Imaginal dialogue as a method of narrative inquiry

This paper joins the discussions on imaginal dialogue with references to the relational turn in psychoanalysis. It explores imaginal dialogue as a creative, relational endeavour in evoking the unconscious materials. By describing my own imaginal dialogue with Virginia Woolf, it exemplifies the potentiality of reading as an embodied, co-constructed interplay between the reader and the text. The deepening of relational and dialogical engagement with the text not only stirs the affective depth in the reader, but also brings the reader to conjure the presence of the author as an object for relatedness in the process of narrative inquiry. Imaginal dialogue transgresses beyond the poststructuralist allowance of interpretive pluralism to relational processes of working with the encounters with the presence of the author as their imaginary co-inquirer. Imaginal dialogue, I argue, not only provides an alternative kind of narrative framing, but the imaginal relationship becomes the very locus of knowledge creation.

Towards an imaginal dialogue: archetypal symbols between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam

This paper explores the potential for a dialogue between religious traditions based on art, in order to complement the dominant channels that rely on conceptual meanings. Building on a theoretical framework of post-Jungian archetypal psychology – as developed by James Hillman and Henry Corbin – we propose that the utility of such a dialogue inheres in the notion of an imaginal realm, or mundus imaginalis. In the first part of the paper we highlight three key features of this notion: the distinction between the imaginal and the imaginary; the significance of a culturally differentiated collective unconscious; and a reflection of the imaginal in practice rather than conceptually. We emphasize the materiality of sacred symbols that emerge from the imaginal realm. In the second part, we illustrate the importance of two archetypal symbols: the fish and the chalice. The significance of these symbols in history and in the practices of communities of believers is discussed. Thirdly, we discuss specific features of the dialogue emerging from these ubiquitous archetypal symbols.