Up: [[Active Imagination]] Created: 2024-09-08 Barbara Hannah in *Encounters with the Soul* p.1 said that the arts are all forms of passive imagination; that you’re tapping into some of your unconscious through an awakened state of consciousness, but you’re not in the complete experience of an Active Imagination which, she believes, requires all of you to be immersed in a full, “ethical confrontation” with the being or object from your unconscious. At first, when reading this, I thought Barbara Hannah was being dismissive of the arts. She isn’t actually. She says two things that are relevant: that once you’ve got an image from the unconscious, you need to create it by drawing, painting, sculpting, writing, movement or dance. And that if you can’t get in touch with the unconscious directly, the arts, especially writing, can be a good secondary method. So really, Hannah is putting Active Imagination processes on a continuum and prioritizing the purest form. In contrast, contemporary Jungians see not just dialogue but also drawing, painting, sculpting, and movement ([[Embodied Active Imagination]]) as all potential ways to assimilate unconscious material through a form of creative expression. A really simple option that can provide a taste of the Active Imagination process is to use an image, such as the [[Two Horses Active Imagination Exercise]].