{"id":2610,"date":"2026-09-20T04:32:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/?page_id=2610"},"modified":"2026-09-20T04:32:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:32:42","slug":"dialogue-ii-on-imagination-and-the-real","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/the-thothic-dialogues\/dialogue-ii-on-imagination-and-the-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialogue II \u2014 On Imagination and the Real"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n

BOOK I \u2014 THE PREPARATION OF MIND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth, to Andr\u00e9<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> You told me that before a thought is stated, something has already appeared. Where does it appear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> In imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Must it appear as an image?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It may appear as an image, a sound, a movement, a space, an action or a meaning that contains them without showing them separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Why call all of these imagination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Because imagination gives perceptible form to what has not yet become a thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Does imagination produce the knowledge that appears through it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It can produce combinations from what you already possess. But when it participates in Divine Mind, it translates knowledge already present there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Why must Divine knowledge be translated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It has no need of translation for itself. You require it because you know from a particular human centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Then what is whole in Divine Mind enters me as form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It enters your perception as form. Do not mistake the form of its entrance for the extent of what entered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> If my imagination makes the image, is the image not mine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> The form is made in you. It does not follow that you arranged the knowledge disclosed by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> How can the form be mine while its meaning is not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> You may know every letter in a sentence you did not compose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Then the symbols available to me are an alphabet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> And imagination brings that alphabet into relation with knowledge. Sometimes you arrange the letters from memory or desire. Sometimes they translate what your thought did not know beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IV<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> What first tells me that the image translates more than my prior construction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It reveals knowledge you did not arrange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Is surprise enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> No. A disordered mind may also surprise itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> What must the image reveal besides novelty?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> An order you did not place there. It may join what you held apart, disclose a consequence you had not followed, or show that your question excluded its own answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Then what is new is not merely the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Often it is the relation that makes the content knowable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> How shall I know that this order is not an expectation I had concealed from myself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Move what the expectation holds fixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> How?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Change your emotional position. Reverse the relation. Widen the logic through which you interpret it. Speak to the figure instead of deciding beforehand what it means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> What must remain through these changes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Not necessarily the same picture. The relation it revealed must continue to make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Can a true image change, then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> A faithful translation may use another sentence without changing what was said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> If the image is a translation, is it less real than the knowledge behind it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Is a translation unreal because it is not the original speech?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> No. But it may be inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> This is the question you should have asked. The image is real as an occurrence. How much reality its interpretation contains depends upon how much of the knowledge it preserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Does the feeling of reality prove this fidelity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> It proves the intensity with which the image is present. Intensity and fidelity are not the same measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VII<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> If the knowledge is in Divine Mind, why can the image be false?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Because a translation may fail without the source becoming false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> What most fundamentally distorts it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Imbalance among the elemental powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> And expectation, desire and fear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> These act through the powers by which you think, feel and will. Imbalance allows one part of you to speak as if it were the whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VIII<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> How does each power alter what is received?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Fire may receive a meaning and make it immediately a command. Air may explain it before it has been understood. Water may bend it towards desire or fear. Earth may fix a living symbol as a literal fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Are the elements, then, obstacles to knowledge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Without Fire, knowledge would have no force in you; without Air, no distinction; without Water, no living relation; without Earth, no stable form. Error begins when one power claims the whole translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> If the elements are balanced, will imagination become infallible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Balance gives each power its proper part. It does not abolish your human measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> How, then, shall I prepare imagination to translate clearly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> Learn how the four powers live through your bodies, how one conceals another, and how they may be brought into proportion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9:<\/strong> Is this what I must ask next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoth:<\/strong> The next work is to make Fire, Air, Water and Earth one clear human instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u2190 Dialogue I<\/a>   \u00b7   Complete contents<\/a>   \u00b7   Dialogue III \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOK I \u2014 THE PREPARATION OF MIND Thoth, to Andr\u00e9 I Andr\u00e9: You told me that before a thought is stated, something has already appeared. Where does it appear? Thoth: In imagination. Andr\u00e9: Must it appear as an image? Thoth: It may appear as an image, a sound, a movement, a space, an action or …<\/p>\n

Dialogue II \u2014 On Imagination and the Real<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2605,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Andre Consciencia","author_link":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/author\/andrethemagician\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"BOOK I \u2014 THE PREPARATION OF MIND Thoth, to Andr\u00e9 I Andr\u00e9: You told me that before a thought is stated, something has already appeared. Where does it appear? Thoth: In imagination. Andr\u00e9: Must it appear as an image? Thoth: It may appear as an image, a sound, a movement, a space, an action or…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2610\/revisions\/2645"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hermeticmagician.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}