Creative Use of Imagination

ENTER INTO THE STATE
AND NOT SIMPLY THINK OF THE STATE

Blake makes the statement: “If the spectator could enter into the images in his Imagination, approach them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought; if he could make a friend and companion of any one of these images in his Imagination…” Well, he emphasized “enter into the image,” not to contemplate it as something on the outside. I contemplate now New York City. I am seeing it from San Francisco. If my desire this night is to be in New York City, I say I can’t afford the time, or maybe I can’t afford it because of lack of funds, or maybe my commitments will tie me here − I don’t know, yet my desire is to be in New York City. I must, if I would realize it in spite of the limitations that now surround me (money, lack of time, obligations − call it what you will, I still want to be in New York City) I must enter into the image that is now something on the surface of the mind “out there,” 3,000 miles away. Standing here, I must shut out the belief that I am in San Francisco.

Knowing New York City quite well, I would assume I am standing in a most familiar part of New York City and let it surround me. I must be in it, and then think of San Francisco. I must now see it 3,000 miles to the west of me, as I now see New York City 3,000 miles to the east of me. If I go into that state and dwell in it and make it natural, though I remain in it only for a little while, a minute or so, then I open my eyes − I am shocked to find that I am still here. I came back here. I have done it. I have entered into the state of my desire and I will move across a bridge of incidents, a series of events, that will lead me and compel me to take a journey to New York City.

Now, this I have used only as a spatial example. You can take it in a financial sense, take it in the social world, take it in any way whatsoever. That is what came to me a few days before I closed. For if I could find something more simple to tell them than I think I have told them, this would be it: to enter into the state and not simply think of the state. Thinking from it differs from thinking of it. I must learn to think from it. A man who this night came into a million dollars, from that moment that man is made aware that he has a million, when prior to that he had nothing. He is thinking from the consciousness of having a million dollars. He is not thinking of it; he is walking in the consciousness of having a million dollars. He’s not hoping for it, wishing for it; he is actually in it.

IMAGINATION

Lecture #412 – Neville 07/14/1969