#238 Imaginal Box: wisdom distilled, with Lee Prescott and Sophia Vasiliou.

___

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

___

Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

___

Sophia Vasiliou  0:00  
During that time when the caterpillar is in that chrysalis what's happening inside is absolute chaos. You know, all we see from the outside is just this still rigid structure. But actually the caterpillar is literally melting back into its building blocks. The systems are all breaking down, and it's a cluster of chaos. But there's these small cells that were dormant during the caterpillar phase that are called the imaginal cells or the imaginal discs. And they are genetically identical, but they have the perception of a different way of being. Eventually these imaginal discs cluster together and form groups and so you have a tipping point where the imaginal cells, there's enough of them online to then permeate the rest of what's happening, and upload or download the blueprint of butterfly into the rest of the chaos. And so from the ashes of the caterpillar civilization, the butterfly is able to build itself using the old building blocks.

Agi Keramidas  1:20  
You are listening to personal development mastery podcast where you will find inspirational conversations and actionable takeaways to master yourself and improve your life. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas and my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of successful entrepreneurs, authors, spirituality teachers, thought leaders, people who share their journey milestones and failures for you to be inspired to grow.

Agi Keramidas  1:58  
Today's episode is about distilled wisdom. I speak with the two co founders of imaginal box, which distils the wisdom of the most influential spiritual authors into a digital summary service. So if you consider yourself a seeker, in this age of global awakening, then this episode is a must listen. In today's show, I'm very excited to be joined by Lee Prescott and Sophia Vasiliou. Lee, you are an educator, writers entrepreneur and lifelong seek Yes. With a master's degree in linguistics you are a published poet and you have lived in China and Japan. You have a fascination for the Western esoteric and Hermetic tradition and Eastern mysticism. Sophia you are a Holistic Therapist with 20 plus years experience as a Reiki healer and psychic a practitioner. You have a deep interest in subconscious and conscious liberation. And you are a shamanic practitioner have been trained in the Peruvian Amazon with the Shipibo tribe. You two are the cofounders of imaginal box which distils the wisdom of the most impactful and influential spiritual authors into a digital summary service. Lee and Sophia, welcome to the show. I'm delighted and excited to speak with you and Sofia. Also, I welcome you to the podcast for the second time. It's such a pleasure.

Sophia Vasiliou  3:47  
Thank you so much. It's really nice to be back.

Lee Prescott  3:49  
Thank you very much. Nice to be here. 

Agi Keramidas  3:52  
How long have you guys known each other?

Lee Prescott  3:55  
Yeah, it must have been must have been 20 or tuck? Yeah, just just approaching 20. Yeah, we met. We both went to Birmingham University or the University of Birmingham.

Agi Keramidas  4:05  
I see. In my introduction, just a moment ago, I gave, you know a couple of sentences of have you I would like to also ask you to do an introduction but with a little twist. So rather than introduce yourself, I would like you to share a few sentences about the other person. I think that will be interesting and fun. Also, so Sofia, would you like to start first?

Sophia Vasiliou  4:36  
Yes. So going back to our origins, meeting the at university. The thing that I like most about her was his radical way of thinking and just face so far outside of just sort of normal people's ideas and the best part of our friendship was we would help each other reformat information about the world. And sort of going through that, with what happens sort of early happen for me in my early teens, at least sort of putting the world to write, and sort of re educating each other about how the world works. And that was the biggest part of my friendship with Lee back then. It's something that's kind of continued through our lives. And so there's someone who I can bounce any idea of, out of, and not really feel like, I have to worry about what I say, you know, we can just go anywhere about anything. And, and come to some kind of same understanding about the universe. And so yeah, brilliant thinker. perseverant. And just wonderful human.

Lee Prescott  5:55  
Oh, wow. Nice. Nice. Nice to hear that. Okay, so how would I do the same thing for Sofia? Well, again, yeah, going back to like the the origin maybe. So when we met at university, I was, I was aware, even then that that the name Sofia means wisdom. And that's that, that basically some syrup, basically, I don't need, I don't even need two sentences, I just need that one word, which actually is her name. And yeah, like she said, she's a person who has just been a very fundamental part of, of my life in one way or another over, you know, I mean, sometimes we wouldn't talk for a while, just because we go off and do different things. And then we'd come back, click back in. And at just very various junctures of my life, she's always kind of been there to offer me, wisdom, direction, compassion, and all these things that have basically just contributed to who I am.

Agi Keramidas  7:06  
I like very much, and I find it intriguing how your background, so you're from what you are interested in, in disciples of if I can use that phrase, like in in two different sides of the world. One is in the room, the the Amazon, the other in China, Japan, and Eastern. So it's, it's incredible to, to see this, you know, different aspects of the journey, you know, merging and connecting. And I wanted to ask about the inception, let's start with talking about the imaginal box, what you are guys doing, and it is something that I also find very useful and intriguing myself. So shall we start about how the idea of it goes created, I find it all always interesting to see that, you know, that it's usually a spark of inspiration or something like that. So tell me how that was created for you.

Lee Prescott  8:14  
So, as you said, in the introductions, those two fears, you know, last 20 years of her life of being kind of quite explicitly in kind of spiritual, or, you know, healing arenas was mine, I went more, at least in my work life, a slightly more conventional route. So I was doing things in education and kind of starting my own business, as well. And that was all very well and good. Until COVID-19 happened until, you know, January 2020, happened when the company which I'd set up with an education consultancy basically was dead in the water, because there was no international travel, and people couldn't even go to school. So that's when I kind of like most people, I went into a bit of a mode of reflection and asking myself, What the hell is this all about? What's going on? What's you know, how, what's going on, with me with the world, my relationship to the world? Because obviously, the I think the pandemic made people insecure and ask a lot of these reflective questions. So when I thought to myself, how am I going to respond to the pandemic? I kind of went into a series of meditations and practices, I suppose, kind of rituals kind of seeking an answer to the question of where I see myself going, you know, post pandemic and for the rest of my life, and that's really when the idea of imaginal box kind of just popped into my head, because I always find that they again When when I used to write more often, if I wanted an idea for a story, I would just ask the universe for an idea for a story. And, you know, at some point, you know, if you could could could could be hours could be weeks later, an idea would just essentially pop into my head, essentially, fully formed. And I'm like, wow, okay, there's the, the inspiration, you know, the breathing into of, you know, the spirit. And that's what imaginal box was. And I was very, you know, animated and electrified by the idea. Because, as we just said, about severe and our kind of mutual kind of interests and mutual kind of the way our friendship has been built on these kind of very expansive metaphysical conversations over the last 20 years, I kind of felt that during the pandemic, a lot of people did seem to be asking themselves these kinds of spiritual questions for the first time maybe, and moving into, you know, questioning reality questioning who they are. And that's when I just thought that a service which distils that wisdom, which is the tagline wisdom distilled, would be a way of helping people start either starting out on that journey, or people who have already gone a little bit away down a spiritual path, but you know, want to explore a different aspects. So maybe they're very good on shamanism, but they're not very good on alchemy, or Gnosticism. So, when I had that idea, I thought, Who do I want to help me distil the wisdom of the ages. And then there was only really one person in my mind, and it was severe. So then I contacted Sofia, pitched her the concept. And she said that it's something that she'd love to be a part of. And here we are today. And like I said, I mean that the idea has evolved a little bit since then, the idea of it being a kind of digital summary, service. But it's kind of like a, we call it a box, because box concepts are very hot now. But it's a digital box. So people receive their summaries in audio, and ebook. So there's a ebook and an audio for each book, and you get four books. So people can basically receive the box to their email, listen to the summaries, and then go on go on their spiritual journey and saving time in the process, which is, which is the key point because we don't we don't have all the time that we want to read all the books that we want.

Agi Keramidas  12:40  
I was about to, to make a point of that industry. And maybe Sofia wants to add to what you just said. But my question is really, who and you lay you hinted that already or you mentioned it? Who is the person that would really find the benefit from this from this kind of content? And, Sophie, if you want to add to what Lee was saying,

Sophia Vasiliou  13:10  
Yeah, adding to the origin story. The cool thing about imaginal box is that, you know, as it's developed over the last couple of years, you know, we tried to launch at the end of 2020, and realised it was way too premature. And then sort of over the last year and a half, we've really sort of refined and upgraded the original idea. So now it's a lot more robust, because we've got the actual box itself, which is for books around a theme, and a meditation, linking all of that, because one thing that I was really keen to have as part of the product was the integration side. And part of my work is helping people integrate their ayahuasca experiences. And the thing I've noticed is, people can go away, go to the jungle, or go to a ceremony more locally, and have these amazing experiences, they come home. And then everything's the same after a month, because they haven't done the work to really get into what happened during their time with the iOS. And for me, reading can be the same thing. You read all these amazing books, you feel that high, you feel that glow, you're really motivated. And then you come back into your sort of normal awareness and you start applying things maybe. And it's great. If you do that, then you start to actually change but if you don't, then you don't and it's just a great idea. And you have to keep on going back to the material or keep on reading more things. And so part of every summary became the action steps or imaginal steps as we call them. So they're just small pieces of advice in each summary to say, hey, why don't you try doing this. And it might be just a thought experiment or a simple thing to add to your meditation practice. But it became really important to add these integrative processes. And then that became also meditations that link to each book in the box, which sort of add ons as it were. And so as we've grown, the idea, it sort of developed into this much more beautiful thing that we just feel is really robust and really helpful. And for the people who would benefit from this. You know, both of us have quite a big background, in a lot of the topics, we're discussing the boxes, not to say that we're experts, but we have sort of good worldly knowledge. And so we feel that right from someone right in the beginning of their spiritual journey, who doesn't really know anything, they've heard some good names, good titles, but don't really know where to start, you know, they're just those last people. What we've done is we've linked everything around a theme. So there's sort of like a mini course element in each box, to help people see different points of view on a similar topic. And that could be from you know, just things that shift your paradigm. So that would be the current box, you know, things that push you into a completely different way of understanding the world and see how it fits, you know, some things people will like, and some things people won't. We think, from the beginner to people who have been on this path for a while, you know, because we're not doing a straight summary. You know, we are adding our own flavour, we've got exploration points, where we sort of look at an idea and say, Hey, by the way, there's other things that you can explore this topic, and sort of point people in different directions so they can explore more deeply around what someone else has written. And what the imaginal steps, we just think, you know, people in all places on their journey could really benefit from just having a third perspective on on a book.

Lee Prescott  17:09  
Yeah, just to jump in there as well. Sorry. Okay. Because yeah, so that's, that's perfect. looks the way, the way each summary is composed is yeah, like, as Sofia said. So there, we summarise the book itself. So we kind of distil it down into approximately 10 key points that we call the imaginal. idea. But in addition, we add the action points, which likes to fear studies where people can start taking that knowledge and actually start applying it to their life and actually start, you know, experiencing what it means to really apply that knowledge. And then there are the exploration points, and the exploration points or something where that's, that's really severe, and like my opportunity to kind of flex our kind of editorial muscle a little bit. Because, again, like sometimes you can read a book, and when you read the book, it feels like the book lives in isolation. But that's obviously never the case. Like that book is inspired by other books and is in like, is similar to other ideas by other writers using different terminology. So in the exploration points, what we do is we contextualise those points. And again, to be honest, some points, like maybe a book was written 100 years ago. So for example, in the current month paradigms, we've got a book called the chi balyan, that without giving too much away, it's supposed to be a little surprise, but and that was written like 100. And, you know, it was written at the end of the 19th century. So there are aspects to that book, which obviously, a modern reader won't agree with. And when you're reading a book, when you're reading a book, which everybody says, this is a brilliant book, this is a wise book. And when you're reading it, you're like, I don't know about that. Or that doesn't really chime with me. And you can feel guilty about it. Like oh my god, I'm not getting this wise, you know, book which everybody raves about, is there's something wrong with me, am I not? Why am I not there yet? When all it is, is the language and the kind of conceptual framework that was very common in the 19th century, obviously, is 100 years out of date. So in those exploration points, we kind of contextualise things we say this is what was common then. It's it's similar now here, but also we've kind of it's not really relevant. Now. This bit is a bit out of date. So it helps kind of contextualise the book to, again to distil to distil the wisdom so we're not just taking the book as the book. We're really kind of trying to get behind the book to the wisdom which the book He's trying to convey because obviously any, any any book is really limited by the language of the writer and the time in which it was written. So we're trying to get behind that to the timeless wisdom which the book is trying to convey.

Agi Keramidas  20:17  
Thank you for that this what you said about distilling the wisdom that is, for me, what sticks out the most, because there is we live in a world that there is information as much as the never has been, we're drowning in information. So it's not information, which is the problem. But wisdom is something that we starve on. And maybe because we have so much information, how to filter it out, there are 1000s, millions of incredible books that have been written. But one, it's impossible even if you're the most dedicated to the in the world, you can't really even that's a fragment of this books and read it into what Turley was saying about the, you know, the restrictions of the language of the author or the time that the book was written, I find that extremely useful as as a method of presentation, and you said that there are many things that came to my mind when you were saying it was, one of them was the integration aspect, I think that is extremely important with because this kinds of book have a message that needs to be in some way implemented. It's not just about reading it and being entertained. That's nice if it happens, but this is not the point of this book. So it is not, we will send information, the point is transformation. So the only way to transform is to do something, and unless you actually take the time to do it. And that's why I think it's very valuable. This action points, this distilled wisdom, the integration that Sophia said that one can actually say, okay, I get it, this resonates with me, I read it. And I can also do this on a day to day basis and improve my life, I think that is what is lacking, to a big extent to this overwhelm of information is just there without any way of transforming it into something that we can actually implement and make a difference. So these were some of the things that came to my mind with what you were saying. And there is also another thing that I think it's very important, I would like you both your thoughts on that, that, from what I've seen, what you do is not just a summary, a bunch of summaries of books, even with with what you said about bringing your unique perspective and contextualise it. But even more than that you have like a topic or a theme, or in its box show it deals with a specific area. So that makes it even more relevant and relative and someone can really dig deeper into something that resonates. So I would love to hear your comments on this. You know, like the mini course that each of the boxes says

Lee Prescott  23:46  
So can I just step in a little bit there and then I'll hand over to stuff on this. So just on a very practical aspect. Again, when I was kind of really brainstorming the idea when I had the initial kind of inspired nugget back at the beginning of the pandemic, like one of the things I was thinking was I was inspired a lot by a book summary services for example like Blinkist and again great to great resource so you sign up and then you've got access to you know 1000s of of very high quality book summaries but But whereas something like Blinkist and things like it they tend to focus more on like you know I wouldn't say they focus on the spiritual side they focus on like leadership or CEO stuff CEO mindset stuff personal development Yeah, exactly. And that's all very good but when I went they do have like a religion and spirituality section but I thought this is weak I was like wow, this is this really doesn't this is not what I want what I want so that's why I thought okay, maybe maybe imaginable, you know, without the box at the time maybe imaginable idea marginal be Isn't this concept would be like a spiritual Blinkist. But then one of the things which I did when I was reading about some research, which is that there's a huge drop off point. So people sign up to something like Blinkist, or any any of the others, it's just in my mind that that's, that's, that's the main one because it's one of the biggest. And actually, it's a huge drop off. So people go in and they see the website, they think, Wow, this is amazing, wow, I've got access to like, all the libraries that I could I could think of, they sign up, and then there's actually a huge drop off rate in in, in the amount of web, the times that the person visits the website, because once you've paid your money, it's like you don't you feel it's always gonna be there. So you actually don't go there anymore. So I wanted to counter that. Because again, like you said, we want to take this wisdom and give it to people in a way that they can use it in their life. So that's where we had the idea of the box concept. So it's a discrete amount of books per month. So you get four books per month, and the free meditation and the free podcast discussion with me in Sofia. But the idea is that you get these four books based on a theme. And you have the time to really let those books sink into you and saturate you with that, that wisdom. So you're not just constantly overwhelmed by Oh, but I could check this one, oh, I could check this one. And I could check this one, which is what you get when you get a subscription, basically to a database of summaries. So we found that by limiting the amount per month, that's more effective in terms of spiritual development, it's not just life hacks, like maybe you could read like a CEO mindset book, and it just gives you an idea how to, you know, make the morning meeting more efficient, spiritual wisdom, you know, it's deeper, it's really aiming to restructure the way a person perceives themselves in the world, you need time for that knowledge to sink in. You know, so that's why we said, these are four books each month on a theme, and you have access to pass books. But for that month, what we really ask of, you know, one of our customers is, take the time to sit with that month's books, in order to get, you know, in order to imbibe the wisdom from those books, and then sorry, sorry, you were gonna say something about the actual idea of the theme, suddenly.

Sophia Vasiliou  27:38  
I like what you said there in that limitation and that, yeah, that bringing it down to their a, there's no choice because we're presenting you the information and the there's this, this limitation of what you're getting in a month, and actually sitting with it, I quite like that. And the themes. Again, the kind of a bit of a matter of inspiration, or we use as one key word for the theme, and we free flow on that. And initially, back in 2020, we use the astrological calendar as an inspiration. So what are the themes of that particular month where this is going to be the live box? What sort of key themes are there with that star sign? And we've pared it back a little bit to sort of, we're still working with those energies, but it's not as overt or explicit anymore. But that was sort of the initial inspiration for each thing, that so once that we've had already on the site of bridges, which we were thinking, you know, as the first place where people come to spiritual information, we need to build various bridges. And so there's one bridge between the head and the heart, which is sort of linking the the way the mind works with this sort of, you know, some people in ancient Egypt, you know, that was the seat of the seat of the mind was the heart. Now we'd sort of more call it the seat of the soul, or where the place where intuition comes from. So that's where the Dr. Joe Dispenza book came in, sort of starting to kind of understand that mind body connection in a radical new way. Another was sort of building a bridge between the inner world and the outer worlds, you know, how do we perceive our reality? And what effects does that have on the reality we see and also the way we react to it and respond to it? And yeah, so those are sort of these different inspirations for what a bridge could be, and then bringing books in to sort of figure out how we can build this sort of catalogue of different bridges and present that wisdom so the books seem quite unrelated. And yet what's how But every month so far as we're working through and editing each other's summaries is just like, wow, like, you know, we're reading something in the summary that I've done, at least also written almost the same sentence in a book that he's done. And they're all completely different playing fields in terms of what they're discussing. And it's been quite mind blowing to see how the, even the inspirations for each theme has a mind of its own and allows a presentation of a really wide spectrum of information that all works together in this crazy synchronous way. And that's been quite exciting.

Lee Prescott  30:37  
Yeah, it's quite weird when that happens.

Agi Keramidas  30:44  
I hope by now you see the value in show fears and lease service imaginal box, towards the end of the episode, they share a special offer for you. But I'm going to share it here as well, just in case you don't listen to the very end today. Which by the way, I think you should. So if you go to the website IMAGINAL-BOX.COM  you can get a 30% discount with the code PDM30 

Agi Keramidas  31:19  
And let's get back to the episode. I like it's it's very, it's worded in a very reassuring way. I think for me, when that's something like it's weird, but in a good way, if I can say overly simplified, forgive me with a master's in linguistics, that to be a bit more

Lee Prescott  31:43  
than one or 2%. Yeah, so it's weird when it happens. But in a reissue, again, and it is in a reassuring way, because it's like, it's because I mean, like in terms of the themes, I basically, like severe is like the spiritual director, I suppose, of the company, because obviously, she has a much more extensive background in like, healing. And I would say I'm quite knowledgeable on a lot of things, but severe puts me to shame, basically. So I just got, I trust that, you know, she's just she's channelling these ideas of these, like, little mini curriculums for the for the books, and then every now and then I'll chip in, and I'd say, Yeah, but I want this book in there, or I want that book in there. But when that when that weird, synchronous thing does happen, and you realise that wow, no, this is this, this is, this is something trying to communicate itself through us. It's, it's, it's imaginal box, it's not just a company, which is me and Sofia, it, it has its own take on things. So sometimes Sofia has an idea. And an I have an opposite idea. And obviously, there's some negotiation that goes on there. And then the result is a third party idea, which is neither one of the original ideas. And that's where we know that that's the kind of identity or, again, depends how deep you want to get. So depends kind of how woowoo you're listening to prepared to go. But Sofia and I do consider the imaginal box to be a form of seeded consciousness in itself, which is independent from both me and her in the same way that a baby is, you know, it's half its mother, half its father, but it's a it's a unique, like, genetic signature. And that's what imaginal box is. So when those weird, synchronous things happen, like with the, when we're editing each of the summaries, that's where I know that that's kind of imaginal box as this third consciousness going. That's what I was trying to say.

Agi Keramidas  33:49  
That's brilliant. That's fantastic. Thank you. There are, again, many things come to mind. But there is something in particular I wanted to discuss with you. And that's something out of your vision statement. And I think it's relevant to what we're saying. So you say that you serve seekers in an age of global awakening, and I wanted your comments about this people exactly this seekers in this strange times that we're living in this spiritual journey, which many people have recently started or recently rediscovered, in a way so I would like to hear your thoughts about maybe some of the, let's say challenges that one that is into this spiritual path might face So from your point of view, obviously, because you've had your experience and knowledge and You now help them along the way. So is there something maybe a common obstacle that one should encounters and how to overcome it? I hope my question makes sense. So it's not overly complicated.

Lee Prescott  35:18  
No, no, not at all. Yes.

Sophia Vasiliou  35:21  
Yeah, gosh. So in terms of one thing that many seekers or people are just sort of opening their eyes in a different way, for the first time, often come across is this idea that everything I know is suddenly on its head. And, you know, like, I think a lot of people during the pandemic sort of lost trust in information lost trust in things that are being told and things that we're seeing, and there's cognitive dissonance. And that can be very linked to sort of when people have this sort of spiritual awakening, per se, is suddenly they wake up and their eyes are different, and they're seeing the world in a different way. And the old information that they were receiving, doesn't feel the same anymore. It's not making sense, it's causing cognitive dissonance. And if that's not a shared experience, among other of your friends, that can be a very lonely place to be because suddenly you have to go elsewhere for your validation or information or trying to understand what's happening. And that can be lonely, it can be challenging, and there's two aspects to it, one, you can start to go inwards, and trust the information you're getting. And then sort of you're often lead to places like imaginal box or, or to an author, or someone gives you a book or someone refers you to a website or a podcast, and you hear something like, Oh my God, listen, I know, I'm not completely nuts, there's other people who at least think and feel like me. And on the kind of further end of that pendulum, you have the tip towards complete illusion going slipping into delusion and actual insanity. And, you know, trying to understand, you know, that's the extreme side of it, but trying to understand what's true and what's not, when you suddenly think everything you've been told is a lie, can send you kind of completely off the deep end into into that place of almost madness. And then it says taste case, it's like stepping back from the edge of that black hole, and, and finding the place. So you can sort of see into this void space, pick out the pieces that you understand the truth and realise everything else is that does actually belong in that black hole and isn't really truth. But finding that space in that sweet spot, it's a minefield, and it's a nightmare. And you can go through some really dark times. And it's a huge obstacle, which is, again, why we try and do what we do. Because it sort of pulls people back from that bread, that brink of delusion, and tries to help them navigate that, that place where things are still making sense. You can still function in the world. And you're still exploring and pushing your boundaries without something like tipping over some metaphorical edge.

Lee Prescott  38:25  
Yeah, I think you have to expect a certain dark aspect as well, you know, it's not all, you know, dream catchers and Blinky plunky music, you know, spirituality can get quite, you know, when you're dealing with, you know, the way you see yourself, you know, your, your concept, your concept of reality, you know, a lot of people start off as kind of materialist atheists, and then suddenly, they're presented with the reality of, you know, kind of conscious beings that are noncorporeal. And it challenges your whole sense of self. You know, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And, and you do, and the first time you do the work, you feel like Wow, that's good. Now, it's plain sailing. And it's plain sailing until there's another, you know, weird paradigm shifting, you need to integrate a whole other thing and you're like, oh, man, is this ever gonna end? And it does, you know? Well, I hope it will, you know, but it's, that's what growth is, you know, growth, growth hurts, you know, you know, growth, you know, you get growing pains, right, you know, it's in a physical sense. So why would it be any different, you know, emotional, intellectual or spiritual sense. But soft, why don't you because the key the key point, you said software, which I'm surprised we didn't mention it earlier on, which is yeah, like, you read a book, you know, you go through this dark, you know, dark, dark time dark night of the soul. You find a book or a podcast or something and you're like, Ah, I'm not Mental Wow. Okay, this is great. Wow. And someone helps you make sense. And part of what we're doing, which is kind of embedded in the name itself. imaginal box, which is making people realise that they are not like individual units, like just just going on their own personal, you know, little journey, they're part of a much bigger thing. So soft, you always tell the story of imaginal cells better than me. So because again, because it's not imagination box, you know, at the beginning, people were like imagine or what is imaginal. And it's not. It's not imagination, it's imagined not. And it's, it's a word, which has two very specific meanings, one of which Sofia tells in a very beautiful way over to you, so it's here. So I built you up a bit there.

Sophia Vasiliou  40:52  
So, I mean, it comes from the idea of the imaginal cell, which are genetically identical cells that you find in a caterpillar loving. And in the small caterpillar, you have it going about its normal Caterpillar day, munching leaves and doing its thing. And it's all fine. And it's just consuming, it's just eating. And then at some point, the caterpillar stops. And everything goes a bit weird. And it starts to create cocoon, its chrysalis, and go inwards. And during that time, when the caterpillar is in that chrysalis, what's happening inside is absolutely chaos. You know, all we see from the outside is just the still rigid structure. But actually, the caterpillar is literally melting back into its building blocks. And the systems are breaking down. And it's a cluster of chaos. But there's these small cells that were dormant during the caterpillar phase that are called the imaginal cells, or the imaginal discs. And they are genetically identical, but they have the perception of a different way of being. And initially, they actually can get attacked by the other cells, because they're just these sort of weird things. But there's so much chaos going on that eventually, these imaginal discs cluster together and form groups and so you have a tipping point where the imaginal cells, there's enough of them online to then permeate the rest of what's happening, and upload or download the blueprint of butterfly into the rest of the chaos and so from the ashes of the caterpillar civilization, the butterfly is able to build itself using the old building blocks. And then eventually that emerges and you know, the difference between a butterfly and a caterpillar is perspective, you know, you can fly it can get that bird's eye view, as it were, of the world and see things in a completely new way and it's beautiful and it's soaring, and it's a thing it's something that it can never even imagine it was before when it was living on the ground hiding from birds and things so yeah, this imaginal that's the idea behind imaginal box it's that transformation that transmutation of one perspective into another that's that where that word comes from?

Agi Keramidas  43:28  
It's a wonderful I find it a wonderful metaphor the way you said the imaginal cells about what is happening in in our world and the the critical mass of the people who will connect and all this so it's it's a beautiful I hadn't heard that story like that. So thank you for sharing it with with us. I would I want to ask you, where will you direct the listener for found this conversation interesting and wants to find out more about imaginal books where do you direct them?

Sophia Vasiliou  44:06  
So website is imaginal hyphen box.com. And he will say so everything you need to know on the front page you can subscribe from there you can then go to the shop where there's extra meditations. Yes just imaginable hyphen box.com and for listeners to your podcast as well we have a 30% discount for all items that are in our shop. So in our shop, you find parts boxes and bundles you find meditations that are linked to the books. And then on the subscription side we have different tiers of subscription service as well as a one month three months or six months but the discount be relevant to the shop side which is all the past stuff.

Lee Prescott  44:55  
That's wonderful and Instagram and Facebook as well. I will put

Agi Keramidas  44:58  
all the links in the show notes, and right, just some then final quick questions. And I will ask each of you, what does the first one I always ask it's was that what does personal development mean to you? And you can keep it as short as you want really is an answer. But it's I find that fascinating,

Sophia Vasiliou  45:23  
for me is literally just what I was describing that inner transformation in a personal development has external benefits, but it's really this inner transformation that happens, as you grow.

Lee Prescott  45:37  
Yeah, for me, personal development, probably would, again, like my perspective on it would be, the way I perceive it with myself is a constant process of kind of pruning away. Thoughts, which hold back who I think I really am. So kind of like liberating my actual essence, rather than adding things to myself, I see personal development as a kind of pruning or taking things away to kind of just so I can kind of communicate my vision of myself more directly to the world.

Agi Keramidas  46:13  
That's great. Thank you. I want to thank you both very much for this, this conversation. And it is always intriguing. And you know, having three people in the conversation creates a different dynamic as well in a conversation. So I very much enjoyed the, let's say, the difference in that this podcast has compared to what I usually do. I want to wish you the best of luck and success and fulfilment with this amazing mission that you're doing. I think it's, for me, it was really obvious from the conversation we had earlier. And I hope it has been obvious to the listener as well that there is a need for this, you know, spiritual direction or path in life, especially if you if you're listening to this, there certainly is a very good reason for that. For that, and what you guys offer the service with a marginal box is really, I will use again, that phrase, the condensing wisdom, I think it is exactly that it is so incredibly important. And even more in in our time, which we don't have much time to, you know, take and devour a book. I mean, it would be great some people do, but the majority don't. So this is extremely useful, and that I should use the word practical. So thank you very much. And I wish you really all the best with this amazing mission. And I would like to hear some parting words from each of you.

Sophia Vasiliou  48:05  
Well, thank you so much for that. Agi. It's, it's been wonderful to talk to you again in this context and really enjoyed it. And in terms of parting words, I would just say to your listeners, no one has all the answers. You know, we're giving our perspective, we're giving our twist from what other people have written and just sort of expanding and that's something that would encourage everyone to do you know, find that inner compass. That's, that's your guiding light, and find what resonates with you. sanity check reality check, obviously, but but just remember that you are actually the centre of your own universe. And everything that that you see and speak and feel has a level of reality and just sort of learning how to hone your compass and hone the information that you're getting a really find out truth in scientists is the most important part of your journey.

Lee Prescott  49:18  
Wow, well, I'm gonna be hard pressed to come up with more inspiring parting words than that. But no, it's been it's been a great conversation Agi, you know, it's really been a pleasure to be here. And yeah, if I could kind of have some parting words, I'd probably just remind people of the story of the imaginal cells. And yeah, so when things look like they're breaking down into chaos, actually, all that's happening is a new order is emerging. And then I'll just encourage people to be imaginal.

Agi Keramidas  50:04  
I hope you enjoyed this episode and you found great value in this conversation. Once again, Sofia's and Lee's website is IMAGINAL-BOX.COM and you can get as my listener a 30% discount using the code: PDM30