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What ARE the "Perilous Realms," the "Unseen Lands' that Tolkien, Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, C.S. Lewis and Henri Corbin have introduced to Western civilisation over the last century?
What is the difference between wooly-headed daydreaming and actively employed imagination? And why do scientists and authors such as Iain McGilchrist say things such as "fantasy is one thing but imagination is the only chance we have to reach reality. It is not a matter of putting fancy dress versions of the world in front of the world. It is clearing all that away so that for the first time we can see reality for what it is."

This bonus episode begins to introduce material that will be important for understanding Chapters 23 and 24 of the Fat Monk when they appear. The subject matter is a bit more difficult and dense, but well worth the effort (IMHO) of taking slowly and considering over an extended period of time.

Here is a link for those who would like to access the whole of which this episode is merely the first half of a précis.
http://tinyurl.com/publicsenseofnonsense


Another Friend, Haji Adbul Hadi, posted this on FB serendipetously:
This post is probably a bit heavy for FB.  However, as a friend once said, if only one person benefits from your post, then it was worthwhile making.

The Mithāl World, ‘Alam al-Mithāl in Arabic, is the intermediate world - between the soul/spiritual realm and the material/causal world.
It is very refined compared to this world - it does not consist of matter and yet is dimensional.
Ontologically, it is higher - more real - than our world.
There is a pre-established harmony between this world and that world.
It is usual to consider the material world we inhabit as the real one.  We tend to conceive of a ‘spiritual’ world in rather abstract, ethereal terms. But according to the Scottish physicists, Balfour Stewart and P.G Tait, “The very term ‘material world’ is misnomer. 
The world is a spiritual world merely employing matter for its manifestation.”

The French scholar, Henry Corbin, wrote extensively about the Intermediate (or Similitudinary) World. You can read his summary here: https://www.amiscorbin.com/bibliographie/mundus-imaginalis-or-the-imaginary-and-the-imaginal/
He called it the Mundus Imaginalis - but pointed out that this term does not imply it is merely ‘imaginary’.

It is also called the ‘Alam al-Ghayb - the Unseen World - the world outside our perception.

Rumi speaks of this in this passage from his Masnavi:

غیب را ابری و آبی دیگرست

آسمان و آفتابی دیگرست

ناید آن الا که بر خاصان پدید

باقیان فی لبس من خلق جدید

Ghayb rā abrī va ābī dīgar ast
Āsmān va āftāb dīgar ast.
Nāyad ān illā keh bar khāsān pedīd
Bāqīyān fī labs khalqan jadīd.

‘The hidden world has clouds and rain of a different kind
Has a different sky and sun
Made apparent only to the refined -
Those not deceived by the seeming completeness of the ordinary world.’

Another translation has the last couplet as:
‘This is not open to the eye of the ordinary man
Who is deceived by the phantasmagoria of the World.’

These translations omit something important: in the final line, Rumi switches from Persian to Arabic - the final five words - fī labs khalqan jadīd - are actually a quote from the Qur’an - Surah Qaf, Verse 15:
أَفَعَيِينَا بِالْخَلْقِ الْأَوَّلِ بَلْ هُمْ فِي لَبْسٍ مِّنْ خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ
Did the first creation make us weary? And yet they doubt a new creation.      (tr. Khalidi)

khalqan jadīd = new creation

So the meaning of this line is the people referred to are in doubt about the new, or renewing, creation.

If we read that Quranic verse in a linear sense, we might conclude it is referring to a time, after the Day of Judgement, when God will bring about a ne

SHOW NOTES:

Xiaoyao Xingzhe, the self-styled carefree pilgrim, has lived and worked all over the world, having crossed the Gobi in a decrepit jeep, lived with a solitary monk in the mountains of Korea, dined with the family of the last emperor of China, and helped police with their enquiries in Amarillo, Texas.

FAN MAIL is. a new feature now available to leave feedback on episodes, love or hate them.  Look for the button in the top ribbon when you click on “Episodes.”

Visit the Fat Monk Website: https://thefatmonk.net/
for pdfs of all recorded chapters and a few more, as well as other bits of interest on Daoism, Buddhism and Neidan, with an emphasis (but not a limitation) on pre-twentieth century authors such as Huang Yuanji and Li Daochun.

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https://floracarbo.com/