The Imagination of Ibn Arabi

The imagination is the place of apparition of spiritual beings, Angels and Spirits, who in it assume the figures and forms of their ‘apparitional forms’ and because in it the pure concepts and sensory data meet and flower into personal figures prepared for the events of spiritual dramas, it is also the place where all ‘divine history’ is accomplished, the stories of the prophets, for example, which have meaning because they are theophanies, whereas on the plane of sensory evidence on which is enacted what we call History, the meaning, that is, the true nature of these stories, which are essentially ‘symbolic stories’ cannot be apprehended.

( from Alone with the Alone by Henry Corbin)

The Imaginal

Here again it would be fitting to illustrate the function of the active Imagination, for this is a science which eludes rational demonstrations and dogmatic theorems alike. Nor should it be condemned as a mere theoretical view. It is not theory; it is an initiation to vision. Is it possible to see without being in the place where one sees? Theophanic visions, mental visions, ecstatic visions in a state of dream or of waking are in themselves penetrations into the world they see.

(from Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi by Henry Corbin pg.93)

The Wine of the Malakut

Henry Corbin writing about the Imaginal:

What is it like to enter into Nakoja-abad (the country of not-where). It is precisely the crossing of this limit, where the pilgrim no longer finds himself in the place, but is himself the place. To leave it (to pass beyond the Ninth Sphere) is to no longer be in the world, but to henceforth have the world in oneself, to be oneself the place where the world is. This is the imaginal space, the space where the active imagination freely manifests its visions and its epics.

(from: The Theme of the Voyage and the Messenger)

The great teachers, the sat gurus, can by their power bring the devotee into those places which are no place but a state of consciousness. I have written about this previously
grail cup
and intimated how that state might incorporate elements of forward time or things we were to come across in the ordinary way far into the future. This is the wine of the malakut (wine of the angelic world) which I only read about decades after the dairyman said to me they have theirs, this is for you*. The chalice that he gave me to drink from was a broad stately one and though I was nicely reared not the usual vessel that I supped from. There was an effect which surprised me as I tipped it; the breadth of it caused the milk to rush precipitously to the bourne of my nose. Chalices are for stately sipping. Some elements of physics must be maintained.

*from A Shiite Liturgy of the Grail by Henry Corbin:
We: You have nourished us through your knowledge of the Malakut, now give us to drink our fill of its brew.
Shakyh Abu/l-Khattab: The wine of the Malakut is for you; the wine of the gates of Hell (Balbut) is for others.