IMAGINATION

By the end of her Absorbent Mind, the Child can think, judge and reach conclusions. She has developed her Reasoning Mind from orderly impressions she gathered of her environment, and has begun to form and keep abstractions. With these tools, the Child is now moving beyond a purely Sensorial World to explore a Universe of Ideas.

With a cadre of abstractions covering a wide net of impressions—of things and relationships and sequenced events—the Child can begin to construct hypothetical situations in her head by use of which she can delve deeper into the understandings of things. She has moved from an interest in the facts of the World to the exploration of why and how these truths came to be. The Child’s Imagination helps her arrive at conclusions reached solely through the labors of her Reasoning Mind.

“What makes the biological machinery of man so powerful is that it modifies his actions through his imagination. It makes him able to symbolize, to project himself into the consequences of his acts, to conceptualize his plans, and to weigh them, one against another, as a system of values. We as men are unique. We are the social solitaries. We are the creatures who have to create values in order to elucidate our own conduct, so that we learn from it and can direct it into the future.”¹

In this Second Plane, this is the kind of Mind the Child needs to use. When she was born into the World she worked at the insistence of her Human Tendencies to develop the gifts with which she was endowed: her senses, her ability for locomotion, the fine motor control of her hand, her Mathematical Mind. Through repetition of exercise with materials that isolate the essences of her World, she came to be able see something that wasn’t there before. Essence as an idea in itself. An abstraction. And then through repeated discovery of one abstraction after the next, the Child began to put these abstractions together of themselves to use as the pedagogical materials of her Mind. She has what promises to be one of the most powerful tools in her kit, Imagination. Now in the Second Plane, the Child must work to develop this skill for Imagination.

INTELLIGENCE

What is the intellect? The ability to think, the power to get inside and see an inner meaning, is something unique to human beings. The Human Mind searches its environment, and probes it to the core. It rigorously chases after the principles, foundations and axioms of the World, a veritable pack-rat of information that might come in handy some day. This is the Mind of the First Plane Child: a Mind obsessed with building structure and sorting every phenomenon of the World according to it. An Understanding Mind. Through the work the Child does in the First Plane, the Mind begins to be able to draw out conclusions that lie hidden in the impressions it gathers. With the power of this Reasoning Mind, the Child is able to form truths that are not known yet from her impressions of the truths she has known. It is the power for Abstract Thought, and now she is able to produce ideas, form judgements. She begins to build not just knowledge of the World, but notions of reality.

SENSES

Imagination is the ability to conjure material perceptions in the absence of sensorial stimuli. The Imagination can create the impression of any sense and fully recreate of every quality the Mind has experienced, but it needs previous sensorial experience.

In the First Plane of her life, the Child’s Absorbent Mind played the role of garnering the experience her Imagination would use. It’s function was to gather countless impressions of the qualities of the World. The Senses were the tools, guided by the Human Tendencies, that satiated this thirst for knowledge of the Infant Child. The Child is greatly indebted to the work of the Senses, for it was through her senses alone that she was able to explore her environment and form the images that would feed her Imagination. Everything was perceived by her Absorbent Mind, and through it the foundations were formed for an Intellect that would draw information from this data.

But the expressions of the Senses are material and limited, attached to an object or thing. The eye is the window to the World, but it can only conceive colors, never define them. The ear can gather sounds and audio impressions, but cannot interpret them. Taste, Touch and Smell are similarly acquisitive functions. It is the Intellect that interprets.

With development into the Second Plane, the Child became less interested in the factual data of her World. She had gathered facts for six years under the watchful tenure of the Absorbent Mind, but with her Sensitive Periods for the acquisition of impressions now past, she is becoming less interested in information than in using that data constructively. “When we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find them romantic.”² With the Intellect, the Child can abstract qualities from things themselves, creating a universal idea for any time and place that she can use as she will. Children are no longer interested in cold facts because the Imagination can take them much father. If the World is the domain of the First Plane Child, the Universe is opened by the Imagination.

MEMORY

Memory is the faculty of identifiable recall of past experiences. Because the Child’s Mind is now able to store impressions of things for use later, conscious Memory is developed in the Second Plane. Here again, Memory is dependent upon physical understanding: it is based definitively on our past experiences. As the Child matures, however, and abstraction the structure of the Mind, past experiences need not necessarily be anymore purely experiences in the first person. The Child is now able to gather information from related experiences, and the net range of her exploration becomes yet wider. She can gather impressions of the world from books and stories. And she can reverse the process, as well. By understanding the phenomena at play in her world today, the Child can use her understandings to explore the past. Imagination is “a telescope in time.” The same forces of nature have been at work for millions upon millions of years, and the Child can use her Imagination to reconstruct what must have happened before her. “The root from which all knowledge grows lies [in] the ability to draw conclusions from what we see to what we do not see to move our minds in time and space.”³

HEALTHY IMAGINATION

Imagination could be seen in the fantasies of the Young Child. She has long role-played and fancied, but that was from a different angle and of a different purpose of the Imagination of the Second Plane Child. In the first Plane, the Child used her imagination to understand her role as compared to the roles of others she saw around her. It was a tool by which she could continue to find her place in the World, a satisfaction of her Human Tendency for Orientation. She played assumptive games to find the facts of what these different roles were.

True Imagination—the Imagination of the Second Plane Child—is a focused and purposeful activity. The Mind uses its past records to further explore the World. There are three possibilities of the mature Imagination:

• To Gather Images. The Mind collects impressions through the Senses, but it is the Imagination that makes use of them. From a collection of input of the outside world, the Imagination finds its fodder, but it also creates its own data through its own use of that data. When the Child hears someone speak, or when she reads a story, the Imagination is able to extract from them the qualities for which the Mind is forever looking.
• To Apply the Images it has of Reality. The Imagination can use its impressions to consciously classify new data. It can take its impressions to form judgements and make decisions.
• To Invent. Though Man was not endowed with the same gifts and instincts that enabled the other animals to survive, he had a Mind that could reason and imagine. This magic allowed Man to create something entirely new. With his gift of Imagination, Man could apply his observations of Nature in light of his own disadvantages. Whereas an animal might have tusks or claws, Man could make a spear; if rabbit could dig, Man could invent the spade; if a sheep had a layer of wool with which to keep warm, Man could take that wool and make a blanket.

Beyond these possibilities of the Imagination, it is also endowed with two great powers:

• The Power of Reproduction. With no external stimulus, the Imaginative Mind can reproduce faithful representations of worldly facts and qualities. The Mind, through the powers of the Imagination, can picture, as they were, things it has seen before.
• The Power of Creation. Beyond pure reproduction, Imagination can use the impressions in its cache to explore ideas solely within the Mind. From exercises of these pure abstractions, other abstractions may follow, thus the Imagination becomes a progenitor of its own tools: creating altogether new impressions elucidate phenomena to which the child has never been privy.

DREAMS, HALLUCINATIONS & IMAGINATION

Great powers and possibilities are the fruits of an active and focused Imagination, but they take maturity. The First Plane Child imagines of a sort, and this is normal in development, but it is the Second Plane Child who realizes its potential. Similar to the innocent musings of the Young Child, hallucinations and dreams resemble Imagination. Hallucination, though wildly fantastic, are not focused, and so become astray in the inability to distinguish between fact and fantasy. A Child subject to hallucinations has a dissociation from reality, and this is a deviation from Normality. Dreams resemble hallucinations in the fact that they are not in the control of the Mind, but dreams differ in that the Child wakes from them. Both are related to Imagination, but it is only the reasoned, controlled Mind that can truly imagine.

FANTASY & HERO WORSHIP

The Young Child was interested in facts around her. She was interested in the Whos and Whats and Wheres and Whens of the World. She was interested in the New World she was exploring sensorially. The Older Child, on the other hand, is interested in exploring the World that Cannot be Seen. She is interested in the Whys and Hows of the World—the underlying framework of Reason that supports the World. She has a Reasoning Mind in the Second Plane, and will be restless until she achieves Understanding. Fairy tales, allegories, fables, myths and legends are of great interest to the Child because she can see within them, from a different angle, the same underlying precepts she has found in her own World. Conversely, stories that are wildly fantastic also give the Child an example by which she can compare and contrast, thus in this way too can she come to understand the structure of her Real Society. This is useful to the Child in aiding her understanding.

Similarly, the Child exhibits a trait of hero worship. Heroes appeal to the Child’s need for Compassion. She has sensitivities, especially to Justice, and the great stories to which she is attracted give her a distinct sense of this. At this age she is still investigating the different roles she explored in the First Plane, and the Hero is a role model for her. She investigates what sets this person apart in an attempt to understand the Whys and Hows of her place—and other people’s places—in the World. The Child is always seeking clear knowledge by which she can see clear respects; and perhaps by finding a pure example, therein might be found a key to understanding how the Social World works. The World of Justice and Rules, the limits of which the Child is still delineating.

But the Normal Child is able to distinguish between stories and reality, and though she is wholly entertained—and oftentimes completely swept up in—these fables, she can and does always use them as a tool to understand her Waking World.

COSMIC EDUCATION

To aid the Imagination, the Child needs a vision of the Whole. The Child is trying to understand the World, so a vision of the Universe will ignite her Imagination. In a picture of the Universe, the Child will find an answer to the question she never dared to ask: Why did it happen? How did it all come about?

From her eagerness for the Whole, the Child will then find herself irresistibly drawn toward the details. She has spent her formative years developing precisely her abilities of Classification and Organization, and now she will find the exact place for all the categories she created. The Law and Order that were the conditions of the Universe are still at play in the World of the Child, and she will marvel in this. She will be fueled by a burning drive to know ever more when she understands the pure magic of the fact that Creation is still ongoing. That the same Laws that were the guidelines for the formation of the very Universe spawned the directives that lit the path of Living Creatures. Even inanimate objects follow a plan that seems only to have been put into place to bring Creation to this exact moment. The Child will have no choice but to imagine everything that not only had to happen but did happen exactly, everything working together in an elaborate game of give and take to ensure the Balance of Nature, to make everything possible in her World. Humans have come, and Humans have the unique task and opportunity to consciously choose to act on the directives that were inherited by all things in the Universe. With the delicate balance of solids, liquids, gasses, planets, suns, empty space, water, wind, fire, day, night, spring, summer, winter, fall, plants, animals, minerals and everything else besides that had to happen exactly as it did in order that the Child herself was possible, she will begin to see the amazing responsibility she has in having to make that choice. She lives in a World that is a part of a Universe whose whole future depends entirely on the choices she herself makes.

The Eye of the Seeking Spirit is the Imagination.

The Imagination is so vast and great that all aspects of Science and all values of Culture can be presented by sowing seeds of interest in the Child’s fertile Mind.

ROLE OF ADULT

Education must take into consideration the type of Mind the child has at this stage, as with any other. With the Imagination playing crucial role in the Child’s development, it is that sensibility to which the Adult must appeal in this Second Plane and present her new keys for imaginative exploration. The Child’s work through the Senses is no longer enough. The lessons should appeal to the Child’s sense of wonder and evoke the interest that will lead to a life of love for learning that will benefit the Child throughout her life.

With her curiosity piqued, the Child will be naturally lead to an insatiable thirst for understanding, and the Prepared Environment will help her satisfy her questions. The Adult will have given the Child just enough information to spark that interest, and in such a way—with stories and allegory, drama and suspense, personification and magic—that the Child will be drawn in in spite of himself. With the Universe and the story of the way of Humans before him, the Child will have a never-ending storehouse of interest. These are fields of the Spirit, they carry a sense of unification and solidarity, and can only be explored with Imagination. The first lesson, therefore, is not necessarily even to introduce the material, but to open a door through which the Child can enter a new field of exploration.

The Imagination being the driving force behind the Child’s development, Lessons should also take a different tack than they have in the past. In the First Stage it was repeated exercise with a material that promoted understanding in the Child. In the Second Stage, contrarily, the Child must be exposed to a wider range of materials in order to maintain her interest. When a Child is shown something new she gets a chance to figure it out; this is employment for her Mind with Reason and Imagination, and it is what for which the Child longs. But as in the First Plane, there are certain concepts to which the Child must be exposed. By giving her access to many different materials that essentially highlight the same quality, the Child can still receive the repetition she needs for deep understand while at the same time seeing variety.

Going Out

At this Stage, the Child is interested in the World outside of her inclusive environment. She needs a chance to see the reality of the World around her, and she needs to test her interaction within it. The Child should be encouraged to plan and execute trips out into Society for specific purposes—to find information, to buy supplies, for sport. These activities should be in small groups of up to six students so that they can get the chance to work together and strengthen their social cohesion.

It should also be encouraged that the children explore the natural wonders of their World. The same forces that present themselves today were at play in shaping the World at the beginning. Volcanoes erupt today that brought out the very land on which the children walk. Rivers can be seen meandering and cut channels that are actively changing the landscape. The power of Imagination lets the Child see into both the Past and Future, and these discoveries will continue to present to her new keys to Understanding. Present Understanding is the key to understanding the Past, and also the Future.

CODA

“It is along this path of high realities, which can be grasped by hand. If moreover this particular illustration left the older child unmoved, it was not that nothing had the power similarly to touch his imagination, bearing him beyond his little world into wider realms, by great strides into the unknown universe; but ha could not reach such marvels and mysteries without help. It is along this path of high realities, which can be grasped by imagination, that the child is led between the ages of six and twelve. Imaginative vision is quite different from mere perception of an object, for it has no limits. Not only can imagination travel through infinite space, but also through infinite time; we can go backwards through the epochs, and have the vision of the earth as it was, with the creatures that inhabited it. To make it clear whether or not a child has understood, we should see whether he can form a vision of it within the mind, whether he has gone beyond the level of mere understanding.

Human consciousness comes into the world as a flaming ball of imagination. Everything invented by man, physical or mental, is the fruit of someone’s imagination. In the study of history and geography we are helpless without imagination, and when we propose to introduce the universe to the child, what but imagination can be of use to us? I consider it a crime to present such subjects as may be noble and creative aids to the imaginative faculty in such a manner as to deny its use, and on the other hand to require the child to memorize that which he has not been able to visualize. These subjects must be presented so as to touch the imagination of the child, and make him enthusiastic, and then add fuel to the burning fire that has been lit.

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Out aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core. We do not want complacent pupils, but eager ones; we seek to sow life in the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth, mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind, which we find ever ready to receive them, demanding more and more.”⁴

1Bronowski, Jacob. The Visionary Eye.

2Chesterton, Gilbert K. Orthodoxy. Echo Library, Teddington. (p. 35)

3Bronowski, Jacon. Ascent of Man.

4Montessori, Dr. Maria. To Educate the Human Potential. Clio Press, Oxford. 1989. (pp. 10-11)