Before Lunik: Imagination and the other side of the Moon

2015 January 19

Richard Baum

 There is something about the Moon that appeals to the romantic inclination of the human psyche to create moments when belief is suspended and strange new roads open to the curious. This intuitively draws one on a journey of exploration as convoluted as a passage through the labyrinths of a maze, except that egress is not to an open sky, but a realm textured by thought. This, of course, is the way of the imagination in its dealings with a jumble of multifarious materials.

At the outset it should be noted this does not mean ‘imaginary’. Rather, in imagination we create images or patterns of belief to comprehend the circumstances of a place or thing, but in those images there is an element of the imaginary. Thus in the imagery of the Moon ‘O’Neill’s bridge’ or the famous ‘city’ or ‘dam’ represent the imaginary element, yet each in itself is an expression of an underlying reality, and a reminder of the subjective nature of initial impressions. The central point to remember here is that before conclusive exploration takes place it is not always possible to separate fact from fiction. The transcendent force of the imagination blends with observation and experience, overshadowing them, confusing the known with the believed, the conjectured, or the desired. No exploratory venture begins without objectives based on the imagined nature and content of that to be investigated…. (continued)
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