An imaginary friend is actually a good idea, says Mark Vernon

This week, I’d like to offer an esoteric thought. It’s the notion that we have a second self or a divine double: a secret twin, if you like. This friend is not manifest in the physical world but nonetheless exists – maybe psychologically, maybe spiritually.

The sense of a benign companion features in many traditions and is also, on occasion, portrayed in films. The great Pixar film Inside Out is a case in point and doubly appealed to me as a psychotherapist; it portrays the inner life of its main character, Riley, through sub personalities within her. Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger were all characters in their own right.

I thought this was brilliantly done, particularly when – spoiler alert – things go wrong for Riley. In the depths of her difficulties, two parts of herself – Joy and Sadness – go and locate Riley’s second self. This being, found within the depths of Riley’s psyche, is called Bing Bong, who was Riley’s imaginary friend when she was little, and Bing Bong then begins to advise the others.

Maybe we adults shouldn’t grow out of the idea of an imaginary friend too quickly. In other times and places it might be called a tutelary spirit or guardian angel. Socrates was well known for having a “daimon”. This was a voice he’d heard since childhood. It offered him advice and became very important to him as he worked out how to stick to his distinctive way of life.

Another example of this idea is the concept of a patron saint. Last Thursday (25 April) was Saint Mark’s Day, my name day. Looking at the imagery of Saint Mark, I was struck by the idea that he was always depicted with a lion as a companion, and I’ve been wondering what that might mean for me.

In other traditions the second self might be associated with ancestors, or sages, or it might be the Divas in India or Kamis in Japan.

While these second selves or divine doubles can seem strange or hard to comprehend, you can trust them. They are on your side.

To go back to Socrates: his daimon only ever gave him negative advice. Sometimes the advice is fairly trivial, like, don’t turn left. At other times the advice was life-changing and significant, such as when it told him not to leave the prison when he was waiting to be executed, which he could easily have done by bribery.

Also, as the messages were negative – don’t do this, don’t do that – he was still left with the challenge of working out what to do.

So in a way his daimon was in collaboration with him because it called forth his agency. He had to decide how to act, in the light of the advice of the second self.

The advice that Bing Bong gives Joy and Sadness is that they can coexist. There’s no competition between them. Riley should not struggle to be joyful all the time and deny her sadness. Bing Bong enables Riley’s life to become more subtle and complex, also offering quite a good thought for us these days: you don’t have to be happy all the time.

If the esoteric element in all this seems a barrier, then consider thinking about it as an imaginative exercise.

The 18th-century philosopher Anthony Ashley Cooper was one of the figures in early Romanticism. He advised imagining your better half, and suggested having a dialogue with it. Let it call you forth, scrutinise you, and love you.

If you do the practice called Morning Pages, then maybe imagine your second half doing the writing. Or listen out for striking things that hit you through the day. Or call on your saint when it’s your name day.

Who knows? The core idea is to know yourself through dialogue with yourself. Maybe this thought is almost like a second self suggesting a possibility to you.

This Thought for the Week was originally broadcast on “A Drink with the Idler”, 25 April 2024. Watch the recording here.

See Mark present a new Thought when “A Drink with the Idler” returns on 9 April.

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