Imaginal Cognition

The faculty of imagination is associated with the act of evoking images. Images are the language and substance of imagination. During the conversations of our ordinary hours, we most often use the word ‘image’ to specifically signify a visual form, like a painting or photograph. However, images are the cellular elements of not only envisioned sights, but every sensation we may imagine, including smells, sounds, and tastes, as well as touch upon the skin. And imagining is the art of evoking from within a woven mosaic of such sensory imagery. Throughout Western philosophy and psychology, these images are equated with the unreal: a set of fabrications discernible by definition from the apparent reality that precipitates the assembly of our perceptions. However, ancient Persian philosophy bequeaths us the term 'imaginal', signifying the process through which what we imagine becomes real, influencing our cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. Thereby, Imaginal Cognition is a distinct mental process which makes the quixotic and ephemeral, yet substantial and influential dimension of imagery possible. Both artistic activity and spiritual practice depend upon this process, which imbues the products of creation with a living presence, rendering them not 'imaginary' but 'imaginal'. The Imaginal Cognition Project seeks to study this process and investigate its relationship to creativity and spirituality.