Quest Magazine

Embodied Imaginations: Fictional Characters Making Experiential Crossings into Real Life: An Unusual Phenomenon

Chidambaram Ramesh
New Delhi, India: New Age Publishing, 2023. 247 pp., hardcover, $41.

In the field of metaphysical and spiritual book publishing, there is a certain category of books that are seemingly popular with readers, but which present a challenge to reviewers. A case in point is the volume before me: Embodied Imaginations. It is published by New Age Publishing, an imprint of Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House, in New Delhi, India, in a beautifully printed and bound hardcover edition, which is proof positive that the publishing industry in the subcontinent has achieved a level of production and design quality fully equal to that of North America, Europe, and China.

Make no mistake. This is a handsome book that is a pleasure to hold in one’s hands and read from page to page of crisply printed text on high-quality paper stock.

Moreover, the book’s subject—the phenomenon of fictional or imaginary characters taking on a life of their own (although usually relegated to the marginal realm of the paranormal)—can be fascinating, as the many reports and anecdotes collected here demonstrate.

So what exactly is the problem that so many books like this present? It is, sadly, that heaps of anecdotal incidents and brief quotes from hundreds of other authors or writers do not result in a sum that is greater than its parts. Instead, with a minimum of connective threading, one is led from one odd tale to another, as if the sheer agglomeration of these tidbits amounts to conclusive proof of . . . something.

In the case of Ramesh’s Embodied Imaginations, I was enticed by the many accounts of authors experiencing the apparent autonomy of their characters and the sensation of their books being written by a creative power greater than themselves. Having experienced this uncanny feeling myself, I was eager for an intelligent discussion of what might lie behind it. But the structure of the book seemed to consist of the adding on of example upon example, from this angle and that, without a deeper consideration of their ultimate meaning or implications about our universe and human consciousness. To quote from one representative passage from the book at hand

"In her spiritualist work, There is No Death (1892), Florence Marryat often alludes to mediums and spirit manifestations regarding artistic talent. Similarly, during Victor Hugo’s exile in Jersey, he reportedly talked with Shakespeare, Plato, Hannibal, Rousseau, Galileo, Sir Walter Scott, and Jesus, gaining insights he felt obligated to share with humanity. Machiavelli is said to have had imaginary dinner conversations with ancient poets and historical figures such as Moses, Romulus, and Theseus. Oliver Napoleon Hill, an American self-help author, admitted to having received his inspiration from a council of 33 ‘invisible masters’. Blavatsky distinguished between her own works and the few parts ascribed to spirits. For almost twenty years, [Jane] Roberts channeled an entity [calling] himself “Seth” and produced an extensive body of writings comprising more than 30 volumes collectively known as the Seth material.”

There is nothing wrong with such a succession of examples, I suppose, but to have chapter after chapter packed with them, without much of a building argument or an inclusive theory, is more like an anthology of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” cartoons than a serious consideration of parapsychological phenomena.    

Ramesh drew upon a wide variety of sources and religious traditions, but the book ultimately seemed to be a compendium of anecdotes and not a whole lot more. Rather than drawing me into a stream of thought that seemed to build upon itself and move me forward toward an insightful conclusion, I felt that all the researched material was more or less of the same second- and third-hand quality, and treated as of equal weight.

In the book’s brief conclusion, the following passage illustrates the shortcomings of what is surveyed and learned:

“We saw enough evidence to believe that the repeated and concentrated mental images develop hologram-like three-dimensional replicas that hover above our heads. While they are not discernible to the human eye, mystics and psychics with trained senses may see them. These thought forms comprise what Henri Corbin referred to as immaterial matter. In the Intermediate Realm of the Imagination, these portrayals are as real as the earth itself. When one’s creative energy reaches a critical level, their thoughts and ideas materialise into the physical world, where their forms may be seen with the naked eye. This mental-to-physical transfer may occur through a mechanism that modern science has not yet discovered.”

To this reviewer, this reads like a heaping portion of assumptions that are taken to be true because they appeared in print, while their plausibility is left to scientific discoveries not yet made.

Colin Wilson, the prolific author who wrote numerous overviews of occult and psychological topics, at least felt obliged to draft plausible explanations for the mysteries he considered. I just wish that more writers in this vein would do the same.

Despite my initial high hopes, I came away from Embodied Imaginations with the feeling that the book, though well researched and clearly written, was no better (although no worse) than too many other New Age books from any number of American publishers. It was a mile wide and an inch deep.

Jay Kinney

Opening to Oneness: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to the Zen Precepts

Nancy Mujo Baker
Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 2022. 247 pp., paper, $21.95.

There are precepts without Buddhism but no Buddhism without precepts.

—Bernie Glassman

I remember standing next to swami in a Sunday School as he asked a little girl, “What is your name, dear?” She replied, “My name is Mary, but everyone calls me ‘Mary Don’t.’”

The first thing that struck me about Nancy Mujo Baker’s book is how she has chosen to present the precepts, the prime ethical injunctions of Buddhism. We always see precepts with “do not” or “thou shalt not.” Baker replaces the “not” with “non”: “Do not kill” becomes “non-killing,” and “Do not steal” becomes “non-stealing.” It is a transcendent invitation to merge the teachings from the precepts in our daily life.

Baker’s book consists of two parts. Part 1 is a workbook or study guide for students who will formally participate in jukai—the precepts ceremony—or for anyone who is studying to live by the Buddhist precepts. The book emphasizes practice. Baker writes that the Zen master Dogen “urges us to have our practice to be total, whole, undivided, sincere, authentic from moment to moment.” That means integrating the precepts in our language, thinking, reason, and action.

Part 2 of the book delves deeply into living with the precepts. This part consists of an inquiry, deeply influenced by Dogen’s teachings, to examine the “oneness of Zen and the precepts.” What is this “oneness”? According to Baker, “Dogen’s treatment of ‘suchness’ and the ‘nonduality of duality’” is at the heart of how Zen takes the precepts.

Baker has a unique three-step approach to look at why we fail to live with the precepts. First is to extend the narrow, literal meaning of the precept (“non-stealing doesn’t mean just money!”). The second step is to know ourselves in relation to the precept. It is a practice of no preference, no judgments, no shoulds or shouldn’ts, no ideas of failure. It is just seeing who we are and asking: am I a stealer, killer, or liar? Step 3, a natural outcome of the first two, is how the precepts begin to appear in our actions.

The Buddha taught that the only way we can be free of our sufferings and delusions is to face them and go through them, using them in the process. In the Zen tradition it is said, “If you fall down because of the ground, you must use the ground to get up.”

Baker mentions three things that have influenced her understanding of the precepts. First, being a retired philosophy professor, she has a great interest in languages and how we use words that can point to multiple meanings: “For example, in the case of second precept, non-stealing, we tend right away to reify it into a single meaning—say, ‘not taking what doesn’t belong to me’—when we could be asking, ‘Stealing what? Money? Time? Attention? The last cookie on the plate that doesn’t yet belong to anybody?’” The second thing that influenced her was teaching at a college that strongly emphasizes drawing out the deepest and best in students. Everyone is different, and everyone would relate to the precepts in a unique way. Our work with precepts is intensely personal. Unless we know what we are hanging on to, letting go is not possible.

The third source of Baker’s influence is A.H. Almaas’s psychospiritual Diamond Approach. The first step here is recognizing and truly acknowledging our conditioning without judgment. The second is the value of working with others in this inquiry of who we are. She says, “The Diamond Approach has taught me that learning to voluntarily open up with others is a very effective way to start ending the personal version of distinction between inside and outside, not to mention the self and other, and thus to experience an important aspect of oneness and true freedom.” Each chapter in Baker’s book ends with immensely useful partner or group exercises.

Learning to live with the Buddhist precepts is not just following or obeying some ethical guidelines. As we grow, we transition from good and bad to right and wrong. When we sit for meditation, where does “good and bad” come from? When we see clearly, our relationship with the precepts change. Instead of merely obeying the precepts, we become one with them. It is this level of living that Baker attempts to point out to us. It is the realm of the absolute. Dogen said, “When we sit Zazen, what precept is not observed, what merit is not actualized?”

I went back to read about non-stealing. We steal in so many subtle ways. When I say, “I’ll do this task later,” I am stealing time. When I do something with only a part of myself, I am stealing from the whole. When I am full of expectations, I am stealing from the future and missing the present. Such perspectives trigger a different realization. Zen master Bernie Glassman called these triggers that expand our awareness a “plunge.” Baker says, “Working with the precepts in the way mentioned in this book, and doing so in the presence of others, is a plunge.”

Why don’t we?

Dhananjay Joshi

The reviewer, a professor of statistics, has studied Hindu, Zen, and vipassana meditation for forty years. He reviews regularly for Quest.

Begin Where You Are: Messages of Meaning

As a result of a near death experience, Betty Bland made a critical choice as a young woman to come back to this life and live a life of service to others. Life brought her challenges, joys, defeats, and successes, taking her deeper and deeper into her spiritual journey and leading her eventually to serve as president of the TSA.

Part of the journey was studying and integrating Theosophical ways of living. Her book describes how she made meaning of all this and how important it was for her to share this wisdom with others. She writes with beauty, humor, simplicity, and a fine intelligence.

Betty speaks to the spirit within us. Chapter by chapter, she encourages all of us in our personal lives—and many of us as Theosophists—to “not just keep your nose in a book studying, but to live outwardly, get involved and make what you do count.”

An example of her delightful humor is telling us the secret of life given to her by a spunky earthworm: “Keep wriggling.” This earthworm did not give up but kept wriggling until someone helped him back to his life in the grass. This advice will save your life.

This book needs to be read many times to keep from missing all the words of wisdom embedded in every chapter. Noted in the following paragraphs are key threads that I felt were a particular invitation to choose your pathways in life wisely.

Betty writes that often we are looking for a guidebook or map to guide us in our life journey. We find the writings of Theosophy, and it opens an exciting and new world of understanding, one far grander and more meaningful than we had previously thought. She invites us to use the knowledge and insight gained for practical work in the world through acts of altruism. She cautions us not to get caught in self-absorption through our studies but to balance our lives with service and meditation. If our study is to be useful, she adds, every new understanding should help us discern the real from the unreal.

In another chapter, Betty encourages us to look each day for moments of joy, self-forgetfulness, forgiveness, loving-kindness, or any elevated quality. In order to become the peace that we all long for, it is important to immerse ourselves in what will nurture and encourage it—in what is beautiful and joyful or otherwise uplifts the human spirit.

As Betty notes, “Our consciousness is sticky; things get caught in there, usually in unintended ways. Our minds believe and hold on to what they are fed on a daily basis. And the longer we chew on an idea, the tighter it sticks. It is not easy but we do have the ability to determine the character of our steady diet.”

Another powerful statement in her book reflects a political poster she saw in Germany. It depicted a patch of cracked asphalt with a triumphant blade of green grass pushing its way through into the sunlight. The statement was, “Green breaks through.” Betty describes this powerful image as a metaphor for the spiritual power that is trapped beneath the surface of our minds, waiting for the moment to break forth.

She goes on to say, “Committed intensity and pure intention, aligned with the universal good, bring the waters of unfoldment into the cracks of our consciousness, allowing the spiritual power to blossom forth against all odds.”

Betty also addresses a subject with which many of us struggle: are our helpful intentions for others really helpful? Here is her guidance: “If we don’t say the right words or know the most helpful hopes for the person for whom we are praying, we send a caring vibration through the universe that is carried on the wings of intentionality to help. The power of energy and support gently envelops the targeted recipient with the strength to reassert the natural impulse to wholeness and order. So don’t hesitate to participate.” She encourages us to “tune in to an open, caring concern for your friends, enemies, and strangers all over the world, and nourish those little blades of hope springing up and penetrating the darkness.” She mentions a friend who became willing to receive her prayers for him, saying, “Its strength has the power to break the ravening darkness of the struggles of life and convert it to the greening pastures of hope.” What a powerful description of the importance and benefit of helping with suffering of others!

Throughout the book, Betty shares quotes from H.P. Blavatsky that serve as examples of wisdom. She offers what she has learned throughout her life as inspiration and an invitation to embrace the following charge: “We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological, and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and peaceful global community.”

Marilyn Johnston-Svoboda

Marilyn Johnston-Svoboda, EdD, RN, is a retired nursing professor, currently teaching, mentoring students, and practicing Therapeutic Touch.

Printed in the  Summer 2024  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Keene, Douglas  "Veiwpoint: Imagine That!" Quest 112:3, pg 10

By Douglas Keene
National President

Imagination. What does that bring to mind? Something wonderful, mysterious, spectacular, or escapist? Or possibly a delusion, a trick, wishful thinking, or something false? Like so much else, It depends a good deal on our nature and nurture.

Imagination is often contrasted with the reality that we perceive through our senses, that which we refer to as the “real world.” We can invoke our imagination to reach beyond our senses for creations, relationships, abilities, and a vast array of applications.

H.P. Blavatsky addresses this concept: “Imagination is . . .  one of the strongest elements in human nature, or in the words of Dugald Stewart it ‘is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement . . . Destroy the faculty, and the condition of men will become as stationary as that of brutes.’ It is the best guide of our blind senses, without which the latter could never lead us beyond matter and its illusions. The greatest discoveries of modern science are due to the imaginative faculty of the discoverers” (Blavatsky, Collected Works 12:133‒34).

Although Blavatsky indicates that imagination distinguishes us from the “brutes,” our younger siblings in the animal kingdom also demonstrate creativity, although what type of imagination they might have, we can only speculate.

Some scholars believe that classical mythology is based on a combination of history and imagination, used to tell tales and teach lessons to a preliterate society. The divine and semidivine entities that inhabit these myths, both good and evil, are often thought to be products of imagination, and yet the message they convey is much more tangible.

Imagination, whether waking or sleeping, whether conscious or unconscious, is absolutely essential to creativity. All works of art need to be imagined before they can be manifested, even through more palpable media such as architecture and photography. In order for a work of art to exist, it needs to originate in the mind and imagination of its creator. From the plays of Shakespeare to modern dance to the silicon chip, all phenomena were first created in the human imagination.

Where does this imagination come from? Where does it live? Immanuel Kant has written: “Imagination is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature.” But this view—that imagination is derivative—is classically more Western, especially from the eighteenth century on.

In Theosophy, it is noted that imagination can be generated from images in the astral and mental worlds, which often operate largely independently from the physical. In, Annie Besant writes: “Impressions made on the mental body are more permanent than those made on the astral, and they are consciously reproduced by it. Here memory and the organ of imagination begin, and the latter gradually moulds itself, the images from the outer world working on the matter of the mental body in forming its materials into their own likeness” (The Ancient Wisdom, 2d ed., 154).

Children tend to be particularly imaginative, as they are not yet fully adapted to the physical and social governance that the more mundane, concrete world teaches us. Eleanor Roosevelt is noted to have said, “The greatest gift you can give a child is an imagination.” Indeed children seem to come by imagination naturally if their elders can avoid suppressing it. Theosophy teaches us that children may be more in touch with the astral world and other higher vibrations, and that they gradually lose the ability as they become older and more grounded in the physical dimensions of life.

At times, imagination can be equated with dreaming. This is often in the context of unrealistic expectations, such as ideas that one may become a U.S. senator or one’s team may win the World Series. The response “you must be dreaming” denotes misplaced confidence (at least in the opinion of the listener) regarding the imagined outcome of a particular challenge. But the analogy should not be dismissed too quickly. According to Theosophical teachings, nocturnal dreams may, like the imagination, be rooted in nonphysical aspects of ourselves but are no less real than our day-to-day world, although they are generally less accessible.

There are numerous examples of scientific discoveries that were preceded by vivid dreams. Niels Bohr envisioned the structure of an atom during sleep. James Watson dreamt of a spiral staircase that led to discovery of the double helix of DNA. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was based on elements of his vision during sleep. Mendeleev’s periodic table of the elements was essentially presented to him during a dream. Thomas Edison felt that his creativity could be enhanced by napping. He would intentionally fall asleep with a ball in each hand; when one fell to the floor, it would wake him, and he could more easily recall images from his twilight state, which might lead to a solution for a problem he was working on. More recently, Larry Page had a nocturnal encounter as a student at Stanford University that led to the basic infrastructure for Google.

The well-known Theosophical text At the Feet of the Master, written by a young Jiddu Krishnamurti, was largely given to him by the Master Koot Hoomi during sleep. Charles Leadbeater gives an account of this: “Every night I had to take this boy in his astral body to the house of the Master, that instruction might be given to him. The Master devoted perhaps 15 minutes each night to talking to him, but at the end of each talk He always gathered up the main points of what He had said into a single sentence, or a few sentences, thus making it an easy little summary which was repeated to the boy, so that he learnt it by heart. He remembered that summary in the morning and wrote it down” (Leadbeater, Talks on the Path of Occultism, 1:24).

There is yet another role for imagination: it is needed to advance our own spiritual awareness and unfoldment. If we rely only what is known through our sensations and logic, we are extremely limited in being able to expand, elevate, and apprehend other states of consciousness. We need imagination to lift ourselves beyond the known, to embrace the unseen, and to understand ourselves. We need to have a vision of the universe and our place in it in order to open our higher nature. Our deeper insights may be called imagination initially, but ultimately they lead to recognition of our true being and the unity of all life.

Imagination can be our closest associate and our most enduring friend. We will never outgrow it, we never need to surrender it, and it can never be taken from us. With this faculty, we can envisage new worlds, transport ourselves in time, accomplish great feats, witness historical events, soar to new places, visit lost loved ones, and endless other possibilities. Just imagine.