All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What

“All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.” Thus spoke Carl Jung, the great explorer of the human soul, whose words echo with both wonder and challenge. In this reflection lies an ancient and eternal truth: that imagination is not a mere indulgence of the idle mind, but the very source of creation, the hidden spring from which all progress and beauty flow. Every monument, every discovery, every melody or invention that has ever graced the world was once a dream, a flicker in the unseen realm of creative fantasy. Jung, that wise physician of the psyche, reminds us that before there was civilization, there was vision; before there was knowledge, there was imagination.

The origin of Jung’s insight lies in his lifelong study of the human mind—not the surface of thought, but its deep and mysterious roots. He saw that within every person dwells a vast inner landscape of symbols, myths, and archetypes—a realm he called the collective unconscious. From this realm, all true creation arises. When he speaks of creative fantasy, he does not mean falsehood or escape, but the sacred faculty by which the unseen becomes visible. To depreciate imagination, Jung warns, is to deny the divine artist that lives within every soul. It is to cut ourselves off from the wellspring of meaning that gives life its shape and color.

From the beginning of history, the ancients understood this power. When the builders of Egypt raised their pyramids, they were guided not by mathematics alone but by imagination—a vision of eternity carved into stone. When the philosophers of Greece sought to understand the cosmos, they did not start with logic but with myth, that poetic language of truth wrapped in wonder. Even the scientist, whom the modern world crowns as the keeper of reason, owes his discoveries to the fantasy of possibility. It was imagination that lifted Newton’s eyes to the apple, and imagination that carried Einstein beyond the confines of time itself. Without creative fantasy, man would still dwell in darkness, scratching symbols upon cave walls.

Consider the story of Leonardo da Vinci, that titan of mind and hand. His notebooks overflowed with designs for machines that would not exist for centuries—flying contraptions, war engines, and devices for the study of stars. His contemporaries saw drawings of impossibility; we, who live in the future he imagined, see the prophecy of imagination fulfilled. What separated Leonardo from the many who merely copied what they saw was his unshakable belief in fantasy as the mother of truth. He gazed at the flight of birds and saw in them not only wings, but the dream of human flight. And though his inventions were not realized in his lifetime, they became the seeds of all that came after. So it is with every visionary soul—what they imagine becomes, in time, the work of all mankind.

But in our modern age, the power of imagination is often misunderstood and diminished. We are taught to value what can be measured and proven, to distrust dreams as impractical, to treat the creative mind as a child’s plaything rather than humanity’s greatest gift. Jung’s question—“What right have we then to depreciate imagination?”—is not rhetorical. It is a rebuke to a world that has forgotten its roots. When we belittle imagination, we belittle the force that built our cities, wrote our scriptures, composed our symphonies, and gave us the courage to reach the stars.

O children of the future, remember this: imagination is not the opposite of reason—it is its companion, its guide, its soul. Without imagination, knowledge is barren, invention is blind, and progress is hollow. To honor imagination is to honor the divine spark within man, the flame that turns thought into creation and dream into destiny. It is not fantasy that misleads us, but fear—the fear of dreaming too boldly, of believing too deeply in the unseen.

Therefore, let this be your teaching: Nurture your imagination as the ancients tended their sacred fires. Dream not only of what is possible, but of what seems impossible, for therein lies the future. Let your work—whether of art, of science, or of spirit—begin always in the fertile soil of creative fantasy. When the world tells you to be practical, be visionary. When it urges you to follow the known path, let your imagination show you the unseen road. For all that man has ever built, and all that he will ever become, begins first as a dream within the heart of imagination—and to cherish that dream is to honor the very essence of being human.