Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Creative Imagination
Use the imagination as the workshop where desire is shaped into definite plans — deliberately recombining known material (synthetic) and cultivating receptivity to ‘hunches’ (creative).
Two workshops. Synthetic imagination recombines what you already know — use it deliberately to build and revise your plan. Creative imagination is Hill’s “receiving set” for hunches; prime it with intense, emotionalized desire, capture the flashes, then test them. Always pair imagination with action.
What it is
Hill’s account of the faculty that turns desire into a workable plan. He splits imagination into two kinds. Synthetic imagination “arranges old concepts, ideas, or plans into new combinations” — it creates nothing new, but recombines the material of experience, education, and observation; this is the everyday workshop where most plans are built.
Creative imagination is Hill’s mystical faculty: the channel through which “the finite mind of man has direct communication with Infinite Intelligence,” through which “hunches” and “inspirations” are received — what he later calls the sixth sense, a “receiving set” for ideas that “flash” into the mind.
Crucially, Hill says the creative faculty “functions ONLY when the conscious mind is vibrating at an exceedingly rapid rate,” as when stimulated by a strong desire — which ties this chapter back to Desire and Auto-Suggestion.
The Method
From Chapter 6, “Imagination,” and Chapter 14, “The Sixth Sense”:
- Know which faculty you’re using. Most practical planning is synthetic: deliberately recombine what you already know into new arrangements. Don’t wait for inspiration to do what recombination can do.
- Build your definite plan in the synthetic workshop. Take the desire (the Six Steps statement) and use synthetic imagination to forge a concrete plan; revise plans whenever one fails. Hill: desire and a definite plan are “given shape, form and ACTION through the aid of the imaginative faculty.”
- Exercise the imagination like a muscle. Hill says the imaginative faculty “becomes more alert and active through use,” so practice forming and combining ideas deliberately.
- Stimulate the creative faculty with intense desire and emotion. Because creative imagination works only when the mind “vibrates at a rapid rate,” fan a strong, emotionalized desire (link to Auto-Suggestion) to make yourself receptive to hunches.
- Receive and record hunches. Treat sudden ideas, inspirations, and “flashes” as the output of the receiving set; capture them at once rather than dismissing them.
- Act on the plan, test the hunch. Imagination yields the plan and the idea; Hill always pairs it with action — the plan must be put to work and adjusted by results. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are from Chapters 6 and 14, short fair-use quotation; steps describe Hill’s method faithfully.)
Source & Lineage
Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937), Chapter 6 (“Imagination: The Workshop of the Mind”) and Chapter 14 (“The Sixth Sense”). The “synthetic/creative” split and the “Infinite Intelligence” framing are pure Hill, echoing wider New Thought ideas of a universal mind. → (hill napoleon).
Common refinements
Waiting for inspiration to do synthetic work. Most plans need deliberate recombination, not a mystical flash.
- Obeying hunches uncritically. Treat a hunch as a hypothesis; verify before betting big on it.
- Imagining without acting. Hill insists the plan must be put into action and revised by results; pure imagining is not the method.
- Expecting the creative faculty cold. Hill ties it to intense, emotionalized desire; flat interest won’t prime it.