Fantasies and Magic — the Beginning

Today we will talk about children's fantasies, about their place in our life, about how to work with them correctly, where problems may be hidden, and how to avoid them. And on the other hand, how to properly develop fantasy in children. In all of our conversations you say that we should tell a child the truth about the reality in which he lives. So how should we relate to fantasies, to the imagination?

Negatively. Because what we call fantasies are either fairy tales, where animals or plants speak in human language, or films in which aliens and the like appear. Perhaps they can be used in some philosophical form or as an allegory, but when we give a child such a picture, when we present life to him in this way in films, games, and plays, he perceives them as real, as serious. It is as if it gets imprinted in his brain, deposited in his memory. He accepts it as the stereotypes of our world; he does not distinguish reality from fantasy, and for him everything is the truth.

But that depends on age.

There are children who are thirty and forty years old... And I mean it seriously: everything a person receives from his environment affects him, and to some extent he perceives it as real phenomena. That is why in upbringing it is forbidden to tell fantasies, phenomena that have no basis in reality.

But you are speaking not about the imagination, but about fantasies, about that which cannot exist in reality.

I want to say that we are not permitted to introduce unreal forms into a child's world.

Forms of thinking, or some nonexistent things?

Yes, and all sorts of images, as if the Sun talks with the Moon, or plants and animals talk with one another. Such things do not happen, and there is no need to present them to a child!

And won't this ruin his whole development?

This is a false development, which leads to various fantasies, to that which does not exist in reality. That is precisely why today we live in illusions, in beliefs; we are afraid of some kinds of mysticism: whether shadows are moving about, or a ghost lives in the house that must be cleansed before we settle in there. We must rise above these notions in which we have been tangled up for thousands of years already.

You are saying that this gives rise to illusions?

It gives rise to such illusions that, without even realizing it ourselves, we take all these things and actions to be reality. In some way, within ourselves, we play with these images and even bring them into our relationships with one another. We see how our children talk, imitating various stage characters. And the same thing happens when you tell a child about how a wolf talks with a sheep, or a person talks with a tree. That is exactly how he perceives it: it seems to him that one can talk with a wolf. He remembers that he was told so. And this remains in the subconscious for his whole life.

And what happens to him when he encounters true reality?

For him true reality does not exist — for him this is the truth, he thinks that everything is exactly so.

But surely he sees that it is not so?! Most five- and six-year-old children actively live in the existing reality, and they have no problem at all in perceiving it.

And yet this contradiction is present in them. I see how people bring their children to the zoo and tell them all this nonsense.

Perhaps this is a kind of disappointment?

It is not a disappointment, but a deception!

From the child's point of view. After all, he expected that the little monkey would talk with him...

As a matter of fact, the monkey seems to be the only one who can talk with us, since it resembles us most of all. But the child sees that hares do not talk, and mice do not help Cinderella. And this is a problem...

And Cinderella herself is a problem.

Why?

Because we must talk with a child about real things, as with an adult. Otherwise it creates all sorts of illusions in him. Have you seen the film "Pretty Woman" (about a prostitute who repeated Cinderella's happy story)? Well, psychologists claim that this film led to a 13% increase in prostitution in Europe among minors.

Because it is such a romantic film!

It is the psychologists who claim that twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls who watched this film saw in it a beautiful and easy path to success. And since the film was extraordinarily popular at that time and was seen by millions of people, it led to such catastrophic consequences. In other words, we must understand that a person perceives everything he is shown as a true story.

At any age?

Even if it is an adult — he too is like a child. You know how adults love to watch cartoons...

It is a great pleasure, like a game...

It is a game. But we do not understand to what degree this builds false notions within us. Only do not think that I want to remove everything beautiful and pleasant from our life. Not at all. But we must find a new fulfillment, one not based on deception.

While preparing for this conversation, I analyzed all these things a little, and it seems to me that today there is a kind of "inflation" of magic in children's fairy tales. You pick up some book, and it suddenly begins to sparkle and shimmer in your hands... This happens on all levels; people talk about miracles all the time. And I think that in this way parents are looking for a way to show a child that he lives in a wonderful world.

We still have much to correct in the transition from the individual, egoistic world to the common, altruistic one...

I want to discuss with you one of the theories of psychology. In many courses I studied that with the help of folk tales one can show all kinds of inner conflicts that are characteristic of absolutely all children. These tales mostly tell how the main hero overcomes various obstacles. And in most cases their hero is an anti-hero — the smallest boy, or the least successful one. But he copes with everything despite the difficulties, and finds a solution. And working with children, I see how this develops them in an indirect way. For now I read them a fairy tale, because I still cannot talk with them about this directly...

But in such a fairy tale there is no deception. Such examples do exist. Well, perhaps almost the same: slightly less successful and outstanding.

But in these fairy tales there are various dragons...

Now, that is no longer good — because it is a fabrication.

That is, you are saying that there must be some kind of boundary...

If this phenomenon does not exist in nature, we are forbidden to use it for educational purposes.

That is, it can be a story about some heroic deed, but...

Say, if it is about a person who overcomes various obstacles on his path and achieves success — then that is fine, as much as you like. We must give a child such examples. But there is no need to bring dragons into it.

But what if we use them as symbols? Say, the dragon personifies some obstacle that is difficult to overcome?

We must completely exclude such examples from upbringing. This leads to "idol worship" — to belief in such forces and images.

What does that mean?

A serpent talks with a person, persuades him to eat an apple from the tree! We are forbidden to present this story to a child in such a form. And if we do read it, then we must immediately explain that it is speaking allegorically about our qualities, which are embedded in our nature. Otherwise he will be left with the notion that this serpent really existed and that it had two legs.

And what about developing creativity in children? After all, for this they must be able to fantasize, to imagine something for themselves.

But imagination is a realistic notion of possible objects or events! I do imagine to myself what may happen. It is a future that will occur in a moment or in a few years. It is what happens in the world. One need only give time for development, and we will arrive at it.

And how, then, should one develop a child's imagination?

One should give him examples from life: "Look, he was small, he grew up and became a pilot. And that one became a great scientist, or an outstanding athlete."

But how can I teach a child to imagine what he has never seen? After all, you say that one must not break away from reality. Creative thinking is based on taking certain templates from this world and building something completely different out of them.

Exactly so!

But how am I to do that if I do not teach a child to step out of stereotypes? Say, there is an animal, and there is a person. I see that a person can talk, and then I join these together. It turns out that an animal, too, can talk.

But that is detached from reality!

Then how am I to teach a child to step out of this stereotyped thinking? To teach him to think not only about what exists in reality, but also about something unreal? After all, even today, when I try to think about a world full of love, and about the connection among everyone, I have to imagine to myself what I have never seen!

There is deception and there is truth. There are things that have no place in our world. An animal is an animal, and a person is a person. And if I go down the path that you propose, then I will simply create several false stories, fairy tales. Whereas if I give a child the correct definitions, then he will indeed imagine real things and develop wonderfully. Otherwise his development will be based on deception.

But when people speak about the real, it all seems somehow gray and boring. It is far more interesting for me to imagine myself flying on a dragon than being a doctor.

That is why we all live in illusions, tangle ourselves up, and are unable to solve a single concrete problem in our lives. We demand certain behavior from one another, from our children, certain actions from the government — sheer illusions. We are not realists! And yet everything is precisely the opposite! Joy and happiness are quite near, but we cannot reach them. Because we do not "intersect" with this, because we act on a plane that is far from reality. We judge ourselves and other people wrongly — our spouses and children, the government, doctors. We look at everyone through our fantasies. So let us cleanse ourselves of illusions and fantasies! And then we will see how the world can be delivered from suffering.

Where does this desire and need to invent, to fantasize, arise in a person?

From ancient cultures.

But aren't fantasies part of a person's natural qualities?

The need to fantasize came to us from our human nature; it helps us develop. But fantasies should be like the vision of a really possible future, not an unattainable one. Today some offer fantasies in order to make money, while others are ready to pay for them in order to switch off from life's problems.

But on the other hand, the capacity of imagination develops a person.

We are arguing only about that which does not exist in nature! We need to draw near to ourselves everything that is useful in nature, and to distance ourselves from everything unreal, because it tangles us up in life.

You said that one of the forms that can be used is allegory. Could you dwell on this in more detail? For example, in that story with Adam, Eve, and the Serpent — is it enough to say that the Serpent is a person's inner voice? And what would you say about the fable of the lion and the mouse? The lion at first disdains her, considering her the weakest of all, but when she saves the lion from the cage, he sees that the mouse, too, is important?

But we are talking about children...

That is, we must not tangle them up?

Yes. These examples can be used as symbols of two forms of nature: the strongest and most cruel (the huge predatory lion) and the weakest (the little mouse), in order to show how the weak one can, after all, turn out to be useful to the strong one. But even this is permissible only in certain cases. I think it is not such a big problem to agree with me, if one begins to relate to life more realistically. The more a person cleanses himself of all kinds of fantasies, the more truly he begins to see his own life. After all, so much can be learned from that which actually exists.

How do you relate to games that develop fantasy and imagination? Such games are very characteristic of children aged four to five. A child imagines himself a policeman, or a doctor, or a firefighter. That is allowed, isn't it?

Undoubtedly, and even if we were to imagine right now that we are riding in a hot-air balloon.

But sometimes they imagine themselves as such victorious heroes, as strongmen. And in that case, too, they imagine some unreal things... And is there any difference between a knight and a superman?

Yes, of course there is a difference. Because knights are known to us from history, whereas supermen do not exist. But to imagine oneself as a hero-superman, who flies over various obstacles or performs some other unreal stunts...

In my opinion, a superman is downright dangerous! There have been cases where people, having watched such films, jumped off rooftops. One of the psychologists, Jung, claimed that on the level of the subconscious there are certain symbols within a person, say, ones personifying strength. And often these are animals. So can a child, while playing, imagine himself, for example, as a lion?

It is undesirable, because in life this does not happen, and it will lead the child once again — as at the beginning of our conversation — to a distorted notion of reality. Recently in Switzerland a grown woman jumped into a pit with polar bears, because since childhood she had considered them kind — after all, they are so fluffy and beautiful, and therefore benevolent. As a result, she was saved by a miracle!

So, let us sum up. We must talk with children only about real things, and this is an ironclad rule. We must tell them only about what can happen in life — everything else distorts a child's perception of reality. It is precisely when we talk with them about what actually exists, and not about what does not, that we thereby open up for them the possibility to deeply know the existing reality. And this is exactly what we miss today, telling them all sorts of tall tales.