ACTIVE IMAGINATION: AN IMAGE OF GOD FROM UNCONSCIOUS SOURCES.... March 10, 2016

INTRODUCTION: I had started to take a walk but realized it was drizzling.  Experiencing  an inertia of energy,  I suddenly felt a reluctant urge to enter into an 'active imagination' state of mind. After the experience, like most dreams, I felt it was foolishness and could barely make myself start putting it to words. But I urged myself to write it out as best I could remember.  (I insert images that have been inspired by previous dreams and seem relevant here.)

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As customary I went into and below the pond and immediately was in the domed area with its 12 side openings. The light was dim but a dark green. Suddenly brightest light filled the whole area. The ground space of this dome structure was circular with a hundred yard diameter. The top of the dome is maybe forty yards high. Now everything was gold with maroon trim, floor and boarders. The rest  looked as if  pure gold. In the center was a rough gold cube about 20 feet in all dimensions. I seemed all alone in this large brightly lit dazzling space. I asked aloud , “ Will I see God here?”


Suddenly all this disappears and the scene is a modest American home of the late fifties. I am invited in by a Caucasian couple welcoming me. The inside is modest with fifties decor including a TV in the living room. There is nothing extraordinary about the home or the couple. They sit together on a love seat and I am invited to sit on a couch facing them. We have refreshments and chat. The couple seem very pleased with each other and exhibit a relaxed harmony in their relationship. They are extremely welcoming to me. Nothing out of the ordinary is said. This scene suddenly ends and I'm back at the underground golden dome.

It is bright and golden as before. The gold cube has decreased in height to about two feet. I walk toward it across some thirty yards. When I get there a very strange figure is sitting in the center of the cube. There are two ten feet high gold candle holders with unlit candles on either side of the image. The figure has a human like body, and is dressed in a flowing purple robe. The head is very different. It has extended long silvery hair giving the shape of a triangle to its overall head.. Most disconcerting it has a single eye. I would guess it is twelve feet tall with  proportions of  an average human. I am standing on the ground at the edge of the cube looking straight at it. The eye never blinks. It is very still. I am mesmerized and struck with discomfort. I speak to it.

J. I have no idea how to behave or speak.

Now I hear and see  the figure  breathing very deeply and slowly, inhaling then exhaling. It does not speak.

J. I notice your breath. It is so slow, deep and loud. It reminds me of yoga.

The image just continues to breathe.

J. I am so uncomfortable with your strangeness. I feel it may be best if I leave.

Figure: It is best if you stay.

J. I am glad you speak in my language.

F. All languages and all things come through this breath.

J. I am at a total loss. This is just too strange for me to continue. I have no idea of what to expect     here.

( It always takes several breaths before it ever speaks, making all conversation extremely slow. This slowness and deep breathing was how the whole conversation went.)

F. You are very strange to me. (two more breaths) We are opposites that used to be one.

J. You seem so cold and abstract, nearly mechanical.

(The image always takes two breaths before any speech and between sentences. I found it very hard to be patient.)

F. You came from me and became yourself.

J. By 'you' you mean humanity?

F. I mean humanity.

(after four breaths)

F. I am objective about all that is and can be . You are emotional about everything. You become objective through me. I become emotional through you.

I notice its face seems extremely old, very wrinkled and somewhat greenish. It seems eternal.

J. May I ask? What is the significance of your single eye?

F. Mine is the eye of evolution. You see the many with two eyes. I see the one with the single eye. Together we may fully see.

J. Should I ask you questions that I and many humans carry?

F. yes

J. Should I ask personal questions regarding myself or about the larger picture?

F. They are the same I am hoping you know. What is most true is both personal and cosmic.

J. Will my species, will the planet survive the present crises?

F. We have the same question. My dream is yes. Yours?

J. Yes but I do not see how with our present level of awareness and the hostilities and splits carried at so many levels.

F. All is split asunder. It had to become this way. The greatest split is this one. You wanted to leave for my strangeness.

J. Yes, I did.

F. You are still strange to me.

J. If humans are strange to you and you represent from where we have come, how can we expect to ever have a sense that we are understood, that we, and our efforts at living,  are known for who we are?

F. I come to fully  know you by the same process you come to know the images of  your origins, such as your coming  to know me. All is moving toward a mutual intimacy where each part is known as it comes to  know its true  itself. This was the original  incomprehensible dream from which all that is or can be derives. All is now moving toward higher levels of consciousness. All is  inter-connected, both matter and spirit. There are no  ultimate dualities as it has appeared for so long to most humans.

    (This statement seemed to take forever with  deep breathing between each phrase.)

J. Do we have similar values?

F. My values are four: The planet, all its elements, the Cosmos, Union of all through human/sacred love. These are in you.

J. I think many humans have begun to have these values, at least abstractly and the numbers are growing. We at least have these ideas.

F. Thus this kind of encounter now. I and humans can have the same values.

J. What is the plan?

F. No one plan but essential mutually dependent cooperation within  me and humans.

J. There are at least three recent Western  voices  which seem to speak along these lines that I am aware of. They are Jung( Medical psychiatrist), de Chardin(Priest and paleontologist) and Tillich(Theologian). I'm sure there must be many more.

F. I'm counting on that.

The figure rose to its feet. It first walked gracefully to the candle on its left, looked at it and it lighted. There was something quite feminine and warmly Erotic it is movement. Then it went to the candle on its right and it lighted. It went back to the center and resumed a sitting position very yoga like. It looked at me with its single eye which blinked (or winked?) once.

J. Should I think of you as a God image?

F. Think of all this as a God image.

I surveyed the dazzling dome and the figure on the golden square. Then the grand gold dome vanished and only the figure and gold square remained. But now they were placed in a beautiful pristine nature scene containing mountains, streams, water falls, billowing clouds, a rhythmic sound of many animals, the sun and a night time starry sky with a crescent moon. The golden square darkened into green and then to natural earth colored rock. The figure of the being then changed into a timeless human male/female couple peacefully holding a serpent between them. I was still standing by the square beholding the couple image. What I noticed most was the glow of confident friendship in their expressions as they viewed each other past the serpent which seemed, though still very much a snake, quite contented to be harnessed and contained by the couple.

In a flash all this is gone. I am standing by the pond on a drizzly day and finally I am  again lying on my back in my bed.

NOTE: Reflecting on this I'm struck with the likelihood that no image of God we humans carry, and we have carried many, can effect any strong transformation in human consciousness if it has no element of 'horror' or disgust, of extreme otherness,  as part of it. Our Christian image of God in the Christ has come, after two millennia of  originally effective aliveness, to be viewed as without any such horror. Also, teachers and preachers speak  blandly of the Christian God image as if they are thoroughly familiar with only its total gentleness and light. It has little that is still a mystery or an extreme  'other'. There surely must have been a time when the Eucharist invitation, " Eat my flesh and drink my blood"  was the shock of God asking the believer to be a cannibal and a vampire. And that baptism was understood as a threat to life like that of terroristic water boarding. But now these have been sterilized and reduced to only beautiful non threatening  social event. Are they able to still be remembered as an encounter with God or simply social graces?  The 'god' image in this active imagination shows a god that you wonder if you will survive.  I'll not likely forget this 'eye and  deep breathing'. I may even remember some of what it said.  I'm not at all suggesting  this particular strange image of god  might forecast a  newly evolving , and so  much needed,  'new' collective image of the Sacred. But it seems to be saying that such an image will not be 'easy' or 'comfortable' or 'predictable' as it makes itself conscious to  humans. Once these darker  qualities of a god image are no  longer felt present one can likely begin to suspect that such a god is near death psychologically. This in itself  can produce a 'horror'  of fear in the hearts of previous 'believers'. For it  means humans are being invited to confront the true 'other' as well as what depth psychology would describe  as  a most living and central and transformative collective archetype. One seeking to become conscious in post modern human beings.

As a newly evolving image of God becomes collectively conscious we should expect some kind of continuity with any major God(s) of the recent past. In this active imagination it is significant to me that 'Human/Sacred love' is  the preservative of the planet and humanity is stated as one of the four values related to the newly forming god image. This can be seen as a carry over from the central tenet of the Christ story(and also consistent with other major world religions). And the symbol of the 'Adam and Eve' myth is retained from Judaism as well as the male/female union symbolism present in all of the ancient religions including Christianity and even Alchemy. The image also shows the clear feminine aspect of the newly evolving deity.

I notice how the dream  gently supports me with common assurances before presenting the, at first very troubling, figure of the cyclops androgynous god figure. It took me first to an  'Ozzie and Harriet'  type American setting. That was the typical American dream of white Americans in the fifties following the horror of two World Wars.  How shocking and challenging  the contrast in those values, though there is some good there, compared to the all  inclusive cosmic values  the god figure describes.