PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
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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 you that it constitutes a definite mental image, concept, or idea.
The ideal inventory of “important elements” must include (1) every discoverable important thing employed or used in connection with the subject; (2) every discoverable important fact concerning that subject; (3) every discoverable important item of information concerning the essential application of that subject; (4) every discoverable important event or experience in the history of that subject; (5) every discoverable important cause affecting that subject; (6) every discoverable important effect produced by that subject; and (7) every discoverable important law, principle, or method employed in the processes connected with that subject.
You must know (1) of what the thing is made; (2) how it is made; (3) who makes it; (4) who uses it or may use it; (5) what the users need it for, and how they use it—and how others may use it, and the other ways in which persons may use it; (6) how it is sold (or may be sold) to those who use it; (7) the 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 listmaking, we make the following suggestions: Use freely a good encyclopaedia, preferably one having a classified index, or an efficient system of crossindexing. Use trade or professional textbooks, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, reference works, etc. Read the trade or professional journals relating to your subject—paying due attention to the advertisements—for advertisements, properly read, constitute a rich mine of suggestive ideas.
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—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.
Halleck says concerning this point: “The 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 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 had been talking about defective flues as causes of fires, was asked to state plainly what he meant by ‘a defective flue.’ 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 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, 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 relations and associations; crossindexing 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 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 place in a more general class, and, thereby, you 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 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 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 would be contained the concepts of Stone, Clay, Brick, Iron, Steel, Lumber, Concrete, Cement, Tile, etc. 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, etc. 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, GearWheels, Gearing, Couplings, etc. In your mental file of “Fibres and Textiles,” there would be placed your records of Cotton, Flax, Hemp, Jute, Linen, Manilla Hemp, Noils, Ramie, Shoddy, Silk, Organzine, Floss Silk, Wool and Worsted, Coir, Artificial Silk, Artificial Cotton, Vegetable Silk, etc. In your mental file of “Dairy Products,” you would place your records of Milk, Skim Milk, Casein, Cream, Butter, Cheese, Buttermilk, Milk Sugar, Ghee, Kephir, Koumiss, Whey, etc. 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 subclassification. 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;
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.” 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 the terms of logical 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, etc. Such a system, however, would be well nigh impossible; and, for that matter, would be far too complex and cumbersome for ordinary practical use. But you should not lose sight of the general principle, nevertheless.