Dreams Are Real

The Cosmic Source of Human Creativity

Image by Fifi from Pixabay

Post-Enlightenment materialism has a set of assumptions that all previous generations (whether pagan, Jewish, and Christian) would have regarded as strange and nonsensical: 1) poetry does not describe reality, 2) human thoughts are “generated,” 3) new ideas are “made up.”

From the ancient (and medieval) viewpoint, this is almost exactly backward. Poetry has traditionally been the best means to describe reality. The human mind did not “generate” thoughts—it received or rejected them. And new ideas were not “made up”—they were “discovered.” Though the modern mind instinctively dismisses such language as literary conceit, it is the still the way most creatives describe their experiences, particularly in the “flow” state. Even in the hard sciences, many researchers derive their theories subconsciously in sudden flashes of insight. For most of human history, it’s been taken for granted that human invention and creativity originates from spiritual forces—the original meaning of the word “inspired” is literally “indwelt by spirits.”

The early Christian theologian Origen, writing in the third century AD, describes spiritual forces behind every human art from poetry to geometry:

“There are… certain special energies of this world, i.e., spiritual powers, which bring about certain effects, which they have themselves, in virtue of their freedom of will, chosen to produce, and to these belong those princes who practise the wisdom of this world: there being, for example, a peculiar energy and power, which is the inspirer of poetry; another, of geometry; and so a separate power, to remind us of each of the arts and professions of this kind.”¹

There is also a clear sense, expressed in various ways by various thinkers throughout history (even after the onset of Enlightenment materialism) that these spiritual energies were located in a “realm” or “world” that was as real as the material world. This was how even pagan poets were able to perceive great truths and even unconsciously prophesy. The most famous example is the Roman poet Virgil’s “Fourth Eclogue,” which describes a divine savior being born to rule the world, and which Christian thinkers from Augustine to Dante have read as a prophecy of Christ.

https://catholicvote.org/did-romes-greatest-poet-a-pagan-predict-the-birth-of-christ/

Dr. Adam Walker at The New Renaissance speaks of it this way:

“The Renaissance philosophers believed in the reality of the mundus imaginalis, the world of the imagination. I borrow the term from a more recent philosopher, Henry Corbin, who argued that the mundus imaginalis was as real as the material world we inhabit. It was a firm belief in the imagination that ushered the most productive movements of literature. The English Renaissance which produced Spenser and Donne; the Romantic revivals led by the visionary poets Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth; the American Renaissance inspired by Emerson and Fuller, were all moments when the mundus imaginalis acted strongly upon the world of people and things. These were moments in literary history when the literary arts were imbued with the spirit.”

Kabbalistic Jewish sources locate this realm—known as “Yetzirah” or “The World of Formation”—within a cosmology of “five worlds,” each of which corresponds to a different level of the human soul. An in-depth description and discussion of each these five worlds can be found on James Ballard’s The Hidden Orchard Project. Yetzirah lies just above “Assiyah” or “The World of Action,” which is our everyday material reality. This plane is described as the world of human emotions, intellect, mental images, and patterns, which are shaped into lower forms of angels (both pure and impure) through their interaction with the human soul. There’s a saying in the Mishnah that “He who fulfills one mitzvah [commandment] acquires for himself one advocate, and he who commits one transgression, acquires against himself one accuser.”²

Compared to truly immortal angels from the higher world of “Beriah” (“Creation”), these entities are described as continually coming into and out of existence. But they can persist for a long time and exert influence on many more human minds and souls that those that initially formed them—in this way, Yetzirah functions quite similarly to Karl Jung’s “collective unconscious” and is probably the ultimate source of his much later idea.

But it doesn’t stop there. Jewish mystical tradition speaks of instances where entities from this realm can enter into “Assiyah” in shockingly tangible ways. Ancient texts such as the Sefer Yetzirah even purport to record true accounts of rabbis and sages who could physically manifest and interact with such beings—a representative example being a pair of rabbis who generated a calf and ate it. Later Jewish “golem” lore is an extension of the same concept.

Recall the microcosm-macrocosm relationship between Man and the Creation. What takes place within the human soul is reflected within the universe. Health or sickness within the one produces health or sickness within the other. And the implications of this are both wonderful and terrifying. In fact, it could explain many observed instances of “high strangeness” of paranormal phenomena.

I’ll use the following as just one example. In his classic work The Mothman Prophecies, researcher John Keel documented an explosion of unexplained sightings and phenomena within the town of Point Pleasant, VA during 1966-67. Many of these have since become fixtures of American popular mythology. They included everything from UFOs and poltergeists to encounters with strange cryptids and entities including not only the so-called “Mothman” but mysterious “Men in Black,” and bizarre preternatural characters such as “Indrid Cold” and “Apol.” Keel interacted with the latter several times via phone conversations though he never met him in person. In light of what we’ve covered above, his impressions are worth quoting in full:

“By this time Mr. Apol had assumed a definite personality… I studied his psychology, his quick temper, his mischievous sense of humor. I argued with him on the phone, sometimes for two or three hours at a stretch. And I felt sorry for him. It became apparent that he really did not know who or what he was. He was a prisoner of our time frame. He often confused the past with the future. I gathered that he and all his fellow entities found themselves transported backward and forward in time involuntarily, playing out their little games because they were programed to do so, living—or existing—only so long as they could feed off the energy and minds of mediums and contactees.” (The Mothman Prophecies, p. 120)

Elsewhere in his book, Keel noted a curious detail about certain UFO sightings that few other researchers in the field have seen fit to mention. Some have taken the shape of aircraft prototypes that designers have not yet built:

“This paranormal mimicry is difficult for many to understand but I come across constant examples. Early in January 1973, for instance, a reliable witness in Ohio observed an unusual-looking helicopter which she was able to describe in detail. When she sketched it for a local UFO enthusiast he was flabbergasted. He was an aeronautical engineer specializing in helicopters and he knew the thing she drew was a new secret helicopter that was still on the drawing board!” (The Mothman Prophecies, p. 51)

Using the “Five Worlds” paradigm, we could propose something like the following: if new ideas are not “generated” but rather pre-exist within the world of Yetzirah, then sightings of designed-yet-unbuilt aircraft prototypes could reflect the fact that they are “descending” into Assiyah via the minds of their designers (or more properly, “discoverers”). Perhaps this “conception stage” includes partial manifestation via the plasmoid organisms we discussed elsewhere?

It should be said that interactions with this realm are fraught and dangerous, particularly given the diseased and impure state of human consciousness since the Fall. Many if not most of the beings that manifest from Yetzirah into the world of Assiyah would consequently be both dangerous and untrustwrthy—and they could also serve as “clothing” or “mounts” for more explicitly malevolent forces from higher worlds (such as the fallen angels more familiar to traditional Christian theology).

We live in propitious and perilous times. The Mundus Imaginalis is polluted and shark-infested. But this points to the need for courageous souls who can strengthen the forces of purity within it by cultivating a holy and creative life.

Our thoughts (and our creations) are not just things—they are creatures.

Image by abhishek maravi from Pixabay

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ…” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04123.htm

2. https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/4015288/jewish/Avot-411-Crime-Repays.htm