PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson

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СКАЧАТЬ motives; by accident or fate; by jealous rivals; by irate parents; by crafty guardians; by scheming relatives; and so on and so forth. They could be reunited by the brave deed of the man­lover; by a similar deed of the woman­lover; 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 storming girl’s heart; by lover making long and noble self­sacrifices; 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 and fetching ruses. But marriage bells at the end was the one thing that he could take no liberties with.”

      The author relates that Martin soon worked out half a dozen stock forms, which he always consulted when constructing storiettes. “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, 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 storiettes, 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 of his formula. * * * His machine­made storiettes, 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 trade­pictures bearing a fictitious name—which were designed for sale at the popular auction houses of that time. 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 set to work to overcome this difficulty. Like Martin Eden, he discovered a formula—he invented a system.

      He prepared a series of cardboard disks; upon each disk 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, the sea, lakes, forests, etc., each were noted down. Thus he had at his disposal several hundred elements or details of a popular picture. He made a great combination wheel of his disks, 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 point placed just over the top of the wheel. Thus he would read, for instance: “Autumn,” “hill,” “lake,” “old­mill,” etc., etc., 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, 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 stepping­stone to better things. The real 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 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.” 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 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, arouse their desires for it, etc. Your own created conjunction, plan, method, design, or invention naturally 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 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 “the heart’s desire” of Those­Who­Must­Be­Satisfied, 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. It is as invariable 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 “the highest intellectual faculty.” His statement follows: “Instead of Constructive Imagination being, as commonly supposed, an endowment peculiar to the poet and writer of fiction, it is questionable whether the man of science, truly so­called, does not possess even more of it. When Imagination rises into the constructive form, there is an ever­increasing 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 ‘thwarted purposes’ set aright.”

      Without the power of Constructive Imagination, man 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 mountain­top lights the world.”

      VIII

       THE ART OF CREATION

       Table of Content

      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, and which is that ALL which is in All­Things, and in which All­Things 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 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 СКАЧАТЬ