Active Imagination, Extraversion, Cross-Culture: Guan Yin and Chinese Divination

In the Far East, Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, is the one who “listens to the cries of the world”. Depicted by gigantic white statues, she is the feminine personification of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and represents an archetypal figure dear to Chinese women and men. In Hong Kong and in Taipei, Taiwan, she is consulted by throwing two moon blocks or ritual sticks according to the rules of Chinese divination. The goddess is a real presence who acts in a real way: when questioned, she answers, defying a synchronistic and extraverted field of knowledge and meaning. The author highlights the importance of approaching in a cross-cultural, sensitive way, such a slippery cultural phenomenon as the use of divination in that part of China, investigating a possible parallelism between this form of dialogue with the goddess Guan Yin and the Jungian method of active imagination. Developing a cross-cultural sensibility towards Chinese divinatory practices as Chinese clients do in their country, without either prejudicially declaring them superstition or considering them as a form of magic, can have transformative effects both on Eastern and Western imagery. In the case of Chinese people, this sensibility develops the ability to examine, psychologically, a phenomenon whose deeper meaning often remains unconscious. In the case of Westerners, this sensibility creates an experience of active imagination in extraverted form. In both cases, when approached from a Jungian perspective, the Chinese divinatory practice leads to experiencing the transformative reality of the extraverted and synchronistic imaginal action.