Perspectiva's Substack

There will be a new “It’s not woo if it’s true” instalment shortly. I need a little longer to get a feel for all the ways that Henri Corbin’s Latin coinage of mundus imaginalis (the imaginal realm) is indebted to broader currents of Islamic mysticism, not least Ibn Arabi, that I barely know anything about.

Editor’s note: There is a great long read ahead about unusual and transgressive subject matter. In case the choice of inquiry makes you wonder - are you crazy? - I offer a few introductory thoughts to encourage you to invest the time (half an hour) to read it. Perspectiva has always been about offering permission to reimagine the world.

Force collapses time into impulse and action. And this is where attention, Weil’s great counterweight to force, enters the picture. Attention is not simply noticing. Where force compresses, attention reintroduces duration, hesitation, and moral space. The two are structurally opposed. Force makes persons into things. Attention restores the reality of persons. For Weil, this is close to a spiritual act, a form of grace.

The association of anarchy with social mayhem remains deeply embedded in both the popular and theoretical imagination. Indeed, the stereotypical image of the anarchist as a terrorist or a nihilist and that of the state of anarchy as a condition of disorder and anomia endure.Yet these biased stigmatisations are gradually being eroded.

Beyond Tomorrow: Planning a New Civilisation by Christopher Nye “The eyes of the future are looking back at us ...praying for us to see beyond our own time.” — Terry Tempest Williams In the early summer of 2024, I met Christopher Nye, who had travelled far from his home in what he calls “Geezer Valley”, a retirment community in New Mexico, USA, to attend The Realisation Festival in Dorset.

The birth of the heart as an organ of conscious perception Editor’s note: It is a privilege to offer Perspectiva’s substack to others to publish high quality writing that seems aligned with our aims, and thereby support and inspire the existing and emerging fields we are part of.

People sometimes giggle when I say I’m an anarchist. Sometimes I giggle too to make them feel more comfortable. But this is my belief to my core, now even my life’s purpose. It’s time to declare our utopias. - Carne Ross Why is Perspectiva publishing a book about anarchism? Because it is excellent, timely, and generative. But why anarchism? Well, what do you think anarchism is? I think of chaos, disorder, violence, randomness, and the breakdown of law and order.

We extend a warm welcome to everyone who has joined us over the past few years, and especially if you are hearing from us directly for the first time.

The essence of the following argument is that the reality of the imaginal realm is mostly a reality of inner space that we have lost the collective capacity to perceive.

At this stage in the journey, it feels like time for a name change. I’ve been calling this series an inquiry into ‘ontopoetics’. This conceptual practice has served as the fabled boat to get me across the river, but now I feel I should set it aside, because I am not sure it belongs where I am going. I love that term, ontopoetics. I learned it from Freya Matthews, via Peter Reason, as detailed in On the Intellectual Dignity of Believing We Are in Conversation with the World.