Active Imagination: Confrontation with the Unconscious

Eternalised

Active imagination is a technique developed by the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung. He considered it the most powerful tool to access the unconscious and for achieving wholeness of personality.

Jung discovered this method between the years of 1913 and 1916, a period of disorientation and intense inner turmoil which he called his confrontation with the unconscious. He searched for a method to heal himself from within, through the power of the imagination.

Active imagination is a dialogue with different parts of yourself that live in the unconscious. In some way it is similar to dreaming, except that you are fully awake and conscious during the experience.

If we honestly want to find our own wholeness, to live our individual fate as fully as possible; if we truly want to abolish illusion on principle and find the truth of our own being, however little we like to be the way we are, then there is nothing that can help us so much in our endeavour as active imagination.

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━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (2:02) Confrontation with the Unconscious & The Red Book (4:46) Alchemy and Jung (5:39) Approaching Active Imagination (6:56) Precaution Before Starting Active Imagination (7:46) Inner Work: Active Imagination (9:21) Distinguishing Active Imagination from Passive Fantasy (9:51) Active Imagination Example: Talking with the Inner Artist (11:51) When You Think You’re Making Up Something (13:01) Active Imagination as Mythic Journey (14:10) The Four-Step Approach to Active Imagination (16:25) Step 1. Active Imagination: The Invitation (20:50) Step 2. Active Imagination: The Dialogue (25:00) Step 3. Active Imagination: The Values (27:25) Step 4. Active Imagination: The Rituals