“It is quite generally recognized that psychology has remained in the semi-mythological, semi-scholastic period longer than most attempts at scientific formulization. For a long time it has been the “spook science” per se, and the imagination, now analyzed by M. Ribot in such a masterly manner, has been one of the most persistent, apparently real, though very indefinite, of psychological spooks. Whereas people have been accustomed to speak of the imagination as an entity sui generis, as a lofty something found only in long-haired, wild-eyed “geniuses,” constituting indeed the center of a cult, our author, Prometheus-like, has brought it down from the heavens, and has clearly shown that imagination is a function of mind common to all men in some degree, and that it is shown in as highly developed form in commercial leaders and practical inventors as in the most bizarre of romantic idealists. The only difference is that the manifestation is not the same.” – Albert H. N. Baron, in translator’s preface to Essai sur l’imagination créatrice

Latest episodes of the podcast Essay on the Creative Imagination by Théodule Ribot

• 00 – Translator’s and Author’s Prefaces and Introduction – The Motor Nature of the Constructive Imagination
• 01 – First Part: Analysis of the Imagination – Chapter 1 – The Intellectual Factor
• 02 – First Part: Analysis of the Imagination – Chapter 2 – The Emotional Factor
• 03 – First Part: Analysis of the Imagination – Chapter 3 – The Unconscious Factor
• 04 – First Part: Analysis of the Imagination – Chapter 4 – The Organic Conditions of the Imagination
• 05 – First Part: Analysis of the Imagination – Chapter 5 – The Principle of Unity
• 06 – Second Part: The Development of the Imagination – Chapter 1 – Imagination in Animals
• 07 – Second Part: The Development of the Imagination – Chapter 2 – Imagination in the Child
• 08 – Second Part: The Development of the Imagination – Chapter 3 – Primitive Man and the Creation of Myths
• 09 – Second Part: The Development of the Imagination – Chapter 4 – The Higher Forms of Invention
• 10 – Second Part: The Development of the Imagination – Chapter 5 – Law of the Development of the Imagination
• 11 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Preliminary
• 12 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 1 – The Plastic Imagination
• 13 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 2 – The Diffluent Imagination
• 14 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 3 – The Mystic Imagination
• 15 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 4 – The Scientific Imagination
• 16 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 5 – The Practical and Mechanical Imagination
• 17 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 6 – The Commercial Imagination
• 18 – Third Part: The Principal Types of Imagination – Chapter 7- The Utopian Imagination
• 19 – Conclusion: I – The foundations of the creative imagination
• 20 – Conclusion: II – The imaginative type
• 21 – Appendix A – The various forms of inspiration
• 22 – Appendix B – On the nature of the unconscious factor
• 23 – Appendix C – Cosmic and human imagination
• 24 – Appendix D – Evidence in regard to musical imagination
• 25 – Appendix E – The Imaginative Type and Association of Ideas