Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 40, No.

2, Summer 2001 (䉷 2001)

The Creative
Imagination of the
Sufi Mystic, Ibn ‘Arabi
FREDRICA R. HALLIGAN
ABSTRACT: The 12th –13th century mystic, Ibn ‘Arabi, was known as “the Greatest Master”
among the Sufis. His insights into dreams, visions and prophetic processes may prove enlighten-
ing to our own more secular age. The findings of Carl Jung parallel some of the revelations of the
mystic, but Ibn ‘Arabi goes farther than Jung into the Active Imagination as both conscious—
willed—and spontaneous, autonomous process. Through surrender and annihilation in the Di-
vine, the mystic opens himself to receive theophanies, resulting in a life lived perpetually in
awareness of Divine Presence. Union with the Divine is the aim of the mystic and Ibn ‘Arabi
shows us a detailed account of how that life is experienced.

KEY WORDS: mysticism; Sufism; Jung; Islam.

“My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for

gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba and the tables of
the Tora and the book of the Qur’an.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.”
(Ibn ‘Arabi, cited in Mercer, 1996, p. i)

A vast body of scholarly discourse has been written about Ibn ‘Arabi (1165–
1240 C.E.), an important and complex Sufi mystic. This paper endeavors to
take the flavor of Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought and experience, making it accessible to
the Western non-Islamic spiritual seeker. Coming to this research as a depth
psychologist interested in spiritual issues, I write for the benefit of other psy-
chologists, pastoral counselors and the lay public, who may not have the time
to delve deeply into a tradition other than their own.1

Fredrica R. Halligan, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, who teaches psychology, religion and
pastoral counseling at Fordham University, Blanton Peale Institute, and other training pro-
grams in the New York area. She has a consulting practice in Stamford, CT.

275 䉷 2001 Blanton-Peale Institute

276 Journal of Religion and Health

Active imagination

Albert Einstein wrote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

(cited in Stroud, 1994, p. 1), whereas in the 12th –13th century for Ibn ‘Arabi,
the gnostic was one who knows God, and the method of that intuitive know-
ing is the Active Imagination (AI). Among the Sufis, Ibn ‘Arabi is known as
“the greatest master.” He experienced the Divine as manifesting all around
us. For him the Active Imagination is central for knowing the Divine and the
method of knowing is situated metaphorically at the organ of the heart. To
explicate this point Henry Corbin writes:

“In Ibn ‘Arabi as in Sufism in general, the heart (qalb) is the organ which
produces through knowledge, comprehensive intuition, the gnosis (ma’rifa) of
God and the divine mysteries, in short, the organ of everything connoted by the
term ‘esoteric sciences’. . . . this ‘heart’ is not the conical organ of flesh, situated
on the left side of the chest, although there is a certain connection. Here we have
to do with a ‘subtile physiology’ elaborated ‘on the basis of ascetic, ecstatic and
contemplative experience’ and expressing itself in symbolic language.” (Corbin,
1969, p. 221)

The world of mystery is an intermediate world, neither fully embodied nor

fully soul, neither matter nor spirit, but something—some sacred space—
between the two and partaking of aspects of the two. It is the world of
images, dreams, visions, where the human can be open to receive the the-
ophanies as God choses to send them. In his monumental Book of The-
ophanies, Ibn ‘Arabi describes “the intermediate suprasensory world, ‘alam
al-mithal, where the Active Imagination perceives events, figures, presences
directly, unaided by the senses” (Corbin, p. 43). This is what modern psychol-
ogy would call the function of intuition and the realm of imagery (associated,
according to modern neurosciences, largely with the right hemisphere of the
brain). It is important to realize that Corbin, though well versed in Sufi liter-
ature, is also writing as a modern who is knowledgeable about depth psychol-
ogy.
The two essays that make up the larger portion of Corbin’s Creative Imag-
ination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi were given initially as lectures at the 1955
and 1956 Eranos conferences in Switzerland. Carl Jung attended those con-
ferences and had a long-term, close association with Corbin; there was mu-
tual influence between the two men. Since those two conferences were late in
Jung’s life, we cannot assume they had great impact on the formulation of his
psychological theories, however. Rather, the influence of Jung’s thought un-
doubtedly pervaded Corbin’s way of expressing his insights into the Sufism of
Ibn ‘Arabi. Corbin, an Iranologist, was a thorough scholar and a creative
thinker in his own right. His understanding of Ibn ’Arabi’s Imaginative func-
tion is undoubtedly through personal sensitivity as well as intimate knowl-
edge of the theories of Jung. Corbin talks of Anima and Self, of the path of
Fredrica R. Halligan 277

Individuation and the power of imagery to heal and to guide. These are all
Jungian terms but they also have close affiliation with the concepts of Ibn
‘Arabi. What Jung might call the “Collective Unconscious,” is essentially the
realm of the Active Imagination of Ibn ‘Arabi.
Corbin writes: “. . . we must distinguish between the imaginations that are
premeditated or provoked by conscious process of the mind, and those which
present themselves to the mind spontaneously like dreams (or daydreams)”
(Corbin, 1969, p. 219). The former may be spiritually the starting place where
the aspirant uses conscious process, e.g., to “Worship God as if you saw Him”
(Qur’an, cited in Corbin, p. 231). Thus the imagination is used consciously to
help keep the focus on God. On the other hand, what Ibn ‘Arabi calls the
“autonomous imagination” (Corbin, p. 220) is the special locale of dreams,
fleeting images, and spontaneous visions, which were commonly reported by
the Prophet Muhammad, by many Sufis, and by Ibn ‘Arabi in particular.
Psychologically, it seems clear that anyone has access to conscious imagina-
tion, although some may be more visual than others, and some certainly use
it more creatively. (Auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic and savory senses may
also be related to imaginative experiences.) It is undoubtedly true that all
humans also have access to the autonomous imagination through the experi-
ence of dreaming every night. On the other hand, theophanies, whether
through dreams or waking imagery or full fledged visions, may be more spe-
cific to spiritually oriented persons.2
William Chittick notes that, for Ibn ‘Arabi, imagination is probably the key
mode of knowing when one is perceiving the Self-revelation of God. He writes:

“Unveiling . . . is knowledge that God gives directly to the servants when He lifts
the veil separating Himself from them and ‘opens the door’ to perception of invis-
ible realities. . . . Generally speaking, unveiling is associated with imagination
because it typically occurs through the imaginalization of various entities or re-
alities. In other words, things that are normally inaccessible to sense perception
or to reason are given form by God and then perceived within imagination by
those to whom the door to unseen things has been opened. Unveiling is an every-
day occurrence for prophets. For the friends of God, it is an inheritance from the
prophets. The Folk of Unveiling are the highest ranking friends of God. (Chit-
tick, 1998, p. xxii f.)

Thus for Ibn ‘Arabi, God uses the human faculty of imagination for Self-reve-
lation, entering human consciousness through the “door” of imaginative pro-
cesses. Corbin tells us that “Ibn ‘Arabi divides men into three classes: (a) the
disciples of the science of the heart . . . the mystics, and more particularly
the perfect among the Sufis; (b) the disciples of the rational intellect . . . the
scholastic theologians; (c) simple believer.” (Corbin, p. 230). The Sufis are
disciples of heart; the theologians are disciples of intellect. Never the twain
shall meet. For simple believers, he holds out more hope: “Under normal cir-
cumstances a simple believer can develop into a mystic through spiritual
278 Journal of Religion and Health

training; but between mystics and rational theologians there is an unbridge-

able gulf” (Corbin, p. 230). This statement is not just an attack on his ortho-
dox critics; rather Ibn ‘Arabi has discovered, as have many others of mystic
persuasion, that heavy involvement in rational thought actually blocks the
process of being open to spontaneous imaginal processes. All humans can fall
into the intellectualization trap. When we think we know, we are not open to
receiving revelations. The role of the gnostic, the prophet, or the Sufi is to
temporarily suspend rational judgement in order to perceive through the in-
ner imaginal pathways. “Both simple believers and mystics are people ‘who
lend ear and are eye-witnesses,’ that is, who have direct vision of what they
speak” (Corbin, p. 231).
What Ibn ‘Arabi is saying is that essentially we are all blessed. Blessed by
our imaginative function, we have the potential to receive the theophanies of
God. These glimpses of God manifesting to humanity occur definitely, but
rarely, for ordinary folk. They occur hardly ever, or are ignored by intellec-
tualizers who only believe what the rational intellect dictates. But for the
prophets, the Sufis, the Shi’ite saints, the mystics, the door is more widely
open to receive the frequent glimpses and the revelations of the Divine. Fur-
thermore, one can cooperate with the Divine Intent by making oneself more
capable of receiving these Manifestations. This is done through spiritual
practices, especially through the loving prayer of the heart (himma). Cre-
ativity itself is “attributed to the heart of the Sufi . . . here himma is defined
as the ‘cause’ which leads God to create certain things, though himma
strickly speaking, creates nothing” (Corbin, p. 227). Note the power of prayer!
As Ibn ‘Arabi says, himma is “a hidden potency which is the cause of all
movement and all change in the world” (cited in Corbin, p. 228).
The power of the heart (himma) is found in “the act of meditation, conceiv-
ing, imaging, projecting, ardently desiring—in other words, of having some-
thing in the [Imagination] which is a vital force . . . intention . . . desire . . . ”
(Corbin, p. 222). Accordingly, “the gnostic’s heart is the ‘eye’ by which God
reveals Himself to Himself” (Corbin, p. 224). Mystics of the past and present
era have spoken of the opening of the “eye” deep within the “heart,” by which
a far deeper experience of the Divine can be revealed.
The desire of the heart is what the human brings to the mystic encounter.
The surrender of the ego in a state of annihilation then allows the individual
to let go of the illusion of separateness and to perceive the unity underlying
all life. “The mystic is then the medium, the intermediary, through whom the
divine creative power is expressed and manifested” (Corbin, p. 228). Ibn ‘Ar-
abi is giving repeated hints about how the heart acts as a mirror of the Divine
Being. Even the power to work miracles is centered in the Imaginative func-
tion and in the heart, though this power should be used only as directed: “the
greatest mystics refrained from exerting this power . . . partly because they
know in this world the servant cannot become the Lord” (Corbin, p. 229).
The intimate relationship between matter and spirit occurs primarily in
Fredrica R. Halligan 279

the intermediary realm of Imagination. The flow of energy is bi-directional,

i.e., heavenward and earthward. When the human brings the prayers of the
heart, she or he reaches up, expressing needs and inviting spiritual interven-
tion. On the other hand, when God sends a message, e.g., in the image of an
angel, Spirit is made matter. It is the Imaginal world where these transmuta-
tions of energy occur. Matter becomes Spirit and Spirit becomes matter in the
intermediate world of the active, creative Imagination.
In his notes on Ibn ‘Arabi’s Journey to the Lord of Power, Jili describes this
intermediate world as the “Interval . . . [essentially] the barrier between this
world and the next” (Ibn ‘Arabi, 1989, p. 73) and, as Ibn ‘Arabi himself has
stated it:

“Know that ‘interval’ is an expression for something which separates two other
things, like the dividing line between sun and shade, and as He said—may He
be exalted—concerning the mixture of the two seas, ‘Between them is a barrier
(barzakh) which they cannot cross’ [Koran 55:20]. The meaning of ‘they cannot
cross’ is that they cannot mix one with another because of this partition which
divides them. The sense of sight does not discern it. When suddenly it is per-
ceived, the barrier does not exist. And when the barrier is between the known
and the unknown, the non-existent and the existent, the negated and the af-
firmed, and the rational and the irrational, it is called Interval—and [this Inter-
val] is the imagination. “For if you perceive it—and you are rational—you know
that your vision has encountered an existent thing, while you know unequivo-
cally that it is not a ‘thing’ completely and fundamentally. And what is this
whose ‘thingness’ is affirmed and denied simultaneously? The imagination is not
existent or non-existent, not known or unknown, not negated and not affirmed.
And the human being travels to this reality in his sleep and after his death, and
he sees descriptive qualities as existing embodied forms, and there is no doubt of
that. And the intuitive person sees in his waking state what the sleeper sees in
the state of sleep and the deceased after death.” (Ibn ‘Arabi, 1989, p. 73f)

Here we see Ibn ‘Arabi in colorful language describing his experience of what
is called today “eidetic imagery.” In his efforts at making psychological sense
of his own visions (or visual hallucinations), he recognizes the role of the
Active Imagination. He also recognizes the intermediate realm that is neither
ordinary perception nor yet fully the upper planes of Divine Reality. Ibn ‘Ar-
abi’s word, barzakh is translated into various English words: the Isthmus, the
Interval, the Barrier or Demarcation. Whatever language is used, however,
Ibn ‘Arabi’s main point is that “this kind of perception comes only by a divine
disclosure” (Austin in Ibn ‘Arabi 1980, p. 51). The angel seen, then, is always
a Messenger of God. And God sends the Messenger in whichever form can be
most readily adapted by the consciousness of the particular human receiver.
“Indeed, the capacity to encounter Him . . . is regulated by the form of the
mystic’s own consciousness, for the form of every theophany is correlative to
the form of the consciousness to which it discloses itself. It is by grasping this
280 Journal of Religion and Health

interdependence in each instance that the mystic fulfills the prophetic pre-
cept: ‘Worship God as if you saw Him.’ The vision of the ‘Friends of God,’ as
confirmed for and by the mystic’s ‘Creative Imagination,’ can no longer be
imposed by a collective faith, for it is the vision that corresponds to his funda-
mental and innermost being. This is the whole secret of the ‘theophonic
Prayer’ practiced by Ibn ‘Arabi” (Corbin, p. 232f).
Another way of looking at this intermediate terrain is expressed by Husaini
in his discussion of Ibn ‘Arabi’s Active Imagination:

“The Barzak is a reality which is only inferred. It has no objective reality. It is

like the imaginary line between light and darkness. It is the imaginary de-
markation between being and non-being, between good and evil, between the
known and the unknown. It has no objective reality; it is wholly subjective. It is
into such reality that man relapses in his sleep and after his death.” (Husaini,
1979, p.127)

And further explicating the Barzakh region, as Ibn ‘Arabi sees it, Husaini
continues:

“Whenever two things come together, they require a Barzakh, demarkation.

It is neither of them but has the force of both. “As this demarcation is a thing
which separates the known from the unknown the non-existing from the exist-
ing, the negative from the positive, the inferred from the non-inferred, it is . . .
the Barzakh . . . a metaphysical reality and is nothing but an imagination. . . .
He sees his desires take forms.” (Husaini, p. 130)

In these two short passages we see clues to a world of imaginal reality. Note
that these views are based on Ibn ‘Arabi whose writings predate contempo-
rary psychoanalysis by over six centuries. For example, Freud’s well-known
idea of dreams as wish fulfillment is found here: “He sees his desires take
forms.” And the seminal idea of Jung that psychic energy is found primarily
at the interface of the union of opposites is seen in the whole concept of the
Barzakh as Husaini has described Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought. It is the region where
the opposites meet. The threshold, for Jung, is called the psychoid space and
it is here that: “In certain altered states of consciousness . . . one finds a
subliminal self or subject, an inner figure who is not the ego but shows inten-
tionality and will. The ego can enter into dialogue with this other subper-
sonality” (Stein, 1998, p. 94). For Jung, this figure is called the Self, and the
most usual access to its wisdom is through dreams, although synchronicities
and other “messages” from this inner wisdom are not unusual.

Dreams and visions

Compare these two sayings: “He who knows himself knows his Lord.”(Ibn
‘Arabi quoting the Prophet’s words, cited in Chittick, p. 21) and “. . . piety
Fredrica R. Halligan 281

consists in knowledge of ourselves” (Jung, 1970, p. 480). There is little doubt

that self-knowledge is a necessary forerunner of progress on the psycho-
spiritual path. Carl Jung, dream wizard par excellence of the last century,
developed dream interpretation that explores, first, the personal unconscious,
history and character of the dreamer. But that was not all for Jung. At a
deeper level of the psyche lies the collective unconscious where archetypal
dreams manifest wisdom associated with universal themes. At a still deeper
level, mystical dreams do, on rare occasions, manifest the Divine (Cousins,
1992, p. 131–139). A great deal of data attests to the validity of claims of
mystical experience occurring in dreams.
For the Sufi, dreams as communications from God are part of the Islamic
cultural belief system. The Qur’an lavishes a whole chapter on the life of
Joseph, for example, where the prophetic nature of his dreams is emphasized
(Qur’an XII). Ibn ‘Arabi puts an interesting twist on the Biblical/Quaranic
Joseph-story by pointing out that the brothers’ narcissism was also revealed
in the dream: “Joseph said, ‘I saw eleven stars and the sun and moon prostrat-
ing before me’ . . . the manifestation of his brothers as stars and his father
and aunt as the sun and moon would have been according to their wishes” Ibn
‘Arabi, 1980, p. 122. Emphasis added). He goes on to add, “ Joseph’s percep-
tion [of what he saw] took place through his own imaginative faculty” (Ibn
‘Arabi, p. 122). We have here a bit of the complexity of dream interpretation:
What is symbolic? When does the dream refer to the dreamer? When does the
dream refer to significant others? When is a dream merely wish fulfillment?
What archetypal themes may be present? Is there prophecy in the dream? It
is clear, in this case, the stars, sun and moon are symbolic and, we are told,
Joseph is given the interpretation as an insight from God. This is also cer-
tainly an archetypal dream (as cosmic references and “heavenly bodies” usu-
ally indicate). And surely the situation of sibling rivalry is of archetypal pro-
portions.
Jung would say that approximately twenty percent of dreams may refer to
significant others who are currently involved in the dreamer’s life. Thus Jung
might very well agree with Ibn ‘Arabi in noting that the unconscious (imag-
inative) process of the dreamer had picked up the narcissism, as well as the
competitiveness, in the family system. What is missing in the Bible, the
Qur’an and Ibn ‘Arabi’s interpretation is what modern depth psychology
would explore: both Freud and Jung would look also at Joseph’s own narcis-
sistic desires to be honored, even “worshipped” within this family. Was he,
perchance, a spoiled youngest child who wanted adulation from all the family
to continue? Jung would say that, regardless of other meanings, one hundred
percent of all dreams need to be examined as facets of the dreamer’s own
personality.
But the main point of the Biblical/Quranic version of the Joseph story is
that God reveals his plans, at times, and that dreams are thus sometimes
prophetic. Joseph’s “heavenly bodies worshipping him” dream was of a pro-
282 Journal of Religion and Health

phetic nature in that it accurately foretold the future. So too was the later
dream that he successfully interpreted for Pharaoh, thus saving his own life
and procuring him a place of favor in Pharaoh’s court:

“Joseph! O thou truthful one! Expound for us the seven fat kine which seven
lean were eating and the seven green ears of corn and other (seven) dry, that I
may return unto the people, so that they may know. He said: Ye shall sow seven
years as usual, but that which ye reap, leave it in the ear, all save a little which
ye eat. Then after that will come seven hard years which will devour all that ye
have prepared for them, save a little of that which ye have stored.” (Qur’an, XII:
46–48)

This dream would be categorized, by the Sufi, as one requiring “ ‘imaginative

unveiling’, [i.e., one of] those that are symbolic and thus require interpreta-
tion” (Katz, 1996, p. 214).
Clearly, Joseph was skillful at dream interpretation, and the wisdom of
saving crops from the seven good years proved worthwhile when the seven
lean years came along. This too is an archetypal dream, i.e., the universal
wisdom of saving in times of prosperity is proved appropriate when later
“lean years” arrive.
One of the key characteristics of Islam in general, and Sufism in particular,
is the emphasis on prophecy, with dreams seen as a not atypical way in
which God talks with humanity. In particular, dreams in which the Prophet
Muhammad appears are considered de facto veridical. After all, prophecy is
at the heart of Muslim religion. The entire Qur’an itself is believed to have
been given to the Prophet directly by Allah. So too, Ibn ‘Arabi claims that his
call to write The Bezels of Wisdom was given to him prophetically:

“I saw the Apostle of God in a visitation granted to me. . . . He had in his hand a
book and he said to me, ‘This is the book of The Bezels of Wisdom; take it and
bring it to men that they might benefit from it.’ I said, ‘All obedience is due to
God and His Apostle; it shall be as we are commanded.” (Ibn ‘Arabi, 1980, p. 45)

What was this “visitation”? Was this a dream? A vision? Was he “given” the
whole book? Or was he just commanded to write it, with a general outline
perhaps? These facts are missing, but what remains clear is that Ibn ‘Arabi,
like the Prophet Muhammad before him, felt called to write what he received
and did so for the benefit of humanity. This call to write The Bezels occurred
relatively late in Ibn ‘Arabi’s life. By then he was settled in Damascus and
was practiced at receiving and responding to the Divine whenever he was
given a dream or a vision that proffered directives.
Even early in his life Ibn ‘Arabi was already prone to having mystical,
visionary experiences. While still a young man in Spain he was invited to see
the great Aristotelian scholar, Averroes. The elder master questioned him:
Fredrica R. Halligan 283

“ ‘What manner of solution have you found through divine illumination and in-
spiration? Is it identical with that which we obtain from speculative reflection?’
[Ibn ‘Arabi] replied: ‘Yes and no. Between the yes and the no, spirits take their
flight from their matter, and heads are separated from their bodies.’ Averroes
turned pale. . . .
[Later, Ibn ‘Arabi said] “I wished to have another interview with Averroes. God
in his Mercy caused him to appear to me in an ecstasy . . . in such a form that
between his person and myself there was a light veil. I saw him through the veil,
but he did not see me or know that I was present. He was indeed too absorbed in
his meditation to take notice of me. I said to myself:
His thought does not guide him to the place where I myself am” (Corbin, p. 42).

This early encounter and the visionary experience were among the events
that confirmed, for Ibn ‘Arabi, the superiority of intuitive illumination over
speculative theology.
Another chance mystical encounter that he records in The Futuhat: “On my
return to Seville . . . a complete stranger came to me and recited, word for
word, the poem I had composed [in Tunis], although I had not written it out
for anyone” (Austin, in Ibn ‘Arabi, 1980, p. 4). Was this a visionary character?
An angel perhaps? Was it an instance of thought transference? Or ESP? Was
it synchronicity, as Carl Jung would call it? Certainly it was an event that is
unexplainable by modern science.
At the age of thirty-five Ibn ‘Arabi received a visionary “call” to travel to
the East in the company of a certain man whom he would meet in Fez. Fol-
lowing that directive, he went to Fez, met the individual who had been
named by the vision, and traveled on to Mecca, never again to return to his
native Spain (Austin, in Ibn ‘Arabi 1980, p. 7).
While in Mecca on two occasions Ibn ‘Arabi had visionary experiences while
circumambulating the Ka’aba. One was a vision of the “Eternal Youth” and
the second was a vision in which Ibn ‘Arabi received the epithet of “The Seal
of Muhammadan Sainthood,” being directed at that time to begin writing his
greatest work, The Meccan Revelations (The Futuhat). “Although he produced
many volumes, Ibn ‘Arabi claimed never to have written anything except in
obedience to a divine command” (Harris in Ibn ‘Arabi, 1989, p. 2). Austin
elaborates further, giving us Ibn ‘Arabi’s own description of the visionary-
writing process:

“It is clear from the author of these works himself that his writings are not
simply the result of long mental and intellectual deliberation, but rather that of
inspiration and mystical experiences. . . . He says, ‘In what I have written, I
have never had a set purpose, as other writers. Flashes of divine inspiration
overwhelm me, so that I could only put them from my mind by committing to
paper what they revealed to me. Some works I wrote at the command of God,
sent to me in sleep or through mystical revelations’. . . . For example, he claimed
. . . that The Bezels of Wisdom was all revealed to him in a single dream and
284 Journal of Religion and Health

that, while engaged in writing The Meccan Revelations, he had filled three note-
books a day.” (Austin in Ibn ‘Arabi, 1980, p. 13)

Ibn ‘Arabi may have been born with unusually strong mystic, prophetic
potentials, which were certainly nurtured during his long years of study
among the Sufis and esoteric masters. His ascetic and prayerful practices
undoubtedly prepared him to receive the communications from the Divine
that were visited upon him. By surrender or annihilation of his own will, he
followed the Sufi path: “. . . the mystics, as disciples of the heart, follow the
Prophet’s summons to vision.” (Corbin, p. 232) The mystical path has been
variously described by adepts East and West. Corbin annotates Ibn ‘Arabi’s
approach, which begins with prayer and invocation (himma):

“But there are several degrees in the Presence of the heart . . . from the faith of
simple believers to imaginative Presence . . . to the Prophet’s vision of the angel
Gabriel or Maryam’s vision at the time of the Annunciation, and still higher to
the theophany related in an extraordinary hadith, in which the Prophet tells
how in ecstasy or in a waking dream he saw God, and described the form He
assumed. . . .
“[Then again] The mode of presence conferred by the imaginative power . . . is
by no means an inferior mode or an illusion; it signifies to see directly what
cannot be seen by the senses, to be a truthful witness. The spiritual progression
from the state of simple believers to the mystic state is accomplished through an
increasing capacity for making oneself present to the vision by the Imagination
. . . :progressing from mental vision by typification . . . by way of dream vision
. . . to verification in the station of imaginative witnessing vision [which] . . .
becomes vision of the heart, that is to say, vision through the inner eye . . . which
is the vision of God by Himself, the heart being the organ, the ‘eye’ by which God
sees Himself” (Corbin, p. 231f).

The life of a visionary, it seems, requires total surrender, so that complete

annihilation in the Divine opens the doors to imaginative perception of Di-
vine Realities. This is an inner marriage when the visionary and the Divine
are united and yet still differentiated.
Another common theme that runs repeatedly through the mystical experi-
ence and view of Reality as described by Ibn ‘Arabi is the theme of the union
of opposites. This coniunctio oppositorum is also emphasized by Jung, as nec-
essary for the emergence of the wholeness of Self. For example, there is the
theme of the union of a male mystic with his female (Divine) Beloved. A
powerful encounter with such a female figure, Sophia aeterna, whom Jung
would call “Anima,” had great influence on Ibn ‘Arabi’s writing and on his
experience of Love of the Divine:

“While circumambulating the Temple he improvised aloud certain verses reso-

nant with the melancholy of his doubts. Suddenly there emerged from the shad-
Fredrica R. Halligan 285

ows the feminine Figure who was for him the earthly manifestation of Sophia
aeterna” (Corbin, p. 278).

Although modeled on an actual young Arabic woman he knew, Sophia aeterna

appeared imaginally as a young Greek princess, and she rebuked him for
seeking intellectual answers to questions that were essentially mystical:
“You, the great mystic of your time, I am amazed that you can say such a
thing” (Corbin, p. 143), and she goes on to teach him he must trust the wis-
dom and the illuminations of his heart. Ibn ‘Arabi alludes to this young
woman as an “apparitional Figure” who is “a sublime and divine, essential
and sacrosanct Wisdom [Sophia], which manifested itself visibly to the author
of these poems with such sweetness as to provoke in him joy and happiness,
emotion and delight” (Ibn ‘Arabi cited in Corbin, p. 139). She teaches the
mystic to love, and says Corbin, “As a theophany she is assimilated to the
example of Christ as understood by Ibn ‘Arabi and all the Spirituals of Islam,
namely [as] . . . an ‘angel Christology’ ” (Corbin, p. 141).
Here we have a sacred vision in which a voice is heard. There are other
mystical experiences where a voice is heard but no image seen. One might
wonder: Is this the voice of an angel? A Messenger of God? Ibn ‘Arabi would
interpret it so. Such experiences are spontaneous. Even though the Active
Imagination may be the mechanism for producing these phenomena, they are
autonomous and are not produced by the conscious willing of the subject.
In summarizing the developmental process of these religious experiences, it
appears that the making of a mystic may begin with dreams, progress with
the appearance of dreamlike images that appear fleetingly during wakeful-
ness, then move on into voices in which the Divine commands are sometimes
given quite directly (e.g., go to Fez; meet your companion; then travel East.)
Finally, as the mystic becomes more attuned to subtle messages, more sur-
rendered and more obedient to the Divine Intent, the transmutation of Spirit
into Matter may become increasingly concrete so that visions appear more
full-bodied, more human, more ‘real’ (by ordinary standards.) Whatever the
mechanism, these experiences are usually solitary and would be considered
theophanies. To Ibn ‘Arabi such mystical theophanies would also often be
considered “angelophanies,” i.e., the appearance or vision of an angel who
bears a Message from the Divine. Each angel appears in the guise most suita-
ble, most believable for the recipient. Regardless of appearance, this is the
Angel of the Heart, sent by God in response to the Prayer of the Heart, the
Himma, of the faithful servant of God.
For Ibn ‘Arabi, throughout much of his life, the perfect Messenger was
Khidr, a prophet associated with Elijah. Khidr is “the Verdant One,” con-
nected with the green of Nature and with the spiritual, liturgical color of
Islam. Khidr becomes Ibn ’Arabi’s primary internal Teacher, i.e., he operates
within the realm of the Imagination as ongoing archetypal Messenger. Ibn
‘Arabi was in fact “invested” as a “disciple of Kidhr” which was very signifi-
286 Journal of Religion and Health

cant factor in his spiritual growth and in the manner in which he was viewed
by others. Corbin writes that, “the fact of having Kidhr for a master invests
the disciple, as an individual, with a transcendent, ‘transhistorical’ dimension
. . . it is a personal, direct, and immediate bond with the Godhead” (Corbin,
p.54).
In response to the frequent teachings Ibn ‘Arabi received from Kidhr,
Sophia aeterna and other Messsengers, he wrote over 400 prose pieces, all
skillfully crafted for the benefit of his disciples through the ages. But as his
life progressed, he increasingly turned to poetry to express his most signifi-
cant spiritual insights and experiences. In The Futuhat he records a dream in
which he saw a strange ship, a vessel of stone floating on “a sea of land as
fluid as water” (Ibn ‘Arabi in Mercer, p. 8). He later interpreted this ship
allegorically as the vessel of poetry. Ibn ‘Arabi was not above manipulating
language, using puns and cryptic language to make his subtle points, and in
this case, the point is that poetry is the optimal way to ‘travel’ in the middle
world, as unreasonable as that may seem to the uninitiated observer. Again
he is reminding us that, “the intellect reaches a certain limit, beyond which it
cannot go, while one possessed of inspiration and certainty can proceed be-
yond that limit” (Ibn ‘Arabi, 1980, p. 263).
With his feet firmly planted in the divine milieu, Ibn ‘Arabi developed in
his mystical life to the point where he consciously experienced all life as man-
ifestation of the Divine. By this time, all life was speaking to him, with mes-
sages from the Divine. No longer did he just need to pay attention at night,
merely to interpret the symbolism of his dreams. By this time he saw all of
life as theophany and could interpret even the smallest coincidences as sym-
bolic expressions of the Divine in communication with himself as mystic
lover. This, of course, is Jung’s “synchronicity.” But for Ibn ‘Arabi, night and
day were similar: it seems he was living full-time in mystic love and gnostic
illumination.
In considering the role of prophecy in Ibn ‘Arabi, Izutsu writes clearly of
the relationship, for a prophet, between dreams and waking consciousness. In
this he is referring to Ibn ‘Arabi as one who lives, as well as one who de-
scribes, a prophetic role:

“Prophets are visionaries. By nature they tend to see strange visions which do
not fall within the capacity of an ordinary man. These extraordinary visions are
known as ‘veridical dreams’ . . . and we readily recognize their symbolic nature.
We ordinarily admit without hesitation that a prophet perceives through and
beyond his visions something that is ineffable, something of the true figure of
the Absolute. In truth, however, not only such uncommon visions are symbolic
‘dreams’ for the prophet. To his mind everything he sees, everything with which
he is in contact even in daily life is liable to assume a symbolic character. ‘Every-
thing he perceives in the state of wakefulness is of such a nature, though there
is, certainly, a difference in the states.’ The formal difference between the state
of sleep (in which he sees by his faculty of imagination) and the state of wakeful-
Fredrica R. Halligan 287

ness (in which he perceives things by his senses) is kept intact, yet in both states
the things perceived are equally symbols” (Izutsu, 1983, p.9).

What Ibn ‘Arabi is showing us is that prophecy is an unusual spiritual

state which may be said to be like a dream within a dream. As many mystics
have pointed out, the phenomenal world itself is in truth illusory, not unlike
a dream. Most of us are unaware of life being just ‘a dream,’ but the prophet
is one who perceives unusual symbols in the midst of that general dream/life-
context. Thus waking visions and synchronicities , like dreams, abound with
spiritual meaning. All life is perceived as messages from God, as theophanies.

Notes

1. Inclusive, gender free language, when referring to the Divine and to the human, is used
throughout this paper except where quoting directly from other authors.
2. Hallucinations, in any of the sense modalities but especially auditory, are also characteristic
of certain psychotic populations. See Agosin, 1992, for differentiation of mystical phenomena
and psychotic processes.

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