A new teaching: Imagination
by Jon Rappoport
July 17, 2015
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
I call it new because it still has not been given its proper due. Imagination is beyond “subject matter” or “content” or “knowledge” or “systems” or “philosophy” or “metaphysics.”
Imagination is not something you pursue, like a lost mine or a species of plant never seen before. Imagination is not an object.
It can solve problems. It can dispense with a problem altogether. But imagination is not a solution. It isn’t a method.
Imagination is already there in every person, as a potential. To put it in a slightly different way, imagination comes into being the moment you want it. Even more accurately, perhaps, imagination is imagining. It’s an action. When you want to take that action, you can.
What imagination invents is, of course, different from person to person. Why? Because there is no pre-set pattern. There is no “final answer” at which imagination arrives.
A painter can say, “This painting is the embodiment of everything I’ve been reaching for,” but if he think that means imagination has served its function and can then fold up and dissolve, he is mistaken.
Where does imagining happen? That’s an interesting question. Many years ago, an old acquaintance of mine told me the following amusing story: A painter of horses felt she had come to the end of the line because she wanted to paint large horses on large canvases, but she was convinced she couldn’t picture the large horses because…imagining was taking place in her brain, and her brain was small.
When she finally realized this was a major misconception, she executed a course correction and…she was painting big horses on big canvases.
Imagining doesn’t take place in the brain. As untold numbers of artists down through history have understood, imagining takes place in “a space.” That space is invented. That space is not the same space you see when you look through your window or walk down the street or stand on a roof top. You invent other spaces. You populate them with thoughts, images, sensations.
And these other spaces have no restrictions on size, shape, dimension, and so forth.
Tesla has been quoted as saying that he would envision an entire machine before he built it, and in that imagining he could view all the parts of the machine operating together—and therefore he already knew whether the device would work properly, before he assembled a single component.
Do you think he was seeing the machine inside one of his own brain cells, or inside a cluster of cells? That’s quite a joke. Of course not. He was seeing the machine sitting there in a space—and he was imagining both the machine and the space.
The literature called science fiction took off, in part, because the reader was imagining all sorts of wondrous spaces populated by many strange and fascinating creatures and civilizations. Huge spaces.
In other words, there is physical space, the common arena we share…and there are an infinity of possible other spaces a person can imagine.
What a person imagines, in the way of spaces, need not be “scientific” or “clinical” or “according to the laws of physics.” There are no restrictions.
I once spoke with a woman who had, for many years, struggled to win a victory in a just environmental cause. She was a veteran activist leader; and she had never won what she was seeking. She was stymied. I told her she had to imagine a new kind of strategy, and I gave her a simple writing exercise that would enable her to get outside all the familiar campaigns of the past. Within two minutes, she found what she was looking for. Which is to say, she imagined it.
I wasn’t giving her knowledge or content or a system or an answer. I was showing her a way to invent something new, on her own.
Not long after our conversation, I finished work on my second collection, Exit From The Matrix. The heart and core of that work is a series of imagination exercises that, practiced in a daily fashion, can transform a person’s view of reality and their own power.
One could say that what a person ends up with in his life is the reality he chronically and continuously imagines. And you see, this isn’t a statement about “content.” It’s about the process of subconscious invention.
The word “education” comes from two Latin roots: “ducere,” meaning to lead, and “e,” the prefix meaning “out of” or “from.” Education, in that sense, is leading something out of the person, something that was already there.
Imagination, with all its awesome possibilities, is already there in a person. The teaching part involves bringing out that innate capacity so that it becomes conscious.
The bottom line: when all the imagining a person does is happening subconsciously, he becomes wrapped up in the content of what he is imagining and inventing, and this confusion keeps him glued to the content rather than the process itself. Conversely, when the person imagines and creates consciously, he becomes aware of his power and its immense latitude, and his freedom.
This makes all the difference.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
There’s something missing here, Jon. I have seen grotesque, mindless drudge served up in its attempt to stand up against the great works of creativity of all time. Artisans know what these master works are.
We need more than “imagination”. Without inspiration output is dull, lacklustre and wanton of a “magic ingredient”. When that magic surfaces, given refinement, hold on to your hats, guys….
Best
OT
If you completely lack imagination, all else matters not!
Imagination can be both inspiring and enlightening. I believe this article says it all, quite clearly.
I disagree. That depends on “opinion”.
The mediocre do set atrocious standards in deference to their imaginations. They are guided by “relative” highlights in their dismal lives. Occasionally, some of these foul individuals progress to appreciate culture in all its glory. Once adjusted, they cast aside those old, worn, traditions like empty container.
Imagination, ultimately, was everything. Inspiration is what, from the utopian perspective, it will become.
I disagree.
“Opinions” are subjective, each and every one. Just because “opinions” may differ, does not make one superior nor “more-right” than the other. – That is the mark of egotism.
The “mediocre” are always going to be a fairly significant portion of any group. Oftentimes, it is the society that encourages this idolization of mediocrity. – That is a problem that many a tyrant capitalizes on.
It takes an imagination to invent and/or innovate a solution, no matter who “off the wall” it may be. As is usually the case, some solutions may be worse off or better off than others. – This is why any perported solution from a single or small-number of “authorities” should always be held suspect. The more working minds on a given problem or situation, the more varied the solutions proposed.
You really take a very fatalist view of humanity!
Inspiration is that drive to accomplish the goal – set by the imagination. An inventor, artist, musician, philosopher, writer, and any other creative/innovative individual must first “imagine” the idea, before ever being active in its fruition. The inspiration is where they act upon that goal, to achieve the results. But, . . . it still all starts with an imagination, because without that imagination, there would be no use for “inspiration”.
I don’t really, Rev.
I just understand the makeup of existence – the “how” and “why” and from that “trajectory”, what I say is correct. This is unnegotiable. You either “get it” or you don’t.
Best
OT
Oh,
So you are saying you are far greater in knowledge and wisdom than everyone else here???
So, you are saying “the debate is over”???
Okay.
Then there is no need for you to debate ignorant little ol’ me anymore, is there? After, for you, it would be no better than casting pearls before swine.
I don’t know what you know, Rev. I only know what I know. Do you know what I know?
This is unnegotiable. You either “get it” or you don’t.
Sounds to me like you have already decided what I supposedly know (which by your reflection of it: “NOTHING”).
I can only gauge by what you’ve written. If you really want to determine why I have said what I said, you would seek out a copy of my e-book “The Beauty of Existence Decoded”.
Instead you trade “semantics” and claim to “debate”.
Having spent my life in the imaginative arts as mainly a painter, sculpture; crossed over and acquiring skills in music, poetry and writing.
The word inspired is another world, the brush doyen stands alone from imagination. A whisper in the ear from an adoring muse. Inspiration is not totally separate from imagination.
More a further distillation of the magic of imagination. If such a thing can be said.
Inspiration in the arts?…is a visionary state.
A shamanic excursion in the yawning void.
A embracing of the final.
Sadly inspiration in the collective is a watered-down event, and ill preportioned.
Inspiration is the entrance door to ecstasy.
Imaginative is the constant state of the free and creative individual.
You make a lot more sense on this subject, and I must give credit where it is due: I Agree on substance and theory.
In reading everything here, I will say that I do not know who the authority is here on in spiration and imagination. I only know that it is not me for sure.
I do know how I perceive it when working on something. Inspiration and imagination can exist independently. One does not need the other. Inspiration has hit me and without extra effort drives the task to completion.
In other cases Imagination was used to start and finish a project without any inspiration. The results kind of sucked in this case.
The ideal cases with the best results IMO is the arrival of inspiration and there is enough there for imagination to finish the work.
My humble opinion.
mind=blown.
Thanks mr. Rappoport.
“stars couldn’t exist if there was no space between them” says great zen Alan Watts. Space is not just something, It is EVERYTHING. And he describes all process like: “a sword won’t cut itself, an eye can not see itself, fire can not burn itself. You also can’t touch your fingertip with the same finger, so what all this means? It means front and back, background and you exist altogether but you wouldn’t experience it unless there is space (or illusory disconnection)”
and here what struck me while reading Jon’s article:
” space is invented.” ― Jon Rappoport
I don’t remember anyone telling me that…
Well, this hit me like a brick.
I can’t remember if It was also Alan Watts, who said “musical notes and musical harmony would never occur if there was no space between each note”, something like that.
Also Isn’t the 80 or so percent of atom is space?
Space is infinite, you can’t count space. Isn’t the number 0 , symbol of nothing depicts that: a totally empty space created inside. How large you want to make it, you decide how much to expand, it is endless, up to your imagination. It’s there to populate it with what you desire to create.
“Imagination, with all its awesome possibilities, is already there in a person. The teaching part involves bringing out that innate capacity so that it becomes conscious.” ― Jon Rappoport
There’s a little trick there. Like C.G. Jung calling what drives everything simply “unconscious”
no wonder no institution on this planet teaches any of this. creating laboratory rats is their goal, labrats so clever that can educate and create other laboratory rats. It’s all about sustainability of the collective baby. Lab rats teaching others how to be a lab rat, saying “Look how efficient we are in this constant stimulus society..aren’t we working like a well oiled machine now…”
Ego consciousness, drones solving that endless problem day by day without knowing why. I know why: they are afraid. They want a problem which they are taught to solve, come on now they don’t want to really think. Afraid of their own shadow. Literally. They are cut-off, afraid of creating after lifetime of conditioning. They prefer to imitate life. Give them 5000channels, pseudo sex and constant sex in the brain via ads on street, ads on tv they watch 5hours a day, give some ads in between nightly news, give them car crash videos on youtube (crash videos have millons of view man, millions). Give them isis and blood and gore, every saturday like roman empire did. Some prozac now and then to take the edge. Mix that cocktail of pills baby, you are cool as long as wearing that brand. Go shop more now. little slave. give these powerless mindless fucks anything, they are buying and we are selling..good business on reality inventors man..pretty neat.
I got a better idea: People today, these ego consciousness drones are not drones, they are thermostats. thermostat goes off at 80 goes on at 77 so to say. they have simple pulse that imitates living. they dont actually live. they are in coma. a deep unconscious state resembles hypnose.
“If you don’t have a plan, you become part of somebody else’s plan.”
― Terence McKenna