The Power of the Imagination

By Richard Hazzlewood

Looks at the faculty of the imagination and discusses its power and importance. Suggests that the imagination should have a central role in our life, considering a traditional balance between the active and contemplative lives. Discusses the philosopher David Hume and other empiricists who downplayed the imagination. Also looks at today's hectic and chaotic world which rarely allows time for a proper development of the imagination. The imagination is seen as cutting through the 'hierarchy of needs', that infinite ascent into superfluity which characterises the essential dissatisfaction of modern life. Looks at two forms of the imaginative vision, an earlier spiritual form and a later Romantic form. Concludes that this faculty is an essential element in the psyche which we should allow to develop.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Hazzlewood
• Release date: Jun 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463282410

Richard Hazzlewood

Quiet academic type from North West England. BA English, MA Renaissance Literature.I studied in exile by the rivers of Babylon for 3 years, aka Cambridge. And I descended into Egypt, aka PricewaterhouseCoopers. Now I live in a spiritual hermitage where I study literature, philosophy and religion.I am a Roman Catholic convert, and particularly find spiritual fulfilment in the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Liturgy of the Hours.Beer, wine, and spirits are my three branches of government. I am currently especially interested in French and Italian red.Philosophy is really the driving force of my life, and I always seek to question and open up new vistas on being. From Classical ethics to Medieval metaphysics to existentialism, I like to run the gamut of philosophical thought.Poetry is an abiding passion of mine.Finally, a list of books I hold very close to my heart: Augustine, 'Confessions'; Bonaventure, 'Journey of the Mind to God'; Dante, 'The Divine Comedy'; Plato, 'Phaedrus'; Cervantes, 'Don Quixote'; 'The Bhagavad Gita', & of course, 'The Bible'.

Book preview

Introduction

This world is a troublesome place. And the problem is, dear reader, that everything objective is either out of our reach, or does not conform to our expectations. But there is a simple, incredible, and effective solution. The world of the mundane reality is nothing beside the power of the imagination.

The creative imagination is the seat of every wondrous thing, it is more truly accordant with an authentic reality than anything the mundane world contains. Now Hume complained that the imagination was a very faint and secondary thing, and could in no way match up to the physical world. His was a foolish doctrine. Ironically I love reading Hume, because his vision of the world was so extreme and almost poetic in its mundanity. Many other philosophers and poets have realised that the imagination is in fact the authentic realm of being.

This is in some ways Romantic, but really it stretches far beyond the historical epoch of Romanticism. Plato and Plotinus, in the Ancient World, stated that the Intellectual Realm was superior in every respect to the material world. And Christian theologians have emphasised the power of the mind and soul in the contemplative life. Even the Tao Te Ching states: ‘without looking out of my window, I can know the ways of Heaven’.

The Western tradition is replete throughout its history with a kind of tug of war between a more materialist and a more