Journey to the Imaginal Realm
Journey into the Imaginal Realm with Becca Tarnas and I (interview on in my next post) as we discuss her enchanting research into the world of Tolkien’s visionary work and how his process curiously overlaps with Carl Jung’s The Red Book during the same time period.
“Beginning in Dec. 1911, JRR Tolkien began making an unusual series of sketches that he came to call ‘Ishnesses.’ The word Ishness refers to the symbolic and imaginal quality of these drawings. The drawings contain no explanation, just a title that may or may not correspond clearly with the content of the drawings. They vary widely in style and content, but they share in common a raw emotionality evoked by their bold colors, strange shapes, and obscure yet weighty titles. Tolkien made about 20 such visionary drawings during this time... Many of the images depict an entrance, a crossing of a threshold, or some fantastical landscape. Eventually he decided these drawings needed a designated notebook of their own. He inscribed in red ink the title The Book of Ishness. It would be the repository for his symbolic drawings until 1928... One of the earliest of the drawings, is titled simply ‘Before.’ The illustration depicts a dark corridor lit with flaming torches, leading to a gaping, megalithic doorway from which a red glow issues ominously. The dark, oppressive entryway pulls one’s gaze toward the mysterious red glow at the end of the passage. The particular shape of this imposing doorway appears again and again in his later writings and artwork, usually accompanied by descriptions of foreboding, fear, and the unknown. It is a doorway underground, a doorway to the underworld. The drawing ‘Before’ is paired with a following drawing ‘Afterwards,’ which depicts a solitary figure walking out of a doorway of the same shape as in the previous drawing, and heading down a long hall it with torches. Afterwards is sketched in yellows and blues. The coloring greatly contrast with the stark red and black of ‘Before,’ but also conveys a sense of darkness and gloom. Yet it is less foreboding than the previous. Together, the two images appear to symbolize crossing a threshold, entering an underworld imaginal realm.” - Becca Tarnas
Books mentioned:
Journey to the Imaginal Realm by Becca Tarnas
The Red Book by Carl G Jung
