The Imaginal Realm

Have we’ve been lied to? Lied to for so long we accept the lie as truth?

What am I talking about?

There’s an interesting proposition I’ve read recently that strangely popped up in two different books I’m reading. (Synchronicity of this type happens to me often; I really should just sit down one day and try to figure out why.) It’s the theory of the Imaginal Realm. I’ve read about a man named Kenneth Ring who’s written about it, but doing a simple web search I see that it’s been talked about for a long time now by many men, as far back as Carl Jung and perhaps earlier.

Lift your right hand up and study it closely. See the groves of your fingertips. Rub your fingers slowly together and focus on that touching sensation. Put your hand up to your lips: is it hot or cold? Bring your hand to your ear and snap your fingers.

Is this real? What you just did with your hand – is that reality?

Seemingly and somewhat shockingly against all common sense, many respectable thinkers would say, simply: “No.”

What do they mean by this?

The first thing to be familiar with is the concept of “reality” and “hyperreality.” A “reality” is your experience. I am not convinced whether or not there is one underlying or true reality; I would like to think so, that this reality is basically the playing field God has set up for us to experience our personal realities. Perhaps I am a product of our relativistic times; I don’t know. But I find it useful when thinking about such subjects to acknowledge that there are different levels of realities that we can move in and out of any time.

For example, imagine yourself as the last person on earth. Society has collapsed; you are scavenging through the field for food. Your days consists of finding subsistence and shelter. At night you sit by a campfire and look at the stars, alone with your thoughts. This is probably as close to basic reality, I think, as you can get without … applying yourself, let’s say.

Society. That creates another reality. Consider the web of interconnected relationships we have; consider the interactions between members of that web. Is that not another form of reality? Suppose someone quite close to you dies. Coldly analyzing this, is it not as if a major hub of that network has been removed? The web of interconnected relationships is split apart, and has to reconnect. This is the trauma of grieving. This is why some people say their world has been shattered when someone significant passes on.

Hyperreality is that reality that is created for us and by us. For various reasons and purposes. There is the political hyperreality, created and designed to maximize power and control. There is the economic hyperreality, created and designed to maximize profit. Political hyperreality puts a gun to your head and takes money out of your wallet. Economic hyperreality convinces you to open your wallet yourself and hand the money over. Television itself creates a hyperreality, used by both the political hyperreality and the economic hyperreality, furiously striving amorally for power, control, and profit. Cynical? Perhaps. But is this model true? Who knows?

Now lets move down out of the hyperrealities to the social realities, and then to the basic reality of survival mode. Is there anything deeper?

Yes. The Imaginal Realm.

See yourself again as that post-apocalyptic scavenger, laying your shaggy head down next to a warm fire, the summer constellations like jewels above your head. Your thoughts are wandering, your breath is deepening, your eyes are closing. Then – you dream.

Is our world of dreams a world of reality?

Some say yes. Ancient cultures placed a heavier emphasis on dreams than waking reality. This is part of the Imaginal Realm.

Or consider this: a man sitting at meditation, his body relaxed, undisturbed, forgotten; his very thoughts gradually fading, until a mind clear as an unmoving pool of water materializes. What does this man experience?

The Imaginal Realm.

Do you know what convinced me of the reality of this magical place? This mystical and mysterious realm that is completely foreign and strange to the post-modern American mind? It’s very easy. I visited that place just now, as I was creating this post.

I sit at the keyboard; there can be music around me or even people talking, it does not matter. I stare at the computer screen, and begin typing. Habitually I start out slowly, but then I enter the Imaginal Realm. The screen before me disappears. The music I’m listening to, the endless and meaningless idle chatter of others about me, it all fades. I enter a trance-like state (even for a few seconds at a time) and I am a conduit for the ideas that end up on the electronic page. I am a bridge from this Imaginal Realm to whatever level of hyperreality you are at right now as you read this.

I have been there and it truly is indescribable. The Imaginal Realm exists.


Oh, and turn of the TV, cancel your magazine subscriptions (a magazine is just a bunch of printed ads stapled together) and stop talking politics. Be more real.