Imagination · “Feel It Real”
The Vehement Imagination
Hold one vivid mental image of the desired thing and charge it with vehement affection and fixed desire, so the imagination ‘impresses’ that single form rather than drifting.
Pick one definite image of the aim as already so. Make the thought vehement — full concentration, no drifting. Inflame it with strong desire and conviction. Let the felt image lead body and mood toward the aim; hold it until settled, then act. (The “acts on other bodies” claim is the tradition’s; the working core is fixed, vivid, emotionally intense imagery.)
What it is
Agrippa treats the imagination joined to vehement affection as a genuine operative faculty. In Three Books of Occult Philosophy he argues that “a vehement cogitation, whilest it vehemently moves the species, pictures out the figure of the thing thought on, which they represent in their blood, and the blood impresseth from it self, on the members” — that is, a strong, fixed picturing, animated by strong feeling, leaves an impression.
He gives the period’s stock examples (the longing of a pregnant woman marking the child; fear and desire altering the body) and then makes the larger claim: “the Soul being strongly elevated, and inflamed with a strong imagination, sends forth health or sickness, not only in its proper body, but also in other bodies.” The durable practice under the metaphysics is a single, definite mental image of the aim, held with concentration and charged with vehement desire — not lukewarm daydreaming.
The Method
Faithful to Agrippa’s emphasis that imagination has power only when vehement and fixed:
- Fix one definite image. Choose a single, precise picture of the thing desired as already so — Agrippa’s imagination “pictures out the figure of the thing thought on,” so make it a clear figure, not a mood.
- Make the cogitation vehement. Hold it with full concentration; the power he describes follows the vehemence of the thought, not idle entertaining of it.
- Inflame it with affection. Add strong desire and conviction — “inflamed with a strong imagination.” For Agrippa the affect (the “passion”) is what carries the impression.)
- Let the image lead the body. He holds that “which way soever that imagines, and dreams that it goes, thither doth it lead the body”; allow the felt image to organise posture, mood, and inclination toward the aim.
- Hold, then release into action. Sustain the inflamed image until it feels settled, then return to ordinary judgement and act. Impress once, do not brood endlessly. (Sourcing note: the quoted phrases on vehement cogitation, the inflamed soul, and imagination leading the body are Agrippa’s; the numbered protocol is the faithful practical reading of his doctrine.)
Source & Lineage
From De Occulta Philosophia (drafted c. 1510, printed complete 1533), Book I’s chapters on the passions and power of the imagination (J.F.’s 1651 English translation). Agrippa systematised a Neoplatonic-Hermetic theory of mental causation that flowed into later ceremonial magic and, structurally, into the New Thought claim that a vivid felt image “impresses” mind or substance.
Common refinements
Tepid picturing. Agrippa’s power is in the vehement; a faint, half-hearted image impresses nothing. Intensify the feeling.
- A vague image. He requires a definite “figure”; blurry, shifting pictures dissipate. Make it one clear form.
- Drifting reverie. Fixed desire, not wandering fantasy — keep it single and willed.
- Over-literalising the “other bodies” claim. Use it on your own state and conduct; do not expect to dose another person at a distance.