'MYSTICAL RIVER' (detail)
Landscape, Bihbahan (1398)
THE SEMINAR
Taking Henry Corbin’s 1977 paper “Towards a Chart of the Imaginal” as a starting point and touchstone, this wide-ranging discussion draws from Tom Cheetham’s intellectual journey, navigating between multiple worlds of science, poetry and imagination.
Cheetham explores the shifting modes of consciousness associated with different activities such as physics and poetry, expanding upon his philosophical perspective that embraces the mutability of experience, forms of being, and the relationship between imagination and reality. He reflects on the insights his struggle with literalism has brought about and asks if some things are “realer” than others.
As both counterbalance to his secular background and lens to better understand the world, Cheetham discusses the important role of Corbin’s work in his exploration of philosophical and metaphysical themes.
A number of texts highlighted in the seminar are outlined in more detail in the Referenced Publications section below.
A densely packed exploration of complex ideas is presented, forming connections across boundaries and encompassing a wide array of subjects, including Iranian art, religion, theosophy, hermeneutics, the imagination and the paranormal.
So, brace yourself for turbulence in this dynamic session, which has been described as part theory, part biography and part fever dream.
Chaired by Dale Mathers.
ABOUT TOM CHEETHAM
Tom Cheetham, PhD. is an American author, teacher, biologist and poet who explores creative imagination.
He is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy in London, and has taught natural science and humanities since 1987. He teaches and lectures regularly in the US and Europe.
"There is an open field of reality accessible to us through the imagination, but precious few know how to use it. I'm not a Master myself, but I know where some of the doors are."
Tom Cheetham is the author of five books on the imagination in religion, psychology and the arts, and one book of poems. Through his publications and teachings, he aims to guide us toward a more vivid existence—one where we actively participate in shaping our reality.
HENRY CORBIN
Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland.
He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide.
Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn 'Arabī is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind.
His work makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.
text from The Henry Corbin Project
REFERENCED PUBLICATIONS
The full text of Corbin’s brief essay 'Towards a Chart of the Imaginal' is available through Tom Cheetham’s Substack ‘As Variously As Possible’.
A quite a late essay that Corbin wrote to clarify his understanding of the imaginal, the essay is of considerable interest for many reasons, not least because it addresses concerns Corbin had about the use and misuse of the term imaginal.
The text forms a Prelude to Corbin’s 'Spiritual Body & Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi’ite Iran', (2nd ed.) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977—appearing only in the 5th Printing (1989). This full edition is available via the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780691018836
Corps Spirituel et Terre Céleste: De L’Iran Mazdeen A L’Iran Shi’ite
Henry Corbin
publication
Two groundbreaking essays, "The Thought of the Heart" and "Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World," by James Hillman that launched Archetypal Psychology and began the renaissance of a psychology that returns psychic reality to the world. Following Marsilio Ficino, who was the first to place the soul in the center of his vision, Hillman argues for a psychology that reflects the world it works in.
& Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World
James Hillman
publication
How does the soul relate to the body? Through the ages, innumerable religious and intellectual movements have proposed answers to this question. Many have gravitated to the notion of the "subtle body," positing some sort of subtle entity that is neither soul nor body, but some mixture of the two .
This study is an intellectual history of the subtle body concept from its origins in late antiquity through the Renaissance into the Euro-American counterculture of the 1960's and 70's.
A Genealogy
Simon Cox
publication
TOM CHEETHAM:
FURTHER READING
Tom Cheetham is the author of books on the imagination in religion, psychology and the arts.
He regularly posts online via his Substack ‘As Variously As Possible’; his contributions to scholarly works such as The Henry Corbin Project; and guest talks and interviews.
Some of these publications and Substack ‘gateway’ are listed below. These resources provide different lenses through which conference themes can be explored.
Corbin’s work on the role of imagination in the religions and its fundamental place in human life has had a lasting and wide-ranging influence on contemporary poetry and the humanities. Among his most influential readers were the poets Charles Olson and Robert Duncan and the archetypal psychologist James Hillman. Central to their common vision is the creative power of language, understood not as a human invention but as a fundamental feature of reality.
This book by Tom Cheetham provides an overview of Corbin’s “psychocosmology” and its significance for Hillman’s archetypal psychology, contemporary poetics, and spiritual practice. It will be of interest to psychotherapists, artists, poets, and anyone who has ever wondered at the mysterious power of language and the imagination to transform the human soul.
The Meanings of Imagination in Henry Corbin and James Hillman
publication
The first book in English to synthesize the remarkable work of Henry Corbin, the great French philosopher, Christian theologian, and scholar of Islamic mysticism. Corbin, a colleague of C. G. Jung’s at Eranos, and one of the most important visionaries of the twentieth century, had a seminal influence on the development of archetypal psychology, especially through the idea of the “imaginal world.”
Corbin’s work bridges the gap between the philosophy and theology of the West and the mysticism of Islam and provides a radical and unified vision of the three great monotheistic religions based upon the Creative Imagination.
Second, revised edition.
Henry Corbin and the Angel Out Ahead
publication
The best way to catch-up with Tom Cheetham’s writing, thinking and teaching worlds is to subscribe to his Substack newsletter (where previous posts are archived). He writes that “Substack helps us connect to a community of people who share our interests”.
You can find it here: https://tomcheetham.substack.com
Substack Website & Newsletter
website | newsletter
IMAGE REFERENCE
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image details, shown throughout this page
Described as ‘Mountains and Streams’ and ‘Mystical River’. Artist unknown. (1398) Miniature landscape painting in Bihbahan (Fars). Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Istanbul. Location: No 1950, folio 26, recto.
image Photograph via Tom Cheetham Substack. (image enhanced to scale) https://tomcheetham.substack.com/p/towards-a-chart-of-the-imaginal.
further information Gray, B. (1961) Persian Painting, ‘Treasures of Asia’, Skira. [dist. World Pub. Co., Cleveland], vol. 2 [Online]. Available at https://archive.org/details/persianpainting0000gray_l3w5 see p.68