The Center for Imaginative Action

           As you may know I am writing a book for public consumption based on the research I did for my Ph.D. dissertation, What is the Future of Ego. What follows are excerpts from my upcoming book. These bits of Chapter 5 offer more clarity to those wanting to understand my new work.

“I have founded out of this research The Center for Imaginative Action. The mission of The Center is, through adult education, to contribute to the expansion of self-awareness in the world through inner fitness. My research into Freud, Jung and Steiner, has yielded a synthesis of how their ideas work together, and can serve modern living.

The take away on Freud are the methods of establishing a strong ego in the world and what I call outer fitness. This is an essential task in the Western spiritual tradition. In the past, this stage of ego development was primary to the first half of life. Today in our liminal white-water world however, this ability to recreate yourself in the world is valuable for a person at any age. The development of outer fitness has lifelong value.

As we have learned Carl Jung had an awareness of other modes of experience and knowledge early on in his life. His personal dreams and visions that were the foundation of his life work. Jung, unlike Freud, could be certain of the reality of precognitive events as he experienced them. What Freud instantly judged as “sheer bosh” Jung knew was actually quite real.  Our challenge is to understand the methods that Jung developed to process these volatile unconscious elements. This method I call “Redbooking” and once understood and implemented it, becomes a powerful tool of inner fitness and leads to a more meaningful lifestyle.

         The third aspect of our work at The Center involves the awakening of new understanding through contemplation. The clients interested in this work typically have an inner fitness ritual and are seeking to fine-tune it. Others have become aware of the benefits of inner fitness and want to set up a plan to integrate soul-spiritual rituals into their lives.

         The work of Rudolf Steiner becomes the focus here and clients learn some of the basic techniques and explore the big ideas associated with his spiritual psychology. In the same way as Leonardo Da Vinci demonstrated an understanding of the laws of aerodynamics 500 years prior to the first flight by the Wright brothers, Steiner has given us, through his prescience, a conception of the future of ego. This aspect of The Center’s work involves studying the great chain of being and becoming aware of new ways of thinking about the world. Out of these insights the prize of self-awareness is understood and becomes an ever-present goal.

Clients learn to enter “the exceptional state” of self-awareness and begin to create and focus on inner images. These images are very different from the dreams, visions, imaginations that have been the source of the work in the strengthening and deepening stages. They are not given to us by our dreams rather; we construct these images in our clear waking state of consciousness.

         The images are constructed through imaginative action and are held inwardly for a short period of time. When the practice is concluded, one returns to daily life. In the same way as one cannot rush a marathon training, this inner training takes discipline. Yet there soon emerges a new level of awareness with the benefits radiating into all aspects of life.

Most of us are living out of the empty self yet this path is untenable. The symptoms of decline in our culture based on material knowledge alone are everywhere. It is essential that we learn to gain access to the other fields of knowledge that exist all around us. These fields, are virtually untapped, and offer us a way of knowing that has a vastly different quality to it. These are realms of knowledge that are teeming with wisdom and insight and potential. These are realms of knowledge that are inaccessible to all forms of “intellect without intelligence”.

            The evolutionary step for the individual and the species is to uncover this spiritual spring of knowledge that is choked up in most people. This process of opening up this spring of knowledge is demonstrated in Carl Jung’s Red Book, and is the key to understanding Rudolf Steiner.  The methods and practice and discipline required to open the spiritual spring are all elements of what I call inner fitness. Jung taught us how to process images and participate in imaginative action that links us to something more meaningful and serving wholeness. Steiner emphasized the essential nature of contemplation and meditation to inner fitness. He pointed out that with our newly won scientific crystal clear skills of observation and thinking we can rekindle a relationship to the soul spiritual dimensions by developing an Imaginative Knowledge.”