positive effect is made accessible. It is almost impossible to define this effect in
rational terms, it is a sort of 'magical' effect, that is, a suggestive influence which goes out from
the images to the individual, and in this way his consciousness is extended and is changed.
...The symbol of the mandala has exactly this meaning of a holy place, a temenos, to protect the centre. And it is a symbol which is one of the most important motifs in the objectivation of unconscious images. It is a means of protecting the centre of the personality from being drawn out and from being influenced from outside.
This picture by [a] patient is an attempt
to draw such a mandala. It has a centre,
and it contains all his psychic elements,
and the vase would be the magic circle,
the temenos, round which he has to do
the circumambulation. Attention is thus
directed towards the centre, and at the
same time all the disparate elements come
under observation and an attempt is made
to unify them. The circumambulatio has
always to be done clockwise. If one
turned round in the other direction it was
very unfavourable. The idea of the
circumambulatio in this picture is the
patient's first attempt to find a centre and
a container for his whole psyche.
...This man, then, tries to gather in all the disparate elements into the vessel. The vessel is meant
to be the receptacle for his whole being, for all the incompatible units. If he tried to gather them
into this ego, it would be an impossible task, because the ego can be identical only with one part
at a time. So he indicates by the symbol of the vessel that he is trying to find a container for
everything, and therefore he gives a hint at a non-ego centre by that sort of ball or globe in the
middle. The picture is an attempt at self-cure. It brings all the disparate elements into the light,
and it also tries to put them together into that vessel.
...The suggestive influence of the picture reacts on the psychological system of the patient and induces the same effect which he put into the picture. That is the reason for idols, for the magic use of sacred images, of icons. They cast their magic into our system and put us right, provided we put ourselves into them. If you put yourself into the icon, the icon will speak to you. Take a lamaic mandala which has a Buddha in the centre, or a Shiva, and, to the extent that you can put yourself into it, it answers and comes into you. It has a magic effect.