What is Creative Energy?

The power in man that creates, forms or reproduces anywhere in the system. It is divided into groups that build thought, tissue, ideas, talent and the species, and nature generates more of it than normal functioning requires. All its kinds are closely related and can be transmuted into one another.

In Your Forces and How to Use Them, Christian D. Larson calls the human system "a living dynamo." The amount of energy, "especially creative energy," generated in the mind and personality of man is "simply enormous," yet man applies only a fraction of it.

One power, many groups. In its broadest sense, creative energy is the single power behind every creative, formative and reproductive process in the body and mind. It "divides itself into a number of groups, each one having its special function." One group creates thought, another brain cells, another nerve tissues, another muscular tissues. Another manufactures the juices of the system, another produces ideas, another creates talent and ability, and another reproduces the species. Still others produce the various chemical formations of the system. Every creative process in man has its own corresponding energy, and because all these energies are closely related, one kind can be transmuted into another.

The surplus. Larson finds it one of the most interesting facts of this study that "Nature generates more energy for each group than is required for normal functioning through its particular channel." Each group flows, by nature or by habit, into its own part of mind or body. It performs its function on the way, uses up a fraction of its power, and lets the rest flow "off into waste." The human system is therefore crossed by many streams of energy, and much of their power is lost.

Redirection and transmutation. So the task is to learn how to redirect those streams "so as to turn them to practical use." When creative energy cannot be properly applied physically, "it should be employed metaphysically," and all energy can be drawn into mind to build up "states, faculties, talents or powers." Retained and transmuted into finer mental elements, it raises the vibrations of the higher mental states and supplies the mind with energies that increase "both the power and the brilliancy of thought and mind." Larson states it as a law: "an extraordinary amount of creative energy going into the mind" is what "invariably causes mental brilliancy."

The fruits. Any faculty that receives enough of this surplus begins to show greater ability almost at once, and in time "rare talent and even genius." Energy once squandered in impure thought, desire or action is transmuted readily into "a more vigorous personality and a more brilliant mind," and in this way moral purity can become second nature.

"Creative" comes from the Latin creare, to bring forth or produce. "Energy" comes from the Greek energeia, activity or operation, which is built from en (in) and ergon (work). Taken together, the words name the inward working power that brings things forth, and this matches Larson's use: the power that "creates, forms or reproduces" throughout the human system.

Larson lays out the work in three steps. First, retain: "all that is necessary is to retain in the human system all the energy that is already created," so that none of it flows off into waste through useless pleasures or harmful habits. Second, redirect: when the energy cannot be used in its usual channel, turn it in its course and draw it into mind, where it builds states, faculties, talents and powers. Third, direct it: choose a faculty and give it a large share of the surplus energy of the system, so that its ability grows and, in time, shows rare talent. Larson asks for a mind "animated with a strong desire to constantly refine itself," for this is how the retained energy is transmuted into finer mental elements. He sums up the purpose as controlling the desires completely, eliminating impurity, and turning life and power into channels that result in greater mental power and brilliancy.

One mistake is to take creative energy to mean only the reproductive force. Larson says it is the power behind every creative process in man. Reproducing the species is one group among many, alongside the groups that create thought, brain cells, tissues, ideas, talent and ability. A second mistake is to think the work means suppressing energy. The aim is to retain and redirect it, so that energy which cannot be applied physically is "employed metaphysically" and becomes ability and genius. A third mistake is to think brilliancy and genius are fixed gifts. In this teaching, mental brilliancy invariably follows when an extraordinary amount of creative energy goes into the mind.