PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
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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 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 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.”
Ribot says, concerning this last point: “There are likenesses between the abortive forms of the Creative Imagination and the impotent forms of the Will. In its normal and complete form, Will culminates in an act; but with wavering characters, and sufferers from abulia, deliberation never ends, or the resolution remains inert, incapable of realization, of asserting itself in action. The Creative Imagination also, in its complete form, has 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 affair, it is not embodied in any esthetic or practical invention. Revery is the equivalent of weak desires and incompleted Will; dreamers are the abulics 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 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 and determinedly directed toward, and held upon, 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 direct your attention to it, further comparison being unnecessary.
Thus, you have seen, there are two distinct forms or phases of Constructive Imagination, viz., (1) Passive, and (2) Active. The former you have just now considered; the latter you are now asked to consider.
Note: In our further consideration of 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 employed toward definite ends and aims.”
III
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 or discarded according to determined values, and then deliberately and purposively employed toward the attainment of a definite end or aim. In these processes not only the Imagination, but also the Intellect and the Will play their part—the activity thus being complex, and the result that of co-ordinated mental power; yet Imagination is the main factor of the process, and 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 possibilities—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 to a higher plane of activity, there 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, 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 by you in 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, breakingup, or parting that which has previously existed in associated or united 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 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 Imagination without preliminary Dissociation would be as impossible as the task set by the towncouncil, in the familiar tale, which passed a resolution (1) that a new townhall be built; (2) that the new townhall be constructed of the materials of the old townhall, and on the site of the old building; but (3) that the old townhall be left standing, and be occupied and used until the new townhall 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—for he has never seen ice nor snow. It is difficult to dissociate the idea of cold weather, bare trees, etc., from our image of a December day—yet, south of the Equator, December is a midsummer month. It was difficult for the opponents of Columbus to dissociate the idea of flatness from the earth, and to construct the 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 middleaged man.
RECONSTRUCTION. The Constructive Imagination, having dissociated the elements of reproduced images, 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:
(1) SIMPLE PARTITION. You 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 writing 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 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 exist in that form and free from its natural associations.
(2)