Seeing With The Mind's Eye: The History, Techniques and Uses of Visualization (Paperback)

by Michael Samuels (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book opens the mind's eye to the inner world - whether as memories, fantasies, dreams, or visions. Over 100 illustrations.

From the Inside Flap
This book opens the mind's eye to the inner world - whether as memories, fantasies, dreams, or visions. Over 100 illustrations.

Product Details

• Paperback: 331 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition. one of 25, 000 edition (October 12, 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394731131
• ISBN-13: 978-0394731131
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #133,411 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful book promoting inner strengths we all possess., February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This book assists the reader in learning about the powers of vision and it's influence over your decision making process. How to identify and respond to images obtained by the physical eye and how to manipulate positive images, produced by the intuitive imaging process of the brain. An excellent book for those who want to be the best they can be. You are what you think you are!

5.0 out of 5 stars An Indepth and Historical Look at Visualization Traditions & Techniques throughout the World, December 19, 2008

By	BYF "Backyard Flix" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

From Preface:

"Visualization, as presented in this book, is a set of concepts and techniques drawn from historical as well as contemporary sources, in every aspect of life, that seeks to reinstate the reader to an understanding of the nature of his visual processes and their importance in his life.

Visualization is the other side of human nature, the primitive darkness, the energizing non-rational flow, the connection to the Source, the artist's inspiration, the path in the right hemisphere of the brain, the Dionysus to civilization's Appolonian rigidity, the door to the fountainhead. Visualization is not just an idea; it is one half of consciousness. It is one way we think, perhaps the more basic way.

This book cannot teach you to visualize. You already do. You may want to rediscover this part of yourself, missing for centuries." - Don Gerrard, Editor

Contents Include:

* Inner and outer - Fantasy and Reality
[Perceptions and images; the duality in experimental psychology; the duality in physics, Carl Jung's psychic reality; The unity in American Indian thought]

* Visual Images and the Word
[Union and separation; The cave paintings, participation mystique, American Indian stories and rituals, Verbal versus visual thought]

* A Brief History of Imagery in Religion, Healing, and Psychology
[Egyptian and Hermetic philosophy; Summarian fertility gods, Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutras': Tantric visualizations, mandalas; Old Testament visualizations, basic Christian visualizations; Shamanistic healing rituals; Egyptian medicine; Paracelsus; Christian Science Healing; 20th C. Research in Psychology, the Image in Psychology; The Image in Psychiatry]

* Varieties of Visualization Experience
[Memory images; Eidetic images, imagination images; Daydreams and fantasy; Hypnagogic and hypnopompic images; Dreams; Visions and hallucinations; After-images, Recurrent images]

* Visualization and Perception
[The physiology of vision: the eye and the brain; Fixed gaze and depth perception; The split brain]

* The Effects of Visualization
[Inner States; One-pointedness of mind; Effects on physiology; subtle body energy; Images as a guide from the unconscious]

* Symbol, Form and Color
[Symbols and Perceptions; Auto symbolizing; Symbols in Visions and Dreams; Tantric Symbols; Synesthesias]

SECTION II: OPENING THE MIND

* Preliminaries
[Relaxation; autosuggestion, concentration, counting breaths; blind sight; memorizing what you see...]

* Visualization Techniques

* The Receptive Place

* Receiving Images

SECTION III: VISIONS OF WHOLENESS

* Daily Life
* Psychology
* Medicine and Healing
[Shamanistic rituals; Eskimo, Navaho; Babylonian healing techniques; Egyptian magic; Greek healing techniques; dreams and temple sleep, idols, excorism, occult healing, paracelsus and Renaissance healing techniques; the placebo effect; taboo death; the physiology of visualization healing; Yogic control of body; bio-feedback, Autogenic therapy; Carl Simonton's use of visualization in treatment of cancer; Receptive visualization and diagnosis; visualization in natural childbirth; releasing worry over disease.]

* Creativity
[Reverie and analysis of the creative act; Imagination and image; The creative characteristics of the visualization state; Sinnott's theory of creativity as an attribute of life; Neurophysiology and creativity; Rugg's theory of creativity; Jung's concept of visionary art; Receptive visualization]

* Parapsychology
[Egyptian magic; Yogic powers; Science and the church; modern parapsychology; psi-fields; Teaching parapsychology skills; Clairvoyance, telepathy, and visualization; J.B. Rhine's research into ESP; The Soal experiments and precognition; psychic reader; using visualization in clairvoyance; out-of-body experiences or astral travel; psychokinesis, experiments and a programmed visualization; psychic healing and visualization]

* Spiritual Life
[Sacred and worldly realities; union separation, and the birth of mysticism; ascetic practices and ecstasy; shamanistic visualization; Jewish Kabbalism and visualization; Christian Gnosticism and visualization; Tantric visualization; The mandala as a visualization device; Tibetan visualization exercises; a diety, the spinal canal, psychic heat, maya, the dream state, death and afterlife, the Chod Rite; Cosmic consciousness]



* Visual Images and the Word