"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."
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. But 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 Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi 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 marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Thomas Moore on James Hillman


This is a very nice essay: Remembering James Hillman

Posted by Tom Cheetham at 11:02 AM

2 comments:

  1. Annamaria AdamsNovember 4, 2011 at 1:07 AM

    James Hillman, one of the foremost psychologists of our time, left this world this week and will be missed. Stephen Aizenstat, Chancellor at Pacifica Graduate Institute, one of Hillman's academic bases, sent out the following note from author/professor Richard Tarnas:

    Dear friends,

    James Hillman, one of our great mentors, died peacefully this morning at his home in Connecticut. He was 85. His wife Margot said he was true to his character to the end, even as he moved into that place between day and night, speaking through the night in many languages, very funny, and himself. During these last several months, despite the pain and the meds needed to manage it (cancer in his pelvis), James had managed to finish the many projects he'd been intensely committed to completing before he left.

    May I just add, in tribute to him as a friend, how deeply James has enriched us with his unending flow of insights, placing so many things in new light—and in shadow. His depth of soul and reading and culture, his trickster wit, his heretic originality, his sharp-edged individuality. He will be deeply missed, but he left us with so much that we will be integrating for a long time to come. It was just over thirty years ago that he came to San Francisco and presented what would later become his profound and influential essay, "Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World"—a turning point in depth psychology.

    "Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi."

    May he rest in peace, and live on here through us, as he would have wished.


    Rick

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  2. EditorNovember 6, 2011 at 2:20 PM

    Hi Tom,
    Links to additional James Hillman tributes are offered at Barque: Thomas Moore:
    http://barque.blogspot.com/2011/11/remembering-james-hillman-across-web.html
    Moore is keen to promote Hillman's work and to see it circulate in new audiences. Corbin's influence may be acknowledged in these fresh fields.

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