Creative vision, expressed by men and women who have been unafraid of criticism has been responsible for the civilization of today as we know it. It has also been responsible for the scientific inventions of modem times which have led first to the steamboat age during the days of Robert Fulton; then the railroad age, the electrical age, the steel and iron age, the department store age, the skyscraper age, the automobile age, the airplane age, the age of plastics, and finally the atomic and space age.
Creative vision inspires men to pioneer and to dare to experiment with new ideas in every field of endeavor. It is always on the lookout for better ways of doing man’s labor and supplying man’s needs.
Creative vision is a quality of mind belonging only to men and women who follow the habit of going the extra mile, for it recognizes no such thing as the regularity of working hours, is not concerned with monetary compensation, and its highest aim is to do the impossible.
This quality, more than all others, gave us Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and many other great statesmen who laid the solid foundation for our way of life. And it gave us Thomas A. Edison in invention, Henry Ford in automobile transportation, Orville and Wilbur Wright in the development of the airplane, James J. Hill in railroad pioneering, F. W. Woolworth in chain store merchandising, Andrew Carnegie in the development of the steel industry, Charles M. Schwab in the same industry, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., in the refinement of crude oil, and many other American industrialists who pioneered our system of free enterprise through the trial and error method, and developed it to the point at which it is today.
Creative vision may be an inborn quality of the mind, or it may be an acquired quality, for it may be developed by the free and fearless use of the faculty of the imagination.
There are two types of imagination:
(a) Synthetic imagination, which consists of a combination of previously recognized ideas, concepts, plans or facts arranged in a new order, or put to a new use.
(b) Creative imagination, which has its base in the subconscious section of the mind, and serves as the medium by which basically new facts or ideas are revealed through the faculty of the sixth sense.
It is known that any idea, plan or purpose, brought into the conscious mind repeatedly and supported by emotional feeling, is automatically picked up by the subconscious section of the mind and carried out to its logical conclusion by means of whatever practical media are available.
Understand this truth and it will be clear why you should adopt a definite major purpose and begin at once to carry it out. The understanding of this truth will also reveal one of the major benefits of the master mind principle, as a master mind alliance in operation inspires the use of the imagination, and leads to the development of creative vision.
Creative vision is definitely and closely related to that state of mind known as faith, and it is significant that those who have demonstrated the greatest amount of creative vision are known to have been men with a great capacity for faith. This is both logical and understandable when we recognize that faith is the means of approach to Infinite Intelligence, the source of all knowledge and all facts, both great and small.
Examples of Creative Vision
Creative vision extends beyond interest in material things. It judges the future by the past, and concerns itself with the future more than with the past. Imagination is influenced and controlled by the powers of reason and experience. Creative vision pushes both of these aside and attains its ends basically by new ideas and methods.
While imagination recognizes limitations, handicaps and opposition, creative vision rides over these as if they did not exist and arrives at its destination. Imagination is seated in the intellect of man. Creative vision has its base in the spirit of the universe which expresses itself through the brain of man. Let us examine a few more examples of · applied creative vision:
Dr. Elmer Gates, a contemporary of Thomas A. Edison, lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. While Mr. Edison had but little formal schooling, Dr. Gates was skilled in many of the sciences and had the benefit of an extensive formal education.
He was recognized throughout the world of science as a scientist of the highest caliber, and his scientific inventions, as disclosed by the records of the U. S. Patent Office, outnumbered those of Mr. Edison two to one. He began his career, as did Mr. Edison, by depending at first upon his imagination, and then developed it into creative vision through constant application and use.
During the latter portion of Dr. Gates’ life he earned his living entirely by the application of his highly developed power of creative vision. His method of application is worthy of consideration by the most profound thinkers, because it proves that one may develop the faculty of imagination until it leads to the power of creative vision.
Your mind may create some good ideas if you don’t keep it too busy with poor ones.
Let us call Dr. Gates’ method of applying creative vision “the habit of sitting for ideas,” for that is precisely what he did. For this purpose he had a soundproof room in which he did the “sitting.” When he wanted a solution to a problem, he went into this room, closed the door, seated himself at a table supplied with pencil and paper, and turned off the lights. He then concentrated his thoughts upon the nature of his problem, and waited for the reception of ideas that he needed for its solution.
Sometimes the ideas would immediately begin to flow into his mind. At other times he waited for an hour or more before they began to make their appearance. And on some occasions no ideas came through.
Dr. Gates refined and perfected more than two hundred and fifty patents by this method. These patents covered ideas which inventors, who had less creative vision than he, had undertaken to perfect, but on which the other inventors had fallen short of success. He added to their ideas the finishing touches that were needed to give them mechanical perfection.
His method of sitting for ideas was simple. He began by examining the application for the patent until he found its weakness, using his own testing laboratory or, when necessary, that of the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Then he went into his soundproof room, with the patent application and the drawings explaining the application, placed them before him on the table, and waited for the unknown quantity to appear. When it did appear, it came in the form of an idea which provided the information he was seeking.
Dr. Gates’ skill in the use of creative vision was so well known, and so trustworthy, that he was retained by many large industrial corporations for the purpose of helping them solve some of their mechanical, economic and industrial problems. He was paid a handsome fee for his time.
When Dr. Gates was asked to explain the source from which he received his results while sitting for ideas, he gave the following explanation:
“The source of all ideas may be classified under the following headings:
(a) The knowledge acquired from individual experience, observation, and education. The storehouse of the memory.
(b) The store of knowledge accumulated by others through the same media, which may be contacted through mental telepathy.
( c) The universal storehouse of Infinite Intelligence, wherein is stored all knowledge and all facts, which may be contacted through the subconscious section of the mind.
“When I sit for ideas, I may tune in to one or all of these sources. If other sources of ideas are available, I do not know what they are.”
Observe that Dr. Gates’ method of sitting for ideas was based upon the application of the big four principles of this philosophy, plus a fifth principle, creative vision.
Source: PMA: Science of Success by Napoleon Hill