In his groundbreaking work, Robert Allen restores the image to its rightful place at the heart of the Western esoteric tradition. He argues that the careful relation of image, vision and understanding holds the power to opening the portals to a magickal practice which is both initiatory and transformative. Imago investigates the root of the magical tradition in early Neoplatonism, especially their use of images as magical symbols of transformation and shows how these ideas permeate the practice of radical avant-garde theater artists like August Strindberg and Heiner Müller. Drawing on the work of occultists like Aleister Crowley and Austin Spare as well as poets and radical artists, Robert Allen discusses the awesome power of the images and develops a practical step-by-step guide to vision magick as a foundation for all esoteric practice. Divided into chapters which themselves constitute a journey into how the magickal imagination can be rehabilitated, IMAGO is intended to function as a very real initiation into the nature of the imaginative process itself.