pOWER OF THE IMAGINATION, KEATS SECRET, by Lundbert, Nov 26

John Lundberg
Keats Secret: the Power of the Imagination.

If you live under a rock like I do, you may have missed out on the phenomenon that is The Secret, an uber-popular film (turned book) by Australian writer and producer Rhonda Byrne. I know, I know. How could I resist opening one of those faux-parchment paperbacks with the "secret" emanating toward me in glossy beams of light? Well, curiosity finally got the better of me this week. If you don't know already, The Secret claims that "people's feelings and thoughts attract real events in the world into their lives; from the workings of the cosmos to interactions among individuals in their physical, emotional, and professional affairs." More simply: if you imagine something you want hard enough, it happens.

In a materialistic twist, the film actually encourages people to use this imaginative power to get rich and collect stuff they want. As Reason's Greg Beato put it, for Secret believers, "The universe is a giant vibrating ATM, ready to shower you with new cars, fine jewelry, unexpected checks in the mail, and magical sunsets." Byrne herself admitted that her inspiration for the film came from a book called The Science of Getting Rich Quick.

No, this is not your daddy's New Age philosophy. I miss those days. When I was in college, a girl approached me at a coffee shop convinced that I had something to tell her. I tried to laugh it off, but she insisted that I was supposed to be some sort of guide. You see, she'd been reading The Celestine Prophecy. I could have given her a dead-serious look and told her to go to Machu Picchu and wait for Miguel, but I ended up offering advice so banal I can't even remember what it was.

Some guru I would be.

Anyway, according to Byrne, the Secret isn't something she invented. It has been known to certain highly successful people throughout history. Her list of "keepers" includes Plato, Einstein and Alexander Graham Bell(!) but is surprisingly bereft of great writers. Honestly, if the guy who may have invented the telephone made the list, how about a poet or two?

In fact, long before Byrne had ever been thought up, the English poet John Keats was exploring the power of the imagination. In a letter to a friend, Keats famously wrote: "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affection and the truth of Imagination--what the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth--whether it existed before or not..." Keats didn't think that the imagination could create, say, money or a woman, but it could create beauty--and he was certain that beauty, even when imagined, is real.

Whether you agree or not, the beauty you imagine can certainly spill into and impact your reality. I experienced this idea firsthand a few years back when I had a dream about a friend of mine. I'd never been attracted to her before, but in the dream I was, and when I woke up I was still attracted. The beauty I'd imagined had changed the way I really felt. We even ended up dating. How'd it go? Let's just say that was the last time I let my imagination set me up.

Keats explores this phenomenon in some of his poems. In "The Eve of St. Agnes," Madeline, a young heroine, is dreaming of her lover Porphyro when the real Porphyro wakes her up. Madeline finds that her imagination has changed the way she feels about the real Porphyro, who's now a little disappointing:

"Ah Porphyro! said she, "but even now


Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear...

How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!"

She implores him to act more like the man she'd been dreaming of:

"Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,

Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!"

In Keats's ballad "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," a traveler comes across a "haggard" and "woe begone" knight, whose reality has been shattered by a beautiful woman who lures men in and traps them. She seems to exist somewhere between reality and a dream:

"I saw pale kings, and princes too,


Pale warriors, death pale were they all;

they cried--La belle dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side."

Why is this important? When we explore how the imagination impacts real life, we explore the potential power of art. Because instead of coming from a dream, couldn't the imaginative spark come from a novel, a poem, or even a movie? It's something to think about. That is, when you're not thinking really hard about the promotion and the Jaguar you want.

For more on Keats, take a look at John Lundberg's Poem of the Week blog

National Story Conference, STORYCON 2007.

STORYCON 2007
A national conference held in California, not just of storytellers, but everyone in the large interdisciplinary field of writers, screen people, etc., experts on Story Creation Techniques, Models, Strategies, Concepts, Application, Philosophy. Discover the power of story-- and how to maximize it in your work. Sponsored by
Rob Kall, StoryCon c/o Futurehealth Inc.
211 N. Sycamore St. Newtown, PA 18940
215-504-1700 EST fax 215-860-5374
rob@storycon.org\

NOTES FROM THE 2007 CONFERENCE AND WEBSITE

STORY existed as an "art" for over 200,000 years, and the Story business may be the world's largest business, far exceeding $250 billion dollars a year, with over 30 million in the USA alone working in the story business. Just the top ten media companies generate $140 billion+ a year). Besides the worlds of entertainment and publishing, story plays a powerful, often central role in psychology, healing, diplomacy, marketing, product development, corporate and organizational leadership, culture and management. Even lawyers use stories to persuade juries.

"Such a powerful economic and cultural force deserves to be treated with as much respect as other fields with equal or lesser influence and power to change the world and people’s lives. . The potential to further tap the power of story (and through it, the power of the human subconscious and all its creativity and passion) is enormous.

"Somewhere in the early 20th century, scientists like Neils Bohr, Max Planck and Albert Einstein started thinking about physics in new ways that created a scientific revolution affecting the furthest ranging corners of most of this planet. A similar evolutionary leap is taking place at the other end of the reality spectrum, in the world of story.

"The art, science and application of story is going through an enormous explosion of model building, exploration, explanation and explication. Writers, particularly screen writers, are taking a varied range of approaches to identifying the elements, dynamics, dimensions, patterns and even formulae which form stories and myths-- what makes them great, what makes them work."

Taken from www.storycon.org, copyright, Ron Kall.