CREATIVE POWER - YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES: Designing Your Life with the Law of Attraction - William Walker Atkinson (1922) - THE SECRET LAW OF ATTRACTION: Manifest Your Best Life

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Creative Power Your Constructive Forces by William Walker Atkinson Imagination.
In this book, you are asked to consider a wonderful
phase of personal power which is latent, inherent, and abiding
within you, the power of imagination. This power is a
phase of your personal power. Your personal power, in turn,

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is a phase of the manifestation of that power which
is the source of all power, and which is expressed, manifested,
and employed in all phases of power of which you
have or can possible have. Any cognizance. By imagination is
meant the power of the mind to create mental images
or objects of sense previously perceived. The power to reconstruct

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or recombine the materials furnished by direct apprehension, the power
to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory for
the accomplishment of an elevated purpose. The power of conceiving
and expressing the ideal by many, possibly even by you.
Up to this time, the idea and concept of imagination
is confused and confounded with that of fancy. But this

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is an error which must be removed from the very
start in your serious consideration of the subject of the
constructive imagination, which constitutes the field of the investigation and
instruction set forth in this book. Let us pause a
moment that you may note and familiarize yourself with this
distinction and differentiation. Webster says, a distinction is now made

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between imagination and fancy. Properly speaking, they are different exercises
of the same general power, the plastic or creative faculty.
Imagination is the higher form of mental activity of the two.
It creates by laws more closely connected with the reason.
It aims at results of a definite and weighty character.

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Fancy is governed by laws of association which are more
remote and sometimes arbitrary or capricious. Hence the term fanciful,
which exhibits fancy in its wilder life flights. As you
proceed with this instruction, you will perceive the special in
particular characteristics which distinguish that phase of imagination called constructive
imagination from that other phase called reproductive imagination. You will

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also learn to differentiate between the passive form of constructive imagination,
which is little, if anything more than fancy, and that
active form, which constitutes the true constructive imagination with which
we have to deal in this instruction. We ask you
here to fix in your mind two pictures, each of
which represents primitive man manifesting one of the two forms

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of constructive imagination. By seeing and remembering these pictures, you
will always have at your command the touchstone with which
you may test your imaginative processes. The first picture is
that of primitive man sitting and thinking, either passively contemplating
the flow of the stream of reproductive imagination or memory,
in which is pictured the experiences of his past or

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else day dreaming and imaging himself playing a part in
some new drama of experience, or seeing others engaged in
a like occupation. This is the incomplete stage, all right,
so far as it goes, and often useful to the
extent of supplying raw materials for higher efforts, but insufficient
in itself, proper for purposes of recreation, but useless if

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it extends no further. Leaving our primitive dreamer, we ask
you now to contemplate the primitive man who imagines for
a purpose, who imagines to a definite end. See how
different is this picture from that just contemplated. Our primitive man,
with the dawning constructive imagination, perceived the inadequacy of his
natural physical equipment employed in his work of self preservation,

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offense and defense, protection of his family, and in his
striving for comfort and well being. By means of such imagining,
this class of primitive man raised the race from its
position of physical weakness and comparative helplessness to its present
position of dominance over the entire world of living things.
What nature had denied man in physical weapons, he supplied

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to himself through the exercise of his constructive imagination. Constructive
imagination raised man from his original lowly place in the
world of living things to his present eminence and rank.
By means of its power, man has attained heights which
would have seemed far beyond him to one observing him
in his original state. Man in his original or aboriginal

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state might well have been regarded by a visitor from
a higher world as a most unpromising candidate for survival
in the struggle for existence, let alone for the position
of mastery and rulership over the other living creatures contemporaneous
with himself. He was a much weaker animal than most
of the others. He was less fleet of foot and
less agile in his movements. He was less well equipped

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with tooth and claw. The great saber toothed tigers, the
huge reptiles, and the other powerful and ferocious animals of
his environment were far better adapted for the struggle for
existence than was this poor, puny, weak creature called Man.
It would have required a courageous imagination to pick Man
as the probable winner in the struggle for existence and

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the victor in the process of the survival of the fittest.
But this weak creature, this puny and insignificant animal, possessed
the latent power of constructive imagination by which he was
enabled to overcome his natural obstacles. By means of this
mental power, he was enabled to invent and to employ
the implements, tools, and weapons with which he waged a

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defensive and offensive warfare against the fierce creatures of his environment,
and to create the material contrivances with which he was
able to overcome the handicaps of his environment with which
nature at first might have seemed deliberately to have burdened him.
By means of this latent power, he proved himself to
be the fittest to survive and the true victor in
the struggle for existence. Man lacked the strong teeth and

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claws of the carnivorous animals, But he created artificial claws
and teeth, imitating those which nature had so freely bestowed
upon the lower animals. By making from the hard flint
the spears, axes, and knives, specimens of which we now
find buried in the earth. By creating strong clubs from
the limbs and branches of trees, he equalled and even

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surpassed the striking weapons of the great beasts. By creating
bows and arrows, he managed to overcome the handicaps of space,
and was able to touch his enemies, while himself beyond
their reach. He took a hint from the caves and
dens of the beasts and improved upon them for his
own occupancy. He took a hint from the birds and

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improved upon their elevated nests by building for himself safe
refuges in the cliffs and the high trees, reaching these
by ladders of his own construction. He imagined the plan
of rolling great rocks before the entrances of his caves
and dens, and he afterward imagined the protecting doors of
wood and windows, and later chimneys. He imagined the idea

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of hurling stones at his enemies by means of slings,
great bows, and primitive catapults, and of rolling large boulders
down the mountain sides upon his enemies below. He imagined
the idea of improving upon the floating log, in turn
creating rafts, flatboats, hollowed out logs. He imagined the idea
of the directing and propelling poles, paddles, and oars. He

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observed the rolling log, and from it he imagined the solid,
clumsy wheel, then the lighter spoked wheel, and was thus
enabled to move heavy objects over long distances with comparative ease.
He imagined the pulley and the lever and learned to
apply them. He imagined implements with which to mash his
food and grind his grain. He imagined the primitive hoe

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and the crude irrigation or draining ditch. He imagined the
idea of using the skins of animals as clothing for
himself to protect him against the weather. He imagined the
idea of employing portions of trees for tent building. He
adapted common natural things and converted them into uncommon artificial

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appliances for his comfort and welfare. And finally, oh wonder
of wonders. He imagined the art and science of making
and using fire, and ever since man has continued to
imagine things, ways of overcoming natural obstacles and handicaps, ways
of converting natural things to his own use, comfort, and happiness.

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He imagined all of these things, little by little and
created them in material objective form, following the outlines of
his mental subjective form. And he still continues to imagine things,
greater things, larger things, more complex things. He will always
continue to sow imagine things, for that is his characteristic quality,

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his constructive imagination, which distinguishes him from the lower animals.
Those of the race who were successful constructive imaginers, either
as individuals or as tribes or peoples, survived in the struggle,
while the failures were crowded to the wall or went under.
The fittest constructive imaginers survived and passed on to their

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descendants their knowledge and transmitted to them their mental tendencies.
Thus man has evolved into the imagining animal, the creating creature.
Those individuals or peoples of the race who failed to
keep up with the procession of the constructive imaginers, if
not actually crowded out and destroyed in the struggle survived

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only to become the parasites or the slaves of the conquerors.
The slave races have always possessed less developed powers of
constructive imagination than have their masters. When slaves developed constructive imagination,
they ceased to remain slaves. When the germ of constructive
imagination begins to work in the minds of a subject people,

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that people is on the way to freedom. History may
be read in the light of fact. The physical might
of the masters, in the end, surrenders to the mental
might of the one time slaves. The cunning of the
fox has often overthrown the physical strength of the lion.
The struggle for existence is still under way. The survival
of the fittest is a fact of modern human existence,

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as well as of the past history of the race
and of the world in general. But now more than ever,
constructive imagination is the great element of the struggle, the
great standard of the fitness to survive, succeed, and accomplish.
The people, the race, the nation, and the individual possessing
the greatest degree of development and application of continuous and

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persistent constructive imagination will be found to be the fittest
to survive. All else being equal, will prove to be
the ultimate winner in the struggle for existence. If man
is ever succeeded by the superman, as some have predicted,
it will be found that the superman is possessed of
superior powers of constructive imagination, and of a greater faculty

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of exercising and applying them. Such is the law of
evolution of progress of life. This, then, is the second picture.
Look upon the first picture, and then upon the one
just presented to you. In the first you will see
the figure of the primitive man who just sat and thought,
and sometimes just sat that thinking being merely day dreaming

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and passive imagination. In the second you will see the
picture of the real thinker, so well depicted in Rodin's
magnificent figure of the thinker. But his thinking is not
just thinking. It is thinking for a purpose and toward
an end. It is constructive imagination, directed toward a definite
end in aim, and firmly held there until the right

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image is created, the image then being transmuted into material form.
The thinker of Rodin's figure is using his imagination, just
as he has learned to use his attention in his will,
deliberately purposively to a definite aim and end, and in
a particular direction. He and his modern counterparts are evolving creators.

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They are constructing, contriving, inventing, designing, planning, projecting, building in
the mind that which afterward will be built in physical form.
They are the dreamers whose dreams shall come true, the
creators of ideals which shall become real. This, then, is
constructive imagination. This constitutes the subject matter of this book.

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This is the main theme of the instruction which we
shall impart to you in the following pages. This is
a far cry from the mere imagination the fancy of
the self satisfied masses of the people. Is it not
creative power? Your constructive forces? By William Walker Atkinson, The
imaging Faculties. One of the most characteristic, essential, and distinctive

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attributes of your mental being is the power of producing
mental images. Without this power, or you would be unable
to think, to remember, to act intelligently. If your sensations
did not impress themselves upon your mind so that it
was afterward possible for you to recall them as images,
you would always remain a mere infant in mental development.

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Your experience would remain as a closed book to you
and you could never hope to profit by turning over
the pages of its records. You would be no wiser
at fifty years of age than you were at three.
You would have no memory, no imagination, no power of
rational thought based upon experience. A mental image may be

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defined as a representation in the mind by means of
an ideal picture of an experience originally obtained through the
medium of the senses. By representation is meant the act
of representing or presenting anew in consciousness the form or
picture originally experienced through sense reports. The representative powers of

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the mind, whether of memory or of imagination, are those
powers of the mind whereby it forms ideal images or
mental pictures of things not present to the senses at
the time, Such ideal images or mental pictures being the
mental reproduction of any experience whatsoever. While the term image
is borrowed from optics in order to symbolize the retained

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mental impressions of past experiences, the figurative term must not
be too literally interpreted. Not only are the images or
pictures of visual impressions and experiences retained in the mind
and are possible of representation or reproduction in memory or imagination,
but the impressions of sound, taste, smell, touch, and muscular
sensations are equally retained and are subject to reproduction. There

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are auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile, and muscular images or pictures
in the mind, as well as visual or optical images
or pictures. In fact, the completed and composite mental image
or picture of any particular thing usually is a complex
product made up of the interw woven material of several
kinds of sense reports. There is a close relation, yet

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a marked difference between the original sense impression and its
represented image or picture. After an object is removed from
vision or the eyes shut, there remains in the mind
the image of the thing seen actually existent, though more
obscure than when it was perceived in vision. The same
principle applies to images of impressions received through the other senses.

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Aristotle called these images the phantasms, which have the form
of the object without the substance, as the impression of
a seal upon wax has the form of the seal
without its substance. Psychologists have held that sensations have their
origin in the objective stimuli, while the represented image has
its stimulation from within It is generally held by psychologists

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that no sensation is actually perceived by the mind until
a mental image of it is formed. Likewise, that the
mind cognizes no physical experiences unless they give rise to
mens mental images. The mind perceives, understands, and remembers nothing
but mental images. Recollection, imagination, and the processes of thought

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are held to be possible only by means of calling
up and arranging the mental images of things which have
originally arisen through sense experience. Even the higher operations of thought,
such as judgment, reasoning, abstraction, generalization, combination of ideas, proceed
by means of the employment of previously acquired mental images.

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The two great general classes of mental representation are one
memory and two imagination. In spite of the popular distinction
between these two phases of mental activity, there is present
in them a basic unity of nature and essential principle.
Both are processes involving the employment of representative images, and

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there is really no absolute line of demarcation between them
or their products. It was formerly held that there existed
an actual distinction between the two respective processes, the line
of which was drawn as follows. One memory reproduces or
represents the exact image of the original mental impression, while
two imagination reproduces or represents a variation of such original

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impression or a new combination of the elements of original impressions.
But this absolute distinction redifferentiation is not held generally by
the best modern psychologists. The present opinion is that even
the best memory images do not exactly reproduce the original impression. Instead,
they always omit certain portions, add details not in the original,

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and exhibit changes in arrangement of details. It is now
stated as a law of psychology that representative images never
exactly reproduce the original impression. This is true of the
images of memory as well as of those of imagination.
There is, of course admitted that some representative images more
closely approach exact reproduction than do others. Some are more

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literal copies of things experienced than are others. But the
elements of variation, change, addition, or commission are always present
and active. You may arrive at a correct understanding of
the real distinction between the processes of memory in those
of imagination by considering the four essential elements involved in
the process of completed memory viz. One retention, in which

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the mind retains the image of the impression made upon
it by the sense reports. Two reproduction, in which the
mind brings again into consciousness the mental image which it
has retained. Three recognition, in which the mind identifies the
reproduced mental image with the object causing the original impression.
And for localization, in which the mind locates the original impression,

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which has been recognized at a certain more or less
definite time and place. Now, then, what are the elements
involved in the processes of imagination. First you will see
at once that the element of retention must be involved,
as otherwise the mental image could never be again brought
into consciousness. Secondly, you will see that the element of

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reproduction must be involved, as otherwise the mind would lack
the power to bring again into consciousness the retained mental image.
So far, at least, imagination and memory travel along the
same road, for in both cases the mind must possess
and exercise the power of retaining the mental image, and
also the power of reproducing it in consciousness. But here

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the absolute identity of the two processes cease. The stream
of representation divides itself into two branches, each of which
pursues its own special course. The course of the memory
stream has been described in the preceding paragraph that of
the stream of imagination you are now asked to consider.
In what is called reproductive imagination, the mind merely reproduces

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a more or less correct mental image or picture of
a previously experienced impression which has been retained in its
subconscious storehouse. This, you will note, is precisely what memory
does in its first and second processes. Here the process
may be regarded as that either of the reproductive imagination
or of the memory, or the idea may be stated

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in another form viz. Reproductive imagination is but a special
instance of incomplete memory, or else memory is a special
case of reproductive imagination. There is no absolute line of
distinction between the images of reproductive imagination and those of
memory in its second stage. Both are the same product
of the representative or imaginative power. But as we have

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said here, the identity ceases. In true memory, the reproduced
image is now referred to the object causing the original impression.
It is identified with that object by the process of recognition.
But in reproductive imagination, the mind does not perform the
process of full recognition, i e. Identification with the object
causing the original impression. At the most, the reproductive imagination

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performs but a quasi recognition, i e. It identifies the
image with some image previously experienced in consciousness, but with
no special effort to identify it with the particular original object.
In fact, the image may be a composite of several
original impressions not referable to any special object, as when
we are conscious of the image of a horse of

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a general picture of the horse species, rather than of
some particular horse. There is a difference between a having
a mental image in consciousness and b knowing that image
as the image of a particular something previously experienced in consciousness.
The image may be there, though the recollection of the
particular original object of the experience may be absent. As

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a writer says, having the image of an absent object
and remembering the object are not the same. There is
no complete act of memory of an appose object until
the image in the mind is recognized as the image
of some particular object or thing already experienced. Thus you
see that an image may be reproduced in imagination but

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not recognized or identified with any particular object previously experienced. Likewise,
it may be reproduced in imagination without being localized according
to time and place. Thus, true reproductive imaginative images may
exist without involving the third and fourth essential elements of memory.
In short, while memory involves the four respective elements of retention, reproduction, recognition,

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and localization, the process of reproductive imagination involves but two
of these elements viz. Retention and reproduction, respectively. The representative
stream of memory imagination divides into two streams just before
the third stage i e. Recognition is reached by memory,
and quite a bit before the fourth stage i e.

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Localization is neared. But though the stream of imagination lacks
the two additional elements of memory, it takes on new
and more complex powers of its own, powers lacking in
the case of memory. As the stream flows on, reproductive
imagination may become transformed into what is known as constructive imagination.

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This by the exercise of certain powers inherent in the
nature of imagination. Constructive imagination is that phase of the
imaginative activities which is generally regarded as being typical of
imagination in general. In fact, it is the only phase
of imagination known as imagination to most persons. Categories of imagination,

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the imaginative processes are classified into two respective categories as follows,
one reproductive imagination and two constructive imagination. Reproductive imagination, which
we have just considered, consists merely of mental reproduction of
images of past experience, an exercise of reminiscent imaging power,

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differing little if any from the representative or reproductive activities
of memory. Constructive imagination, on the contrary, consists of a
reproductive imaginative images be subjected to the additional process of reconstruction, recombination,
and readaptation. Reproductive imagination represents merely the images corresponding to

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particular past experience. Constructive imagination, on the contrary, represents images
of past experience, not in their original form, however, but
instead recombined, rearranged, reconstructed, and readapted, thus forming a composite
or complex mental image of things not previously experienced as
holes by the mind producing them, and often even of

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things having no actual existence as holes in the external world. Thus,
constructive imagination may form a mental image of a house, bridge,
railway system, ship, et cetera, not yet built, or it
may form a mental image of centaurs, winged steeds, mermaids,
winged angels, satanic forms with hoofs, horns, and tails, which

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are entirely out of the realm of actual human experience.
In constructive imagination, we have a most important element of
the constructive intellectual work performed by the mind of man.
Without its, certain phases of reasoning would be impossible without it,
The psychological processes of association would not be manifested without it.

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The inventive faculties could not function without it. There could
be no artistic creation. Without it. There could be no progress,
no improvement, no discovery of new relations, no creative thought,
no adaptation of old things to new uses and new ends.
As Halleck says, the products of the constructive imagination have

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been the only stepping stones for material progress. The constructive
imagination of primeval man, aided by thought, began to conquer
the world. The chimney, the stagecoach, the locomotive are successive
milestones showing the progressive march of the imagination. Constructive imagination
may be said to have two phases viz. One passive construction,

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or the employment of the constructive powers of the imagination
along the lines of pure fancy or idle day dreaming,
and two active construction or employment of the constructive powers
of the imagination along the lines of definite, purposeful creative effort.
In passive construction, the imagination may dally with the reminiscent

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images of past experiences, rearranging and recombining them into new forms,
picturing idly that might have been aspects of those experiences,
and indulging in imaginative fancyings in which the past experiences
are transformed into other experiences of a more agreeable or
more exciting nature. Or in the same way, the imagination

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may project itself into the future of the life of
the individual, indulging in day dreams in which are anticipated
or imagined the possible experiences of that future. Or again,
it may passively permit the stream of imaginative images the
moving picture film of fancy, to pass before its vision, picturing,

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as in a play or story, the various movements of actors,
the various scenes, actions, voices, situations of the imaginative play
or story. Here the whole picture is composed of a
series of separate though connected pictures, as in the moving
picture connected film seen as an actual continuous movement. This
passive construction has about it many of the characteristic qualities

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of the dream states, in which the imagination runs itself
without any special direction. Many cases of its activity have
well been called day dreams, for they, indeed are practically
composed of the stuff that dreams are made of. The
imaginative stream flows along, obeying merely the law of association,

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and lacking direction or voluntary guidance or stating it otherwise,
the boat of imagination is allowed to drift along aimlessly
without the use of the helm, the pilot being wrapped
in sleep or revery. Those who can see in constructive
imagination merely the passive phases just noted are perhaps justified

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in their sneers at mere imagination, for they judge only
by what they see in that category. Those, on the
other hand, who realize the tremendous importance of active constructive
imagination in the intellectual life of the individual, may well
be pardoned for indignantly refuting the charges of the first
named critics, and for terming them ignorant and thoughtless critics

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of that with which they have never met in their
own experience. Each is right according to his own viewpoint,
but the viewpoints are as far apart as the polls. Yet,
the two poles of anything at the last, are perceived
to be necessary parts of a unified whole. Let us
endeavor to illustrate the case of imagination by reference to

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the better known phases of will. Here we shall find
a surprising analogy, one not generally recognized. We ask you
to give careful attention and thought to what follows. Ribeaut says,
which among the various modes of mind activity offers the
closest analogy to the creative imagination. I unhesitatingly answer, the

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voluntary activity of the will. Imagination in the realm of
the intellect, is the equivalent of will in the realm
of movements. The analogy between imagination and will manifests from
the very beginning of each of these mental processes. In
voluntary action there is gathered together the raw materials of instinctive,

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involuntary and reflex movements, though will coordinate and associates these
in order to proceed. In the same way, active constructive
imagination gathers together the raw materials of reproductive imagination and
passive constructive imagination. The various images exist in those fields
of mentality in order that it may proceed further. Then again,

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the movement in both instances is from the inner mental
state toward the outer expression. Will begins with vague feelings
and emotions, these rising to more or less definite desire.
This in turn proceeds to actual outward expression in actions.
So active constructive imagination begins with the inner images of
memory or reproductive imagination, these then rising to the rank

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and character of the images of passive constructive imagination, these
in turn rising to the rank and character of definite
outward expression in the images of active constructive imagination. Again,
in will rising to its higher stages, we always find
present a more or less definite movement toward a certain
end to be attained. The same more or less definite

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object to be attained is present in the rising processes
of active constructive imagination. The will always proceeds toward the
attainment of something desired, something tending to satisfy some inner want.
In active constructive imagination, there is always present the urge
toward the invention, creation, or construction of something more or
less clearly perceived. As Ribau says, we are always inventing

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for an end, whether in the case of a Napoleon
imagining a plan of campaign, or a cook making up
a new dish. In both cases, there is now a
simple end attained by immediate means, now a complex and
distant goal, presupposing subordinate ends, which are means in relation
to the final end. Finally, we find in both will
and the active constructive imagination certain frequent instances and manifestations

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of incomplete process of aborted expression. Will in its normal
and completed expression culminates in action, but in actual experience
this final action often is not reached. One may desire
to do a thing, and even deliberately decide and determine
to do that thing, but the spring of action is
never released. One may desire to arise from his bed

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on a cold morning, and may decide and determine to
do so, but he still remains beneath the warm covers.
So in passive constructive imagination, one may content himself with
idle passive day dreaming and never proceed deliberately to make
his dreams come true. Ribaut says concerning this last point,
there are likenesses between the abortive forms of the creative

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imagination and the impotent forms of the will. In its
normal and complete form, will culminates in an act, but
with wavering characters. And suffers from a bouliah. Deliberation never ends,
or the resolution remains inert, incapable of realization, of asserting
itself in action. The creative imagination also, in its complete form,

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as a tendency to become objectified, to assert itself in
a work that shall exist not only for the creative individual,
but for everybody. On the contrary, with dreamers, pure and simple,
the imagination remains a vaguely sketched inner. It is not
embodied in any esthetic or practical invention. Revery is the
equivalent of weak desires and incomplete will. Dreamers are the

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abulicks of the creative imagination. We wish to point out
another analogy here. The passive and active respective forms of
the constructive imagination may be aptly compared to the respective
involuntary and voluntary phases of attention. Involuntary attention is that
form of attention in which the mind goes out toward
any passing object which serves to arouse mere curiosity or

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transient notice. This form of attention is the one most
strongly manifested by the child or by the savage. Moreover,
it is the kind of attention which alone is generally
manifested by the great masses of persons. Voluntary attention, on
the other hand, is that form of attention in which
the mind is deliberately, indeterminately directed toward and held upon

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some definite object or subject to the end that knowledge
concerning such may be acquired. This form of attention distinguishes
the mind of the true student, the scientific mind, and
the trained mind. In general. The analogy between these two
respective forms of attention and the two respective forms of
constructive imagination is so close that we need but to

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direct your attention to it, further comparison being unnecessary. Thus
you have seen there are two distinct forms or phases
of constructive imagination viz. One passive and two active. The
former you have just now considered. The latter you are
now asked to consider. Note in our further consideration of

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active constructive imagination in the following sections of this book,
we shall drop the term active constructive imagination and shall
substitute the general term constructive imagination, this latter term being
far more convenient than the former cumbersome technical term, and
equally well expressing the essential idea embodied in the general
concept of constructive imagination. Actively in employed toward definite ends

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and aims creative power Your constructive Forces by William Walker
Atkinson constructive imagination. In constructive imagination i e. Active constructive imagination,
we find the elements of reproductive imagination previously described gathered
up by the mind. Its materials, separated and classified, accepted,

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were discarded according to determined values, and then deliberately impurposively
employed toward the attainment of a definite end or aim.
In these processes, not only the imagination but also the
intellect in the will play their part, the activity thus
being complex, and the result that of coordinated mental power.
Yet imagination is the main factor of the process, and

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the work is that of the imaginative mentality, the other
mental powers merely being called in to assist. In order
rightly to comprehend true constructive imagination, its nature, its powers,
its possibility, you must first of all perceive that while
it employs the raw material of reproductive imagination in common
with passive constructive imagination, yet its processes carry these materials

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to a higher plane of activity. They are deliberately making
selection of them, accepting and rejecting them according to ascertained value,
and then weaving and combining them into new forms and shapes,
new arrangements and adaptations, building new structure of fact from
the crude materials furnished it. Man, by his constructive imagination

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exercises his true creative power and thus becomes a true
and real creator, the microcosm, manifesting the principles of the macrocosm.
Let Us now proceed to the consideration of the various
steps or stages of the processes manifested by the constructive imagination.
It will be well for you to become acquainted with
the details of these processes, for they will be employed

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by you and your activities along these lines, and you
should acquaint yourself thoroughly with the way the wheels go round. Dissociation,
the process of dissociation, is the preliminary stage of constructive imagination.
Dissociation is the act of disuniting, separating, breaking up, or
parting that which has previously existed in associated a united

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form or condition. Practically, every image of memory or reproductive
imagination is concrete i e. Composed and made up of
several parts or elements united in a single image. Association
is the primary element in remembering experiences or in calling
them into consciousness in reproductive imagination. Constructive imagination begins its

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work by first separating and tearing apart the associated elements
or parts of the reproduced images. It finds it necessary
to tear down the old image before it can form
the new image by reassembling its parts in new forms,
or by combining some of these parts with the parts
of other images likewise broken up by dissociation. Constructive ima

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imagination without preliminary dissociation would be as impossible as the
task set by the town council in the Familiar Tale,
which passed a resolution one that a new town hall
be built, two that the new town hall be constructed
of the materials of the old town hall and on
the side of the old building, but three that the
old town hall be left standing and be occupied and

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used until the new town hall is completed. Dissociation of
familiar images is often quite difficult of performance. It is
not easy to dissociate the color of white from our
image of a swan, yet black swans are found in Australia.
It is difficult for a dweller in the tropics to
dissociate the idea of fluidity from his image of water,

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for he has never seen ice nor snow. It is
difficult to dissociate the idea of cold weather, bare trees,
et cetera. From our image of a December day, yet
south of the equator, December is a midsummer month. It
was difficult for the opponents of Columbi to dissociate the
idea of flatness from the earth and to construct the

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image of men walking on the other side of the
globe with their heads pointing downward. It is difficult to
dissociate the idea of youth from your mental image of
the person whom you have not seen for many years,
Yet the person actually exists as a middle aged man.
Reconstruction the constructive imagination, having dissociated the elements of reproduced images,

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then proceeds to reconstruct these elements into new combinations and arrangements.
This either by simply rearranging the elements of a particular image,
or else by combining certain of these elements with certain
other elements of another dissociated image. The following are the
more common forms of imaginative reconstruction. One simple partition, you

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can construct a new imaginative image by simply parting some
particular element of a reproduced image from its associated elements,
and then discarding the latter in the reconstruction. Thus you
can imagine a human hand right a letter but not
attached to a body, or a mighty eye seeing all things,
yet not attached to a body, or a detached human

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head floating through space, or a headless horseman, or a
tree without branches, or vice versa. In fact, you can
easily form the mental image of anything parted and separated
from its usual associated images. That is to say, you
can form such a mental picture, though you may not
really believe that any such thing does or can actually

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exist in that form and free from its natural associations.
To variation in size, you can construct a new imaginative
image or mental picture of a familiar image magnified to
almost any size. You can easily imagine giants whose beards
brush the clouds. Gulliver's travels can be read by you

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and easily accompanied by your own illustrative images. The gigantic
figures of ancient mythology are not beyond the powers of
your imagination. Likewise, you have no trouble in imagining a
world a thousand times larger than our own, with all
the familiar objects of our world magnified in like proportion.
Jack's marvelous beanstalk rising to the skies is an easy

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task for your lively imagination, particularly in childhood. In the
same way, you can construct a new imaginative image or
mental picture of a familiar image diminished almost to any size. Fairies, elves, gnomes, midgets,
dwarfs all are familiar to the eyes of your imagination.

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You can imagine an oak tree capable of being covered
by a thimble. Gulliver's travels can be illustrated by your
own mental pictures of the Lilliputians. The mushroom throne and
acorn coach of the fairies are quite easily imagined. Elephants
as small as mice, whales as small as minnows, worlds
as small as grains of mustard seed, All these are

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easily created by a lively imagination. The scientific imagination of
today sees each atom as a tiny solar system composed
of revolving planets. Scientific fancy can easily picture each of
these electronic planets as being inhabited and as being like
our own planet. In every way. Size is comparative to
the imagination and may be varied at will. You can

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imagine objects as being as large as you please or
as small without regard to objective reality. The laws of
the imagination are very liberal in respect to size, free
variation of position, form, and color, you can construct imaginative
images or mental pictures of familiar objects changed in position, form,

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or color, or all these combined without any difficulty. Here also,
the laws of the imagination are very liberal. You can
imagine the familiar object in almost any new position. Thus
you may place a fountain in the middle of a valley,
place a prairie on a hillside, tarras a mountain into plains,
plant a garden in a desert, combine hills, valleys, streams,

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rocks in a fantastic manner having no correspondence in nature.
You can imagine men with their noses at the back
of their heads, their arms and legs exchanging, places ears
on their knees. In short, the imagination can vary the
positions of objects or parts of objects at will. You
can imagine new shapes for familiar animals, trees features of

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the landscape. You can imagine willows as straight as a pine,
or spruce trees with branches like those of an oak.
You can imagine roses with triangular petals, cubic eggs, octagonal oranges,
cows as fleet footed as a gazelle, crows as graceful
as hummingbirds, and rhinoceroses as soft footed and sinuous as

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a cat. In short, the imagination can vary the forms
of objects or parts of objects at will. As a
writer says, the forms of objects are as flexible in
the hands of the imagination as the clay in the
hands of the potter. You can imagine a green or
red sky, blue fields of grain, red leaves on trees,

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white vegetation in the garden, black snow on the mountain tops.
The imagination can vary the color of objects or parts
of objects at will. As a writer says, the imagination
can make the eye as dark as midnight, or give
it a heavenly hue, paint the evening sky with golden colors,
and rode the summer landscape with all the splendors of autumn.

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For recombined images, you can construct imaginative images or mental
pictures in which the separated elements of several dissociated things
are combined in new arrangements. Thus you can imagine the
head and trunk of a man combined with the body
of a horse. Here you have created a centaur. You
can imagine the body in head of a man combined

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with the horns, legs, and hoofs of a goat, the
wings of a bat, the tail of an Here you
have Satan. You can imagine the body of a goat
combined with the head of a lion and the tail
of a dragon. Here you have the ancient camera. You
can imagine a monster with the body of a dog
with three heads. Here you have Cerberus. You can imagine

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the head of a maiden, the body of a vulture,
and the claws of the eagle. Here you have a harpee.
You can imagine a woman with serpents serving for her
locks of hair. Here you have the medusa. Mythology is
rich in illustrations of this kind. The patient and delirium
frequently sees pink elephants with bat wings, dragon tails, and

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eagle claws floating around the room. Our dreams sometimes acquaint
us with similar monstrosities when we have been unwise in
choosing the elements of our late dinners. There is practically
no limit to this exercise of the imagination. The possible
combinations are almost infinite. In variety five idealization, you can

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construct imaginative images or mental pictures, in which the actual
images of experience are given a more perfect, more beautiful,
or more nearly an ideal form. Thus you can picture
a perfect circle, though you never have found one in nature,
a more beautiful woman than you ever have seen, a
more perfectly formed horse than has ever been observed by you.

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The artist exercising this form of imagination often pictures that
which nature seems to be striving to manifest. You can
also imagine ideal events, pictures of dramatic beauty, also ideal characters,
representing the full development of qualities which are merely partially
represented or even merely hinted at in real life. The poets,

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great prose writers, and the dramatists manifest this form of
idealistic imagination. Homer, Virgil, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott Milton, and above
all Shakespeare furnish us with typical illustrations. Shakespea speer, has
created characters which seem even more real to us than
many of the actual characters of our experience. The great

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composers of music drew upon this phase of their imagination
and have given us harmonies and melodies never heard in nature.
Artists of all kinds depend upon this idealistic imagination for
their inspiration than they attempt to express in outward form
in painting, in sculpture, in poem, in drama, in story,
in musical composition, that which they have formed first. As

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mental images six invention, you can also construct imaginative images
or mental pictures of familiar objects adapted to new uses
and ends, or of new objects adapted to familiar uses
and ends. Thus, the inventor imagined electricity being adapted to
the business of transmitting messages, running machinery producing heat and light,

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et cetera. Likewise, he imagined sowing, washing, weaving, reaping by
finding plowing being performed by power machinery instead of by hand.
The entire history of inventions is but the history of
the employment of the inventive imagination. As we have previously stated,
the progress of man from savagery to civilization has been

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along the path of invention. Every tool, every instrument, every
appliance of any kind, anything made by the hand of
man in order to accomplish a new end or an
old end in a new way is the result of
the activities of his inventive imagination. Seven. Planning. You can
construct imaginative images or mental pictures of the plans according

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to which you intend to proceed in your picture work.
The general plans his battles, the architect plans his building,
the business man plans his campaign of manufacture, sale, or
other work. The clearer and the more definite the plan,
the truer will be the result, all being equal. The mechanic,
if he be a good one, will plan out in

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his mind the work which he expects to perform with
his hands. Every work of construction, building, or general action
contemplated by man is planned and worked out in his
imagination before it assumes material form. The subjective form must
always precede the objective form. Eight. Induction. You can make

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constructive imaginative images or mental pictures of the probable causes
of a number of particular events or happenings along the
general lines of induction. The great triumphs of scientific induction
have been made in this way. The scientist groups together
the mental images of a number of events or happenings
seemingly operating under the same general law or from the

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same general causes. The latter being unknown. He then seeks
to discover the missing law or cause, and in doing
so he sets into operation his inductive imagination. He makes
scientific guesses in this way, and then proceeds to test
out the several hypotheses so obtained. Many of the great
discoveries of science relating to physical laws have been made clear.

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With the assistance of this form of imagination. All or
nearly all of the observed processes of constructive imagination will
be found to fit into one or more of the
above categories without undue strain. The list, however, is not
intended to be exhaustive, but is rather merely suggestive. As
a loose classification mechanical construction and purposive construction, psychologists note

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a certain distinction between the different classes of the images
of constructive imagination, i e. Of those imaginative images which
do not represent with any reasonable degree of exactness any
actual object of previous experience. This distinction proceeds according to
the following classification viz. One images mechanically constructed i e.

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In which the images are combined merely by a purposeless
and indefinite process of joining together or associating parts of
different reproduced images or memories, as for instance, where the
head and trunk of a man are joined to the
body of a horse, and the image of a centor
thus constructed, or where the body of a woman and
the tail of a fish are joined to construct the

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image of a mermaid. Two images definitely and purposively constructed
according to a preconceived design and toward a definite end
in purpose, as for instance, where the different parts of
a machine, a play, a picture, a musical composition, et cetera,
are constructed as a mental image, particularly with the end
of objective reproduction in view. In the first of the

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above mentioned cases, the imaginative construction is known as mechanical construction.
In the second case, the imaginative construction is known as
creative imaginative construction i e. As true constructive imagination. The
first type proceeds practically without a definite plan and purpose,
and is more or less lacking in continuity. The second

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type proceeds with a more or less definite purpose an
aim according to a more or less definite plan, and
with more or less manifestation of continuity. With the first type,
we have but little to do in this connection with
the second type. However, we are vitally concerned in this instruction. Therefore,
we shall now proceed to a further consideration of its

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distinctive characteristics. Elements of the constructive imagination. Hallick says, the
mechanical imagination joins dissociated parts without altering them. Such products
are as inferior to those of the creative imagination, as
is a pile of bricks to a finished house. The
pile of bricks, to be sure, is put together and

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composed of a number of particular bricks, and so is
the finished house. But in the former there is merely
a haphazard throwing together, lacking plan selection and lack of
purposive thought, while in the latter case there is a
definite purpose, a selection of material according to its fitness
for that purpose, and finally, the employment of purpose thought
directed to the end of the efficient construction of the building.

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The elements of true constructive imagination then are as follows,
one definite purpose, two selection of materials according to estimated value,
and three employment of purposive thought and logical reasoning based
upon experience. It is an axiom of psychology that no
particular class of mental faculties manifests activity without calling to

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its aid certain other classes of mental faculties. There is
always present a coordination of mental powers in all mental activities,
one phase of power, however, always assuming the dominant role
for the time being. Accordingly as might be expected, we
find evidences of such coordination in the processes of constructive imagination.

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You should acquaint yourself with the details of such coordinative activity,
which we shall now present to your attention. Emotion and imagination.
Emotional states, such as strong feelings or interest, play an
important part in the processes of constructive imagination. The best
psychologists hold that in the imaginative process there must be

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present not only the fixed idea, but also the fixed feeling.
Ribaut says, the emotional factor yields in importance to none other.
It is the ferment without which no mental creation is possible.
The influence of the emotional life is unlimited. It penetrates
the entire field of creative invention with no restriction whatever.

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This is not a gratuitous assertion, but is, on the contrary,
strictly justified by facts. And we are right in maintaining
the following two propositions. One, all forms of creative imagination
imply elements of feeling, and two all emotional dispositions whatever
may influence the creative imagination. In the process of constructive imagination,

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we find that feeling and emotion act as follows, one
as an incentive to creative activity, and two as a
coloring agent, giving to the created product the shade or
tint of itself. Some psychologists have sought to limit the
influence of the emotional states to such forms of constructive
imagination as are concerned with the productions of works of

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art and beauty. They would deny such influence to those
phases of constructive imagination which are concerned with the production
of intellectual and mechanical inventive images. But more careful investigators
are fully convinced that even in the last mentioned phases
of constructive imagination, the emotional element plays its part and
manifests a decided influence. Some careful teachers have gone so

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far as to hold that the emotional element is the
primal original factor in all invention, inasmuch as all invention
presupposes a want, a craving, a tendency, an unsatisfied impulse,
often even a state of gestation full of discomfort. This want,
craving Often, even a state of gestation and urging of
the unsatisfied impulse produces an emotional state of SECAs seeking

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for relief, for a relief which is possible only by
the delivery of the completed idea of the invention. The
inventor always experiences the changing emotional states resulting from partial success,
temporary setbacks and discouragements, and finally the supreme joy of achievement,
often reaching the stage of actual exaltation accompanying the actual

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delivery of the child of the brain. An authority on
the subject says, I challenge anyone to produce a solitary
example of invention wrought out in pure abstraction and freed
from any factors of feeling. Human nature does not allow
such a miracle. In cultivating and developing your power of
constructive imagination, you will do well to begin by encouraging

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the emotional feeling which urges you toward creative invention. By
stimulating and encouraging the feeling striving for creative expression, you
are increasing the fire which generates the steam that runs
the mental machinery of invention. Interest depends upon feeling, is
indeed need a phase of feeling interest is the mental

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force which directs the mind to the inventive task and
which holds the attention upon it. Interest is aroused and
maintained by fanning the flame of feeling in the activities
of the constructive imagination and of the will. Emotional feeling
is the first requisite, the first element to be aroused
attention and imagination. As might be expected, we find that attention,

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concentrated attention is also vitally involved in the processes of
the constructive imagination. Definite voluntary conscious mental activity of any
kind or form requires the application of concentrated attention. The
act of holding one pointed. The powers of consciousness, the
fixed idea, and the fixed feeling necessary in efficient constructive

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imagination are the results of concentrated attention. The following quotations
from eminent authorities will serve to illustrate the principle now
under consideration. Ribaut says psychologists always adduce the same examples
when they wish to illustrate, on the one hand, tenacious
attention and on the other the developing labor without which

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creative work does not come to pass. Newton says, genius
is only long patience. I keep the subject continually before
me and wait until the first dawning opens slowly, little
by little into a clear light. If I have made
any improvements in the sciences, it was owing more to
patient attention than to any other talent. Day Lombert says,

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genius is always thinking of the thing. Kay says, possibly
the most comprehensive definition of genius is the power of
concentrating in prolonging the attention upon any one given subject.
Grill Partzer says, inspiration is a concentration of that which,
for the time being represents all the forces and capacities
upon a single point. The reinforcement of the state of

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mind comes from the fact that its several powers in stance,
instead of spreading themselves over the whole world, are contained
within the bounds of a single object. They touch one
another and reciprocally help and reinforce each other. In that
volume of this series entitled Perceptive Power, we have given
the most approved scientific methods of cultivating and developing the

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faculty of voluntary attention. Once more, we wish to impress
upon your mind the fact that the mind is a unity,
not a mere aggregation of particular mental faculties. Each faculty
is found to call upon and to make use of
the special powers of the other faculties. Each mental process
is found to involve the elements of several faculties. The

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activities of the several faculties or groups of faculties are
found to blend into each other in harmonious effective coordination.
In the consideration of any one special faculty or class
of faculties, this important fact is often overlooked. Observation and imagination.
You have seen that the the constructive imagination depends upon

(01:00:02):
the perceptive powers for its raw materials. Without a proper
supply of these raw materials of perception and observation, the
constructive imagination cannot proceed to continue and create those edifices
of creative images which serve as the models or patterns
of the subsequent materialization. Remember always that the constructive imagination

(01:00:24):
cannot create something out of nothing without having first sown
the field of memory with the seed of perception and observation,
there can be raised no crop of constructive imagination. The
child with three blocks is limited in his building operations.
Give him nine blocks, and he will be able to
effect many more combinations. This is just as true of

(01:00:46):
the individual who wishes to employ it effectively his constructive imagination.
His limits are determined by the amount of perceptive material
at his disposal. The Eskimo dwelling in the Arctic regions
can never hope to create imaginative pictures of the things
of the temperate or the tropical zones, unless by some
chance he has gained a knowledge of the latter by

(01:01:06):
means of books, pictures, or the descriptions of travelers. Even
in that exceptional event, as Halleck says, he must interpret
all that he reads in terms of the scant shrubbery
with which he is familiar, and his best imaginative picture
of tropical foliage will be meager and dwarfed. You will
do well to cultivate your powers of perception and observation

(01:01:27):
in connection with your work of developing your powers of
constructive imagination. Consult some good text book on this subject.
We feel justified in calling your attention in this connection
to that book of this series entitled Perceptive Power. It
will be found to contain practical instruction based upon the
best scientific methods of cultivating, developing, and training the perceptive

(01:01:49):
powers and the faculty of observation. We scarcely need to
point out to you that a very large part of
the mental processes of any and all kinds are performed
wholly or in part on planes or levels of consciousness
below the planes or levels of the ordinary consciousness. Modern
psychology has so thoroughly demonstrated this fact that we need

(01:02:09):
do no more than to mention it. Here, as might
be expected, the processes of constructive imagination are performed to
a great extent in this way. We might even say
that the conscious performance of constructive imagination is limited to
one the initiatory stages, in which the germ of the
creative process is carefully considered in consciousness and the initial

(01:02:31):
impulse is imparted to it, after which it is placed
in a subconscious field for incubation. Two the intermediate stages,
in which the partially incubated creation is raised to the
plane of consciousness, there to be examined by the conscious mentality, adjustments, adaptations,
end suggestions of improvement added, after which the incomplete process

(01:02:52):
is again relegated to the subconscious levels. And three the
last stage, in which the practically completed creation is raised
to the levels of consciousness for a final inspection. Here
that the finishing touches are added and the work is completed.
The greater part of the process, you will note, is
performed on the subconscious levels or planes of the mind.

(01:03:14):
Hofdain says, the interweaving of the elements of the picture
in the imagination takes place in a great measure below
the threshold of consciousness, so that the image suddenly emerges
in consciousness complete in its broad outlines, the conscious result
of an unconscious process. The above statement, however, should have
contained the proviso that the subconscious processes referred to were

(01:03:35):
performed only after and because the conscious mentality previously had
been actively employed in earnest and concentrated consideration of the
subject in question. The autobiographies and biographies of men of genius,
great inventors, great scientists, and others actively employing constructive imagination
are filled with illustrations of the workings of the subconscious

(01:03:58):
faculties of the mind. These show can inclusively the important
part played by these below the surface mental activities in
all creative and inventive thought. While the activities of the
constructive imagination proceed more or less freely or even spontaneously,
and cannot properly be reduced to a mere mechanical form
of procedure. Nevertheless, there are certain general stages or steps

(01:04:20):
of the process which are sufficiently determined in formed to
be subject to classification. The following general classification is offered
with the understanding that it is not rigid nor exclusive.
It is merely an attempt to picture the several apparently
separate steps or stages of a process which in reality
is continuous rather than composed of separated parts. One the

(01:04:42):
germ stage. This is the stage of the first general
thought concerning the nature of the thing sought to be
created by the constructive imagination. A writer has stated it
as the first idea coming to the mind as a
possible solution of a problem which has been put to
one or has struck him by reason of his needs
and requirements or those of others, and which has assumed

(01:05:04):
nebulous form by reason of his previous observations, studies, and researches.
The energy of this germ is supplied by the desire
feeling arising from the needs of the individual or those
of others, which are known to him and which represent
obstacles to the efficient expression of his nature. This desired,
fuller expression may be in the direction of self preservation, health, welfare,

(01:05:28):
protection or general comfort, or that of military or commercial
supremacy or success or that of sexual expression with its
many secondary forms of manifestation. Again, it may be in
the direction of mechanical invention and construction in response to
the mechanical instinct, or that of artistic production, or that
of social reforms and improvements. Likewise, it may be in

(01:05:52):
the direction of knowledge of science or philosophy, or that
of religious or theological interpretation or explanation, and all all
that pertains to these. In short, every form of desire, feeling, emotion, need,
lack or want, every frustrated purpose, every emotional state which
tends to manifest in will action may supply the motor

(01:06:14):
or energizing element in the germ of constructive imagination. Around
this energizing element are loosely gathered the general ideas connected
with the discovery in creation of that which will fill
this want, satisfy this desire, comfort this feeling, fill this
emotional void. The germ so constituted has been described by
a writer as an embryonic, unstable, and uncoordinated manifestation of

(01:06:39):
the creative imagination, a transition stage between passive reproduction and
organized construction. Two the incubation stage. This is the stage
in which the germ rests in the womb of the
subconscious mentality. Here the mind operates along the lines of
both conscious and subconscious activity. The conscious mentality observes the

(01:07:01):
new ideas to which the interested attention now is directed
by reason of the demands of the incubating germ in
the subconscious mental womb, and then passes them down to
the subconscious plane, there to be absorbed, assimilated, and combined
with similar ideative material. The subconscious mentality searches the stores
of memory for associated facts, ideas, and images which may

(01:07:23):
be combined with the material of the germ or embryonic image.
Of this stage, a writer says, the incubation is often
very long and painful, or again even totally unconscious. Instinctively
as well as voluntarily. Subconsciously as well as consciously, the
mind brings together all the materials that it can gather.

(01:07:45):
Another writer says, here is the germ, the principle of unity,
the center of attraction, suggesting, exciting, and grouping, the proper
association of images in which it becomes enwrapped and organized
into a structure, an ensemble of means convert to a
common end free the delivery stage. This is the stage

(01:08:05):
in which the developed embryo, the evolved germ, with its
accumulated associated and related images grouped around it in logical order,
is raised to the plane or level of consciousness and
is borne into the world of conscious thought and cognition. Here,
the happy subconscious and conscious parents exclaim unto us, a
child is born, as a writer says, when the latent

(01:08:28):
subconscious work is sufficiently complete, the idea suddenly bursts forth.
It may be at the end of a voluntary tension
of mind, or it may be on the occasion of
a chance remark, tearing the veil that hides the surmised image.
The child of imagination, so born into the world of objectivity,
must be carefully handled and provided for. It must be

(01:08:51):
nursed until it is strong enough to adapt itself to
its new environment. The imagination must be drawn upon as
the breasts of the mother are drawn up pawn for milk,
in order to provide for the offspring. The young idea
may perish if it is denied proper clothing and food.
It must become gradually habituated to its new environment. Undue

(01:09:12):
exposure to the winds of objectivity may weaken or even
kill it. This is more than a mere figure of speech.
It bears a close resemblance to actual facts of experience,
as many inventors and parents of new ideas know to
their sorrow. Creative Power, Your Constructive Forces by William Walker Atkinson,

(01:09:33):
The Builder and the Plan. In the processes of efficient
constructive imagination, directed by a definite purpose and toward a
determined end, you will find it advantageous to follow the
general rule given below. This rule, which is the result
of a careful study of the requirements of the case
made by competent investigators of the subject, is not a

(01:09:54):
hard and fast rule to be observed absolutely by you
under all circumstances. Rather, it is a general framework of
the actual method to be followed by you, the special
details being supplied by yourself, rightly understood and intelligently adapted
by you to the special circumstances of particular cases. This
rule will be found to meet the requirements of practically

(01:10:15):
all the cases likely to require your attention. General rule
I create a clear mental picture of the general idea
representing your definite purpose i e. The particular end which
you wish to accomplish the particular obstacle which you wish
to overcome, the particular result which you wish to obtain,
the particular desire which you wish to satisfy, the particular

(01:10:38):
ideal which you wish to make real, the particular idea
which you wish to materialize in objective form. Two, Form
a comprehensive picture of the whole field of the proposed undertaking.
Get a comprehensive and inclusive view of the whole field
of the business into which you purpose embarking. See the
whole enterprise in all of its general aspects. Compose a

(01:10:59):
comprehensive idea, including the whole matter under consideration. Three. Make
a written list of all of the probable factors involved
in the problem or undertaking. Compile a list of all
of the probable elements involved in the working out of
the matter. Gather together all of the ideas of the
things at all likely to be called into the creative process.
Have within easy reached the ideas of all of the

(01:11:21):
materials likely to be employed in the construction of the
ideal form which you wish to materialize. For classify these ideas,
elements and factors according to their general nature, their general uses,
their known relations and associations, cross indexing them under appropriate headings,
and referring to the lesser elements, parts or factors of

(01:11:41):
which each is composed. Diagram and chart these ideas according
to your system of classification, so as to have the
whole matter under your mind's eye, and so that you
may be able to grasp the arrangement at a glance
without having to hunt for scattered items. The weigh the
various factors one against the other, taking into consideration the
associated and related values of each in the general idea, plan,

(01:12:05):
or purpose. Determine in this way which are the primary
factors involved, which are the secondary and which are the
lesser values. Concentrate on the prime factors and make these
the central points in your process of constructive imagination, the
focal centers around which you purpose grouping the associated factors
or elements. Six. Experiment by tentatively placing the secondary factors

(01:12:30):
in association with and relation to the prime factors, regardless
of how improbable or incongruous at first may seem. Such
association and relation around the letter A, build alphabet block
combinations of the letters B, C, D, E, F, G, et, cetera.
Blocks to see if they make sense or if they

(01:12:50):
suggest anything of rational meaning to you. Discard all combinations
that seem lacking in utility, but only after actually making
the test an experiment. Continue this until you have secured
satisfactory results. Where there are several apparently satisfactory or fairly
promising combinations, weigh these one against the other to determine

(01:13:11):
their comparative values, discarding the lesser values and retaining the
greater until you have secured the survival of the fittest.
Then proceed to test out the lesser factors in the
same way, working out all the details of the plan. Seven.
Having reached at least a fairly satisfactory working plan idea
invention or solution of your problem, you should then carefully

(01:13:34):
detach yourself from it. You should move from your personal
point of view and try to see it as others
will see it. Try to imagine the effect it will
have on the persons whom you wish to be interested
in your finished product, how it will meet their requirements,
satisfy their wants, or rouse their desires for it. Your
own created conjunction plan, method, design, or invention naturally will

(01:13:57):
seem to you as the infant appears to its mother.
No mother is an unprejudiced critic of her own baby.
You must see the thing as others will see it.
In order to arrive at an intelligent idea of the
actual degree of utility possessed by your invention, creation, composition,
or contrivance, you must employ past experience, reason, judgment, discrimination,

(01:14:20):
and cool decision in this final testing process. In the
present and in several following sections of this book, we
shall ask you to consider in further detail the several
divisions or principles composing the above mentioned general rule, together
with certain instructions designed to promote the effective application of
each of these special points. In the general rule of

(01:14:41):
efficient constructive imagination, the first step is that of creating
a clear mental picture of the general idea representing your
definite purpose, i e. The particular end which you wish
to accomplish, the particular obstacle which you wish to overcome,
the particular result which you wish to obtain, the particular
desire which you wan wish to satisfy, the particular ideal

(01:15:02):
which you wish to make real, the particular idea which
you wish to materialize. In objective form. Definite purpose is
an essential characteristic of all true constructive imagination. This definite
purpose may not be the actual purpose to objectify a
subjective image already created in the mind, though often it
is precisely this purpose of externalizing the created internal image.

(01:15:26):
More often, however, the definite purpose is that of overcoming
an obstacle, supplying a perceived want, discovering an efficient method
of performing certain work. There is always present a fixed
idea supported by a fixed feeling. The more definite the purpose,
the more directly does the creative work proceed to its end.

(01:15:47):
The more persistent the feeling and the desire inspiring it,
the stronger is the urge toward the objective materialization. Hallick
says of this characteristic of the creative imagination, the constructive
imagination is always characterized by a definite purpose which is
never lost sight of until the image is complete. A
child starts to build a house out of blocks. These

(01:16:10):
are often changed and taken down many times before the
form in which they are built is such as to
fix the growing purposive image in the child's mind. Before
an architect builds a house, he must form successive images
which he alters whenever they conflict with the general plan
of that special dwelling. An inventor often spends years in

(01:16:30):
changing and recombining the images of parts of his machine,
but he is all the while dominated by a definite purpose.
The images must be altered until matter poured into their
mold fulfills the aim of the inventor. We would, here, however,
caution you against harboring the idea that the definite purpose
is a crystallized, fixed, unchangeable archetype which the inventor strives

(01:16:53):
to represent as best he can in material objective form. Rather,
the definite purpose is an evolving the developing idea moving forward,
as do all living forms, it advances and usually gradually
takes on new and better forms and details. Also, it
frequently discards as inefficient or impracticable some of the forms

(01:17:14):
or details which it had accepted at the start. As
a writer has said, the creative ideal arises in the
inventor and proceeds through him. Its life is a becoming process,
and not an unchangeable fixed form. Its fixed character consists
of its continuity in definite purpose. If we liken creative

(01:17:35):
imagination to physiological generation, this creative ideal is the oval
awaiting fertilization in order to begin its development. The creative
ideal is a creative image tending to become real. Before
you may expect successfully to accomplish creative mental work, you
must know, at least in a general way, just what
you wish to create. You must select at least the

(01:17:57):
general goal toward which you desire to journey. You must
not be content to sing, in the words of the
familiar ballad, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm
on the way. You must sketch at least the general
map of the country over which you wish to travel,
and to indicate with at least a fair degree of definiteness,
the place at which you hope to arrive at your
journey's end. We do not hold that you must necessarily

(01:18:21):
work out a detailed map of that country. The details
you may fill in as you proceed. Neither do we
hold that you should necessarily make a mark at some
particular part of the map to indicate the place at
which you expect to settle down. You will be better
able to do this when you arrive at that general
part of the country toward which you are journeying. We
do insist, however, that you should know the general direction

(01:18:43):
in which you are headed. The early settlers of America
knew that they were going west, and most of them
had a very fair idea as to just what particular
section of the far west most attracted their interest and
held their attention. The matter of the precise exact location
of the place at which they expected to take up
land was usually left to be determined when they arrived

(01:19:04):
on the general scene and had a chance to look
over the places still open to them for settlement. This
is about as much as we can ask for from
you in the matter now under consideration. All true exercise
of the constructive imagination is inspired by a want, a lack,
an obstacle, a problem, or a thwarted purpose, the latter

(01:19:24):
being stated by an eminent psychologist to be the occasion
for all reasoning. If your every want were satisfied, if
you suffered no lack, if there were no problem requiring solution,
no obstacles to be overcome, no thwarded purposes present in
your experience, then you would never be called upon to
exercise your powers of constructive imagination. Your want, your lack,

(01:19:48):
your unsatisfied desire, your thwarted purpose. These called into activity
the creative powers of your mind. It may not be
always quite dear to you what constitutes the prime factors
of your want, desire, lack, problem, or forwarded purpose. You
may find it necessary to boil down the thing, evaporating
the excess fluid in which this essence is dissolved. You

(01:20:11):
must get to the real, essential elements of the problem,
get down to brass tax. Here, as in many other
instances and cases, you will find it helpful to think
with your pencil, i e. To express in written words
the essence of the somewhat hazy general idea which is
present in your mind as representing your problem or want.
Unless you have practiced this plan, you can have no

(01:20:34):
adequate conception of its value to you in thinking and planning.
In thinking with your pencil, for the purpose of discovering
the prime factors or essential elements of your problem or purpose,
you must strive to get down to the bottom of
the subject, to reach the center of the thing. Once
having found this, you may work backward and forward in
any direction from that focal point. The focal point may

(01:20:57):
be discovered by determined pencil thought upon on the following
two questions, viz. One, what is the obstacle which I
wish to overcome? What is the nature of this forwarded purpose?
What is the gist of the difficulty? And two? What
is the first and main factor or element of my
purpose in this eighty five matter? What is it necessary

(01:21:18):
for me to accomplish? What is the general end to
be accomplished? What is the big idea which I wish
to make real? Continue the task of analyzing and dissecting
the subject until you finally reduce it to its ultimate
elements of definite purpose. That definite purpose is always there,
though usually hidden by a mass of comparatively non essential ideas.

(01:21:40):
It is your work to clear away this mass of
encumbering material of thought, so that you may bring into
plane view the precious thing at the center of the mass. Or,
employing another figure, it is up to you to carve
away the mass of stone which hides the figure of
your ideal, that ideal which is crying for release from
the encumbering material. Just as the sculptor with his chisel

(01:22:01):
releases the hidden form of his ideal creation, your definite purpose,
once discovered, it becomes your definite ideal. The focal point
around which is built the entire structure of your creation.
The definite ideal is like the grain of sand, which
exists at the center of every pearl, and about which
the pearly material has gathered. It is the big idea

(01:22:23):
around which your constructive imagination builds, deposits, and accumulates its
wealth of material. Your definite ideal represents your desire, need, want, purpose,
plan design. It is the vital germ of the entire
future organism. It is the seed from which will spring
the downward pressing roots and the upward pressing stalk. Without it,

(01:22:44):
there would be no creative growth in the degree of
its strength, definiteness, and clearness of form. So will be
the degree of perfection and vigor in that which springs
from it. The importance of discovering, in uncovering the definite
ideal is not confined to its own effect upon your
conscious mental activities. Its effect upon your subconscious faculties and

(01:23:05):
powers of imagination is even greater still. By a clear
conception of your definite ideal, and by its repeated impression
upon your subconscious mentality, the idea becomes firmly, deeply and
clearly set in the substance of the latter, and thereafter
the subconscious faculties work steadily toward the end of the
successful accomplishment of the purpose an ideal thus impressed upon it.

(01:23:29):
The importance of this is realized only when you stop
to think that over eighty five percent of the activities
of the mind are performed below the levels or planes
of your ordinary consciousness. The fifteen percent of the work
performed by your conscious faculties is confined largely to the
task of supplying the subconscious faculties with the proper materials
for their work, and to adapting, shaping, testing, and applying

(01:23:51):
the manufactured product of the subconscious workshop. Once having discovered
and uncovered your definite ideal, you should strive to make
as clear and definite a mental picture of it as possible.
Keep the general picture in mind, either directly in consciousness
or else at the back of your head, so that
you will know that it is there even when you
are not looking at it. Keep the big idea always

(01:24:15):
in mind. Consciously, subconsciously, and super consciously. Get the fixed
idea and the fixed feeling so firmly set in your
mind that it could not be dug out without breaking
up the mind itself. This definite ideal. This big idea
must be the mental picture, the ideal form which your
entire mental being is striving to make real, to materialize,

(01:24:38):
to objectify. Let no other mental picture rob this big idea,
picture of its prominent position, Hang it in your mental
picture gallery in such a position that it will catch
your mental eye the first thing in the morning and
the last thing at night. Having firmly established your definite ideal,
you should next proceed to map out your general field

(01:24:59):
and to note its prominent landmarks. In the words of
the second section of the general rule, you should form
a comprehensive picture of the whole field of the proposed undertaking.
Get a comprehensive and inclusive view of the field of
the whole business into which you purpose embarking. See the
whole enterprise in all of its general aspects. Compose a
comprehensive idea, including the whole matter under consideration. In this process,

(01:25:24):
you need but to follow the general principles which already
have been presented to you in the instruction concerning the
discovery in visualization of your definite purpose, your definite ideal.
These principles may be stated in condensed form as follows one.
Think with your pencil, write down all of the ideas
concerning the general field and plan, and then compare these

(01:25:46):
for the purpose of selection. Eliminate the non essentials, cancel
the duplications and contradictories, and arrange the selected items in
a logical and orderly classification. In short, make a chart
or die dig of the general field and plan, showing
the ground to be covered, the obstacles to be overcome,
the strong places, the weak points, et cetera, et cetera.

(01:26:09):
You will do well to bestow sufficient care and attention
upon this task, for your chart will be to you
what is map of the battlefield is to the commanding officer.
To visualize your map. Study your map until you can
easily visualize it. Learn it by heart, so that it
will become as familiar as your A, B. C's or

(01:26:30):
your multiplication table of childhood days. Impress your map upon
your memory so that you can bring it at will
into conscious representation or recollection. Creative power, your constructive Forces
by William Walker Atkinson The Mental Laboratory. The third section
of the general rule tells you to make a written

(01:26:52):
list of all of the probable factors involved in the
problem or undertaking. Compile a list of all of the
probable elements involved in the world working out of the matter.
Gather together all of the ideas of the things at
all likely to be called into the creative process. Have
within easy reached the ideas of all of the materials
likely to be employed in the construction of the ideal
form which you wish to materialize. Here you proceed to

(01:27:16):
supply the constructive imagination with the raw materials for its
creative processes. You have seen that the constructive imagination does
not and cannot create something out of nothing. Instead, it
creates by combination, adaptation, adjustment, transformation, always employing the material
which you furnish it for the purpose. Therefore, you must

(01:27:39):
supply it with the kind of mental images which are
best adapted for the creation of the new forms, images
or ideas which contribute to the manifestation of your definite purpose,
your definite central ideal. This material composed of mental images
is then employed both by your conscious mentality and by
your subconscious mentality in their work of weaving or fusing

(01:28:00):
the fabric or form of the necessary new images. You
must get busy at this point. You have much real
work ahead of you. Here, you must begin by acquainting
yourself with the list of the things which seem likely
to come into use in the working out of your
definite purpose your definite ideal. You need not be absolutely
certain that all of the material being gathered in by

(01:28:22):
you for this purpose really will prove necessary or even
valuable in the process. Gather in all that seems at
all likely to be of some use. In case of
uncertainty on this point, give the material the benefit of
the doubt, and add it to your list. You may
discard it later, if need be. All that you need
to do at this time is to gather together such

(01:28:43):
materials as seem likely to be worth consideration in the matter,
And note this, make a written list of all such
items of promising material, for you will be called upon
to do considerable thinking with your pencil in the work
ahead of you. In the first place, you must fairly
saturate yourself with the subject represented by your definite purpose
and definite ideal, the achievement of which is so insistently desired,

(01:29:07):
so confidently expected, and so persistently willed by you. You
must learn at least the name and general character of
everything connected with or related to that subject, if but
even remotely related to it. This because the images or
ideas of these related things are precisely the stuff upon
which your constructive imagination must depend for the materials which

(01:29:29):
it must weave or fuse into newer and more efficient images.
Everything that ever was invented, created, or composed by the
constructive imagination is constituted of several elements. And these elements
previously existed as separate though related ideas, the same kind
of ideas which you are now trying to accumulate as
raw material. The men who invented, created, or composed those

(01:29:53):
new things were dependent upon these separate images or ideas
for their material. Without them, these men could not and
would not have invented or created those new images. You
are now in the same position as where they before
their work was really begun, or rather before their definite
purposes and definite ideals had begun to assume clearly defined
form and proportions. Morse, Stevenson, Marconi, Edison, and the rest

(01:30:18):
of the inventors were once in the same boat in
which you are now To duplicate their processes. You must
gather together the raw materials just as they did. This
should be plain enough for you, But do not proceed
further until this truth is thoroughly grasped and appreciated by you.
You must be well grounded in the facts of this

(01:30:39):
fundamental principle before you properly may proceed to set the
same into creative activity. There is no royal road to
constructive imagination. All high and low, always have, must now,
and must always hereafter travel the same common road leading
to the goal. This all includes yourself. A moment ago,

(01:31:01):
we told you that you must fairly saturate yourself with
the subject represented by your definite purpose and definite ideal,
the achievement of which is so insistently desired, confidently expected,
and persistently willed by you. You must learn at least
the name and general character of everything connected with or
related to that subject, even remotely related to it. But

(01:31:23):
just how are you to saturate yourself with such knowledge?
Just how are you going to know at least the
name and general character of everything connected with or related
to that particular subject. The correct answer to these questions
involves a most important method of the scientific application of
constructive imagination, and you should consider carefully the following information

(01:31:43):
given as the answer. Consider this proposition. If some very
wealthy man were to call you into his office and
then make you the following offer, you would accept it
at once and would proceed to devise the proper means
to accomplish the task and win the reward. There would
be no hesitancy on your part about accepting it. We
are sure. Here is the hypothetical rich man's offer to you,

(01:32:06):
mister Blank, I want someone to prepare for me the
fullest and most complete list possible of the things concerning
or related to this particular subject here naming the subject
of your definite purpose and definite ideal. I will give
you a salary of double the amount you are now earning,
and also pay all your expenses while you are conducting
the search and preparing the list. When you have completed

(01:32:28):
the list, if it is found to meet the requirements
of reasonable completeness and perfection, I will make you a
present of one hundred thousand dollars. Will you undertake the task?
What would be your answer? You would accept? Of course,
Then what would be the first steps in your preparation
of the list. Well, you would begin by reading the

(01:32:49):
best textbooks covering the general subject, starting off with the
descriptive articles treating upon it, which you would find in
the best encyclopedias. You would saturate yourself with the subject.
You would consult with persons employed in occupations necessitating at
least a working knowledge of the subject. You would read
the trade journals circulating among those engaged in such callings,

(01:33:12):
not forgetting to read the advertisements. You would carefully consider
the price lists and catalogs of houses dealing in the
supplies required in those branches of work. In short, you
would seek in every possible direction, and from every possible source,
for the names of the things concerning or related to
that special subject. You would seek every possible association of

(01:33:35):
that subject, the subjects closely associated with it, and having
some practical relation to it. You would discover these associations
by asking yourself one what is this thing? Two of
what is it composed? Three? What is its purpose? Four?
For whose use is it intended? Five? What is its

(01:33:58):
past history, its evolution, tionary story? Six? What are the
things most resembling it? Seven? What thing is most unlike it?
Its opposite? And many more questions of that sort. You
would seek to fill your mind with all the essential
images connected with or related to your subject. But you

(01:34:18):
would not be satisfied with merely learning the names of
these connected or related things, though even these are of
great importance and really form the first step of your task.
You would seek also to learn the meaning of those names.
You would consult the best dictionaries, reference works, encyclopedias, et cetera.
For the meaning of one term. You would uncover other

(01:34:40):
terms closely associated with the one you are running down.
Than you would search for the meaning of these new terms.
You would learn the past history, the story of the
evolution of the prime factors of your special subject. You
would learn the various attempts to solve certain of the
problems involved, the failures and successes. You would learn the

(01:35:00):
various theories advanced in the history of the subject, and
the answer and objections to each. In short, you would
fairly saturate yourself with the known facts concerning the subject
and the subjects associated with it. You would know the
name of everything involved in the subject, and the meaning
of that name. Briefly, you would fill your mind with

(01:35:21):
the mental images, concepts, or ideas of each and everything
connected with or related to that subject. Of course, you
would use your pencil in noting down these names and
their meaning, you would think with your pencil. You would
arrange your facts into classes, minor classes, forming greater classes,
and so on. You would have on your list every

(01:35:43):
important element involved in the matter. You would know what
each of these meant. You would have an adequate conception
of each and every one of these elements. You would
not be satisfied until your list was made as complete
and as comprehensive as possible. The one hundred thousand dollars
reward would inspire you, but as you worked, the growing

(01:36:03):
interest in the task itself would urge you on. You
would have awakened the creative instinct which had been lying
dormant within you. Well, then this is just the way
for you to go to work concerning the subject of
your definite purpose and definite ideal. What you would do
for the millionaire, you must do for yourself. You must
work for yourself just as faithfully as you would work

(01:36:25):
for such an employer. The same spirit must inspire you,
the same interest must urge you on, the same creative
instinct must be awakened. Here is what you must accomplish
in this stage. You must make an inventory of all
the essential elements involved in your special subject, and each
name on that inventory must be so well understood by

(01:36:46):
you that it constitutes a definite mental image, concept, or idea.
The ideal inventory of important elements must include one every
discoverable important thing employed or used in connection with the subject.
Two every discoverable important fact concerning that subject. Three every
discoverable important item of information concerning the essential application of

(01:37:09):
that subject. Four every discoverable important event or experience in
the history of that subject, five every discoverable important cause
affecting that subject, six every discoverable important effect produced by
that subject, And seven every discoverable important law, principle, or
method employed in the processes connected with that subject. You

(01:37:33):
must know one of what the thing is made, two
how it is made, three who makes it, four who
uses it or may use it, five what the users
need it, four and how they use it, and how
others may use it, and the other ways in which
persons may use it. Six how it is sold or
may be sold to those who use it. Seven the

(01:37:55):
general methods of its distribution and the extent of such.
The above are but general suggestions. You must adapt them
and add to them according to the special requirements of
the case. For the purposes of such list making, we
make the following suggestions. Use freely a good encyclopedia, preferably
one having a classified index or an efficient system of

(01:38:17):
cross indexing. Use trade or professional text books, encyclopedias, dictionaries,
reference works, et cetera. Read the trade or professional journals
relating to your subject, Paying due attention to the advertisements
for advertisements properly read constitute a rich mind of suggestive ideas.

(01:38:38):
Before we pass on to the next step in the
process of constructive imagination, we would again emphasize the importance
of having a definite, clear idea or mental image back
of every name or term representing an essential element of
your problem or subject. A name or term without an
associated meaning is like a skeleton without flesh, nerves, and muscles,

(01:38:59):
and above all without life. You do not know a
thing merely by knowing its name. You know it only
in the degree that you grasp the meaning sought to
be expressed by that name. Get acquainted with your dictionary,
turn its pages, and put flesh and meat on the
bare bones of the mere names and terms that you know.
Breathe life into them. Hallick says concerning this point, the

(01:39:22):
formation of accurate images is essential to the right culture
of the imagination. A good house cannot be built out
of shapeless brick. The use of words without definite corresponding
images is fatal to imagination. If we study any branch
of science without representing to ourselves by imaginative power the
meanings of the various terms, our time is somewhat more

(01:39:44):
than wasted, for we are forming a bad habit. Molecular vibrations,
tension of the ether, undulations of varying amplitude and length,
valves of the heart, stamens, peltate leaves, gothic arches. These
are terms which should never be used without the ability
to form sharp images. In each case, a person who

(01:40:04):
had been talking about defective flus as causes of fires
was asked to state plainly what he meant by a
defective flu. It was then seen that he had no
clear image corresponding to the term, which was simply a
mask for his ignorance. Persons who allow themselves to use
terms in this way must not expect to have much
imaginative power. Let your meanings of names and terms take

(01:40:28):
on the aspect of mental pictures or images of the
thing represented by the names. See the thing in your
mind's eye when you are intently thinking of it, Visualize
it into mental life and vigor, and it will take
on a world of new meaning to you when you
wish to employ it as an element of constructive imagination.
A lively imagination in the true meaning of that term,

(01:40:50):
is an imagination in which the images are alive and
not mere lifeless verbal skeletons of things long since passed
out of actual moving existence. Breathe the breath of life
into your mental images. The fourth section of the general
rule tells you to classify these ideas elements and factors
according to their general nature, their general uses, their known

(01:41:13):
relations and associations, cross indexing them under appropriate headings, and
referring to the lesser elements, parts, or factors of which
each is composed. Diagram and chart these ideas according to
your system of classification, so as to have the whole
matter under your mind's eye, and that you may be
able to grasp the arrangement at a glance without having

(01:41:33):
to hunt for scattered items. By following this method, after
having accumulated your materials of constructive imagination, i e. Your concepts, ideas,
or mental images of the elements involved in the future
creation of new images, you will arrange them according to
some logical system of classification. In this way, you file
away each particular concept or idea according to its proper

(01:41:56):
place in a more general class, and thereby your are
able more easily to find it when you need it.
This plan, as compared with that of simply piling your
ideas and concepts in a miscellaneous heap, is akin to
the scientific method of filing away correspondence in a filing cabinet,
as compared with that of simply throwing the letters together
in a barrel box or large drawer. A business man

(01:42:20):
is able to find the letter he needs simply by
going to his file and placing his hand on the
proper compartment. He has an immense advantage over the one
who has to hunt through a large mass of unfiled correspondence.
It is not enough to have the idea of a thing.
It is necessary to know where to find that idea
when you want it. Psychology informs us that one may

(01:42:41):
far more easily remember facts filed in the memory records
according to some system of logical classification than where the
facts simply exist somewhere in the mind. Your classification of
concepts or ideas should be according to the general nature
of the ideas, their natural associations with other objects, their uses.
For instance, in your mental file of building materials, there

(01:43:04):
would be contained the concepts of stone, clay, brick, iron, steel, lumber, concrete, cement, tile,
et cetera. In your mental file of metals, there would
be found the records of iron, copper, gold, silver, nickel, zinc, platinum, lead, tin, antimony, manganese, mercury, aluminum, cobalt, tungsten,

(01:43:27):
et cetera. In your mental file of mechanical devices, there
would be filed your records of axles, shafting wheels, levers, pulleys, cranks, cams, eccentrics, winches, windlasses,
inclined planes, wedges, toggle joints, endless screws, belts, gear wheels,
gearing couplings, et cetera. In your mental file of fibers

(01:43:51):
and textiles, there would be placed your records of cotton, flax, hemp, jute, linen, manila, hemp, noils,
raymie shot, silk, organzine, floss, silk, wool, and worsted coir,
artificial silk, artificial cotton, vegetable, silk, et cetera. In your
mental file of dairy products, you would place your records

(01:44:13):
of milk, skim, milk, casine, cream, butter, cheese, buttermilk, milk, sugar, ghee,
keher cumis, whey, et cetera. The above illustrative examples should
be sufficient to indicate the general idea of efficient and
practical classification. Each general classification, moreover, should be subjected to

(01:44:35):
sub classification. Large classes should be divided and subdivided into
the lesser classes. Small classes should be raised to higher
and still higher classes, and so on until the highest
general class is reached. The following table illustrating geometrical figures
will serve as an example of such classification. Plane, rectilinear, trilateral, quadrilateral, multilateral, curvilinear, circular, elliptic, parabolic, hyperbolic, solid, rectilinear, tetrahedral, pentahedral, sextahedral,

(01:45:14):
et cetera, curvilinear, spherical, conical, cylindrical, paraboloidal. In the above illustration,
we have the smallest class of figures grouped according to
its most positive quality. This group raised to the respective
class of plane or solid, as the case may be,
and this last class included in the general class of figures.

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One having at hand this table would have a complete
index of his mental images representing the various forms included
in the general class of geometrical figures. He would have
a map or diagram of his knowledge of the subject.
It being understood that each of the above terms must
be accompanied by a clear mental concept of each figure,
a dear meaning of each capable of being stated in

(01:45:58):
the terms of logical defathy definition. The ideal theoretical system
of classification would really be that in which each article
was classified according to all its characteristics, its uses, its
possible combinations, its associations, its relations, et cetera. Such a system, however,
would be well nigh impossible, and for that matter, would

(01:46:20):
be far too complex and cumbersome for ordinary practical use.
But you should not lose sight of the general principle. Nevertheless,
the ideal for practical use would be a classification showing
one every possible use or end to which a certain
thing might be applied, employed, or directed, and two every
possible thing which might be applied, employed, or directed to

(01:46:44):
a certain use or end. The nearer you approach to
this ideal in your work, of classification of the things
concerned with, connected with, or related to the general subject
of your definite purpose and definite ideal. The better will
be your chances of the successful achievement of that pose
the successful realization of that ideal. It is said that

(01:47:04):
a certain eminent inventor possesses a very complete index and
series of cross indexes of nearly everything concerned with the
general field in which he is working. For instance, he
has lists showing one all the discovered uses to which
each and every such thing has been put, the discovered
effects of its combinations with other things, the things most

(01:47:25):
nearly related to or resembling it, and two each and
every such thing which has been discovered to be possible
of use, employment, and effect in the direction of producing
or affecting a certain result, effect, combination, or composition. In short,
he has the cause relations and the effect relations of
every object on his list noted and classified, indexed and

(01:47:47):
cross indexed. When this inventor wishes to know the possible
causes of a desired effect, he turns to his indexes,
and the information is at hand. Likewise, when he wishes
to know the possible results and effects related to a
particular thing, he puts his hand on the information. In
the same way, the list is kept checked up and

(01:48:08):
posted by a corps of assistants who note the reports
contained in the scientific journals, et cetera, and also the
results of their employer's own original experiments. He has built
up and maintained a veritable encyclopedia of information relating to
the things concerned with his own particular line of work. Consequently,
he not only has a wealth of valuable information on hand,

(01:48:31):
but he also saves an immense amount of time and
labor when he is engaged in actual, experimental and inventive work.
While the illustrated instances above cited represent extreme cases, yet
they serve to bring out the principle involved. It is
not expected that you should undertake any such elaborate system
of classification. Yet you should not fail to employ its

(01:48:52):
general principle to the highest degree of which you are capable,
or which you find possible under the circumstances, all else
as being equal, the person who has one the greatest
store of concepts or mental images concerning the general subject
of his definite purpose and definite ideal, and who two
has that material the most thoroughly classified and indexed, either

(01:49:14):
in his memory or mechanically, that person will manifest the
highest degree of success in his work of constructive imagination.
You will do well to impress upon your memory all
new facts arranged according to their logical classification. You will
do well also to use your pencil in making written
lists of the things involved in your creative work. In short,

(01:49:35):
in every possible manner and by every possible method, seek
to one acquire concepts, ideas or mental images related to
your definite purpose and definite ideals. And then two classify
these concepts, ideas or mental images according to a definite
logical scientific plan, so that you may find them easily

(01:49:56):
and quickly when you need them in the work of
constructive imagination. With well selected materials in sufficient amount and
stored away systematically so that you may put your hand
on them when needed, you will have progressed very far
on the road to the achievement of your definite purpose
and definite ideal by the processes of the constructive imagination. Now, then,

(01:50:17):
when you have one acquired the concepts, ideas or mental
images related to your definite purpose and definite ideal, have
two ascertained and thoroughly apprehended the full meaning of each
of these items of material, and have three properly classified, indexed,
and charted them, so that you have the mental laboratory
them arranged for efficient reference. What have you at your

(01:50:39):
command in the first place, you have compiled what may
be called a thesaurus of your image ideas. A thesaurus
is a treasury or repository, the term often applied to
a comprehensive reference work. A lexicon containing lists of words
arranged according to the ideas or concepts which they express.

(01:51:00):
A dictionary contains a list of words, with the definition
of each the statement of the idea or concept which
each expresses. A thesaurus, on the other hand, contains lists
of words arranged in groups, each group representing a certain
general idea or concept which its several particular words express.
When you wish to know the meaning of a word

(01:51:21):
or term, you consult your dictionary. When you wish to
find the several words or terms expressing a certain idea
or concept, you consult your thesaurus, discovering there the term
denoting the general class of ideas or concepts which you
have in mind, you find arranged opposite at the several
particular words or terms employed to express the class of

(01:51:41):
ideas or concepts. In the thesaurus of image ideas which
you have compiled, you will find the image ideas related
to or associated with the general idea or concept which
you are employing in your work of constructive imagination. The
smaller classes are grouped into greater classes, and these into
still greater and so on and so on, until under

(01:52:03):
your central image idea you will find classified and grouped
each in every particular related or associated image idea. Stop
a moment and consider how valuable such a thesaurus of
image ideas will be to you, or to any thinker discover, investigator, researcher,
or inventor or business man in the work of constructive imagination.

(01:52:25):
The individual here performs his creative work surrounded by all
the materials which he will require, all at hand. Employing
another illustrative figure of speech, we may say that by
following the previously mentioned plan of the collection and classification
of the materials of image ideas, you have built and
stocked for yourself a great and valuable mental laboratory. You

(01:52:47):
have proceeded upon the same general plan as that employed
by scientists in the creation of their experimental laboratories. In
these laboratories their workshops in which these scientists perform their
experimental work, are to be found the various elements which,
when combined in certain arrangements and proportions, produced the sought
for synthetic compositions. The scientist in his laboratory and in

(01:53:11):
his actual work follows the same general plan which you
are to follow in your experimental work along the lines
of constructive imagination, i e. He tries first this combination
and then that one, until he reaches the best working combination,
the most satisfactory composition. It is stated that Edison has
perfected a similar laboratory which he employs in his work

(01:53:33):
of creative invention. It is reported that several years ago
he proceeded to test out every conceivable substance which seemed
at all possible of being used as a filament for
the electric light bulb, and that step by step, by
experiment after experiment, employing the process of test, trial, elimination,
and selection, he finally settled upon the best possible known

(01:53:55):
substance for that special purpose. Luther Burbank is said to
conduct his experimental work in plant creation in a similar way.
He tests, tries, experiments, combines, separates, eliminates, and finally selects
and preserves the fittest. Moreover, nature herself, in her creative

(01:54:16):
evolutionary processes, is discovered to proceed along the same general lines.
The history of natural evolution is but a record of ages,
long series of experiments, tests, combinations, adaptations, and natural selection,
ending in the survival of the fittest for the particular
purpose at each particular stage of the process. The plan

(01:54:37):
is but the taking of a leaf from the book
of nature. It is based upon the sound fundamental principles
of natural creation. Herbert Spencer once thought out a plan
whereby the patterns for fabrics woven, knitted, or printed, and
for wallpapers and other decorative material might be easily in
systematically discovered or created by means of the same general

(01:54:58):
plan to which we have referred and which is followed
in laboratory work. His plan was that of combination and
recombination of certain elemental patterns, figures, and designs according to
a definite and systematic plan of test for desirable combinations
and conjunctions. He said, concerning this plan, could there not
be a methodical use of components of designs so that

(01:55:21):
relatively few ideas should, by modes of combination, be made
to issue in multitudinous products, and could not this be
so done that draftsmen might produce them with facility, the
system serving, as it were, not as a physical kaleidoscope,
but as a mental kaleidoscope. Elmer Gates, the psychologist inventor,
is stated to have made many of his important discoveries

(01:55:43):
and inventions in precisely the way indicated in our preceding
consideration of effective constructive imagination, the method of combining the
elements of previously classified concepts and images. In fact, he
is said to attribute his success in his inventive work
directly to the psychologe logical methods based upon this general principle,
which he had previously worked out and systematized. It is

(01:56:06):
stated that Professor Gates has secured practically all of his
many important discoveries and inventions in electricity and acoustics, his
special branches of inventive work, in just this way. He
is said to have spent several years and much money
in acquiring the materials for his list of concept images
which formed the elements of his constructive work. In these branches,

(01:56:27):
he is reported to have worked with a list of
about two thousand simple concept images in electricity alone, from
which he has produced about fifteen thousand complex id images.
In acoustics, he is said to have worked with over
three thousand simple concept images, from which he has evolved
nearly ten thousand complex id images. Many believe that his

(01:56:48):
methods and ideas, when finally known and adopted, will work
a revolution in the world of inventive thought. The general
plan of the mental laboratory or of the mental thesaurus,
which we have outlined for u inn Sis this section
of this book is applicable not only for the inventor,
the investigator, the researcher, but for the business man, the clerk,
the salesman, the stenographer, or the worker in each and

(01:57:11):
every line of business, trade, or profession. The principle is
universal and may be applied in every field of human
endeavor and industry. In fact, it is not too much
to say that some of the elements of this plan
have been consciously or unconsciously employed by every individual who
has worked his way up from a subordinate position to
one of authority and command. The essence and substance of

(01:57:34):
the general idea is the gathering up and storing a
way of as many as possible of the facts associated
with the work in which you are engaged, the ideas
of the things likely to be needed at some time
in that work, so that you may have them within
easy mental reach at such times in which you have
need for them. The task is twofold viz. One, the

(01:57:54):
task of acquiring the necessary concepts, ideas and mental images
in question, and to the logical scientific classification in filing
away of these facts, concepts, and ideas, so that you
may be able to put your finger on them easily
and quickly when you have need for them. The individual
who will saturate himself with these essential facts, and who

(01:58:15):
will classify and store them away for future use, is
certain to reap his reward of success, appreciation, and achievement
in his particular line of work. Now, then let us
proceed in the following section of this book to the
consideration of the final steps or stages of the processes
of constructive imagination. In them is performed the work of combination, adaptation, arrangement,

(01:58:37):
and composition of the elements or image ideas which form
the stock and trade of your mental laboratory creative power
Your Constructive Forces by William Walker Atkinson, The Laws of Invention.
Having accumulated a sufficient store of idea image materials selected
according to the principle of probable value in your work

(01:58:59):
of cans constructive imagination with the intent of achieving your
definite purpose and definite ideal, and having classified these materials
according to logical order or special relations of use, et cetera,
you are now ready to proceed to the task of combining, adjusting, adapting,
and creating these materials into new images, ideas, or concepts
according to new plans of association, correlation, or coordination. You

(01:59:26):
should never lose sight of the fact that all work
of constructive imagination consists of joining together things already known,
but in new combinations and orders of arrangement, correlation, or coordination.
All great inventions are the result of evolution in recombination.
We may trace the history of the evolution of the
electric telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the steam engine,

(01:59:49):
the automobile, et cetera, through their many stages. Someone invented
some simple recombination but was unable to complete the task.
Another added some new recombination, still another discovered an improvement,
and so on. Until at the last some inventor, by
a bold stroke of constructive imagination, affected a more complete recombination,

(02:00:11):
adding some new and important combinations, and the invention was perfected. No,
not perfected fully, for in after years many other improvements
were added, and a simple thing grew into greater perfection.
In the Field Museum in Chicago at one time were
exhibited a series of models showing the evolutionary history of

(02:00:32):
the locomotive from the simplest and crudest beginning. The invention
was traced along the course of its history, each decided
improvement being shown. It was almost impossible at first to
realize that the crude contrivances, the clumsy machines representing the
first attempts were the actual ancestors of the latest and
most improved types of the modern locomotive. But such was

(02:00:55):
the fact. In this connection, it is interesting to note
that some of these earlier types were as truly the
ancestors of the automobile as of the locomotive. The rapid
progress in the late stages of the evolution of the
modern automobile from the crude horseless carriage of a quarter
century further back is a matter of personal knowledge to

(02:01:15):
the middle aged man of today. But the automobile had
a much earlier history, as you may see by reading
the article upon automobiles in any good encyclopedia. It may
surprise you to learn that as far back as eighteen
o two a steam road carriage was driven from Cambridge
to London, England, a distance of over ninety miles. It

(02:01:36):
is said that the inflated rubber tire of the bicycle
was an important factor in the rapid development of the
modern automobile, and that the improvements in the gasoline engines
made possible by the development of the automobile solved the
great difficulty in the case of flying machines and thus
made possible the modern aeroplane. Here you have typical examples

(02:01:56):
of the recombination principle in constructive imagination. The history of
the evolution of the telephone is also worth study. In
this connection look it up in some standard encyclopedia. Ribault
says concerning this fact of the evolution of inventions, mechanical
and industrial imagination like esthetic imagination, as its preparatory period,

(02:02:18):
its zenith and decline, the periods of the precursors of
the great inventors and of mere perfectors. At first a
venture is made, effort is wasted with small result. The
man has come too early, or he lacks clear vision.
Then a great imaginative mind arises blossoms after him. The
work passes into the hands of pupils, imitators, or perfectors,

(02:02:41):
who add a bridge modify. Such is the order. The
history of the application of steam as a power for
operating machinery is a long one. Its beginnings are found
in the yellow pile of Hero of Alexandria. Its critical
and thrilling period is found in the work of Nucomen,
and what its pureso of fruit bearing lies in the present.

(02:03:03):
The history of time keeping or time measuring instruments furnishes
us with another example of the evolutionary progress of invention.
First came the simple klepsidra or water clock, in which
time was measured by the flow of water. Then came
a water gage, causing a hand to move around a dial,
the two hands indicating hours and minutes respectively. Then came

(02:03:25):
a great improvement, i e. The addition of weights, by
means of which the clepsiter became a true clock. This
improved clock was at first cumbersome and massive, but gradually
became smaller and lighter. Then tychobrahe contrived a clock form
capable of measuring seconds of time. Then came another great
improvement I. E. Hougen's invention of the spiral spring, replacing

(02:03:49):
the weights. The clock gradually evolved into the crude, large,
and cumbersome watch. The watch, in turn, by gradual steps,
evolved into the thin, small, and marvelously accurate modern watch.
Man observed the efficient natural instruments and implements of the
lower animals and began to improve upon them. He employed

(02:04:11):
the models of the sharp cutting teeth of the rodents
as the designs for his evolution of the axe, the chisel,
the saw from the woodpeckers. He borrowed the idea, which
he gradually worked out in the form of the augur,
the gimlet, the wimble from the tigers and other carnivorous animals.
He took his model for his crude knives and other
cutting implements from the beaver. He learned how to make

(02:04:34):
and use the trowel from the claws of the digging animals.
He evolved the idea of the hoe and the rake
from the fish's fin. He secured the rudimentary idea of
the oar from the wing of the bird. He acquired
his first idea of the sale from the spinning insects.
He learned the nature and use of the spindle and distaff.

(02:04:56):
From these humble beginnings arose the marvelous array of the
highly efficient implements, tools and machinery employed by civilized man
to day. More than this, from his original weapons of
offense and defense, the battle axes and clubs, he evolved
his tools of work, such as the hatchet, the tree
cutting axe, the hammer. The lifting power of the battle

(02:05:17):
axe or war club, empirically discovered, gave him his first
idea of the principle of the lever. The use of
the rude sail developed the idea of the windmill. The
rolling log in the water suggested the water will to him.
The water wheel, first employed to grind grain, afterward was
used to saw wood, lift heavy materials, move great hammers.

(02:05:39):
From these rude applications of natural power, he gradually developed
the higher in more complex forms now in common use.
The use of the horse and the ox to pull
trees and logs itself and adaptation gradually evolved into the
use of these animals to pull chariots and wagons. These,
in turn were the beginnings of the motor vehicles of
to day. Ribault says, every invention, great and small, before

(02:06:03):
becoming a fixed and realized thing, was first an imagined idea,
a mere contrivance of the brain, an assembly of new
combinations or new relations. In inventions, man has imagined to
a great extent. By the very law of the complexity
of inventions, all inventions are found to be grafted upon
one another. In all the useful arts, improvements have been

(02:06:26):
so slow and so gradually wrought, that each one of
them passed unperceived, without leaving its author of the credit
for its discovery. The immense majority of inventions are anonymous.
Some great names alone survive, but whether individual or collective,
imagination remains imagination in order that the plow, at first

(02:06:48):
a single piece of wood, hardened by the fire and
pushed along by human hand, should become what it is
to day through a long series of modifications described in
special works. Who knows how many imaginations have laid in
the same way. The uncertain flame of a resinous branch,
guided vaguely in the night, leads us through a long
series of inventions to gas and electric lighting. All objects,

(02:07:12):
even the most ordinary and now common, that now serve
in our ordinary, everyday life, are condensed imagination. Dot one
is impressed by the striking analogy between the processes of
invention as just described and the processes of grafting in horticulture.
Horticultural grafting is defined as the process of taking a

(02:07:34):
shoot or scion cut from one tree or shrub and
inserting it in a vigorous stock of its own or
a closely allied species, so as to cause them to unite,
and thus to cause the graft to derive a larger
supply of nutritive power than it could otherwise obtain. By
reference to the history of any invention, we have given
actual illustrations of several you will see that the new

(02:07:55):
idea image always is grafted upon the stock of some
older idea image. The new contrivance is the graft of
a new contrivance upon an earlier contrivance, either of nature
or of man. Nature also is seen to proceed in
the same way in her Processes of Creative Evolution. Bergson
tells us that creation and evolution are but two names

(02:08:16):
for the same universal creative process. All creation is evolution,
and all evolution is creation. He says, a great creative
process is in progress, sweeping everything along in its course.
The actual present is all existence gathered up in this
creative process. The past is also gathered up into it,

(02:08:37):
exists in it, is carried along in it as it
presses forward toward the future. It is an unceasing becoming
which preserves the past and creates the future. It is
creative evolution, a process in which past, present, and future
are involved. Psychologists and philosophers alike are in agreement concerning

(02:08:58):
the fundamental fact that even the highest forms of constructive
imagination are dependent upon the raw materials of reproduced sense experiences,
and that constructive imagination can build only with these materials,
for it has no others with which to build. But
this fact has been overemphasized in some cases to even
such an extent that the term creative has been tacitly

(02:09:19):
denied to even the highest activities of the constructive imagination.
This particular view is too often presented as the whole truth,
the other half of which must be supplied in order
to perfect the whole. We ask you to consider the
following statements expressing and illustrating the opposing viewpoints. For we
wish you to perceive the truth in both of its aspects,

(02:09:41):
and thus see the thing as it is thought. From
the first of these two respective viewpoints furnishes the report
that even the most efficient constructive imagination is tied to
the stake of perception by a cord of greater or
less strength. In this view, the imagination is held to
be entirely dependent for its working materials upon the perceptions
arising from sense experience. Those holding to this view argue

(02:10:05):
that because of this fact, the imagination is not truly
a creative power. That inasmuch as it does not create
its own materials and must draw its materials from outside
of its own realm, it does not truly create, but
merely puts together, in more or less new combination, the
materials which it obtains from without, say these reasoners, the

(02:10:26):
imagination is entirely dependent upon outside materials for its constructive work.
It is limited to the materials obtained through the experience
of its owner or those of others. These thinkers point
out that the imagination is like a builder who uses
the material of a disorderly pile of bricks in order
to build a fine house, or like the watchmaker who

(02:10:47):
puts together the numerous parts of the intricate timekeeper, or
like the artisan who, employing masses of metal, makes an engine,
a sewing machine, a bicycle. Carrying this idea to its
logical conclusion, we may say, as one writer points out,
that thus a painting is a mere combination of forms
and colors, an oratorio of sounds, an epic poem of

(02:11:10):
words or ideas previously existing in the mind. The elements
of a poem like Paradise lost its streams, flowers, angels,
and deities were all in the mind of the poet
before he began to write, and all that imagination did
was to combine them into one harmonious whole. In short,
in this view, imagination is merely the power of combination.

(02:11:33):
It does not include the true creative element. Its materials
are previously existent. All that imagination does it to put
them together. Thought from the second viewpoint furnishes a somewhat
different report, its argument being more or less of the
nature of what in legal procedure is known as a demur.
A demurr in plain language asks the question while even

(02:11:55):
admitting that what you say is so, what of it
that de tasks judgment on this point? Whether the matter
alleged by the opposite party, even assuming it to be true,
is sufficient in law to sustain the action or the defense,
as the case may be, say this set of reasoners.
We admit that the imagination does not create something out

(02:12:16):
of nothing, and that its creative work is performed by combining, arranging, adapting,
or weaving the raw materials furnished by perception, apperception and experience.
But is this not true of all other kinds of
creative work of which the human mind has any knowledge?
Does the human mind know of anything having been made
from nothing? Can it form a conception of any such happening?

(02:12:40):
Is not the term creative a statement of the act
of putting together, combining, manufacturing, making, composing, constituting something from
other things. If this be so, and it is beyond
question true, then the opposing side is merely quibbling over
the meaning of a word, and are not dealing with facts.
These thinkers say further, the opposite side has told but

(02:13:03):
a half truth, not the whole truth. That which is
withheld is as important as that which has been stated.
Every work of art, every process of reasoning. Every product
of hand, brain, reason, imagination, or their combinations is a composition, adjoining, affusing,
a welding, a putting together. Sounds are combined in music,

(02:13:25):
words are combined in a poem. Colors are combined in
a painting. But do sounds, words, and colors alone make
these productions works of art? Shakespeare's immortal works are, in
this view, but aggregations of letters of the alphabet. But
did Shakespeare play no part in the creation? Was he
not a creator of his works? The omitted portion of

(02:13:46):
the truth is this. It is not alone the materials
employed in the construction, but also the manner in which
these materials are combined, arranged, and put together that constitutes
the creation. As a writer has said this, its power
of ideal conception, which uses these dead elements to express
its living ideals, is the work of the constructive imagination.

(02:14:08):
Brooks gives us the essence and spirit of this second
viewpoint in the following able statement made many years ago.
Imagination can combine objects of sense into new forms, but
it can do more than this. The objects of sense,
in most cases, are merely the materials with which imagination works.
Imagination is a plastic power molding the things of sense

(02:14:31):
into new forms to express its ideals. And it is
these ideals that constitute the real products of imagination. The
objects of the material world are to it like clay
in the hands of the potter. It shapes them into
forms according to its own ideals of grace and beauty.
He who sees no more than a mere combination in
the great creations of the imagination misses the essential element,

(02:14:53):
and elevates into significance that which is merely incidental. You
will readily see that here, as in many in the
other cases, the truth of the matter is found only
in the reconciliation of the two opposing sides. Each side
voices a half truth. The whole truth is found by
uniting the two halves. It is true that the imagination
must do its work by employing the materials of perception, apperception,

(02:15:17):
and experience. But there is the marvelous combining power required
to put together these elements, factors and parts of the
materials so furnished. A child has the necessary twenty six
letters plainly marked on its alphabet building blocks, but it
might try for eternity to compose a paradise lost. One
of Shakespeare's plays a synthetic philosophy, an Emerson's essay, or

(02:15:40):
a work on the higher mathematics by means of an
accidental putting together of those letters. It needs that something
else to accomplish the task, and that something else is
the discriminating, selecting, combining faculties and powers of the efficient
constructive imagination. Finally, there is another other element usually involved

(02:16:01):
in the higher products of the constructive imagination. In the
processes of the constructive imagination, just as in many of
nature's subtle processes, the work of creation is accomplished not
by the mere more or less purposive setting in place
of separate bits of material, as for example, in the
building of a toy house with the materials of building blocks,

(02:16:22):
or of a card house with a pack of playing cards.
There is often rather fusing of material and its subsequent hardening,
as for instance in the fusing of copper, tin and
zinc into that new metal called bronze, or the crystallization
of the particles of water into ice. Water is created

(02:16:44):
from particles of oxygen and hydrogen, but these two elements
become fused by chemical action and really form a new substance,
not merely a put together mixture. Thus, things may be
put together in such a subtle way as to constitute
a new thing, differing from ease of its constituents. A
thing is often more than the mere sum of its parts.

(02:17:05):
To this sum must be added the new element of
mutual relation or working relation. This new element figures largely
in the creative processes of constructive imagination. Thus, King Milandi's
chariot in the ancient Buddhist story consisted not alone of
its several parts, but also of the arrangement, mutual relations,

(02:17:26):
and working unity of those parts, these last mentioned elements
being supplied by the constructive imagination of the designer of
the chariot. Again, the color green is composed of yellow
and blue. Yet green is a true color, differing from
either of its compositive parts, or from both of them
when not united. Ribaut says, all creation, whatever great and small,

(02:17:49):
shows an organic character. It implies a unifying synthetic principle.
Colatza says, we know nothing of a complex psychic production
that remains simply the sum of its component elements, each
preserving its own character with no modifications. The natures of
the components disappear in order to give birth to a
novel phenomenon that has its own and particular features. The

(02:18:12):
construction of the imaginative ideal is not a mere grouping
of past experiences. In its totality, it has its own
individual characteristics, among which we no more see the composing
lines than we see the components oxygen and hydrogen in water.
Vunt says, in no scientific or artistic production does the
whole appear as made up of its parts like a mosaic.

(02:18:35):
Mills says that imaginative creations are cases of mental chemistry.
The facts bear him out in the statement. Neither should
it be forgotten that a very high order of mental
activity is manifested in every process of true constructive imagination.
The mental powers of comparison, discrimination, deliberation, judgment, and selection

(02:18:57):
are involved. In the higher processes of constructive imagination. The
imaging powers produce and exhibit a great number of images,
each of which is a candidate for the office which
constructive imagination is striving to fill properly and adequately. Here
we have another instance of the struggle for existence and
the survival of the fittest. Here many are called, but

(02:19:19):
few are chosen. Image after image is produced, examined, tested,
and then either rejected or else either tentatively or permanently accepted.
The processes of comparison, deliberation, discrimination, selection, and judgment are
manifested in constructive imagination as truly as in the processes
of the will. Constructive imagination selects its material quite as

(02:19:43):
truly as does the builder of houses or bridges. Imperfect
material is rejected, and doubtful material is subjected to a
test or experiment. Constructive imagination is not at the disposal
of every image that appears in its field of mental vision. Instead,
it exercises its power and prerogative of choice and decision

(02:20:04):
as truly as do reason and will. In fact, the
presence of logical thought is manifest in the higher processes
of constructive imagination, the two classes of mental activities being
so closely interwoven in many cases that it is quite
difficult to distinguish between them. Reason scrutinizes closely the images
which present themselves as candidates for admission to the inner

(02:20:26):
chambers of the mind. Many appear, but few are accepted.
Only those are admitted which comparison determines to be fitted
for the requirements of the purpose occupying the field of attention.
As a writer says, the inventor never thinks harder than
when he is comparing his images with each other and
rejecting the unfit thought also enables him to change an

(02:20:48):
image in conformity with a certain plan. Another says, the
predominance of the exact logical processes establishes from the outset
the difference between the imaginative dreamers and the imaginative thinkers.
Vunt indeed goes still further when he lays down the
rule that imagination is, in reality a thinking in particular

(02:21:10):
sense ideas. As such, it is the source of all
logical or conceptual thought, And a leading teacher says, the
man who does not think in images will never be
a clear thinker, and those who are compelled to follow
him are to be pitted. Thus you see that just
as in your logical thought you should avail yourself of
the powers of constructive imagination, so in the processes of

(02:21:32):
constructive imagination you should always endeavor to coordinate the powers
of logical thought with those of the strictly imaginative faculties.
Creative power your constructive forces by William Walker Atkinson Creative Composition.
The general rule tells you to weigh the various factors
one against the other, taking into consideration the associated and

(02:21:56):
related values of each in the general idea, plan, or purpose.
Determine in this way which are the primary factors involved,
which are the secondary and which are the lesser values.
Concentrate on the prime factors and make these the central
points in your process of constructive imagination, the focal centers
around which you purpose grouping the associated factors or elements.

(02:22:19):
The general rule also tells you then to experiment by
tentatively placing the secondary factors in association with and relation
to the prime factors, regardless of how improbable and incongruous
at first may seem. Such association and relation around the
letter A, build alphabet block combinations of the letters B, C, D, E, F, G,

(02:22:42):
et cetera blocks to see if they make sense or
if they suggest anything of rational meaning to you. Discard
all combinations that seem lacking in utility, but only after
actually making the test an experiment. When there are several
apparently satisfactory or fairly promising dominations, weigh these one against
the other to determine their comparative values, discarding the lesser

(02:23:05):
values and retaining the greater until you have secured the
survival of the fittest. Then proceed to test out the
lesser factors in the same way, working out all the
details of the plan. In the above stated principles of
the general rule, there is condensed the statement of the
general methods employed by man in all of his inventive
processes from pastime to the present, and in fact the

(02:23:28):
method seemingly employed by nature herself. There is therefore nothing
entirely new in the method. That newness, however, is there.
It consists of the fact that man has discovered how
to apply this method consciously, deliberately, systematically, and scientifically, instead
of blindly, instinctively, haphazardly and in a hit or mismanner.

(02:23:51):
Modern psychology has simply harnessed this mental process and now
drives it under perfect control. Thus the old method becomes
an a new one, because applied in a new way,
the old new method has been given several names. Perhaps
the name creative composition fits it as well as any,
so we shall employ it here. Composition means the act

(02:24:14):
of composing, putting together, joining together, uniting, associating, correlating. Creative
composition then means the act of recomposing, recombining, readapting, rearranging,
or newly putting together the mental image ideas of man
or of nature in the process of constructive imagination, proceeding

(02:24:35):
toward the achievement of a definite purpose and the realization
of a definite ideal. In creative composition, you begin with
the building materials of mental image ideas which you have
gathered together and arranged according to a convenient and efficient
classification for the purpose of a familiar illustration of the
scientific principle involved. Let us ask you to think of

(02:24:56):
these building materials of mental image ideas as resembling the
famil building blocks of childhood. You have the general idea
of your definite purpose and definite ideal before you. You
perceive clearly the obstacle which you wish to overcome, the
new means to an old end, or new ends for
old means, the bridge which you wish to build over

(02:25:16):
the space separating the two sides of the stream of ideas.
How shall you proceed to accomplish these ends by means
of your imaginative building blocks. The answer is simply as
the child proceeds when he wishes to build the structure
which he has in mind i e. By taking up
the various building blocks of various sizes and forms and

(02:25:37):
experimenting with them. The child puts this block alongside of
that block, and finding that the combination will not answer,
he continues to make new and still newer combinations, until
at last he discovers the combination that will work. If
you will examine the history of inventions and scientific discoveries,
you will find that the great triumphs in these respective

(02:25:58):
fields have been made in justice. The two terms experiment
and experience are closely connected. Both have the same origin.
Both spring from the Latin word experior, meaning to try.
Experiment is a trial or test made with the hopes
of discovery. Experience is the knowledge gained from experiments. All inventions,

(02:26:21):
all scientific discoveries, all results of constructive imagination, proceed along
the line of experiment trial tests, putting this and that
together to discover how it will work. This is the
whole story told in a few words. In working toward
the achievement of your definite purpose and definite ideal through
the constructive imagination, you must put this and that together

(02:26:44):
along the lines of experiment, trial and test. You must
arrange your imaginative building blocks. First in this new combination,
and then in that one. You must at times even
break apart some of the blocks, using portions of them
to add to others, and thus to form new combinations.
You must proceed with the idea that somewhere in these

(02:27:04):
blocks there abides the certainty of a successful combination, and
it is up to me to find it. In your
imaginative building blocks there is hidden the secret of the
exact combination for which you are seeking. You can discover
this only by experiment, and if you continue to experiment
faithfully and intelligently, you will surely discover the solution of
the problems. Here is the process reduced to a familiar

(02:27:27):
illustrative formula. You have twenty six imaginative alphabet blocks before
you for your experiment, each block having a letter of
the alphabet stant on its face, from to Z inclusive.
You start by taking that A block and combining it
with the B block, then the C block, and so
on until the Z block is reached. If the desired

(02:27:51):
combination is not reached in this way, you begin with
the B block and test it with all the blocks
from C on to the end of the list. Then
try the combination of the C block with all the
others in turn, from D downward. By continuing this process
sufficiently long, you will exhaust the possibilities of the two

(02:28:11):
letter combinations. If necessary, you may then proceed to experiment
with the three letter combinations, following the same general rule. Then,
if necessary, proceed with the four letter combinations in the
same way, and so on. If the desired result is
not obtained, until the blocks have been tried and tested

(02:28:32):
in every possible combination or arrangement, order, and sequence. By
this process extended to its utmost limits, you will in
turn have formed the combination of every one of the
many thousands of words in the largest English dictionary. Stop
to think of it for a moment. Every word in
any or all of the great dictionaries is made up

(02:28:52):
and composed of combinations of certain of twenty six letters
no more, and a list of new words exceeding in
none number the known words could be composed and made
up in the same way. But of course, in the
actual practice of creative composition, you will not be faced
with so formidable and so complicated a task as that

(02:29:12):
above illustrated. Your combinations will be far more simple, Owing
to the fact that your imaginative image ideas are classified properly.
For instance, if you wish to conjoin your house block
with your several building material blocks, you have but to
go to your building material compartment and creative composition pick

(02:29:33):
out the following respective building material blocks ie. Brick, stone, wood, iron, steel, concrete,
et cetera. If you wish to form a combination between
the image idea of some utensil and some undetermined particular
kind of metal, you have but to test your metallic
utensil block with each of the following metal class blocks ie. Iron, copper, gold, silver, nickel, zinc, platinum,

(02:30:00):
ded tin, antimony, manganese, mercury, aluminium, cobalt, tungsten, et cetera.
If you wish to associate your image idea of a
textile fabric with that of some particular kind of textile
material not yet decided upon, you have but to test
out the respective blocks of cotton, flax, hemp, jute, linen, wool, silk,

(02:30:21):
et cetera, until the desired combination is discovered. If you
wish to employ a geometrical form, you will take out
each of the image idea blocks named in our diagram
of geometrical figures in a preceding section of this book,
until you discover the one best suited for the purpose.
If you wish to invent or to discover some new
particular color, you need but to take out the three

(02:30:44):
blocks of the three primary colors, i e. Red, blue,
and yellow, and then by experimental combinations employing shade and
tint agencies, you will in time reach any possible tint, shade,
or hue in the great world of colors. Nature has
proceeded in just this way, for she has made a
world of almost infinite variety of material things by the

(02:31:06):
combination and creative composition of about eighty elements of material substance,
these in turn having been created and recombined from still
more elementally material As we have said, all inventions and
discoveries have been made in just this way, viz. By
the process of creative composition. The locomotive is a combination

(02:31:26):
of wagon, certain mechanical agencies in appliances, stove, tea kettle,
and engine. The automobile is the combination of wagon, stove, gas, explosion, engine,
and certain mechanical contrivances. The wagon was the primary building
block of both locomotive and automobile. The wagon, in turn,

(02:31:48):
is but the combination of wheel, axle and body, the
wheel itself being an evolution from the rolling log. The
aeroplane is but a combination of kite, engine and propelled
all old ideas formed by creative composition into a new one.
The steamboat is but the idea of boat plus steam
engine and mill wheels. The primitive boat itself was but

(02:32:13):
the combination of floating log plus the idea of hollowing out.
The farm tractor, now employed in plowing, et cetera, is
but the combination of plow and automobile. The plow itself
was the combination of the image idea of hard sharpened
stick and magnified spearhead or battle axe. In short, every

(02:32:34):
contrivance of man, every tool, every instrument, every utensil, every
article designed for use of each and every kind, will
be found to have been evolved from very simple beginnings
along the line of experimentation. In creative composition, everything made
by man is put together made up of material parts,
and the idea of every such thing is made up

(02:32:56):
of simpler and more elemental ideas, united and combined in
creative composition. This is the only way in which man
has ever invented or contrived anything, And this is always
the way in which you must proceed in your work
of constructive imagination. The truth of the matter is so
simple that most persons entirely overlook it. You have possibly

(02:33:17):
never thought of it until you now have it presented
to you in this book, And this without any reflection
on your intelligence, we assure you. But here is an
important point. While man has always employed this principle in
his inventive and creative work, he has done so almost
entirely instinctively and unconsciously, and with an almost entire absence

(02:33:37):
of scientific system and logical order. Now that modern psychology
has uncovered the process for us has taken off the cover,
so that we may see how the thing works and
how the wheels go round, we may hope for much
more effective and efficient exercise of the power of the
constructive imagination in the future. Already a number of great

(02:33:58):
inventors and scientific investigators have taken advantage of the new
teaching of psychology concerning this phase of mental operation, and
they have thereby attained results far superior to those possible
under the old hit or miss methods. Artists and writers
also employ the same general methods of creative composition, though
in most cases in a more or less haphazard and

(02:34:20):
instinctive way. The various characters, situations, scenes, and combinations of pictures, stories,
and plays are gathered together from a comparatively small list
of elements. The great variety of results arising from the
many possible combinations and arrangements of these few elements. If
this seems incredible to you, you have but to remember

(02:34:42):
the almost infinite number of possible combinations of the twenty
six letters of the alphabet. The largest dictionary contains only
a small proportion of the possible word creations by such combinations. Again,
from fifty two playing cards are derived all of the
numerous combinations of hands dealta in card games. In many games,

(02:35:02):
in fact, a smaller number of cards is used. That
modern writers are turning. This principle of creative composition to
practical account is evident to those who study the advertising
columns of magazines devoted to the writing craft. For instance,
there is advertised a book for story writers called the
thirty six Dramatic Situations, which is described as follows a

(02:35:25):
catalog of all the possible situations that the many relations
of life offer to the writer. The author has read
and analyzed thousands of plays and novels and resolved their
basic story material into fundamental categories. A true philosophic consideration,
but practical in every respect, that makes available to every
writer all the possible material that life offers him. Again,

(02:35:49):
there is advertised a book called The Fiction Factory, which
is described as follows a writer who wrote thousands of
stories and made thousands of dollars by setting up a
story mill, tells how he did it, and gives a
record of his work. In this instructive, stimulating book. It
should be in the hands of everyone interested in how
authors do their work. You may smile at these advertisements

(02:36:12):
and shrug your shoulders, but you buy and read the
story so composed Jack London, the popular novelist, in his
story of Martin Eden, which many regard as being largely autobiographical,
pictures his hero as busily engaged in writing newspaper storyets
for the syndicates which supply them to the newspapers in
all parts of the country. These productions were what are

(02:36:35):
known as pot boilers. Of course, written hastily to meet
the popular demand and to gratify the popular taste. Martin
had not yet arrived at the place and time where
his more finished, more subtle, and more realistic efforts were
appreciated by readers and accepted by publishers. London Pictures Martin
busily engaged in reading over his rejected storyets, and thus

(02:36:57):
finding out how not to write such production as well
as just how to write them. He found out what
to put in and what to leave out. In this
way he worked out a perfect formula. This formula consisted
of three parts viz. One, a pair of lovers jarred apart.
Two they are united by some deed or event. Three

(02:37:19):
wedding bells. He reached the conclusion that the third part
was an unvarying quantity, but that the first and second
parts could be varied an infinite number of times. The
application of the formula, in London's own words was as follows. Thus,
the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives,
by accident or fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents,

(02:37:43):
by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives, and so on and
so forth. They could be reunited by the brave deed
of the man lover, by a similar deed of the
woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or
the other, by forced confessions of a crafty guardian, scheming relative,
or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by lover

(02:38:05):
storming girl's heart, by lover making long and noble self sacrifices,
and so on endlessly. It was very fetching to make
the girl propose in the course of being united, and
Martin discovered, bit by bit other decidedly piquant in fetching ruses.
But marriage bells at the end was the one thing
that he could take no liberties with. The author relates

(02:38:27):
that Martin soon worked out half a dozen stock forms,
which he always consulted when constructing storyettes. These forms, he adds,
were like the cunning tables used by the mathematicians, which
may be entered from top, bottom, right and left, which
entrances consist of scores of lines and dozens of columns,
and from which may be drawn, without reasoning or thinking,

(02:38:49):
thousands of different conclusions, all unchallengeably precise and true. Thus,
in the course of half an hour with his forms,
Martin could frame up a dozen or more stories, which
he put aside and filled in at his convenience. The
real work was in constructing the frames, and that was
merely mechanical. He had no doubt whatever of the efficacy

(02:39:11):
of his formula. His machine made storyets, though he hated
them and derided them, were successful. We have also read
the story of the early life of a great painter,
of whom it is told that, in order to keep
the wolf from the door, he painted stock pictures for
the trade, pictures bearing a fictitious name, which were designed
for sale at the popular auction houses of that time.

(02:39:32):
He could paint such pictures in a day or two,
sometimes in a few hours. In fact, and in spite
of their hasty preparation, they showed signs of merit and skill,
if not of genius, and appealed to the taste of
those attending the auction sales. They sold well and served
to keep the pot boiling. His main difficulty was that
of providing subjects for his pencil and brush, so he

(02:39:55):
set to work to overcome this difficulty. Like Martin Eden,
he discre covered a formula, He invented a system. He
prepared a series of cardboard discs. Upon each disc he
wrote the name of some main element or detail, of
a picture. The four seasons each were thus noted, each
suggesting the associated facts of scenery. Mills, meadows, hills, mountains,

(02:40:20):
the sea, lakes, forests, et cetera. Each were noted down.
Thus he had at his disposal several hundred elements or
details of a popular picture. He made a great combination
will of his discs so arranged that when he gave
the wheel a twirl, it would finally come to rest
with a number of details appearing directly under the arrow

(02:40:40):
point placed just over the top of the wheel. Thus
he would read, for instance, autumn, hill, lake, old mill,
et cetera, et cetera. And he would then have the
general subject of his picture, the details and treatment to
be supplied from fancy, inclination and the mood of the moment.
In this way he avoided too marked monotony, too much repetition,

(02:41:02):
and above all, too much time and thought expended upon
hunting for subjects sordid mere mechanical construction, prostitution of talent.
You may say, well, perhaps so. Yet the plan accomplished
the purpose and overcame the obstacles. In each case it
served as a stepping stone to better things. The real

(02:41:24):
fault was in the cheapness and superficiality of the work,
in its absence of animating spirit, not in the mechanism
of arranging and combining details. For even the greatest artist
and writer must have his mechanism as well as his
genius and inspiration. You would be surprised to learn how
laboriously the materials and the combinations of the great artists, writers,

(02:41:46):
and playwrights are obtained and conjoined. You see only the
finished product. You lose sight of the mental mechanism which
built it up. Yet that mechanism is always there. It
must be there. Art serves to conceal it, but not
to dispense with it. The machinery is always present and active,
though there be also present the God in the machine.

(02:42:10):
Even God or Nature employs machinery in creation. We shall
close our consideration of the methods of efficient constructive imagination
by reminding you that the general rule finally tells you,
having reached at least a fairly satisfactory working plan, idea
invention or solution of your problem, You should then carefully
detach yourself from it. You should move from your personal

(02:42:31):
point of view and try to see it as others
will see it. Try to imagine the effect it will
have on the persons whom you wish to be interested
in your finished product, how it will meet with their requirements,
satisfy their wants, or rouse their desires for it, et cetera.
Your own created conjunction plan, method, design, or invention naturally

(02:42:52):
will seem to you as the infant does to its mother.
No mother is an unprejudiced critic of her own baby.
You must see the thing as others see it. In
order to arrive at an intelligent idea of the utility
of your idea, you must use past experience, reason, judgment, discrimination,
and cool decision in this latter testing process. The above

(02:43:14):
statement speaks for itself and is sufficiently comprehensive to stand alone.
All that we wish to add is these few words.
If your detached inspection and survey convinces you that your
work will not fill the requirements of those for whom
it is intended, then back to the mental workshop. With it,
you will be able to cure the defects, strengthen the
weak points, and to reshape the form in accordance with

(02:43:37):
the heart's desire of those who must be satisfied by
precisely the same methods already employed. Find out first what
is required, then adapt these new factors to the old
form by the same old method, and the desired result
will be obtained. The principle is universal in its application
and will fit any case to which it is applied.

(02:43:59):
It is as in vyvariable as the laws of mathematics,
but like those laws, it requires skill, patience, work, and
determination to apply it to difficult problems. We can close
our treatment of the subject of efficient constructive imagination in
no better way than by quoting the statement of Herbert Spencer,
in which he attributes to constructive imagination the rank of

(02:44:20):
the highest intellectual faculty. His statement follows, instead of constructive
imagination being as commonly supposed and endowment peculiar to the
poet and writer of fiction, it is questionable whether the
man of science, truly so called, does not possess even
more of it. When imagination rises into the constructive form,

(02:44:41):
there is an ever increasing originality which tells at once
on the industrial arts, on science and on literature. Spencer
might as truly have added, and on business, on manufacturing,
on selling, on distribution or service of all kinds, wherein
wants are met demands, filled obstacles, overcome and min forwarded,
purposes set aright. Without the power of constructive imagination, man

(02:45:05):
will never be all that there is in him to be,
never do all that is in him to do, never
reach all that is in him to reach. It lights
up the whole horizon of thought as the sunrise flashing
along the mountain top lights the world. Creative Power, Your
Constructive Forces by William Walker Atkinson, The Art of Creation.

(02:45:27):
Passing on from the consideration of the more familiar forms
of the application of efficient constructive imagination, you are now
asked to enter into a consideration of a still higher
phase of that creative power, which is a mode of
manifestation of your personal power. Your personal power, in turn,
is but a phase of the all Power, that power
in which you live and move and have your being,

(02:45:50):
and which is that all which is in all things,
and in which all things are. You are now asked
to consider the subject of your creative power in its
higher phases of manifestation. Creation is an attribute of the
highest power of which you can have any knowledge, or
of which you may dream. Whatever else the Supreme Power
may be or may not be, it must be conceived

(02:46:12):
as creative power. The fact that the power behind creation
must be creative, and the fact that creation must be
the result of power, must bring to the mind of
the true thinker the conviction that in creative power is
to be found power in its most essential and elemental aspect.
In creation, you participate with the supreme power. To create

(02:46:33):
is to bring into being, to cause, to produce. Man
may be said apparently to create in several ways, yet
at the last he is found to be able to
create in only one essential way, and that one essential
way in which he can create is found to be
the way in which the ultimate creative power proceeds in
its own creative work. It will be well for you

(02:46:53):
to become convinced of the essential and elemental nature of
your own creative power, in order that you may realize
the majesty and dignity of the forces and energies which
you call into play and operation in your own creative activities.
First of all, you can create material objects by means
of combining other material objects. Thus you bring into being houses, boats, railroads, shoes,

(02:47:18):
and every other class of things which are manufactured or
made from material things. Secondly, you can create material things
by changing the arrangement of the constituent parts of other
material things, as for instance, you create butter by means
of churning cream, or you create ice by freezing water. Thirdly,
you can create things by analysis or separation of the

(02:47:40):
parts of other things. For instance, you create certain chemical
substances by separating them from more complex substances of which
they have formed a part, or you create a statue
by cutting away the surrounding marble from about the form
of the created thing. The above classification will be found
roughly to include practically all the forms and phases of
creation with which you are most familiar. But we have

(02:48:04):
omitted from it its most essential element, that element which
constitutes the spirit of all of your creative work, namely
the element of mental creation. At the last, all of
the above mentioned forms of creation are discovered to be
merely the objectification of the subjective mental creation. In the
three forms of creation above mentioned, you have merely employed

(02:48:25):
the materials at hand and formed new combinations with them.
You brought none of these original materials into being. You
merely found them in being and gave new objective forms
to them. But how did you arrive at a knowledge
of those forms? Which you afterward objectified. Here we come
to the heart of the subject. The answer is the

(02:48:47):
forms of your creations. Each, any and all of them
existed in your mind before you objectified them. Your creations, then,
at the last, are seen to be mental creations in
the sense that they were mentally designed and deliberately caused
by you. Of course, if you merely threw the materials
together without any design, then you cannot be said to

(02:49:08):
have mentally created the new thing. In that case, the
latter was created not by you, but by the forces
of nature. This also would be the case in the
event that you discovered a chemical process by accident and
without design, or where you unwittingly set into operation some
of nature's forces and thereby called into appearance certain new forms, arrangements, separations,

(02:49:31):
or combinations. But wherever and whenever you have deliberately employed
your creative power toward definite ends, then your first step
and stage has been that of mental creation. Everything that
man has ever created, contrived, built, invented, or manufactured has
first been created in his mind as a mental image.

(02:49:51):
The Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, and also
the simplest mechanical construction each and all existed in the
minds of their inventors, architects, and builders before they took
on objective form. There can be no such thing as
constructive or creative work by man without the antecedent mental
creation by means of mental images. Therefore, in its essential

(02:50:14):
and elemental nature, all human creation is mental creation. Philosophers
have carried this idea up to the realm of metaphysics,
and have asserted that we are compelled to think of
the supreme creative power as having first formed the mental
image of the universe before the form of the physical
world could have come into being. More than this, they
hold that the actual creation of the materials of the

(02:50:37):
universe must have been mental, because the material substance could
not have been present until it was called into being
by the mental forces. That at the last, the material
world is but a materialization of previously existing mental images
or forms, and that the very work of the materialization
was performed by mental powers and energies, for there were

(02:50:57):
no material powers present and existent in the beginning. Edward
Carpenter illustrates this idea and the following statement contained in
one of his books. There is now a disposition to
posit the mental world as nearer the basis of existence
than is the material world, and to look upon material
phenomena rather as the outcome and expression of the mental.

(02:51:17):
In observing our own thoughts, in actions, and bodily forms
coming into existence, we seem to come upon something which
we may call a law of nature, just as much
as gravitation or any other law. The law, namely that
within ourselves there is a continued movement outwards from feeling
toward thought and then to action, from the inner to
the outer, from the vague to the definite, from the

(02:51:39):
emotional to the practical, from the world of dreams to
the world of actual things and what we call reality.
We may fairly conclude that the same progress may be
witnessed both in our waking thoughts and in our dreams,
namely a continual abolition and birth going on within us,
and an evolution out of the mind stuff of forms
which are the expression and images of underlying feeling. That

(02:52:01):
these forms, at first vague and undetermined in outline, rapidly
gather definition and clearness and materiality, and press forward toward
expression in the outer world. And we may fairly ask
whether we are not here within our own minds witnessing
what is really taking place everywhere and at all times,
in other persons, as well as in ourselves, and in

(02:52:22):
the great life which underlies and is the visible universe.
You may say that there is no evidence that man
ever produces a particle of matter out of himself, and
I will admit that this is so. But there is
plenty of evidence that he produces shapes and forms. And
if he produces shapes and forms, that is all we
need for what matter is. In the abstract. No one

(02:52:44):
has the least experience and knowledge. All that we know
is that the things we see are shapes and forms
of what we call matter. And if, as is possible
and indeed probable, matter is of the same stuff as mind,
only seen and envisaged from the opposite side, then the
shapes and forms of the actual world are the shapes
and forms of mind, thus projected for us mutually to

(02:53:06):
witness and to understand. But we do not need to
fall back upon metaphysical speculations in order to support our
general contention that there is mental image back of every
phase and form of physical creation throughout all nature. We
may find striking instances in illustrations of the general principles
that there is an idea or mental image or form

(02:53:27):
present in all of nature's creative processes, from the formation
of a crystal to the development of the forms of
living creatures. The formation of a crystal, the development of
the plant or tree from the seed, the evolution of
the living form from the egg cells, all of these
reveal to us the fact that idea or mental form
is imminent and involved in every process of birth and

(02:53:49):
growth in nature. This being perceived, we are justified in
claiming that all creation is mental creation, the materialization of
a mental form, image, or idea. Throughout all nature. We
may perceive the presence of an inner image or form
which serves as the framework or pattern upon which Nature
materializes her objective forms. These ideal forms have attracted the

(02:54:12):
attention of the philosophers, and they have sought to account
for their presence. From the time of Plato down to
the present, philosophers have speculated concerning the nature and evident
presence of these ideal forms upon which nature builds her
material shapes and structures. In the above quotation from Carpenter,
you will note the reference to the evolution out of

(02:54:33):
mind stuff of forms which are the expressions and images
of underlying feeling. These forms, at first vague and undetermined
in outline, rapidly gather definition and clearness and materiality, and
press forward toward expression in the outer world. Paul Kris,
a modern philosopher, also says all science consists in describing

(02:54:54):
forms and tracing their changes. All differences that we can
scientifically comprehend are the forms of matter or energy. All
that we can do, or try to do, is by
molding and remolding things. Forms are the types of possible
entities and do not exist as such in the shape
of material realities. But we cannot say that they are

(02:55:15):
non existent, nor that they are not. They are may
best or potentialities, and according to the law of their combination,
the things of the material world are molded. They are
the factors which determine material reality. And in this sense,
pure forms are more important than our material and actual things.
They are superreal, and their superreality contains the norms of

(02:55:38):
all existence. Pure form looks like nonentity, and yet the
laws of pure form are the factors that determine existence
in all of its details. Pure form conditions the cosmic
order and governs the universe. The pure form of the
philosophers is undoubtedly immaterial in its nature, it clearly must
be mental form. In other words, nature is seen to

(02:56:01):
proceed just as does man in his work of creation.
She builds the material universe upon mental patterns or upon
mental frameworks. Just how or why this is so, the
human mind is unable to grasp, But all investigation reveals
the fact that the creative processes proceed in just this way.
In this correspondence between human creative activity and that of

(02:56:24):
the cosmos, we have a striking illustration of the principle
embodied in the ancient hermetic axiom. As above, so below,
as within, so without, the macrocosm and the microcosm evidently
work under the same laws and manifest according to the
same general principles. Beginning with the particles of which the
atoms are composed, and with the atoms of which all

(02:56:47):
forms of matter are composed, we see the creation of
material forms apparently proceeding in accordance with some pre existing pattern,
ideal form, type, or idea. Atoms group themselves in certain combinations,
forming certain elements of matter, all of which forms are
true to general types and are as nearly identical as
the bits of metal which are cut out by the

(02:57:08):
same die or else produced from the same mold. This
uniformity and adherence to type certainly is explainable only upon
the hypothesis that before the material form is produced, there
must exist some pattern, type, idea, or mental form which
governs the materialization. There is no hit or miss or
higgldly piggledy arrangement of the atoms. They group themselves according

(02:57:31):
to typical forms, and these forms must exist ideally before
the material form can be produced. That which we call
the inner nature of anything is really a combination of
certain inherent mental forms which are constantly striving to express
themselves in action and objective appearance. The inner nature of
the atom is clearly represented in and by its activities.

(02:57:54):
The inner nature of the animal is likewise so represented
by its action and its physical form. The voluntary, self
moved spontaneous actions of any particular thing clearly represent the
inner nature of that particular thing. The differences between classes
of things result from the difference in the inner natures,
and the inner natures are merely the ideal forms or

(02:58:17):
types the mental images which constitute the elemental and essential
basis of the character of those things. The operation and
manifestation of these inner natures or creative ideal forms has
a striking illustration. In the case of the crystallization of
the minerals or chemical elements. These crystals are formed in
the mother liquor according to well known and clearly defined shape, form,

(02:58:41):
and order. Each species of crystal has its own particular
form and arrangement. Some have a range of several of
such forms. Each However, being true to type and pattern,
each species of crystal obeys its own order and rule
concerning its form. Crystals grow just aiy as do plants,
according to a certain pattern in type form. These forms

(02:59:04):
and orders of arrangement are not caused by outside forces
or energies. They result from the in forces of the
mineral or chemical substance, from the operation of internal inherent energy,
and in response to some inner idea, form or pattern
which constitutes the inner nature of the mineral or chemical compound.
In the same way we find that in the material

(02:59:27):
form of the germ of the acorn, there dwells and
inner nature composed of these ideal forms or mental images,
these inner patterns, these inner forces determine the material form
which the sprout, root leaves, and the complete tree shall assume.
The deviations from the ideal forms result from the influence
of external forces, serving to modify and deflect, to cramp,

(02:59:49):
and to hinder the expression of the inner form. But
the inner pattern is always their doing the best it
can to represent itself truly in material appearance. In every acorn,
their af abides the design, pattern form, an idea of
the future oak, and the acorn never evolves and unfolds
anything not according to that pattern, design or idea. In

(03:00:10):
the same way, the seed or germ, or every plant,
animal or human being contains within itself its inner nature,
composed of ideal form and pattern, type or mold. It
is this inner nature or ideal form that causes the
acorn to develop into the oak instead of into the
pine tree. It causes the egg of the chicken to

(03:00:32):
develop into a chick and not into a baby hawk.
It causes the creature to develop from seed germ into
completed adult form, always true to type an ideal pattern.
Scientists who have witnessed the unfoldment of living forms from
the reproductive cells or egg body have testified in glowing
words of wonder and admiration to the evident presence of

(03:00:53):
something like a directive mind at work in the processes
underway in a tiny speck of protoplasm, which we call
the reproduct, ductive cell, or egg of the animal. Huxley,
describing the development of the tiny egg of a newt
small aquatic salamander, said, the plastic matter undergoes changes so
rapid and so purposelike in their succession that one can

(03:01:14):
only compare them to those operated by a skilled modler
upon a formless lump of clay, as with an invisible trowel.
The mass is divided and subdivided, then it is as
if a delicate finger traced out the lines to be
occupied by the spinal column and molded the contour of
the body, pinching up the head at one end, the
tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into

(03:01:37):
due salamandering proportions in so artistic a way that, after
watching the process hour by hour, one is almost involuntarily
possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to
the vision than the achromatic lens would show the hidden
artist with his plan before him, striving with skillful manipulation
to perfect his work. The same great scientist, speaking of

(03:01:59):
the continued life of the newt, says, as life advances
and the young amphibian ranges the waters the terror of
his insect contemporaries. Not only the nutritious particles supplied by
its prey, by the addition of which to its frame
growth takes place, are laid down, each in its proper
spot and in due proportion to the rest, so as
to reproduce the parent stock. But even the wonderful powers

(03:02:22):
of reproducing lost parts, which are possessed by these animals,
are controlled by the same governing tendency. Cut off the legs,
the tail, the jaws, separately or all together, and these
parts not only grow again, but the new limb is
formed on the same type as those which were lost.
The new jaw or leg is a newt's, and never

(03:02:45):
by an accident more like that of a frog. In
the above graphic word picture of Huxley, we catch a
glimpse of the subtle, silent manifestations of this materialization of
mental images in nature. For the same kind of processes
are underway on all sides of us, on all planes
of nature's activities, and in all of her phases of life. Processes.

(03:03:06):
There is constantly under way a process of growth, production, reproduction, building, repairing, replacing,
in general creative construction. And in each and all such
forms and phases we may see the presence of a
given pattern, form, type, or mold, an ideal design or
scheme upon which the materialization is effected. The governing tendency

(03:03:28):
referred to by Huxley is seen to be none other
than the operation of that principle of creative mental form
upon which all materialization depends. Moreover, we may see the
operation of the same principle in the direction of the
variation of form, faculty, and function in the life forms. Indeed,
this principle constitutes the directing force of evolution. Lomark and

(03:03:51):
other scientists have shown us that evolution proceeds not only
by natural selection, but also by the unfoldment of ideal
forms or mental images. Thus, the new needs and requirements
of the evolving life forms are first manifested as ideal
forms or mental images, patterns, molds, or types in the
subconscious mentality of the creature. These then moving toward representation, expression,

(03:04:14):
and manifestation on the objective material plane. Thus, the inner
nature gradually becomes modified by environment, and the outer form
gradually responds to these changes. Illustrating this principle, we call
your attention to the fact that certain schools of scientific
thought hold that the long legs and long neck of
the giraffe were evolved in response to the creative idea

(03:04:37):
working through many generations of its ancestors. The ancestors found
it difficult to reach the tender, juicy branches of certain trees,
which were needed as food. This need and this difficulty
were recognized by the subconscious mentality of the animal, and
the creative idea began to shape and fashion the ideal
form or mental image of the long legs and long neck,

(03:04:59):
which afterward words manifested in physical form in the descendants
of the animal. In the same way were evolved and
perfected the long legs and long bills of the waiting
fish catching birds again thus were evolved, the cruel beaks
and talons of the hawks, eagles, and other carnivorous prey
capturing birds, and the claws and fangs of the carnivorous animals.

(03:05:22):
In short, many thoughtful scientists recognize the existence and activity
in nature of a principle which tends to manifest an
objective material form that which has previously existed as a
mental form or ideal image in the subconscious mentality of
living creatures, the mental form or ideal image having arisen
in response to a strong need, want, lack, or desire

(03:05:43):
of the creature, as in the illustrative cases above cited.
The advance guard of the New psychology carries this principle
to its logical conclusion when it asserts that the human
being is able to set into operation great natural forces
tending to produce similar objective results when he deliberately created
it strong ideals, and then passes the same down to
his subconscious mentality. Here is a hint at a mighty principle.

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Many persons are disposed to regard as more or less
unreal and unsubstantial anything that is purely ideal and mental
in its nature. To such, we would cite the celebrated
rule of Spinoza viz. A thing has only so much
reality as it possesses power. Applying this rule to the
ideal forms or mental images underlying material forms, you will

(03:06:29):
discover that such possess a very high degree of reality
and substantiality. Ideal forms and creative mental images are not
merely such stuff as dreams are made of, but in
reality are strong, powerful forces. In fact, many manifestations of
natural forces are really efforts towards the expression of the
creative idea. The inner form striving to manifest in the

(03:06:53):
outer form, often exercises a tremendous force. The inner form
of a growing plant has been known to crack a
heavy concrete block, and the power of growing roots horising
from the inner urge of the ideal form has been
known to terrace under heavy foundation stones. John Burroughs, the
great naturalist, says, concerning this force of the inner form

(03:07:14):
striving for outward expression, we know that the roots of
trees insert themselves into seams in the rocks and force
the rocks asunder. This force is measurable, and often is
very great. Its seat seems to be in the soft,
milky substance called the cambium layer under the bark. These
minute cells, when their forces combined, may become regular rock splitters.

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One of the most remarkable exhibitions of plant force I
ever saw was in a western city where I observed
a species of wild sunflower forcing its way up through
the asphalt pavement. The folded and compressed leaves of the plant,
like a man's fist had pushed against the hard but
flexible concrete until it had bulged up, and then split
and let the irrepressible plant through. The force exerted must

(03:08:01):
have been many pounds. I think it doubtful if the
strongest man could have pushed his fist through such a
resisting medium. If it was not life which exerted this force,
what was it. In the same way, the great giants
of the forest have pushed their way up toward the skies,
counteracting the pull of gravitation and lifting weights which it
would have required mighty machinery to move. The mental pattern

(03:08:25):
in the giant redwood trees proceeds to the materialization of
the gigantic outer form of the tree, and the inner
urge of the ideal form calls to its aid the
mighty latent forces of nature in order to materialize that
which is contained in the ideal form or mental image
of the living organism of the tree. Nature seems ready
to furnish such power to the inner urge, provided that

(03:08:47):
such is sufficiently needed, insistently desired, and persistently demanded, and
provided that it is called for in the right way.
If man ever obtains the inner secret of this demand,
he will have the creative powers and force of nature
in his hands. Already he has acquired a portion of
this secret and is able to perform mighty creative work

(03:09:07):
by directing his mental powers toward the physical plane. In
this instruction we seek to disclose the principles of this
process to you. The attention of certain philosophers has been
attracted by this manifestation in nature's activities of a process
closely resembling constructive imagination. They venture the hypothesis that the
creative powers and processes of the human mind have an

(03:09:30):
equivalent in nature's processes of growth in living forms, vegetable
and animal. A little known, though worthy metaphysician has gone
so far as to elevate to the rank of the
ultimate world principle, that which we know as the constructive imagination.
He asserts that there is a cosmic constructive imagination working
in nature, producing the myriad forms and varieties of vegetable

(03:09:52):
and animal forms. He holds further that the same principle,
in the form of the human constructive imagination, enables man
to become a creator on his own plane of life.
This metaphysician, holds that constructive imagination is the essential characteristic
attribute of the ultimate principle of the cosmos. He holds

(03:10:12):
that this essential attribute is inherent in the very essence
of all things and in the world as a whole.
He postulates its existence in the all thing as an
imminent principle, just as in the kernel of the plant seed,
there exists an imminent principle which will give to the
evolving plant its form and its type of organism. This
cosmic principle, he asserts, has manifested the myriads of vegetable

(03:10:35):
and animal forms which have existed or now exist, and
will so manifest those forms which shall in the future
exist in the world. He holds that the first creations
were quite simple, but that little by little the cosmic
constructive imagination increased its energy and manifested in more complex forms.
He cites Darwin as testimony that in nature there has

(03:10:56):
been a slow evolution of organized forms, proceeding from them
simple to the more complex, and so on. We are
not here concerned with philosophical hypotheses, nor with metaphysical speculations,
but at the same time we feel it proper to
direct your attention to the fact that there is manifest
in all nature the operation of a powerful principle which

(03:11:17):
proceeds from the inner form to the outer manifestation, from
the ideal image to its materialization in objective form. We
have given you in the foregoing pages certain typical illustrations
of the operation of this natural principle or process. By
looking around you at the world of living and growing things,
you will be able to perceive countless instances of the

(03:11:38):
operation of the same power, once your attention has been
called to it. Likewise, we wish to call to your
attention the fact that many earnest thinkers hold that that
which is called the constructive imagination in the mind of
man is but a special form of the same great
natural principle, and that man himself, like nature as a whole,
has within himself the power of creation, by means of

(03:11:59):
the man materialization of his ideal forms. Your experience has
taught you that the men who have accomplished the great
creative achievements in art, literature, mechanics, invention, building, and business
construction have created the outer manifestation in accordance with the
inner ideal or mental picture, the latter serving as the model, type, mold,

(03:12:20):
or pattern of the former. But the principle operates over
a much wider area and extends to a much deeper
level of being than you have realized. It is a
fact acknowledged by many very careful observers and reasoners that
the man of strong ideals, he whose mind contains strong,
dear mental pictures of that which he hopes to accomplish,

(03:12:40):
actually sets into operation the forces, powers, and energies of
his entire mental and physical being. These, in turn draw
upon the common source of nature for their nourishment and subsistence,
and all the power so generated tends toward manifestation and
expression in the material form which is being built upon
the mental framework or patterns of the creative idea. Just

(03:13:02):
as the oak is able to draw upon nature for
power with which it may lift itself far above the
surface of the earth and to send forth mighty limbs
and branches, just as the growing plant is able to
secure from nature sufficient force to enable it to push
aside or break through the obstacles in a path of
its progress, even through concrete blocks, as we have seen,
so may the creative idea of the man who knows

(03:13:25):
be able to draw upon nature for the still more
subtle forces of her laboratory needed to materialize his ideal
forms to make his ideals become real. Not only this,
but there is a rapidly growing body of human thinkers
who hold that man, in such cases is not necessarily
limited to the mechanism of his own organism in the

(03:13:45):
expression of his inner urge by means of the forces
which he has attracted to him. They hold that he
even may and often really does, throw out mental or
spiritual filaments which contact the things of the outside world,
thereby attracting to himself the external forces and things requisite
for the successful materialization of his inner ideal, his mental forms,

(03:14:06):
his creative idea. In this book, we have sought to
present to you the essential principles of this great subject
of creative power, of the materialization and actualization of your
creative ideas. In doing so, however, we first asked you
to become far better acquainted with an existing field of
mental activity which you have previously undervalued and grossly misunderstood

(03:14:28):
your power of constructive imagination. This mental stone, heretofore rejected
by the builders of the Temple of mental power, is
now being recognized by advanced thinkers as quite worthy of
being given the place of honor as the cornerstone of
the great structure. We are fast approaching the place in
which we shall see the inner meaning of the ancient
philosophers who asserted that in will and imagination combined and

(03:14:52):
harmonized are to be found. The Secret of Power, Creative Power,
Your Constructive Forces by William way Walker Atkinson, Dynamic idealization.
In the instruction contained in the several books of the
series of which the present volume is a part, there
is frequent reference made to the master Formula of attainment,

(03:15:13):
which is as follows. One definite ideals, two insistent desire,
three confident expectation, four persistent determination, five balanced compensation. The
spirit of the master formula is expressed in popular phrasing

(03:15:33):
as follows. You may have anything you want, provided that
you one know exactly what you want, two want it
hard enough, three confidently expect to obtain it for persistently
determined to obtain it, and five are willing to pay
the price of its attainment. In other books of the series,
these several elements of the Master Formula are considered in detail,

(03:15:56):
are fully explained, and methods for their effective application are
indicated in this concluding section of the present book. However,
we ask you to consider the first element, i e.
That of definite ideals from an angle somewhat different from
that adopted in the other books of the series. In
these other considerations of the subject of definite ideals, that

(03:16:18):
important element of the master formula generally has been treated
as practically synonymous with the idea of definite purpose. But
definite purpose really is but one of the several phases
or forms of definite ideals, the particular phase or form
which is involved in the manifestation of will power, to
some extent, in that of desire power, and in that

(03:16:39):
of logical power. In faith power, however, there is manifest
a somewhat higher form of definite ideals. Likewise, in some
of the higher mental and spiritual activities, there is found
present in active a transcendental phase or form of definite ideals. Thus,
you see, the term definite ideals represents a general concept

(03:17:01):
or idea which has several lesser elements. It includes the
concept of definite purpose and also several other important secondary concepts.
In our present consideration of the subject, we shall confine
our attention to that aspect of definite ideals, which may
be called creative ideals. The term is appropriate for the
essential nature and characteristic activities of such ideals are primarily creative.

(03:17:26):
Creative ideals call into operation the strongest and most intense
activities of desire power, the most earnest and inspiring faith power,
the most persistent and determined will power, the most capable
and efficient subconscious power. In fact, it acts upon and
through the most potent energies of all of the mental, emotional,
and volitional elements of the mind, soul, or spirit of man.

(03:17:50):
More than that, it reaches out into the great world,
beyond the personal limits of the individual, and, operating through
some of nature's subtle but potent forces, it sets in
to motion and activity many things, persons, events, causes, and
processes over which, in the ordinary view, the individual apparently
has no direct control. Perhaps it will be as well

(03:18:12):
to begin by arriving at a clear and definite understanding
of the term ideal as employed in this instruction. It
has well been said that there is a mighty magic
in words rightly understood. The old Chaldean oracle announced this
ancient thought in these lines. There are names in every
nation God given of unexplained power in the mysteries. First

(03:18:35):
of all, we find that our term has its origin
in the term idea, which evolved from an old Greek
word meaning to see. Idea is defined as one a
mental image of any visible object, object of sense, or
spiritual object. Two a general notion or a conception formed
by generalization, hence three any object apprehended, conceived, or thought

(03:18:59):
of by the mind. Also for a belief, opinion, doctrine,
or principle, and five a plan or purpose of action.
Underlying all of these meanings is found the essential notion
of existing in the mind. An idea is always mental,
never material. The term ideal as an adjective means one

(03:19:23):
existing in idea or thought, two existing in imagination only,
and three reaching an imaginary standard of excellence, efficiency, beauty, utility,
et cetera. As a noun, the term is defined as
a mental conception regarded as a standard of perfection, a
model of excellence, beauty, efficiency, utility, et cetera. Here we

(03:19:46):
have the blending of the two essential attributes, viz. One
existing in thought or imagination, and two a standard of excellence.
Excellence is synonymous with superiority, worth, goodnesess, greatness. So in
the end we have a concept of an ideal defined
as a mental image of something of superior worth, goodness,

(03:20:09):
and value, serving as a standard of excellence, beauty, efficiency, utility,
et cetera. As we always desire, hope for, and strive
to attain things of superior worth, goodness, and value, the
degree of worth, goodness, and value being determined by the
comparative resemblance of such things to the accepted standard of excellence, beauty, efficiency, utility,

(03:20:33):
et cetera. It follows that desire, faith, and will are
always consciously or unconsciously striving to reach, achieve, or attain
an ideal. To the end of such achievement, to attainment,
the forces of creative power, desire power, faith power, and
will power are set into activity. In many cases, the

(03:20:54):
ideal manifests in the form of purpose or plan of action,
one of the above definitions of idea you will remember.
But in other cases it manifests rather as a mental
or spiritual germ, striving to express and manifest itself in
objective material form, drawing to itself and reaching out after
that which promises to contribute to or aid in such

(03:21:16):
objective and material expression and manifestation. Here, then we have
the concept of the ideal seeking to express and manifest
itself in objective and material expression, in manifestation, and by
reason of this innerurge drawing to itself and reaching out
after that which promises to contribute or aid in such
expression and manifestation. But you may ask, why and how

(03:21:39):
is this ideal entitled to be termed creative? Let us
answer this question in the first place by asking you
another question, thinking over the subject discussed in the preceding
section of this book of what does this concept of
the striving, seeking, acting, mental or spiritual germ remind you?
We think that the following several pairs will represent the

(03:22:01):
essence and spirit of your answer. You will be reminded,
first of all of the fact that in all man's
material creations there has been, and necessarily must have been
a preceding mental image or form, an ideal, in fact
of which the later material objective form of the created
thing was merely a copy. That there must always be

(03:22:21):
the mental pattern, map, design, or mold which is reproduced
in the material creation. There must always be the inner
form before there can be the outer form. But you
may object here the ideal is merely the pattern, model
or mold which the imagination and will employ in their
creative work. The ideal in itself is not creative dot

(03:22:45):
This is true, at least to a certain extent. We
need not here argue the fine distinctions, however, for we
have a clear case presented in nature's activities, to the
consideration of which we shall now proceed. Letting your mind
dwell upon the subject considered in the preceding section of
this book, you will remember that in all material creations
of form, in all purposive groupings, arrangements, conformations, configurations, there

(03:23:11):
is found to be present in inner ideal form, composed
of the aggregate of mental forms striving to express itself
in action and objective manifestation. You will remember that we
found this inner ideal form operative in the cases of
the grouping of the atoms and of the smaller particles
composing the atoms, in all chemical processes, in the processes

(03:23:31):
of crystallization, in the life processes, and the growth of plants,
in the sprouting of seeds, of the development and evolution
of the germ in the egg. You will remember the
interesting description of the development of the newt's egg given
by Huxley. You will remember the instances of great power
exerted by growing roots, plants, and sprouting seeds. You will

(03:23:54):
remember what was said concerning the evolution of needed physical
instruments manifested by the lower animals, the explanation of the
long legs of the wading birds, the claws and beaks
of the birds of prey, the long neck and legs
of the giraffe. Finally, you will remember the logical conclusion
parrived at by those observing these and similar instances of

(03:24:14):
this wonderful working of nature's forces, viz. That there exists,
and is manifest in all nature, the operation of a
mighty principle which proceeds from the inner form to the
outer manifestation, from the ideal image to its materialization in
objective form, you will find yourself compelled to think that
in all of Nature's activities and processes in which is

(03:24:35):
performed the work of creation, of form, combination, composition, or coordination,
there certainly exists an ideal form serving as a pattern, plan, mold, map, chart,
or design upon which and by means of which nature
builds and creates more than this. When you carefully reason
concerning this matter, you will find yourself becoming impressed by

(03:24:57):
the idea and conviction that the essence in space, spirit
of such manifestations and expressions abide in the germ ideal
form itself, and that instead of being a mere inert pattern,
model or mold, the ideal form is a living, acting,
creative force, drawing to itself the materials needed for its
outward objective expression and manifestation. Such expression and manifestation being

(03:25:19):
there essential desire, need, and energizing principle of its being. Thus,
the ideal form is seen to be not only an
inner form, but also a something or somewhat which may
be described as a power with the desire to act,
or a desire with the power to act, a definition
which has also been applied to will. It may be
noted here once more is seen the close relation of

(03:25:43):
imagination to will, a resemblance which by many philosophers and
by all occultists is regarded as of the deepest significance.
That there is a dynamic force in the ideal forms
which are found to be present in nature's creative processes
cannot be doubted. Everything points to this conclusion on all sides.

(03:26:04):
Proofs supporting this contention may be found in nature. It
is seen that there is a creative ideal form as
the nucleus of every creative process. Forms, combinations, coordinated activities,
arrangements of parts, elements, and factors of composition are found
to group themselves around the nucleus furnished by the creative ideal.

(03:26:25):
Just as the germ in the seed or egg gathers
to itself the material that it needs for growth. Just
as the seed or egg freely employs the natural forces
at its disposal, and they are always at its disposal,
he should note in order to manifest and express itself
in creative growth. So in every creative ideal form there
is found to be present that power to employ natural

(03:26:46):
forces for its purposes, the instinctive knowledge how and when
to employ those forces efficiently, and the desire will end
ability to draw to itself the material needed for its growth, development, expression,
and objective manifestation. Proceeding from the macrocosm to the microcosm,
from nature to man, and applying the ancient hermetic axiom

(03:27:09):
as above, so below we would consider it logically certain
that in man the individual we should find a corresponding
condition of things, i e. The presence and power of
the creative ideal form, the action of the latter in
the direction of drawing to itself, the material required for
its objective expression and manifestation, and the capacity for employing

(03:27:29):
natural forces for the purpose of accomplishing its end. We
should expect to find that in man, as in nature,
the creative ideal form not only seeks to express and
manifest itself in objective form and action, but also actually
does so express and manifest itself, and also is able
to press into its service the subtle forces of nature,

(03:27:50):
provided always that the creative ideal form be one sufficiently
strong and active, and two sufficiently clear and definite, the
spirit of the requirements being that of concentrated power. Discover
that we have not been deceived, nor conducting the above
mentioned inquiry we mocked. We find that the axiom as

(03:28:11):
above so below holds good in this as in many
another case. We find that the men and women who
have accomplished great things have always possessed these dynamic creative ideals,
and that those who have so possessed them have found
operating within themselves a mighty power of nature, and have
been conscious of the effects of these activities. Manifesting in
the world outside of themselves. The individuals of great attainment

(03:28:35):
sooner or later have become aware of this correspondence between
the inner dynamic creative ideal and the events and happenings
of the outside world, which are correlated to the inner purpose.
The individual with the dynamic creative ideal has established within
himself a great focal center of energy and power, and
to that center are being attracted and drawn things, persons, circumstances, thoughts, ideas, powers,

(03:28:59):
and others, things which are needed for the objective expression
manifestation of the inner ideal form, even in the lesser
activities of man. In the more mechanical forms of work,
he is able to perform better work and to perform
his work more efficiently, if he maintains a sufficiently clear
and strong creative ideal form of that which he wishes
to materialize in objective form. Psychologists have told us that

(03:29:23):
the best workmen are those who visualize the whole of
what they propose to do before they take a tool
in their hands, this being equally true of strategists, artists
of all kinds, physicists who contrive new experiments, and all
others who do not follow mere routine. They have told us,
for instance, that no man can be a good plumber
unless he uses his imagination. The ideal and its mental

(03:29:46):
image must precede the actual laying of the pipe. Likewise,
that the blacksmith is efficient only in the degree in
which he employs his imagination. Every time he strikes the
red hot iron, he makes it approximate the ideal image
in his mind. Kay says, a clear and accurate idea
of what we wish to do and how it is
to be affected, is of the utmost value and importance

(03:30:09):
in all of the affairs of life. A man's conduct
naturally shapes itself according to the ideas in his mind,
and nothing contributes more to success in life than having clear,
strong ideals and keeping them continually in view. Numerous unexpected
circumstances will be found to conspire to bring it about,
and even what seems at first hostile may be converted

(03:30:31):
into means for its furtherance. While by having the ideal
constantly before the mind, one will be ever ready to
take advantage of any favoring circumstances that may present themselves.
Bain says, by aiming at a new construction, we must
clearly conceive what is aimed at. Where we have a
very distinct and intelligible model before us, we are in

(03:30:52):
a fair way to succeed. In proportion, as the ideal
is dim and wavering, we stagger and miscarry. John Burrows.
No one ever found a walking fern who did not
have the walking fern in his mind. A person whose
mind is full of Indian relics picks them up in
every field through which he walks. They are found and

(03:31:12):
quickly recognized because the eye has been commissioned to find them.
In the great field of activities comprising the realm of desire,
we find that the energizing force of desire is called
forth in proportion to the degree of clearness, definiteness, and
distinctness of the ideal presented to it. Desire always is
called into action by the presence and power of ideas

(03:31:33):
and ideals. Desire is always the want of this thing
or the want to do that thing. It cannot want
or want to unless an idea or ideal is present
in sufficient force and definiteness to call forth its activities.
In fact, a strong ideal often arouses and attracts to
itself such a degree and amount of desire, that the

(03:31:54):
ideal itself seems to be but a focal point of desire,
or the desire seems to be the very soul of
the ideal. In desire power, the dominant want or want
to is the definite purpose. The idea of the achievement
or attainment of the end of the want or want
to is the definite ideal. Likewise, in the activities of

(03:32:15):
faith power, there is always found present a definite ideal.
Faith must always have its object. The more definite and
certain its object, the greater and more stable is the faith.
Faith is one of the great elemental spiritual powers. In
its form of confident expectation and expectant attention, it powerfully
moves the will. But faith power is but latent and

(03:32:39):
static unless it be aroused into dynamic power by the
presentation to it of an appropriate idea or ideal. Finally,
the activities of power are called forth only in response
to the idea or ideal which has in the first
place aroused the desire which rises into will, and which
in the second place has served as a standard of

(03:32:59):
measurement of will values, and which in the third place
now serves as a beacon standard or mark placed far
ahead on the path of attainment, serving to point out
the way to be traveled and the direction to be followed.
It is an axiom of psychology that the will goes
out in action only toward an idea or ideal presented
to it. It might be added that the will is

(03:33:21):
held to its path only by the perception of the
idea or ideal, which marks its course and indicates its direction.
Certain philosophers and psychologists have noted that it is almost
impossible to distinguish between concentrated will and the highly developed,
definite concentrated idea or ideal. The two seem to have
been combined and blended into one mental power. This correspondence

(03:33:44):
between imagination and will frequently has been noted in the
present work. But in pursuance of the rule of the
unity of the mind, we find that just as truly
as desire, faith, imagination, and will may be and are
called into action, power and stress by the presentation of
an idea or ideal, so is it true that the
creative ideal may be strengthened, energized, and given definite form

(03:34:08):
by the application of the respective powers of desire, faith, imagination,
and will. There is always action, reaction, and interaction in
the realm of the mind. Its powers are correlated and coordinated.
Each is bound up with the others, and each aids
and helps the others when needed. We may concentrate our
attention upon any one of the great powers of the mind,

(03:34:30):
and that particular power will seem to be the dominant one. When, however,
we proceed to contemplate and to study the others, we
find that each, in turn seems to be the dominant power.
The truth is that no one of these great powers
can operate effectively unless the other powers co operate with
it and proceed with it in coordinated action. The creative ideal,

(03:34:53):
in order to be effective, indeed, in order to be
truly creative, must be one strong and too definite. Its
strength is increased by the energizing power of desire, the
inspiring power of faith, and the determining power of will. Moreover,
by means of imagination, presenting to it mental pictures of

(03:35:14):
itself as actually expressed and manifested in objective material form.
The creative ideal is further aroused into action in response
to that essential urge, instinct, or appotency of its nature
which causes it to strive ever to manifest itself in
outward action and form. In strengthening an ideal form which
you wish to raise to the rank and power of

(03:35:34):
a dynamic creative ideal, you should bring to bear upon
it the combined powers of your desire, faith, imagination, and will.
The creative ideal, in order to be effective and truly creative,
must be dear, positive, and definite. Here the ideal calls
upon those mighty twin elements of the spirit, the ideative
and volitional faculties, namely imagination and Willation supplies the definite pattern,

(03:36:01):
model or design which the ideal wishes to manifest, while
Will proceeds to cut away the encumbering marble or granite
which hides the definite form of the ideal as represented
by the artist's pattern, design or mold. Will, however, does
not create the ideal. The ideal is self created, or
else is originally created by that i ami which is

(03:36:23):
the center and focal point present in the mental kingdom.
But will serve as a necessary purpose and an essential
task when it proceeds to chip away, to chisel away,
to hammer away all the great mass of mental granite
or marble which hides the beautiful inner form of the
ideal its pure form. The ideal form is actually existent,

(03:36:44):
never forget that. But before it may be perceived and
employed as a model, standard, and guide, it must be
released from that which encumbers its pure form and hides
it from view. In the master formula of attainment, the
first element is that of definite ideals, not merely ideals,
but particularly definite ideals. In all of the principal books

(03:37:05):
of this series, this element of definite ideals is dwelt
upon a considerable length in one form or another. In
the preceding sections of the present book, you will find
it presented under the form of definite purpose. The factor
of definiteness is emphasized in all such presentations, for upon
such definiteness depends much of the power of the ideal

(03:37:26):
standard or purpose. It must stand out in attention, perception,
and thought. It must represent that just what of the want, ambition, faith, effort,
or thought. It denotes just what you like, desire, believe in,
adopt as a standard of values, use as your guide

(03:37:46):
on the road of attainment, and strive to manifest and
express in thought, word, and deed an ideal standard or
purpose is definite in the degree in which it is certain, clear, plain, distinct, specific, exact, precise,
fixed in understanding and meaning. Its mental form must be distinct, clear, sharp,

(03:38:08):
clear cut, sharp cut. Indistinctness, indefiniteness, ambiguity, uncertainty, vagueness, and
obscurity of understanding and meaning are to be avoided in
your ideals, that is, if you wish to have them
creative and dynamic. Strong and definite creative ideals are properly
called dynamic ideals, for they manifest all the qualities and

(03:38:31):
powers which are indicated by the term dynamic. Dynamic means powerful,
filled with energy, capable of manifesting force, energy, power, motion,
and action. The dynamic aspect or phase of anything is
that in which the thing manifests motion, action, activity. Its
static aspect or phase is that in which it exists

(03:38:53):
in a state of rest and in action. Your dynamic
ideals are those ideals existing in your mind which are
one sufficiently powerful to move into action and to manifest
their inherent force and energy, and two sufficiently definite to
concentrate those forces and energies into a one pointed focus
of ideas and will. Only a dynamic ideal can be

(03:39:16):
a creative ideal, and all dynamic ideals are and must
be creative ideals by reason of their very nature. The
dynamic ideal must create, for creative activity is its essential nature. Creation,
as you know, consists of compounding, composing, building, putting together, making,

(03:39:36):
manufacturing new forms from the materials at hand. The dynamic
ideal tends to express and manifest itself in creating a
new environment for its possessor, in building a new set
of conditions for him. Such environment and conditions, however, being
in harmony in agreement with the spirit of the ideal.
In short, the dynamic ideal tends toward making the ideal

(03:39:59):
become real in building up a material world of experience
corresponding to its inner mental world of experience. It experiments
in order to build up the experience it tears down, rebuilds,
builds anew just as the mind of the inventor, the artist,
the writer proceeds in creating its particular form of expression.

(03:40:20):
The dynamic creative ideal, in fact, is composed of two
associated elements, namely, a, the element of definite and concentrated idea,
and B the element of definite and concentrated will. The
idea plans, invents, and points out the direction of the action,
though will execute the action according to the plan thus

(03:40:41):
furnished it. This brings us back once more to the
teachings of the ancient occultists, who held that, at the last,
there are but two fundamental mental or spiritual forces, and
these really are but twin aspects of spirit. These two
fundamental forces or aspects are one the matter, which was

(03:41:01):
held to involve all thinking, reasoning, and mental imaging of
any sort, and two will, which was held to involve
all feelings and desires, all voluntary action, all determination, judgment, decision,
and volition. All other mental faculties or powers were held
to be but a phases or derivative forms of imagination

(03:41:22):
or will, or be combinations and compositions of imagination and
will in which the elements of each are blended. In
that book of this series entitled Personal Power, we have
shown you that the twin giants of personal power are ideation, volition,
or in other words, idea will. The more you ponder
over this teaching, the stronger will grow your conviction of

(03:41:45):
the underlying identity of ideation and volition, That imagination and
will are twing giants inseparable, always operating in conjunction with
each other. This being so, you will begin to understand
how and why a strong, vigorous, definite ideal may be
become a dynamic creative ideal by means of calling into operation,
in effect its twin aspect of dynamic will. For the

(03:42:07):
purposes of easy thought on the subject and the manifestation
of this principle, you may think of the dynamic creative
ideal as having the soul of idea and the bodily
strength of will. You may render your ideals dynamic and
creative by means of the employment of desire, faith, imagination,
and will. Applying the principle of the master formula. You

(03:42:28):
one must know exactly what you want that creative ideal
to be. Two you must desire insistently that it be such.
Three you must confidently expect that it will be such.
Four you must persistently determine that it will be such.
And five you must pay the price of work, service, application, concentration,
and of the relinquishment of opposing ideas and ideals, desires,

(03:42:52):
and feelings. By means of insistent desire, confident expectation, and
persistent determination, the creative idea may be raised to the
rank and power of dynamic idealization. Keep your creative ideals
always before you think of them, dream of them, make
them a part of your very soul. Encourage them by

(03:43:12):
visualizations of their realization in objective form, Brace them with affirmations,
Give to them the force of habit by endeavoring to
act upon their principles as often in so far as
is possible, think, feel, and act in their terms. Assimilate
them to such an extent that your personal, mental, and
physical instruments of expression may become their outward machinery. Let

(03:43:35):
even your personal being become as the willing instrument of
the manifestation into objective form of these dynamic creative ideals.
Live for the purpose of making your ideals become real.
What will be the result of the creation and maintenance
of such dynamic creative ideals, you may ask, Here is
the answer of those wise and illumined members of the

(03:43:57):
race who establish the esoteric schools of ancient philosophy, and
of the equally wise and illumined members of the race
of today who are striving to sow the seeds of
the inner teachings in the minds of those who are
prepared to receive them, nourish them, and allow them to develop,
grow and bear blossom and fruit. Here is the answer
of such great souls. You are the creator of your

(03:44:19):
own world of experience. Consciously or unconsciously, You are molding
your world of experience and determining your own destiny, in
ignorance or in wisdom, for good or for evil. You
are creating, building, constructing the scenery of that world in
which you live and move and have your being. For

(03:44:39):
weal or for woe. You are thus building, for better
or for worse. You are thus constructing. Your personal world
of experience is largely what you, yourself, have made it.
Your ideals, ever, tend to become real. You are always
realizing your ideals. What you have been doing unconsciously, you

(03:45:00):
may now proceed to do consciously. By creating and controlling
your ideals, you create and control your world of experience.
You may become an active master of creation instead of
a passive slave. The strong, definite, dynamic, creative ideal will
call forth the full powers of your body, of your mind,

(03:45:20):
and of your spirit. Reason, imagination, invention will perform their
best work under its influence. Desire will energize more intensely,
and will determine more persistently. Under its influence. The wonderful
storehouse of the subconscious will open wide its doors when
the creative ideal gives the right knock. The still higher

(03:45:41):
realm of the super conscious will superimpose its wisdom and
knowledge upon the conscious mind. When this be demanded by
the dynamic ideal, all things will work together for good
for him in whom the dynamic creative ideal is manifesting
its power. I call them all forth, and forth come
they in answer to my call, says the Spirit of
the Ideal in the old allegory of the orient, and

(03:46:04):
chief of all. And the first to come forth is
my twin brother Will, concludes that ideal spirit. Definite ideal
and concentrated will. These are the twin giants of your
creative power. Cultivate and develop both of them, and to
an equal extent. Do not let your definite ideals suffer
by reason of the lack of pulling and pushing power

(03:46:25):
of your concentrated will. Neither let your concentrated will become
static and inert by reason of the lack of the
directing and guiding power of your definite ideals, grasp the
hands of the twin giants, one on the right of you,
one on your left, and then let the I am
I give the command forward march naught can oppose the

(03:46:45):
phalanx composed of your definite ideals, your real self, your
concentrated will. Rightly may such a combination shout its battle cry,
I can, I will, I dare I do. The will
that can is the will that knows. The ancient Buddhists
had an old aphorism which ran something like this. To

(03:47:05):
know rightly is to think rightly. To think rightly is
to will rightly. To will rightly is to act rightly.
The root of action is knowledge. The fruit of knowledge
is action. The ancient Chaldeans had a similar proverb. He
who knows is able to will effectively. He who wills
effectively creates his world. All through the secret doctrines runs

(03:47:28):
this song of ideal will, of knowing and doing, and
the most practical thinkers of our own times and lands
echo the ancient reports. Perhaps the highest phases of philosophical
metaphysical thought are those which hold that the only adequate
explanation of the universe is to be had In that hypothesis,
which postulates the existence of an eternal, infinite spiritual principle,

(03:47:49):
the essence of which is life, will and ideative consciousness,
the essential powers of which are animation, ideation, and volition, respectively.
In this view, universal creation creative evolution is accomplished by
means of the power of the living will, taking the
forms and configurations patterned by the living idealizing power. Daring

(03:48:12):
thinkers have likened the universe to a cosmic dramatization of
the ideas and ideals evolved by the infinite consciousness of spirit,
the machinery of creation being operated by the infinite will
of Spirit. Be this as it may, every careful and
honest thinker has been compelled, at least at times to
admit that there is no escape from the conviction that
the universe shows the progressive working out in manifestation of

(03:48:35):
a cosmic purpose, intention and aim. In short, that the
universe is the materialization of a pre existing cosmic idea
or ideal. The processes of cause and effect show the
presence and operation of something like pure deductive logic in
the activities of the universe. Many poets, writers, and dramatists

(03:48:56):
have pointed out that in the processes of the universe.
There is manifested the presence an action of something that
might he called the author, a something or somewhat that
develops a cosmic plot of creation, and then logically, consistently
and artistically proceeds to perform the work of material evolutionary
creation upon the lines of that ideal plot. They point

(03:49:16):
out that the characters, circumstances, actions, and events of the
universe always hang together, always manifesting that unity, coherence, and
balance which distinguished the literary compositions of the best writers.
This lofty conception may be but the fanciful expression of
the perception by competent observers of that something at work

(03:49:36):
in the universe which bears a close resemblance to the
something at work in their own minds. Or again, it
may be the result of a deep intuition of truth,
whatever it may be. At the last, it certainly expresses
a conviction that has come to many deep thinkers in
all ages and all lands, many of whom had never
heard the like expression of others of their kind. Whatever

(03:49:58):
may be the ultimate truth, it is certain that man
has at his disposal a mighty creative power, which, in
its more familiar phases is called constructive imagination, and which
in its less familiar esoteric transcendental phase, is called what
Man in his own realm is a creator, and the
limits of his realm are determined by himself, by his imagination,

(03:50:21):
by his will,

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CREATIVE POWER - YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES: Designing Your Life with the Law of Attraction - William Walker Atkinson (1922)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}CREATIVE POWER - YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES: Designing Your Life with the Law of Attraction - William Walker Atkinson (1922)