Henry Corbin

The 'imaginal' vocabulary now used freely across esoteric, Jungian and even psychedelic writing is not an ancient category but one scholar's 1964 coinage. It renders ʿālam al-mithāl, a technical term of the Persian philosopher Suhrawardi and the Andalusian mystic Ibn ʿArabī, and Corbin insisted it named a real realm rather than mere fantasy.

Henry Corbin, 'Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal' (French 1964; English, Spring, 1972), rendering the ʿālam al-mithāl of Suhrawardi and Ibn ʿArabī