16 SECRETS OF SHAMANISMTod picked up the glider and closed his eyes. In his
imagination he sent that little plane shooting into the sky
and sailing round and round. That hawk was right there
carrying it up higher and higher on his back. From his
heart, Tod felt a rush of warmth and excitement. Opening
his eyes he flung his arm back and let go. The little plane,
catching the breeze, sailed up and away. "Lunchtime!" he
heard his dad call from inside the cottage.
Grampa winked. "Remember now, Tod, it's our little
secret." Tod raced for the door, happy and hungry.What Is Imagination?
A child comes to you with a fantastic story about a purple
polka-dotted monster that comes from the land of the magic
mountains where the sun is pink and the flowers grow to be
as big as houses! You laugh, thinking it's very cute, and say,
"My, what an imagination we have today!" On the other
hand, should adults other than perhaps writers of fairy tales,
science fiction, or children's books, come to you with the
same story, you might view them as being a little strange,
off-beat, or perhaps highly eccentric. Certainly you would
probably not consider them to be within society's norm. At
best, you may consider them to be creative geniuses; at
worst, raving lunatics.
As twentieth-century fact-oriented people, most of us
don't quite know how to understand imagination. On the
one hand, our power to imagine seems to be so illogical
and so irrational, yet our imaginations allow us to realize
our wildest dreams. Incredible feats of technology and ar-
chitecture all began with creative images conceived in the
realms of imagination. We tend to be skeptical of imagina-
tion because we believe that it creates false illusions, yet
we admire its boundless creativity; uncomfortable with our
fear of not being able to control it, we are fascinated with
the visions it offers us. We doubt its usefulness in the face
of logic, yet we delight in its fantastic images. We wish we
had more of it, but regretfully feel that we have lost it
forever to childhood. In all truth, each of us has imagina-
tion and can be highly creative; we're just a little rusty at
it.
For shamans imagination encompasses more than just
brain activity; a vital and principal vehicle, imagination
connects us with the web of power and the spirit in all
things. Imagination in shamanic terms links us with the
spirit world or, as Michael Harner calls it, the world of