PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
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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 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 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 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 “thwarted purposes” present in your experience; then you would never be called upon to exercise your powers of Constructive Imagination. Your want, your lack, your unsatisfied desire, your “thwarted purpose”; these call 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 “thwarted purpose”; you may find it necessary to “boil down” the thing, evaporating the excess fluid in which this essence is dissolved. You must get to the real essential elements of the problem—get “down to brass tacks.” 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 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 centre of the thing. Once having found this, you may work backward and forward in any direction from that focal point. The focal point may be discovered by determined “pencil thought” upon the following two questions, viz.: (1) “What is the obstacle which I wish to overcome; what is the nature of this ‘thwarted purpose’; what is the gist of the difficulty; and (2) What is the first and main factor or element of my purpose in this matter; what is it necessary 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 nonessential ideas. It is your work to clear away this mass of encumbering material of thought, so that you may bring into plain view the precious thing at the centre 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 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 centre of every pearl, and about which the pearly material has gathered. It is “the big idea” 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 downwardpressing roots, and the upwardpressing stalk. Without it 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 and uncovering the Definite Ideal is not confined to its effect upon your conscious mental activities; its effect upon your subconscious faculties and 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 and ideal thus impressed upon it. The importance of this is realized only when you stop to think that over eightyfive 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 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 in mind, consciously, subconsciously, and superconsciously. 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, 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 mapout your general field 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 you need but to follow the general principles which already have been presented to you in the instruction concerning the discovery and visualization of your Definite Purpose—your Definite Ideal. These principles may be stated in condensed form as follows:
(1) “THINK WITH YOUR PENCIL.” Write down all of the ideas concerning the general field and plan, and then compare these for the purpose of selection. Eliminate the nonessentials, cancel the duplications and contradictories, and arrange the selected items in a logical and orderly classification. In short, make a chart or diagram of the general field and plan, showing the ground to be covered, the obstacles to be overcome, the strong places, the weak points, etc., etc., You will do well to bestow sufficient care and attention upon this task, for your chart will be to you what his map of the battlefield is to the commanding officer.
(2) “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 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.
V
THE MENTAL LABORATORY
THE THIRD section of the General Rule tells you to: “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 reach 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 supply the Constructive Imagination with the raw materials for its creative