Abstract
This study is entitled 'Acquiring Wisdom through the Imagination.' It is a heuristic inquiry attempting to understand noumenal or spiritual reality as it breaks through from unconscious levels into people's personal lives and stories. This study is therefore problematic, as according to Neo-Kantian philosophers, it is not possible to go beyond the phenomenal "World of Appearances" in our quest for knowledge. However, this study suggests that though science cannot test, measure or verify noumenal reality, it can attempt an understanding. If it were to do so, this is what it might look like. This study is; therefore, a sort of "as if" doctrine that explores the Neo-Kantian debate from a theoretical point of view. But it also provides experiential evidence of an approach to the noumenal via the unconscious mind. This is suggested through field-generated research. Using visualised colour as an imaginal catalyst, I have shown that by turning our observation within, to the innermost reaches of the psyche, we can move from phenomenal to noumenal reality. Indeed, I have suggested that this is an unavoidable act---that inner processes of discovery invariably affect and influence outer processes of discovery. One of the ways in which I have verified this is through matching inner, experienced phenomenon, within the wider field of derived knowledge. I have thus used interpretative frameworks from many paradigms, such as science, transpersonal psychology, stress pathology, spirituality and art. This research is; therefore, a creative synthesis of experiential evidence and philosophical theoretical argument. One of the outcomes of this synthesis is a new Mandala of the Psyche, which I have developed as a visual aid for use in learning cycles and personal development analysis. It suggests that there are different levels of subtle reality and a priori. And it incorporates explicit definitions of intuition and tacit knowing.