3. •
• We can imagine ourselves in other
situations
• We can imagine ourselves in other peoples’
shoes (empathy)
• We can imagine places, realities and beings
that we have never physically seen
4. Imagination in our lives
• Our consciousness is always a combination
of direct experience and imagination
• It would be impossible for us to live
without relying on our imagination
• At every moment, we have limited
information about the people and situations
we face; we always “fill the gaps” by using
our imagination
5. Imagination is a creative
activity
All of our GOALS and PLANS are based on
imagining a reality that does not exist, and
acting to turn the imagination into reality: a
new invention, a work of art, an
architectural design, an urban plan, a
scientific experiment, a political revolution, a
novel, a military campaign, a career path...
6. IMAGINATION/FILM/
RELIGION
• In this course, we will use several films
• Not only documentary films about religious
traditions, but well-known feature films.
• These films have implicit spiritual or
religious themes
• In some ways, film can be considered to be
a “religious” activity in contemporary
culture
8. S. Brent Plate, Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World.
London: Wallflower, 2008, p. 1
“The attraction and even promise of the
cinema is the way films offer glimpses into
other worlds, even if for only ninety minutes
at a time.”
9. “We watch, hoping to escape the world we live
in, to find utopian projections for improving
our world or to heed prophetic warnings for
what our world might look like if we do not
change our ways.”
10. “In the theatre we live in one world while
viewing another, catching a glimpse of “what
if”?”
11. “Religion and film are akin. They both function
by recreating the known world and then
presenting that alternative version of the
world to their viewers/worshippers.
Religions and films each create alternative
worlds using the raw materials of space and
time and elements, bending each of them in
new ways and forcing them to fit particular
standards and desires.”
12. Film does this through camera angles and movements,
framing devices, lighting, costume, acting, editing and
other aspects of production. Religions achieve this
through setting apart particular objects and periods
of time and deeming them ‘sacred,’ through
attention to specially charged objects (symbols),
through the telling of stories (myths) and by
gathering people together to focus on some
particular event (ritual).
13. The result of both religion and film is a re-created
world: a world of recreation, a world of fantasy, a
world of ideology, a world we may long to live in or
a world we wish to avoid at all costs. As an
alternative world is presented at the altar and on the
screen, that projected world is connected to the
world of the everyday, and boundaries, to a degree,
become crossable.” (p. 2-3).
14. Rituals and myths are intertwined, setting their
participants within a world that is simultaneously
here and now, just as it is part of an enduring history
that fosters identity and belonging. … myths and
rituals operate like films: they utilise techniques of
framing, thus including some themes, objects and
events, while excluding others; and they serve to
focus the adherent’s attention in ways that invite
humans in to the ritualized world in order to
become participants.
15. Through the very technology of film, a new world is
assembled – through the camera lens and in the
editing room – and then projected onscreen.
Viewers see the world, but see it in entirely new
ways because everyday perceptions of space and
time are altered. Such time and space travel are not
foreign to the procedures of religious
worldmaking… through the re-creation of time and
space, we have a world, created anew.” (Plate, p. 10-
11).
16. Religion is an
imaginative activity
• Imagining a spiritual reality
• Imagining life after death
• Imagining the spiritual and moral implications of our behaviour
• Imagining ideal forms of community
• Imagining the purpose and meaning of human life
• Imagining the ultimate origin and destiny of the universe
17. Religion is a creative
activity
Unlike film, religion is not a 90-minute break
from ordinary life -- rather, it involves
engaging in this imaginative activity in our
life, and bringing that imagination into reality
-- creating our own life and our world.
18. A POINTLESS ISSUE:
• BELIEF vs NON-BELIEF
• DIVIDING THE WORLD INTO TWO
OPPOSING GROUPS
• REFUSAL TO IMAGINE, TO HAVE ANY
“BELIEF”?
• REFUSAL TO IMAGINE ANYTHING OTHER
THAN ONE’S OWN FIXED IMAGINATION
OR “BELIEF”?
19. A BETTER SET OF
QUESTIONS
• How can we learn to imagine different
worlds?
• How can we understand (and imagine!)
other peoples’ spiritual imaginations?
• What is the relationship between our
imagined worlds and the practical world we
live in?
• How do the two worlds adjust to each
other through reflection and experience?
20. • What are the implications and
consequences of different types of spiritual
(and material) imagination?
• What type of spiritual imagination can help
us live a better life and build a better
world?
