Imagery allows us to portray human qualities and emotion in a visible format, and at times words are unable to express the things an image can capture. As they say, some images are worth a thousand words.

What is he thinking, looking over the sea of clouds?

Your imagined self, or ‘ego’ is like a collection of images you stumble upon in your life. We’re like children picking shells and stones walking on a beach, collecting the objects that shimmer to us and avoiding the ugly and common, until adulthood where we see ourselves through the things that attract us the form of our inner character, and the things we really desire in life.

Our whole world is interpreted through our inner imagery, and when we combine them with definition and context through words they can craft whole new realities of thought and experience. If someone’s attachment to an image or idea is strong enough, it can cause them to re-orient everything about their life to bring it into reality, such as a strong dream from an ambitious man or fervent loyalty to a cause or person.

Imagery can call people to raise arms, capture loyalty with a common flag, and it can cause them to adapt beliefs about things they’d otherwise not be aware of or concerned with. The language of our emotions is spoken in imagery, and the people who are aware of that are the one-eyed men in a blind world.

Images have also been used to provoke war and feelings of distressed patriotism, winning countless recruits even if the people in question has no knowledge to the real purpose of the war:





War recruitment posters

Putting us into the world of the captured scene, they give us a sense that we are really in the presence of what we’re viewing. Many scientists believe (such as David R. Hamilton PhD) that our minds barely make a distinction between the imagined and the real. Our emotions react to the interpretations and image-bank in our own minds, and we can even learn to manage our emotions by provoking imagery to inspire or calm ourselves at will.

For most, the power of imagery to provoke deep emotion is used mainly to entertain and distract us from our lives, giving us pleasurable outlets and escapes from the stress of the tedious and the mundane. The more stress is built in the life of an individual from their common routine, the more their minds want to find a solace or resting place in the imaginary; as delightful and thrilling as the real is tedious and draining.

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.” – Francis Bacon

Mavel’s “Avengers”

Superheroes are an excellent outlet for the imagination seeking fantasy, the heroic feats and selflessness of a character can be inspiring especially when they overcome hardship and attain mastery. Good characters are built to be ready vessels for the perspective of the audience, allowing the eye of the main character to take the viewer through the crafted world with them and (in good fiction) learn through their actions and mistakes.

All personalities are made of energies which comes from the body and its wiring. All energies seek expression, and images and language serve as vessels for giving them direction and context. If an energy is suppressed for too long, it can ferment and destroy habits and relationship without us knowing at the time.

The Imagination, or birthplace of Images, (Middle English: via Old French from Latin natio(n- ), from nat- ‘born’, from the verb nasci .) is like a wellspring of images for the artist, causing them to always seek some way to express what they see and feel within, if not through imagery then though music or writing. The state of the quality of art is the canary in the coalmine for the health of a culture, as we’re all dependent on finding new ways to explore and contemplate the world.

“Peeling Bodies” – Chris Dyer

“The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.”

– Terrance McKenna

Stay in touch!