Harry Potter and Visual Journeys
Yesterday afternoon we went with our eldest son to the cinema seeing “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (see also the previous post). Though I found the film was better than the last one, my son said when leaving the cinema: “I had imagined it very differently”.
A book might give you strong inner images. A film is an externalisation of the imagination of the director, the producers and the public expectations. The Harry Potter-film contained quite an intense visual imagination work, elaborated in the high-tech studios.
Outer pictures superimpose themselves on your own imagining. This is what my son felt, and me too. If you get an overload of outer images, they can drown you and block your own process. But they might also be a stimulant, because they are a concretised visualisation. Visualisation is an important tool for the journey inside.
