Today I encountered1 the following quote from William Blake:
“The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.”
I shuffled my Tarot deck while contemplating the quote, and drew The Emperor to explore it.
Waite writes of this card:
“Hereof is the lordship of thought rather than of the animal world.”
In that context, I believe that The Emperor does fit with the thought that “The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.”
The Emperor does symbolize secular power, the power of this material world, the embodiment of will.
But what creates this world in which we live but thought, and imagination. Would any technology from the Wheel to the IPhone exist today had it not first been dreamt up within the imagination? Is not the imagination the essential precursor to every human accomplishment?
Can that not be taken much further, because isn’t our reality based upon our thought, our imagination? If we imagine that we will fail in some endeavor, will this prophesy of failure not come true, sooner or later? If we imagine that we will succeed, no matter how many setbacks we encounter, won’t we eventually succeed?
How many imagined human flight, and did not the Wright brothers eventually fly? There were countless setbacks along the way, but so many continued to believe.
Is not imagination the one essential precursor to all human endeavor? For can anything whatsoever be accomplished if it is not imagined first?
If that is indeed the case, then Mr. Blake’s words must ring true, for without imagination, human existence as we know it could not be. To use Waite’s term, we would be living instead in the animal world.
In a real practical way, I think that The Emperor and Mr. Blake are giving us solid advice for the way in which we should live our lives. We must make room for imagination in our days, not allowing the time spent in our heads to be seen as a waste of time, but rather a wellspring from which progress can come. And we must ensure that those who have the most active of imaginations, our children, do not have that essential facet of themselves pushed aside, crushed, within them.
I can't but agree with The Emperor, Mr. Blake and you, man.
Very true, that Maslow Hierarchy thing works both ways round. A vision, inspiration, new idea, might be our best security and sustenance when we don't have the basics to get out of a fix. A song to signify defiance at the very last extremity. A beglamouring. And many an Emperor has been the patron to a struggling inventor or artist who had the ideas, but not the connections or the resources to realize the dream. That Emperor, seated now, and off his horse, and maybe he's got gout now, but he still has dreams, too.