Seven creative powers and three superpowers

The seven creative powers represent an embodied process for conceiving new creations, bringing them into being and realising their value generation potential.

The creative powers combine to form three superpowers, as you can see in the image below.

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How did I come to identify the seven creative powers?

Two sources helped me identify them: the system of energy centres named chakras, and a diagram appearing in the book Talking with Angels. Newcreators do not need to believe in chakras or angels in order to deploy the seven creative powers.

The chakra system

Chakras are various focal points used in a variety of ancient meditation practices, collectively denominated as Tantra, or the esoteric or inner traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The concept of the chakra arose in the early traditions of Hinduism. Beliefs differ between the Indian religions, with many Buddhist texts consistently mentioning five chakras, while Hindu sources reference six or seven. Early Sanskrit texts speak of them both as meditative visualizations combining flowers and mantras, and as physical entities in the body. Within Kundalini yoga, the techniques of breathing exercises, visualizations, mudras, bandhas, kriyas, and mantras are focused on manipulating the flow of subtle energy through chakras.

Source: Wikipedia — Chakra

Starting with the seven chakra system (there are several others), I reinterpreted each chakra in the light of study, personal experience, intuition and deliberation.

The work required to understand the function of each power and give it a meaningful name was carried out over the course of many years and is ongoing. I have renamed items 1, 4 and 7 several times, although the associated functions have remained constant.

How How Jack Martin Leith translated the seven chakras into the Newcreator's seven creative powers

Talking with Angels

The insights gained from this remarkable book provided even greater inspiration than the chakra system.

The diagram below, which appears throughout the book with explanatory text, is profound, and foundational to the Newcreate way of conceiving new creations, bringing them into being and realising their value generation potential.

In the image below, you can see how the seven creative powers correspond with the seven souls (mineral, plant, animal etc.) shown in the previous image.

Each creative power is associated with a particular part of the body.

POWER	SUPERPOWER	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
Openness	Transcend the Mundane	Crown	Connection to intent’s originating aspect, which is concerned with initiating the new.
Imagination	Enrich the World	Third eye ¹	The power to foresee possibilities for enriching the world or a particular piece of it.
Conceptualisation	Create the New	Throat	The power to devise something that will generate the foreseen value.
Faith	Transcend the Mundane	Heart	An existential commitment of the heart to transcending the mundane, creating the new and enriching the world with value, meaning and joy.
Materialisation	Create the New	Navel	The power to give the creation tangible form.
Realisation	Enrich the World	Pelvic floor ¹	The power to bring the creation to maturity and realise its value generation potential.
Groundedness	Transcend the Mundane	Tailbone	Connection to intent’s fulfilling aspect, which is concerned with bringing to fullness that which has been created.

1. The mythical ‘third eye’ is located between the eyebrows. The pelvic floor muscles (pubococcygeus or PC muscles — we each have two, men as well as women — are the ones we use to control the flow of urine.

The realms of possibility and actuality, and their corresponding creative powers

The creative powers of Openness, Imagination and Conceptualisation are associated with the realm of possibility.

The creative powers of Materialisation, Realisation and Groundedness are associated with the realm of actuality.

The creative power of Faith, which binds everything together, is associated with intent and world enrichment.

Actuality is molecular; possibility is atomic². So actuality is intrinsically different from possibility: it adds something new to possibility. The ontological structure of the actual doesn’t simply recapitulate the ontological structure of the merely possible. Actuality is a different type of reality from possibility.

Colin McGinn, Possibility and Actuality, on his website | Short and profound; highly recommended

2. Colin McGinn seems to be talking about possibilities and not their source: the realm of possibility, a.k.a. the unmanifest, where atoms have no existence.

The creative powers combine to form three superpowers

Transcend the Mundane, one of the Newcreator’s three superpowers, is a combination of the creative powers Groundedness, Faith and Openness (numbered 1, 4 and 7 in the next image).

When Transcend the Mundane is activated, the Newcreator becomes right-inclined, the door to primal world opens, 147 becomes a channel for intent, and creative imagination becomes accessible.

How the Newcreator becomes a channel for intent

Transcend the Mundane enables the activation of the creative powers Conceptualisation and Materialisation, which combine to form the superpower Create the New, as well as Imagination and Realisation, which together form the superpower Enrich the World.

Faith, experienced in the heart as a fervent desire to enrich the world with value, meaning and joy, is a precondition for activating all three superpowers.

Faith is the precondition for activating the three superpowers

The relationship between the seven creative powers and leftside/rightside

The relationship between the seven creative powers and the brain’s two hemispheres

When the Newcreator is doing create-the-new work, rightside (the brain’s left hemisphere) is in the foreground.

When doing enrich-the-world work, leftside (right hemisphere) is to the fore.

However, this is just a difference in emphasis and both sides are active throughout.

Quotes

In the future of work, a paradox is becoming increasingly apparent and important: The more advanced and pervasive technology becomes, the more important humans are to the equation—humans as customers, humans as buyers, humans as engines of growth and innovation, humans as users, collaborators, and stakeholders. And leaders are seeing fresh importance in the ways in which organizations deploy and develop their people to create new value and navigate increasing ambiguity.

As unexpected events proliferate and the pace of change quickens, companies are under more pressure than ever: performance pressure to deliver not just consistent financial returns to investors but noteworthy and increasing returns, pressure from customers for products and services that don’t just meet needs but deliver more and different value, and pressure from talent, for material well-being and aligned values and support for opportunities and individual development. In the short term, the immediacy of any one of these pressures can seem irreconcilable with the others.

And this only becomes more pronounced when large unexpected events further accelerate the pace of change. For a company looking to grow and thrive in a fast-paced and ambiguous future, meeting these needs for increasing returns and new types of value and meaning will require differentiation and deep relationships. Human capabilities—curiosity, imagination, creativity, empathy, and courage—applied by workers across all levels and departments will be key for the type of differentiation, relationships, and new value creation needed to navigate these pressures and sustain success.

Collectively, these enduring human capabilities are like superpowers. They course beneath the surface or lay dormant in every member of the workforce with the potential to deliver real benefits. They help navigate ambiguity and deliver greater impact. Organizations can draw on these powers to accomplish far more—to jump higher, run faster, see farther, maybe even challenge the laws of the universe.

How capabilities can unleash business performance, by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Maggie Wooll, on Deloitte Insights