The two forms of imagination: synthetic and organic

In his classic 1937 book Think and Grow Rich (download pdf of entire book), Napoleon Hill contrasts creative imagination with synthetic imagination:

SYNTHETIC IMAGINATION: Through the faculty of synthetic imagination, one may arrange old concepts, ideas, or plans into new combinations¹. This faculty creates nothing. It merely works with the material of experience, education, and observation with which it is fed. It is the faculty used most by the inventor, with the exception of he who draws upon the creative imagination, when he cannot solve his problem through synthetic imagination.

CREATIVE IMAGINATION: Through the faculty of creative imagination, the finite mind of man has direct communication with Infinite Intelligence². It is the faculty through which ‘hunches’ and ‘inspirations’ are received. It is by this faculty that all basic, or new ideas are handed over to man.

1. Today, this is known as combinatorial creativity.
2. Infinite Intelligence is also known as spirit, source, intent and the Tao, and by various other names. But the name is irrelevant: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” – Tao Te Ching.

Given that both forms of imagination might be considered creative, creative imagination has been renamed organic (in contract to synthetic) imagination.

The image below shows the relationship between the two forms of imagination and the brain’s hemispheres. It does not include Infinite Intelligence, which some readers will find hard or impossible to embrace.