Psychreative: Dr. Craig Chalquist, on “Imagination is Alchemy: Fiction for Wisdom and Making Change”
May 8, 2025 at 06:47PM
Description: We tend to think of fiction as something we just make up. Why, then, do so many authors converse with their characters? Why did alchemists of old describe imagination as a medicine? In this presentation we will consider fiction and imagination as sources of knowledge, doorways for deep transformation, and tools for making change in the world, brought about not by pushing and shoving, but by inviting and inspiring. We will also hear about loreology, a methodology for exploring and expanding the guiding fictions by which we navigate in life. Story, fiction, and imagination can also work as a kind of therapy (“lamplighting”) for worldviews that are sometimes more deeply troubled than the people who hold them. We cannot assemble a better world until we can first imagine it.
Bio:
Craig Chalquist, PhD, PhD, is Academic Program Director of Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation at National University. His background is in depth psychology, ecopsychology, philosophy, mythology, and consciousness studies. He is also the author of the near-future Lamplighter Trilogy. Visit his website at Chalquist.com.
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