PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
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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 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 the individual who wishes to employed 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 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, 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 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 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 (1) the initiatory stages in which the germ of the creative process is carefully considered in consciousness, and the initial impulse is imparted to it; after which it is placed in the subconscious field for incubation; (2) 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 and suggestions of improvement added; after which the incomplete process is again relegated to the subconscious levels; and (3) the last stage in which the practically completed creation is raised to the levels of consciousness for a final inspection; here 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.
Hoffding 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 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 faculties of the mind; these show conclusively 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 of the process which are sufficiently determined in form 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.
(1) THE 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 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 selfpreservation, health, welfare, 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 the direction of knowledge of science or philosophy; or that of religious or theological interpretation or explanation, and 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 willaction—may supply the motor or energizing element in the germ of Constructive Imagination.
Around this energizing element are loosely gathered the general ideas connected with the discovery and 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 the creative imagination—a transition stage between passive reproduction and organized construction.”
(2) 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 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 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.” Another writer says: “Here is the germ, the principle of unity, the centre 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 converging to a common end.”
(3) THE DELIVERY STAGE. This is the stage 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 “born” 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 (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 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 upon 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 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.