Mundus Imaginalis: Bridging Body and Spirit

Abstract

For thousands of years, humanity has grappled with questions about the nature of the mind, the soul, and imagination, wondering from whence images come. The quest to deepen our understanding of mental images and imagination has, by itself, been instrumental in the development of consciousness. Depth psychology still struggles with fundamental questions about the origins of imagination. The concept of the mundus imaginalis, which was introduced by James Hillman into analytical psychology, has its origins in Sufism, the largest form of Islamic mysticism, and was borrowed from the work of Henry Corbin, a major scholar on Islam. This article brings together some ideas from physics with clinical observations and theoretical ideas on mundus imaginalis from analytical psychology and mysticism, and proposes that depth psychotherapy and analysis often involve a deeper connection to mundus imaginalis, requiring a coniunctio between body and spirit. Furthermore, the complex union between mundus imaginalis, body, and spirit may often lead spontaneously to the activation of synchronicity in the dynamic energetic analytic field, further facilitating individuation, healing, and transformation. These ideas have profound implications for a deeper understanding of various states of reverie, including bodily experiences and psychospiritual images/states in the dynamic transference–countertransference field, as well as in art and creativity.