Mundus Imaginalis
Mundus imaginalis (Latin: “imaginal world”) is Henry Corbin’s term for the intermediate realm between the sensory world and the world of pure intellect — a genuine ontological domain accessible through the disciplined imagination. Corbin coined the term to distinguish this realm from the merely “imaginary” (which implies unreality or fantasy). The mundus imaginalis is not inside the mind; it is a dimension of reality itself, populated by subtle forms, angelic presences, and symbolic realities.
Corbin’s Sources
Corbin developed the concept from Islamic mystical philosophy, particularly the Ishrāqī (“Illuminationist”) tradition of Suhrawardī and the visionary theosophy of Ibn ‘Arabī. These thinkers posited an “eighth climate” beyond the seven geographic climates — a domain of subtle bodies and imaginal forms accessible to the purified heart. This realm is not allegorical or metaphorical but genuinely real, existing independently of any individual consciousness.
The faculty that perceives the mundus imaginalis is himma (active imagination) — not ordinary fantasy but a disciplined, contemplative mode of perception. To enter the imaginal world is not to escape reality but to encounter a deeper, more real dimension of it.
Precision and Caution
Corbin explicitly warned against extending the term “imaginal” beyond its precise schema. As Tom Cheetham quotes him: “if the term is used to apply to anything other than the mundus imaginalis and the imaginal Forms as they are located in the schema of the worlds which necessitate them and legitimize them, there is a great danger that the term will be degraded and its meaning be lost.”
This precision matters because the mundus imaginalis is not simply another name for “the unconscious,” “the imagination,” or “visionary experience.” It is a specific ontological claim: there is a third world, and it is real.
Connections
- Henry Corbin — Coined the term and developed the concept.
- Tom Cheetham — Primary English-language interpreter of Corbin.
- All the World an Icon — Cheetham’s exposition of the mundus imaginalis.
- The Imaginal — Broader term; mundus imaginalis is the precise formulation.
- Ta’wīl — The hermeneutic practice that reveals the imaginal.
- Active Imagination — The practice (himma) that accesses the mundus imaginalis.
- Neoplatonism — Philosophical framework for the imaginal.
- Mysticism — Islamic mysticism is Corbin’s primary source.