Author Archives: DrKeith

Fictional and Factual Imagination Are Different

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Creative imagination is the supreme activity of the human mind. By using his imagination creatively, Man has been able to make many leaps forward, improving his existing reality to a better one. To use imagination creatively, a person must proceed from a series of known facts toward a series of supposed or invented facts or conditions. The supposed facts or conditions may end up  close to or far removed from the point of departure.

Imagination is the integral portion of creativity, which shapes a concept or course of action in advance of the event and directs activities. It conceives interpretations and translates an idea into action in a way that provides a person with a clear objective; a determinable goal toward which to progress.

Sometimes, imagination is thought to be functioning when reality has been left far behind and flights of fancy have taken over. This is because there are two types of imagination that function for all of us: fictional and factual. Fiction denotes something already removed from fact. If the basis for an act of imagination, itself a mental act beyond fact, rests on fiction, the result is twice removed from the original source.

Fictional imagination operates from assumed rather than observed and proven facts, or from assumptions that are false rather than true. Often fictional imagination creates images that are more a projection of a wish than of sound reasoning; images out of which dreams and madness are made. Fictional imagination is the primary source of fixed viewpoints, fears and beliefs ungrounded in reality. It is seldom of positive value.

Factual imagination operates from a basis of comprehended knowledge. It functions as freely as the fictional kind – as freely as the imagination must operate – but it is logical, based on fidelity rather than half truths. Factual imagination is based on truth, not fugitive from it. In this respect the extent to which creative imagination is stretched is not the critical factor in the soundness of its use: the degree of truth in the relationship to reality or proven facts determines the quality of creative imagination.

By differentiating and discriminating between these two types of imagination, you will be better placed to make the transition from a bounded reality to an unbounded reality, and to discard beliefs ungrounded in reality.

The Thought Revolution is The Fourth Wave

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Is there a Fourth Wave? If so what is it?

I leave aside the fact that if you Google “Fourth Wave”, you get largely feminist drivel that’s both sexist and divisive (and borders on abusive) on the first few page listings. These are women with their heads up the north end looking south, trying to “solve” rape, rather than real philosophers.

A much more incisive attempt to define a Fourth Wave comes from Jamie Smart in his book “Clarity”. He calls it the “experience wave”. I like what he’s saying, it’s valuable (not just whining about the others in society) and he’s certainly onto something.

Firstly then, let me remind you of the first three waves, defined for us by Alvin Toffler in his seminal book “The Third Wave”.

First Wave. The Agricultural Revolution or domestication. It started around 8,000 BC and led to stabilized food supplies and effectively the end of nomadic wanderings. The major consequence was cities and civilization. Big one!

The Second Wave. Industrialization or mechanization. Another biggie. It started around 1760 in England and was the mechanization of labor. So this swung away from the agricultural scenario and towards urban life. It led to industrial might and the kind of personal wealth we see today.

The Third Wave. The Information Age or digitization. This started around 1940 with early computerization. As we all know, this revolution is well under way. It’s led to the spread and democritization of personal affluence. But is it peaking? There are signs it is. As more and more people are moving into the knowledge economy, it’s starting to lose its appeal, though it’s difficult to escape its tentacles.

The point is that the knowledge economy has trumped mechanization; and mechanization economy in turn roundly trumped the agricultural economy. So where is there to go from here? What could possibly trump the digital age? Continue reading →

Waves That Thrill

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Sex is not intercourse

The moment of penetration and subsequent orgasm, for all its exquisite intensity, is but a small aspect of sex.

True sex is not merely an act but a mind process, which pervades all our conscious thinking. At times it is a faint tremor, at other moments it swells to an urgent and demanding feeling. It becomes an imperative.

There are many degrees to sex.

It rolls to and fro like a tide. High water may be the times of nakedness and caress, with tumescence and ultimate release.

But sex is there even in the ebb. It is an echo, a sigh, a fading chord which breathes its blessing on all our hours spent together.

When my love is not there, I feel the rhythm of the tide. When I know she is coming towards me, I feel the current beginning to stream. There is excitement, a tremble, vibration in the waters. I feel her before she is there. These are moments of intense anticipation that are as meaningful as the full message.

To want only the roaring high tide is to miss the beauty, the lust, the magic, which is present there at low water also. Continue reading →

The Glass Elevator Mind Experience

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Who Was Syd Banks?

Mind and wellbeing, of course, come under health. Feeling good in your head is just as important as the endorphin rush of working out or stepping on the scales and seeing you’ve lost 15 pounds!

What triggered today’s thoughts was reading a capable new book by Michael Neill. It’s called The Inside Out Revolution (published by Hay House, 2013).

The whole book is to introduce a little-known spark of psychology (even I had never heard of it) called “The Three Principles”. It’s nothing to do with the Three Commitments of Pema Chodron or The Three Agreements of Don Miguel Reiz. Let me explain.

This new psychology was founded by a Scottish welder called Syd Banks (the other Scottish welder we all know is comedian Billy Connolly, right?) Apparently Banks had an enlightenment experience and was able to pass this on usefully to others; not all gurus can. Michael Neill came across the teachings and went off to the commune training in Canada. Apparently he found it really good. I know Michael Neill’s work and so I read the book with a receptive mind.

I’m not going to try and précis the work of Michael Neill or Syd Banks. But I will share with you The Three Principles, because I find them inept and a little confusing. Perhaps there is something in the way it is taught that makes them so successful in practice. I do not dispute that they work well for those engaged in the work; many healing transformations have taken place. Continue reading →

Why Happiness Is So Hard To Find

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The problem is that people are going about it the wrong way: they are working on an incorrect model, to use scientific phraseology.

Most people think that happiness is derived from possessions or surroundings. If I had more of this or that… Or if I was in that certain place, or with those certain people… If he/she would only marry me… I would really be happy. That’s the common perception, heavily reinforced by abusive commercial advertising that tries to promulgate this illusion, solely for the purpose of selling people goods.

In fact some ads are so cruel and twisted that they promote the idea that without the right car (or perfume, or whatever) you are a nobody; no member of the opposite sex would even give you the time of day, never mind allow themselves to love you. Sneering women, with pretend smirks, and the puzzled, exasperated men who are depicted in typical TV advertisements create a picture of a world in which only the unemotional cynic can survive and be “happy”.

Left unanswered is the question which is obvious to me: who would want to even meet—never mind have a relationship with—a woman who would throw your car keys down the drain before walking away without pity? Continue reading →