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Learning objectives
- To reflect on the concepts of “belief”, “faith,” “imagination”, “objects of consciousness” and “mindscape”, and the relationships between them;
- To reflect on the operation of projective, creative and receptive imagination, as well as faith, and how these concepts can apply to both scientific and religious endeavours;
- To reflect on the relationship between our spiritual imagination and the material world.
Belief?
When we talk about religion and spirituality, people tend to think in terms of belief. “Do you believe in this?” “I believe in God”. “I don’t believe in God”. “I believe in this religion”. “Are you a believer?” These are the things we tend to say.
But I think this is a problematic concept. First of all, no matter whether there is religion or not, everybody’s life is based on beliefs. You believe that this class will end in two hours. You believe that you will learn something from this class. You believe that if you listen carefully, read the assigned readings, do the homework, participate in discussions and make an effort, you will get a good grade. You believe that a university education is important for your future career. You believe that a university education is valuable in and of itself, regardless of its professional utility. You believe it’s important to learn and to gain knowledge. If you don’t believe in any of these things, it will be difficult to motivate yourself in your studies; your education would be an experience of hell! Science itself is based on a fundamental belief in the existence of order in the material universe. And so on and so forth.
Of course, there are different types of beliefs, but the point is, “belief” alone is perhaps not a helpful concept if we want to talk about religion. The second problem is, most people actually don’t know what they believe in. Even though they think they believe in something, they often have doubts in their minds. And when they think they don’t believe in something, they often unconsciously believe in something. And their beliefs are always changing.
For example, many people say, “I believe that Jesus Christ is my saviour. I believe in the Holy Trinity, in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” But how many of them actually know what that means? Many people say, “I believe there is only one God, and that Mohammad, Peace be upon Him, is his Prophet.” But what does that actually mean, and what are the implications? When people speak about religious belief in those terms, they are really speaking about belief in dogma, as mentioned in the previous lecture. Many people say these things, but in their heart and mind, they may sometimes, if not often, have doubts; or they may have very different understandings of what those things mean; or they might be able to state their dogmatic belief to confirm their religious identity, but they don’t have a clear idea of what it means.
Now, let’s consider Chinese culture. If you ask people, “Are you a religious believer? (ni xin jiao ma 你信教吗?)” the vast majority of Chinese would say “no”. You may ask people in Hong Kong – most people would say, “No, I’m not religious.” Yet, so many of these same people go to Wong Tai Sin Temple on Chinese New Year, burning incense and praying to the gods. On Qingming, i.e. the Grave Sweeping Festival, they go the graves of their ancestors, burn incense, and make offerings to their ancestors. Some of them may think that, “It is simply a custom. It is a ceremony. And that’s all.” This is seeing religion as tradition, as mentioned in the previous lecture. But some of them still do have the feeling that maybe the souls of their ancestors are still around somewhere. Also in Hong Kong, people have the idea of fengshui (風水), for example. People say that they don’t “believe” -- but xiongzhai (凶宅), the so-called “cursed houses” where a suicide or a homicide has occurred – attract no buyers. It is difficult to sell a house or an apartment where someone died, or where there are graves facing the building. Few people want to live in such cursed houses, including the self-claimed disbelievers.
Thus, even though people may say that they don’t believe in religion, however, their actions do demonstrate some kind of belief. That’s why I think the distinction between believer and disbeliever, or between “belief” and “non-belief” is often not useful. It tends to divide people into believers and disbelievers in a very simplistic way. It forces people to take a stand and to defend their position against the opposite group, rather than to explore in an open-minded way.
But I think this is a problematic concept. First of all, no matter whether there is religion or not, everybody’s life is based on beliefs. You believe that this class will end in two hours. You believe that you will learn something from this class. You believe that if you listen carefully, read the assigned readings, do the homework, participate in discussions and make an effort, you will get a good grade. You believe that a university education is important for your future career. You believe that a university education is valuable in and of itself, regardless of its professional utility. You believe it’s important to learn and to gain knowledge. If you don’t believe in any of these things, it will be difficult to motivate yourself in your studies; your education would be an experience of hell! Science itself is based on a fundamental belief in the existence of order in the material universe. And so on and so forth.
Of course, there are different types of beliefs, but the point is, “belief” alone is perhaps not a helpful concept if we want to talk about religion. The second problem is, most people actually don’t know what they believe in. Even though they think they believe in something, they often have doubts in their minds. And when they think they don’t believe in something, they often unconsciously believe in something. And their beliefs are always changing.
For example, many people say, “I believe that Jesus Christ is my saviour. I believe in the Holy Trinity, in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” But how many of them actually know what that means? Many people say, “I believe there is only one God, and that Mohammad, Peace be upon Him, is his Prophet.” But what does that actually mean, and what are the implications? When people speak about religious belief in those terms, they are really speaking about belief in dogma, as mentioned in the previous lecture. Many people say these things, but in their heart and mind, they may sometimes, if not often, have doubts; or they may have very different understandings of what those things mean; or they might be able to state their dogmatic belief to confirm their religious identity, but they don’t have a clear idea of what it means.
Now, let’s consider Chinese culture. If you ask people, “Are you a religious believer? (ni xin jiao ma 你信教吗?)” the vast majority of Chinese would say “no”. You may ask people in Hong Kong – most people would say, “No, I’m not religious.” Yet, so many of these same people go to Wong Tai Sin Temple on Chinese New Year, burning incense and praying to the gods. On Qingming, i.e. the Grave Sweeping Festival, they go the graves of their ancestors, burn incense, and make offerings to their ancestors. Some of them may think that, “It is simply a custom. It is a ceremony. And that’s all.” This is seeing religion as tradition, as mentioned in the previous lecture. But some of them still do have the feeling that maybe the souls of their ancestors are still around somewhere. Also in Hong Kong, people have the idea of fengshui (風水), for example. People say that they don’t “believe” -- but xiongzhai (凶宅), the so-called “cursed houses” where a suicide or a homicide has occurred – attract no buyers. It is difficult to sell a house or an apartment where someone died, or where there are graves facing the building. Few people want to live in such cursed houses, including the self-claimed disbelievers.
Thus, even though people may say that they don’t believe in religion, however, their actions do demonstrate some kind of belief. That’s why I think the distinction between believer and disbeliever, or between “belief” and “non-belief” is often not useful. It tends to divide people into believers and disbelievers in a very simplistic way. It forces people to take a stand and to defend their position against the opposite group, rather than to explore in an open-minded way.
Make-believe worlds: thinking and acting in the subjunctive
Let’s look at things differently. What if, in terms of religion, we think about “make-believe.” To make-believe, means to pretend, to act as if something were true. Think about children playing a role-playing game, such as cops-and-robbers. When we start the game, we start acting as if I am the cop and you are the robbers, and I act like the cop, and you act like the robbers, until we end the game. During the game, we create an alternative reality, in which we play different roles according to the rules of that reality.
Now, this can be compared to many religious rituals. Most of the year, perhaps most people don’t think much about their deceased ancestors, and may or may not consider their souls to exist. But, when, in Chinese societies, the Grave-sweeping festival comes, all the family members play their roles as if the souls were present. In such a situation, it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in the souls of the ancestors, and it doesn’t matter if they exist or not. What matters is that all of the members of the family come together, and play their roles well, as if the ancestors were present.
I just compared serious rituals to childrens’ games. This might sound sacrilegious. Is it all just fantasy? Religious people might take offense. But let’s not jump too fast to conclusions. Religion can be fun and playful! And don’t forget that we are always playing such role-playing rituals.[1] For example, let’s say you meet your boss at work for the first time. You will treat her as if she is intelligent, talented, powerful, and visionary, and you will act as if you are diligent, competent, efficient, and loyal. Both you and she are role-playing, in a game of make-believe. Maybe she isn’t powerful, and maybe you aren’t loyal. But on the other hand, the game is not necessarily fake, a sham or a fantasy. Maybe it’s true that she is intelligent and powerful. Since, at the first encounter, you don’t know her well, it’s best to make believe, to pretend she is. Because, what if it turns out to be true? The alternative reality that we create through make-believe, is not necessarily false.
And something else might happen. To some degree, if all the employees treat her as if she has power, she will actually be powerful; and if nobody treats her as if she has any authority, she will have no power. And the same goes for all the roles and ranks and distribution of authority of everyone in the organization. So that the role-playing game actually creates the reality that the people are acting out. The better they act out the roles, the more the “game” will be successful. In the case of the business, the colleagues will know how to deal with each other, and the business will run smoothly. In fact, all of life in society is a series of role-playing games. We couldn’t live with others without them. The reality of our social life is a succession of games, always acting as if and creating our social reality through make-believe.
The social philosopher Adam Seligman, the anthropologist Robert Weller, and the Sinologist Michael Puett, in their book Ritual and its Consequences, called these “make-believe” worlds “subjunctive” worlds. In grammar, we use the “subjunctive” mood to make sentences such as “imagine that…,” “suppose that…” Similarly, they argue, religion involves creating and acting in “subjunctive worlds.” [2]
So, then, what happens when we include non-humans – God, spirits, or spiritual forces – into our make-believe games, in our subjunctive worlds? This is something for you to think about in this course.
[1] See Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
[2] Seligman et al, Ritual and its Consequences.
Now, this can be compared to many religious rituals. Most of the year, perhaps most people don’t think much about their deceased ancestors, and may or may not consider their souls to exist. But, when, in Chinese societies, the Grave-sweeping festival comes, all the family members play their roles as if the souls were present. In such a situation, it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in the souls of the ancestors, and it doesn’t matter if they exist or not. What matters is that all of the members of the family come together, and play their roles well, as if the ancestors were present.
I just compared serious rituals to childrens’ games. This might sound sacrilegious. Is it all just fantasy? Religious people might take offense. But let’s not jump too fast to conclusions. Religion can be fun and playful! And don’t forget that we are always playing such role-playing rituals.[1] For example, let’s say you meet your boss at work for the first time. You will treat her as if she is intelligent, talented, powerful, and visionary, and you will act as if you are diligent, competent, efficient, and loyal. Both you and she are role-playing, in a game of make-believe. Maybe she isn’t powerful, and maybe you aren’t loyal. But on the other hand, the game is not necessarily fake, a sham or a fantasy. Maybe it’s true that she is intelligent and powerful. Since, at the first encounter, you don’t know her well, it’s best to make believe, to pretend she is. Because, what if it turns out to be true? The alternative reality that we create through make-believe, is not necessarily false.
And something else might happen. To some degree, if all the employees treat her as if she has power, she will actually be powerful; and if nobody treats her as if she has any authority, she will have no power. And the same goes for all the roles and ranks and distribution of authority of everyone in the organization. So that the role-playing game actually creates the reality that the people are acting out. The better they act out the roles, the more the “game” will be successful. In the case of the business, the colleagues will know how to deal with each other, and the business will run smoothly. In fact, all of life in society is a series of role-playing games. We couldn’t live with others without them. The reality of our social life is a succession of games, always acting as if and creating our social reality through make-believe.
The social philosopher Adam Seligman, the anthropologist Robert Weller, and the Sinologist Michael Puett, in their book Ritual and its Consequences, called these “make-believe” worlds “subjunctive” worlds. In grammar, we use the “subjunctive” mood to make sentences such as “imagine that…,” “suppose that…” Similarly, they argue, religion involves creating and acting in “subjunctive worlds.” [2]
So, then, what happens when we include non-humans – God, spirits, or spiritual forces – into our make-believe games, in our subjunctive worlds? This is something for you to think about in this course.
[1] See Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
[2] Seligman et al, Ritual and its Consequences.
Imagination
To make-believe, to create subjunctive worlds, we use our imagination. Can we think about religion as a way to imagine different worlds, different ways of being, different ways of (re)making oneself and one’s future? Imagination is a liberating and creative process; it gives us the power to think beyond our current existence, to shape our lives and the world we live in. Imagination is an open-ended process, which can be improved and enriched through deeper experience and understanding. So, how do human beings imagine an invisible, immaterial spiritual reality, and how does this imagination change their lives?
Let’s think, for example, of the fable of the frog at the bottom of a well (jing di zhi wa 井底之蛙). Think of that well – deep, deep down at the bottom, there is a frog, looking at the circle of sky above its head, far up the top of the well. Perhaps this frog doesn’t believe that there could be anything outside the well, because it has never seen anything beyond the well. Therefore, it believes all that exists in the world is what it can see and experience at the bottom of the well.
But let’s imagine another frog at the bottom of the well, who thinks that there could be something outside the well, and that if it were able to go up there and go up to the circle of light at the top of the well, it could discover another world outside this well.
In this story, one frog believes in something, but the other one does not. There is no way that the frogs can ever verify if or what there is outside that well. For both the believing and the unbelieving frog, they have their respective beliefs, both of which can neither be proved nor refuted. If that is the case, then that’s the end of the discussion – we can never know anything outside the world in which we are living.
But what if we ask another question: what do these frogs actually imagine? Let’s suppose that one of these frogs imagines that there is something outside the well, and imagines what it is that’s out there. How will this imagination influence the frog? Now it becomes interesting. When we talk about imagination, we are talking about something that does not exist in the physical world. What we imagine is not real in the material sense. Our imagination is something mental, yet it does have a reality, because our imagination influences us and our actions.
Aristotle distinguished between perception, imagination and intellect. What we translate as “imagination” was the Greek word “phantasia” which refers to apparitions that come to light in our mind -- images that appear to our mind, without any direct sense perception. Aristotle claimed that it’s impossible to think without mental images, that our intellect functions by working with mental imagery. He also noted that mental images shape our desires and motivations: we imagine the desired object, and then try to obtain it.[1]
Let’s consider three different types of imagination. One is projective imagination. To understand what projective imagination is, let’s take an engineer as an example. This engineer may start with an idea that there is an island over there. Then, the engineer decides to build a bridge between here and there. This bridge doesn’t exist in the physical world, except in the engineer’s mind – it’s an imagination. The first thing this engineer does is to imagine a bridge. The engineer starts to picture this bridge in her mind. She then thinks about how to turn this imagined bridge into a real one. Next, the engineer begins to draw a picture of the bridge, makes a plan of the bridge with measurements and so on, and then finally decides on the material, organises the workers, and hires construction companies to implement the whole project. So, what did not exist in a material sense, being an imagination, after being projected in someone’s mind, becomes a physical reality. This is one kind of imagination.
Actually, we are all involved in this kind of imagination. All of you here have imagined yourselves getting bachelor’s degrees, since you don’t have a diploma from this university yet. The diploma only exists in your imagination. With this imagination, you begin to picture how you will achieve that, and how this imagination is going to become a physical reality, namely diplomas in your hands. This is what we call projective imagination: you consciously desire something through your imagination, and then you plan in a conscious way to turn the imagination into physical existence.
The second type of imagination is creative imagination. Let’s consider the cases of an artist, an architect, a poet, or even an entrepreneur, any profession related to creation. Let’s assume that you want to make a sculpture. There is an imagined object your mind, something you want to sculpt, whereas you are not sure about the details. However, it is while you are sculpting it that many new ideas come to mind. So, you start with an idea that is vague, and then it comes to shape while you are sculpting it. As you make the statue, it actually grows into something you hadn’t imagined at first. Or, let’s say you are writing an essay, a poem or a story. You have some basic but vague ideas. Then, you start writing. The imagination drives, inspires and pushes you forward. As you go along, the idea becomes richer and more detailed. Many authors say that when they are writing their stories, sometimes these stories come to life. It is not like that engineer who had the whole thing planned out right from A to Z. In contrast, an author writing a story has an intuition and an idea. But then as this author goes about putting it into reality, somehow it takes a life of its own, and becomes something new. This is creative imagination.
The third type of imagination is receptive imagination. For this type, it is a flash of insight, a dream or a vision that just arises into your mind, the origins of which are unknown. A new idea somehow pops up spontaneously. Compared with the planned, projective imagination, this kind of imagination might come when you are daydreaming, when your mind is wandering, or when you are dreaming at night. It just happens like that. The imagination comes to you, and you receive it, and you don't know where it came from. In the previous reading I mentioned my experience sitting in a cave; some images came to me. I wasn’t looking for them. Nor did I, like the engineer, decide to see them in advance. I was simply sitting there, and then something happened in my mind. These, in a sense, are also imaginations, something that appears in your mind. Those imaginations – ideas, inspirations or visions that you receive – also can influence you in what you do. They might lead to a new decision, a new idea, a new plan or even a change in one's life. So again, for a poet, an artist or a businessman, the very first idea may be a flash of inspiration – some kind of inspiration or vision just came. Then, this idea somehow led these people to do something in this world, or to change something in it.
In an abstract sense, it is easy to categorise and to contrast these three types of imagination. However, when we think about how these three different types of imagination operate, we will realise that the three often occur at the same time. Engineering perhaps involves the most projective type of imagination, yet even engineers have some flashes of insight – new ideas, unexpected solutions just pop into their minds. So receptive imagination may also be very important as perhaps the starting point of projective imagination. The two may go together. Projective, creative and receptive types of imagination are not necessarily separate when we are actually doing things, going about our lives.
In each type of imagination, we might ask ourselves, who is the true author of the imagination? What is the relationship between what we are conscious of and what we are not conscious of? What is the relationship between what we imagine and the outside world?
Most of the time, such imaginations are merely froth on the waves of our stream of consciousness – they come and they go, and they don’t lead to anything. But on rare occasions, they lead to deep insights that have a profound and lasting impact, not only on one individual but on entire societies and civilizations. This is often the case with religion. The Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Then came his enlightenment. In the story of the Buddha, this enlightenment lasted for one night. However, this enlightenment, or “receptive imagination” led to so many teachings that it took forty years for the Buddha to elaborate and to convey its meaning to others. As a new way to look at the world and life, the imagination that came to the Buddha led to many concrete ideas and teachings about how to lead our lives and about how to understand reality. This eventually led to thousands of scriptures, monasteries and centres of learning, and developed into a religious tradition that has deeply influenced Asian culture and civilization. Stories of the Buddha have led people to imagine his serenity, his wisdom and his compassion; to imagine what the Buddha was like; and to imagine themselves with the noble qualities of the Buddha. They might use projective imagination to consciously strive to become like the Buddha, or creative imagination to let their lives be shaped by Buddhist virtues, in a more intuitive and spontaneous fashion.
Another religious example is Abraham. According to the Biblical story, God came to him in a vision, and told him that his seed would become a great nation, as numerous as the stars in heaven. Where did this vision come from? What we know for certain is that it allowed the Hebrew people to imagine their future greatness, and sustained them through centuries of persecutions. It became the root of three world religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of which consider themselves to be literal or spiritual descendants of the “seed” of Abraham, and which are thus called the “Abrahamic” religions. Now many Christians, for example, reading the Bible, imagine what Jesus was like; they imagine his love and his suffering. They try to imagine themselves with those qualities, and they try to live in imitation of Jesus, to be “Christ-like,” as if they were Jesus in the way Jesus understood the problems in life and the way he acted towards people.
Of course, receptive imagination also operates in science, too. Newton was sitting under a tree and he saw an apple fall – that was nothing new, but this time he had a flash of inspiration, and the seeds of the theory of gravity came to him. Most scientific discoveries are born through the intuitions of receptive imagination.
The three of kinds of imagination, at one level, are not real, simply being things that happen to and in our minds. But they really do influence, orient, lead, inspire or motivate us to do real things in this physical world. Therefore, it is not simply a question of believing or not.
When we talk about imagination, we might think of the meaning of the term in the English language – if something is imagined, it is not true. But then, the more we think about imagination the more we realise that it’s not that simple. Imagination is something that does not have material existence, but it also has reality. Hence, it's simultaneously real and unreal. This forces us to reconsider many of our ideas – both of ' what is true', 'what is reality', and 'what is not true', 'what is unreality'. Where is the line between the two?
Now let’s think deeper into the frog analogy. Imagine one of those frogs sitting at the bottom of the dark, damp, cold well – for him, that’s what the world is. Outside of him, there’s nothing except for the dark well. But inside of his mind, without an imagination of anything else, that’s also all that there is in the world. So, his mind is also dark, cold, and damp. And so, he leads a bleak and miserable existence. But let’s imagine another frog at the bottom of that well. Although outside of him, he is confined to that dark, damp and cold well, in his mind, he is soaring into luminous space, flying towards the stars, and envisioning flower gardens and trees. In his mind and heart, he is imagining, or in a sense, travelling in a beautiful world.
One of the frogs is living a miserable life, and the other is living in bliss -- although both of them are in exactly the same material conditions at the bottom of the dark, damp and cold well. Spiritually, however, both of them are living starkly different lives. So, their sense of sadness, joy and contentment is also quite different. One of them lives in a beautiful imaginary world, so that he is still cheerful even though he lives at the bottom of that dark and cold well -- because his mental world is a very different one, a much more beautiful one.
Does this mean that as long as an imagination makes me feel good, then any kind of imagination is just fine? We don't have to worry about true or false anymore? Who cares about the truth? You can just imagine yourself in a beautiful fantasy world, and escape there?
Not so. Aristotle noted that what we imagine may be true or false, and that our intellect has the capacity to make judgements on our imagination. And how can it do that? Philosophers have debated this question for centuries, but I’d like to consider the question through pragmatic experience.
Let’s think of it though this example. Until the 15th century, Europeans imagined the Earth to be flat. That was certainly the way the Earth appeared to their senses. But Christopher Columbus imagined the world to be round, and he imagined himself sailing westward to China. For most people, this was but pure fantasy, unverified by any experience. Columbus didn’t keep his imagination in his head – he acted differently from other people because of it. He converted his inner imagination into outer reality, by sailing west.
We know the rest of the story. Columbus reached a continent that he had not previously imagined. At first, he thought it was part of India. He had imagined himself sailing to China, but he had to adjust his imagination. Gradually, through the explorations of Columbus and his successors, the contours of the continent of the Americas became clear. And yet, for hundreds of years, explorers still imagined and dreamed of a Northwest Passage, through which it would be possible to sail from Europe to China, by sailing North of Canada. Finally, in the 19th century, the Northwest passage was discovered – (even though it was too icy to be of use as a commercial channel). Now, we have an extremely clear and precise map of every square centimetre of the Earth – and yet, even when we see such a map, so much is still left to our imagination, and it is our imagination that will lead us to decide whether we will go someplace for a trip, based on incomplete information that we read about, or that people tell us.
Our internal imagination and external reality are always interacting with each other. We have certain visions. Something pops into our minds and leads us to some kind of action. But maybe this action turns out to have very bad results. Maybe that kind of imagination should be adjusted or even dropped. Our imagination is like waves of the sea – there is always bubbling and frothing. All these images, dreams and visions come to our mind. But most of them are just like bubbles in the sea, dissipating and going nowhere. And yet, among them, sometimes, something amazing appears. Following those ideas or intuitions can take you to unknown places, to new discoveries and new treasures.
Another analogy is a tree that gives fruit. Our imagination is like a tree. If it gives good fruit – it brings good results -- maybe that is a good tree; maybe your imagination is good, or true. But if it gives bad fruit, something that makes you sick, that harms you or other people, maybe there’s a problem with that imagination.
So, our imagination can be tested against the reality in which we live. That is what many people with faith or spirituality, and people who approach religion as a path of learning, endeavour to achieve. They have a spiritual or religious imagination, but they don't just “believe” in it like a stone tablet in their mind, that never changes and has no connection to anything else. They constantly try to see how their spiritual imagination applies in their life. Sometimes it works, and sometimes if doesn't. When it works, they take it as a confirmation that their spiritual imagination is guiding them in the right direction. When it doesn’t work, they ask themselves if they have misunderstood the spiritual teachings, or if they haven’t applied it correctly. As they test their spiritual imagination in their life, they adjust it. They come to a different understanding. They adjust their imagination, their ideas, and also their behaviour. That’s what spiritual people are always doing; that's why they often call it a spiritual “journey”. On the other hand, when people – whether religious or ideological -- don’t make such adjustments, the distance between their imagination and the external reality becomes too great, and they either cut themselves off from the world, or try to force world to fit with their imagination.
This can help us to understand the notion of “faith”, that is commonly associated with religion. Faith can be seen as a process. At first, there might be a “leap of faith”, jumping into the unknown, based on an imagination. Then, this imagination is tested through practice in reality. During the practice, one’s imagination and understanding may evolve, and adjustments are made. At some point, experience might indicate that the original intuition was correct – faith is then reinforced with certitude. Thus, Columbus started with a leap of faith, based on his imagination. He acted on his faith, and tested it through sailing west. His faith was tested, as the initial result was not what he had imagined. He adjusted his picture of the world, and ultimately, his faith was confirmed. A similar process often occurs in the development and confirmation of the faith of religious people.
[1] Aristotle, De Anima, part III, chap. 3.
Let’s think, for example, of the fable of the frog at the bottom of a well (jing di zhi wa 井底之蛙). Think of that well – deep, deep down at the bottom, there is a frog, looking at the circle of sky above its head, far up the top of the well. Perhaps this frog doesn’t believe that there could be anything outside the well, because it has never seen anything beyond the well. Therefore, it believes all that exists in the world is what it can see and experience at the bottom of the well.
But let’s imagine another frog at the bottom of the well, who thinks that there could be something outside the well, and that if it were able to go up there and go up to the circle of light at the top of the well, it could discover another world outside this well.
In this story, one frog believes in something, but the other one does not. There is no way that the frogs can ever verify if or what there is outside that well. For both the believing and the unbelieving frog, they have their respective beliefs, both of which can neither be proved nor refuted. If that is the case, then that’s the end of the discussion – we can never know anything outside the world in which we are living.
But what if we ask another question: what do these frogs actually imagine? Let’s suppose that one of these frogs imagines that there is something outside the well, and imagines what it is that’s out there. How will this imagination influence the frog? Now it becomes interesting. When we talk about imagination, we are talking about something that does not exist in the physical world. What we imagine is not real in the material sense. Our imagination is something mental, yet it does have a reality, because our imagination influences us and our actions.
Aristotle distinguished between perception, imagination and intellect. What we translate as “imagination” was the Greek word “phantasia” which refers to apparitions that come to light in our mind -- images that appear to our mind, without any direct sense perception. Aristotle claimed that it’s impossible to think without mental images, that our intellect functions by working with mental imagery. He also noted that mental images shape our desires and motivations: we imagine the desired object, and then try to obtain it.[1]
Let’s consider three different types of imagination. One is projective imagination. To understand what projective imagination is, let’s take an engineer as an example. This engineer may start with an idea that there is an island over there. Then, the engineer decides to build a bridge between here and there. This bridge doesn’t exist in the physical world, except in the engineer’s mind – it’s an imagination. The first thing this engineer does is to imagine a bridge. The engineer starts to picture this bridge in her mind. She then thinks about how to turn this imagined bridge into a real one. Next, the engineer begins to draw a picture of the bridge, makes a plan of the bridge with measurements and so on, and then finally decides on the material, organises the workers, and hires construction companies to implement the whole project. So, what did not exist in a material sense, being an imagination, after being projected in someone’s mind, becomes a physical reality. This is one kind of imagination.
Actually, we are all involved in this kind of imagination. All of you here have imagined yourselves getting bachelor’s degrees, since you don’t have a diploma from this university yet. The diploma only exists in your imagination. With this imagination, you begin to picture how you will achieve that, and how this imagination is going to become a physical reality, namely diplomas in your hands. This is what we call projective imagination: you consciously desire something through your imagination, and then you plan in a conscious way to turn the imagination into physical existence.
The second type of imagination is creative imagination. Let’s consider the cases of an artist, an architect, a poet, or even an entrepreneur, any profession related to creation. Let’s assume that you want to make a sculpture. There is an imagined object your mind, something you want to sculpt, whereas you are not sure about the details. However, it is while you are sculpting it that many new ideas come to mind. So, you start with an idea that is vague, and then it comes to shape while you are sculpting it. As you make the statue, it actually grows into something you hadn’t imagined at first. Or, let’s say you are writing an essay, a poem or a story. You have some basic but vague ideas. Then, you start writing. The imagination drives, inspires and pushes you forward. As you go along, the idea becomes richer and more detailed. Many authors say that when they are writing their stories, sometimes these stories come to life. It is not like that engineer who had the whole thing planned out right from A to Z. In contrast, an author writing a story has an intuition and an idea. But then as this author goes about putting it into reality, somehow it takes a life of its own, and becomes something new. This is creative imagination.
The third type of imagination is receptive imagination. For this type, it is a flash of insight, a dream or a vision that just arises into your mind, the origins of which are unknown. A new idea somehow pops up spontaneously. Compared with the planned, projective imagination, this kind of imagination might come when you are daydreaming, when your mind is wandering, or when you are dreaming at night. It just happens like that. The imagination comes to you, and you receive it, and you don't know where it came from. In the previous reading I mentioned my experience sitting in a cave; some images came to me. I wasn’t looking for them. Nor did I, like the engineer, decide to see them in advance. I was simply sitting there, and then something happened in my mind. These, in a sense, are also imaginations, something that appears in your mind. Those imaginations – ideas, inspirations or visions that you receive – also can influence you in what you do. They might lead to a new decision, a new idea, a new plan or even a change in one's life. So again, for a poet, an artist or a businessman, the very first idea may be a flash of inspiration – some kind of inspiration or vision just came. Then, this idea somehow led these people to do something in this world, or to change something in it.
In an abstract sense, it is easy to categorise and to contrast these three types of imagination. However, when we think about how these three different types of imagination operate, we will realise that the three often occur at the same time. Engineering perhaps involves the most projective type of imagination, yet even engineers have some flashes of insight – new ideas, unexpected solutions just pop into their minds. So receptive imagination may also be very important as perhaps the starting point of projective imagination. The two may go together. Projective, creative and receptive types of imagination are not necessarily separate when we are actually doing things, going about our lives.
In each type of imagination, we might ask ourselves, who is the true author of the imagination? What is the relationship between what we are conscious of and what we are not conscious of? What is the relationship between what we imagine and the outside world?
Most of the time, such imaginations are merely froth on the waves of our stream of consciousness – they come and they go, and they don’t lead to anything. But on rare occasions, they lead to deep insights that have a profound and lasting impact, not only on one individual but on entire societies and civilizations. This is often the case with religion. The Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Then came his enlightenment. In the story of the Buddha, this enlightenment lasted for one night. However, this enlightenment, or “receptive imagination” led to so many teachings that it took forty years for the Buddha to elaborate and to convey its meaning to others. As a new way to look at the world and life, the imagination that came to the Buddha led to many concrete ideas and teachings about how to lead our lives and about how to understand reality. This eventually led to thousands of scriptures, monasteries and centres of learning, and developed into a religious tradition that has deeply influenced Asian culture and civilization. Stories of the Buddha have led people to imagine his serenity, his wisdom and his compassion; to imagine what the Buddha was like; and to imagine themselves with the noble qualities of the Buddha. They might use projective imagination to consciously strive to become like the Buddha, or creative imagination to let their lives be shaped by Buddhist virtues, in a more intuitive and spontaneous fashion.
Another religious example is Abraham. According to the Biblical story, God came to him in a vision, and told him that his seed would become a great nation, as numerous as the stars in heaven. Where did this vision come from? What we know for certain is that it allowed the Hebrew people to imagine their future greatness, and sustained them through centuries of persecutions. It became the root of three world religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of which consider themselves to be literal or spiritual descendants of the “seed” of Abraham, and which are thus called the “Abrahamic” religions. Now many Christians, for example, reading the Bible, imagine what Jesus was like; they imagine his love and his suffering. They try to imagine themselves with those qualities, and they try to live in imitation of Jesus, to be “Christ-like,” as if they were Jesus in the way Jesus understood the problems in life and the way he acted towards people.
Of course, receptive imagination also operates in science, too. Newton was sitting under a tree and he saw an apple fall – that was nothing new, but this time he had a flash of inspiration, and the seeds of the theory of gravity came to him. Most scientific discoveries are born through the intuitions of receptive imagination.
The three of kinds of imagination, at one level, are not real, simply being things that happen to and in our minds. But they really do influence, orient, lead, inspire or motivate us to do real things in this physical world. Therefore, it is not simply a question of believing or not.
When we talk about imagination, we might think of the meaning of the term in the English language – if something is imagined, it is not true. But then, the more we think about imagination the more we realise that it’s not that simple. Imagination is something that does not have material existence, but it also has reality. Hence, it's simultaneously real and unreal. This forces us to reconsider many of our ideas – both of ' what is true', 'what is reality', and 'what is not true', 'what is unreality'. Where is the line between the two?
Now let’s think deeper into the frog analogy. Imagine one of those frogs sitting at the bottom of the dark, damp, cold well – for him, that’s what the world is. Outside of him, there’s nothing except for the dark well. But inside of his mind, without an imagination of anything else, that’s also all that there is in the world. So, his mind is also dark, cold, and damp. And so, he leads a bleak and miserable existence. But let’s imagine another frog at the bottom of that well. Although outside of him, he is confined to that dark, damp and cold well, in his mind, he is soaring into luminous space, flying towards the stars, and envisioning flower gardens and trees. In his mind and heart, he is imagining, or in a sense, travelling in a beautiful world.
One of the frogs is living a miserable life, and the other is living in bliss -- although both of them are in exactly the same material conditions at the bottom of the dark, damp and cold well. Spiritually, however, both of them are living starkly different lives. So, their sense of sadness, joy and contentment is also quite different. One of them lives in a beautiful imaginary world, so that he is still cheerful even though he lives at the bottom of that dark and cold well -- because his mental world is a very different one, a much more beautiful one.
Does this mean that as long as an imagination makes me feel good, then any kind of imagination is just fine? We don't have to worry about true or false anymore? Who cares about the truth? You can just imagine yourself in a beautiful fantasy world, and escape there?
Not so. Aristotle noted that what we imagine may be true or false, and that our intellect has the capacity to make judgements on our imagination. And how can it do that? Philosophers have debated this question for centuries, but I’d like to consider the question through pragmatic experience.
Let’s think of it though this example. Until the 15th century, Europeans imagined the Earth to be flat. That was certainly the way the Earth appeared to their senses. But Christopher Columbus imagined the world to be round, and he imagined himself sailing westward to China. For most people, this was but pure fantasy, unverified by any experience. Columbus didn’t keep his imagination in his head – he acted differently from other people because of it. He converted his inner imagination into outer reality, by sailing west.
We know the rest of the story. Columbus reached a continent that he had not previously imagined. At first, he thought it was part of India. He had imagined himself sailing to China, but he had to adjust his imagination. Gradually, through the explorations of Columbus and his successors, the contours of the continent of the Americas became clear. And yet, for hundreds of years, explorers still imagined and dreamed of a Northwest Passage, through which it would be possible to sail from Europe to China, by sailing North of Canada. Finally, in the 19th century, the Northwest passage was discovered – (even though it was too icy to be of use as a commercial channel). Now, we have an extremely clear and precise map of every square centimetre of the Earth – and yet, even when we see such a map, so much is still left to our imagination, and it is our imagination that will lead us to decide whether we will go someplace for a trip, based on incomplete information that we read about, or that people tell us.
Our internal imagination and external reality are always interacting with each other. We have certain visions. Something pops into our minds and leads us to some kind of action. But maybe this action turns out to have very bad results. Maybe that kind of imagination should be adjusted or even dropped. Our imagination is like waves of the sea – there is always bubbling and frothing. All these images, dreams and visions come to our mind. But most of them are just like bubbles in the sea, dissipating and going nowhere. And yet, among them, sometimes, something amazing appears. Following those ideas or intuitions can take you to unknown places, to new discoveries and new treasures.
Another analogy is a tree that gives fruit. Our imagination is like a tree. If it gives good fruit – it brings good results -- maybe that is a good tree; maybe your imagination is good, or true. But if it gives bad fruit, something that makes you sick, that harms you or other people, maybe there’s a problem with that imagination.
So, our imagination can be tested against the reality in which we live. That is what many people with faith or spirituality, and people who approach religion as a path of learning, endeavour to achieve. They have a spiritual or religious imagination, but they don't just “believe” in it like a stone tablet in their mind, that never changes and has no connection to anything else. They constantly try to see how their spiritual imagination applies in their life. Sometimes it works, and sometimes if doesn't. When it works, they take it as a confirmation that their spiritual imagination is guiding them in the right direction. When it doesn’t work, they ask themselves if they have misunderstood the spiritual teachings, or if they haven’t applied it correctly. As they test their spiritual imagination in their life, they adjust it. They come to a different understanding. They adjust their imagination, their ideas, and also their behaviour. That’s what spiritual people are always doing; that's why they often call it a spiritual “journey”. On the other hand, when people – whether religious or ideological -- don’t make such adjustments, the distance between their imagination and the external reality becomes too great, and they either cut themselves off from the world, or try to force world to fit with their imagination.
This can help us to understand the notion of “faith”, that is commonly associated with religion. Faith can be seen as a process. At first, there might be a “leap of faith”, jumping into the unknown, based on an imagination. Then, this imagination is tested through practice in reality. During the practice, one’s imagination and understanding may evolve, and adjustments are made. At some point, experience might indicate that the original intuition was correct – faith is then reinforced with certitude. Thus, Columbus started with a leap of faith, based on his imagination. He acted on his faith, and tested it through sailing west. His faith was tested, as the initial result was not what he had imagined. He adjusted his picture of the world, and ultimately, his faith was confirmed. A similar process often occurs in the development and confirmation of the faith of religious people.
[1] Aristotle, De Anima, part III, chap. 3.
Objects of consciousness in the mindscape
So far, I have talked about all these different things that exist in our minds. Now, you have been listening to me for roughly 20 minutes. But I’m sure that as I was talking, your mind drifted. Other than my face, my voice and the ideas I have been talking about, I’m sure a lot of other things came into your minds, as your minds were drifting. Maybe the classroom, your classmates sitting next to you, a happy and sweet experience, the thing you need to do after class, and so on. Maybe there was also something stressful, something that makes you worried, somebody that you don’t get along with, thinking about an argument you were in, thinking about what your parents are thinking of you right now. There are so many things that may have been coming into your mind in the past 20 minutes. All of these things, these imaginations, these thoughts, these memories and so on, are what William James called “objects of consciousness.”
William James (1842-1910), one of the founding figures of American psychology and philosophy, was one of the first scholars to attempt a scientific investigation of religious perceptions of reality. Between 1901 and 1902, he gave a series of lectures, later published as the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.[1] As an advocate of the philosophy of "pragmatism" and "radical empiricism", James was not concerned with the "objective" reality of spiritual beings or worlds. Rather, he was interested in the concrete and practical effects of peoples' ideas and experiences. One the one hand, religious ideas and symbols can be considered as abstract or intangible objects of consciousness; on the other hand, for many religious people, religion is not abstract but a tangible experience, as shown by powerful experiences, dreams, visions and ecstasy which are recounted by many people.
Similar to things in the physical world, objects of consciousness affect us. If someone literally punches me in the chest, that physical movement obviously affects me. However, the punch just lasts for one second, so after a moment I won’t feel it physically anymore. But at the same time, my anger will rise. Hours, days or years later, every time I think about that person who punched me, that anger may come back to me. Thus, even though my chest no longer hurts, the anger comes back. That anger – which causes chemicals to be released in my brain – may physically change me, making me tense and so on, affecting the way I deal with other people.
What causes this anger? It is an object of consciousness, i.e. the memory of that person who hit me, something that doesn’t exist physically anymore. That person may have gone away or be dead. However, the memory of that person in my mind is literally sending energies to me that actually affect me and my body. Therefore, the objects of consciousness, in that sense, although they are not physically real, they are very, very real.
We all have these objects of consciousness coming in and out of our minds all the time. If we look at them all together, we can call them the “mindscape” – the “landscape of the mind” which is made up of all the "objects of consciousness" in our mind: our imaginations, our memories, our concepts, our significant relationships, and our perceptions of the world. Just as the "landscape" is made up of all the physical objects in our field of vision, the "mindscape" consists of all the objects of consciousness in our mind.
When we look at a landscape, we see many different things. Right now, I am sitting in my office. I look out of my office windows, and see another building of the Centennial Campus. If I look closer to myself, I see my chair, my sweater on this chair, my computer, a cup of tea, my phone, and my beloved stuffed frogs who sit right beside my lamp. This is the landscape in front of me.
Our mindscape consists of all of the objects of consciousness that are arrayed inside our mind. These objects of consciousness, whether abstract ideas or tangible experiences, enter our mindscape and interact with the other elements of the mindscape, influencing our perception of the world and our interaction with the world. In our mindscape, there might be something central, some ideas, some thoughts or some concerns that we are always thinking about, or some emotions or memories that keep coming back to us. We think about these things rather frequently, even when we are supposed to be doing something else. In other words, there might be certain ideas, feelings or memories that are right there in the middle of our mind, with other things a bit further away. There may be some beautiful thoughts in our minds, as well as ugly ones. There may be things that we always try to hide, unwilling to recall at all. Our mindscape has all these things in it. Some of them are right in front of us, whilst others are further away. Some of them pop up sometimes. There are very ugly things there, and there are beautiful things. All of this is what I call the mindscape.
Everybody’s mindscape is very rich and complicated, with many different things in there. Thus, it is not a simple question of “I believe this” or “I don’t believe that”. Somebody might say, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” But maybe Jesus Christ is not right in the middle of this person’s mindscape, or, on the contrary, maybe Jesus is standing there, front and centre, all the time. So, we might label someone as a “Christian” or a “Buddhist” or a “Muslim”, but we actually don’t know what really is in this person’s mind.
All of these things in our minds influence us, as we live our lives. If we have messy mindscapes, our life will be messy. If we have ugly mindscapes – everything in our mind is ugly and negative, with lots of hidden things rotting in the dark corners, the anger inside will come out sooner or later – or maybe all the time, and it will be visible in our faces and bodies. In this sense, our mindscapes create and transform the world that we live in. Our lives are the expression of our mindscapes. Actually, the whole world – the whole human world in which we live, the cities, the roads, the skyscrapers – everything that is man-made out there is an expression of our mindscape. We build the world as we imagine it to be. And then, the world we have made goes back into our mind. Our mindscapes are full of the images of the world that we live in. In sum, we make the world according to our mindscape, and the world we have made comes back to us and makes our mindscape.
[1] James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
William James (1842-1910), one of the founding figures of American psychology and philosophy, was one of the first scholars to attempt a scientific investigation of religious perceptions of reality. Between 1901 and 1902, he gave a series of lectures, later published as the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.[1] As an advocate of the philosophy of "pragmatism" and "radical empiricism", James was not concerned with the "objective" reality of spiritual beings or worlds. Rather, he was interested in the concrete and practical effects of peoples' ideas and experiences. One the one hand, religious ideas and symbols can be considered as abstract or intangible objects of consciousness; on the other hand, for many religious people, religion is not abstract but a tangible experience, as shown by powerful experiences, dreams, visions and ecstasy which are recounted by many people.
Similar to things in the physical world, objects of consciousness affect us. If someone literally punches me in the chest, that physical movement obviously affects me. However, the punch just lasts for one second, so after a moment I won’t feel it physically anymore. But at the same time, my anger will rise. Hours, days or years later, every time I think about that person who punched me, that anger may come back to me. Thus, even though my chest no longer hurts, the anger comes back. That anger – which causes chemicals to be released in my brain – may physically change me, making me tense and so on, affecting the way I deal with other people.
What causes this anger? It is an object of consciousness, i.e. the memory of that person who hit me, something that doesn’t exist physically anymore. That person may have gone away or be dead. However, the memory of that person in my mind is literally sending energies to me that actually affect me and my body. Therefore, the objects of consciousness, in that sense, although they are not physically real, they are very, very real.
We all have these objects of consciousness coming in and out of our minds all the time. If we look at them all together, we can call them the “mindscape” – the “landscape of the mind” which is made up of all the "objects of consciousness" in our mind: our imaginations, our memories, our concepts, our significant relationships, and our perceptions of the world. Just as the "landscape" is made up of all the physical objects in our field of vision, the "mindscape" consists of all the objects of consciousness in our mind.
When we look at a landscape, we see many different things. Right now, I am sitting in my office. I look out of my office windows, and see another building of the Centennial Campus. If I look closer to myself, I see my chair, my sweater on this chair, my computer, a cup of tea, my phone, and my beloved stuffed frogs who sit right beside my lamp. This is the landscape in front of me.
Our mindscape consists of all of the objects of consciousness that are arrayed inside our mind. These objects of consciousness, whether abstract ideas or tangible experiences, enter our mindscape and interact with the other elements of the mindscape, influencing our perception of the world and our interaction with the world. In our mindscape, there might be something central, some ideas, some thoughts or some concerns that we are always thinking about, or some emotions or memories that keep coming back to us. We think about these things rather frequently, even when we are supposed to be doing something else. In other words, there might be certain ideas, feelings or memories that are right there in the middle of our mind, with other things a bit further away. There may be some beautiful thoughts in our minds, as well as ugly ones. There may be things that we always try to hide, unwilling to recall at all. Our mindscape has all these things in it. Some of them are right in front of us, whilst others are further away. Some of them pop up sometimes. There are very ugly things there, and there are beautiful things. All of this is what I call the mindscape.
Everybody’s mindscape is very rich and complicated, with many different things in there. Thus, it is not a simple question of “I believe this” or “I don’t believe that”. Somebody might say, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” But maybe Jesus Christ is not right in the middle of this person’s mindscape, or, on the contrary, maybe Jesus is standing there, front and centre, all the time. So, we might label someone as a “Christian” or a “Buddhist” or a “Muslim”, but we actually don’t know what really is in this person’s mind.
All of these things in our minds influence us, as we live our lives. If we have messy mindscapes, our life will be messy. If we have ugly mindscapes – everything in our mind is ugly and negative, with lots of hidden things rotting in the dark corners, the anger inside will come out sooner or later – or maybe all the time, and it will be visible in our faces and bodies. In this sense, our mindscapes create and transform the world that we live in. Our lives are the expression of our mindscapes. Actually, the whole world – the whole human world in which we live, the cities, the roads, the skyscrapers – everything that is man-made out there is an expression of our mindscape. We build the world as we imagine it to be. And then, the world we have made goes back into our mind. Our mindscapes are full of the images of the world that we live in. In sum, we make the world according to our mindscape, and the world we have made comes back to us and makes our mindscape.
[1] James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Concluding remarks
Religion is often understood and described in terms of belief and faith. While these are important, and often fundamental aspects of religion, they may not be the best way to think and communicate about religion; as they force people to make a claim about their belief and to defend it, or to remove it from rational discussion, on the basis that it’s a belief. But faith is equally shared by religious and non-religious people and ideologies; faith is a precondition of our social existence. Instead, I have proposed a different way to explore religious worlds, through the concepts of subjunctive worlds; imagination; objects of consciousness; and mindscape. All of us, religious or not, are involved in make-believe games, creating different realities through role-playing. These worlds draw on the powers of our imagination, by which we create the worlds that we live in. The objects of consciousness that populate our mindscape influence our desires and the way we orient our lives, as well as the way we create and shape the world.
Religion, then, is not simply passive belief. What kind of make-believe do we want to play in our life? How do we want to imagine our life and the world? How can we act on our imagination? How do we shape our objects of consciousness? How can we cultivate a beautiful mindscape? In life and society, not all role-playing games are “right” to play. Whether they are religious or not, some might be helpful and others might be harmful. A pragmatic approach can help us to make rational judgments on the consequences of the worlds we create. Going back to the dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades, do these imagined worlds help us to know and to improve ourselves? Do they help us to make good use of our freedom, to handle relationships, and to better cooperate with others to improve the affairs of the human community?
Religion, then, is not simply passive belief. What kind of make-believe do we want to play in our life? How do we want to imagine our life and the world? How can we act on our imagination? How do we shape our objects of consciousness? How can we cultivate a beautiful mindscape? In life and society, not all role-playing games are “right” to play. Whether they are religious or not, some might be helpful and others might be harmful. A pragmatic approach can help us to make rational judgments on the consequences of the worlds we create. Going back to the dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades, do these imagined worlds help us to know and to improve ourselves? Do they help us to make good use of our freedom, to handle relationships, and to better cooperate with others to improve the affairs of the human community?
References
Aristotle, De Anima. Multiple editions available online.
Byrne, Ruth M. The Rational Imagination. How People Create Alternatives to Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1959.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Centenary edition. Routledge, 2002.
Seligman, Adam B, Robert P. Weller, Michael Puett, and Bennett Simon. Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Thomas, Nigel J. "Imagination." in Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind, https://sites.google.com/site/minddict/imagination.
Thomas, Nigel J. "Mental Imagery." in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/
Byrne, Ruth M. The Rational Imagination. How People Create Alternatives to Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1959.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Centenary edition. Routledge, 2002.
Seligman, Adam B, Robert P. Weller, Michael Puett, and Bennett Simon. Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Thomas, Nigel J. "Imagination." in Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind, https://sites.google.com/site/minddict/imagination.
Thomas, Nigel J. "Mental Imagery." in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/