ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on visualization and mental imagery cultivation, using examples from various religious practices and cultures. It then turns to three very different religious traditions in which visualization and mental imagery cultivation are an important part of their practices: Buddhism, Western esotericism and Sufism. By linking entoptic imagery to the symbolic construction of space at Irish Neolithic passage-tombs, Dronfield attempts to move beyond identifying and classifying entoptic imagery as an end itself. Mental imagery cultivation, defined by Noll as ‘the deliberate, repeated induction of enhanced mental imagery’, exists in a wide variety of societies throughout the world. Focusing attention on a mental image of an enlightened being is recommended as a means of developing single-pointed concentration. To facilitate the imaginal process and become proficient at visualization, certain exercises are recommended. Practitioners of the Western esoteric spiritual path believe that knowledge which is normally hidden from humans is accessible if one learns to ‘open the doors in the right way’
