In Keane’s book, the teaching is part self-help and part psychology. In addition, it is a part theoretical framework of the mind. Throughout, the author explains how the reader can best utilize his or her imagination to explore and understand abstract ideas. Keane explains that we already use our imagination in countless ways daily, and if we could better understand how it works, we can focus our imagination on our personal advancement in many different areas.

Keane discusses both the conscious and subconscious mind, but it is through the subconscious that the author feels we can best develop our imaginations. The subconscious mind is “a database of everything we know,” and a source from which we can perhaps later recall as needed. He refers to this “subconscious database” as something that we can teach ourselves to tap into and to feed our imaginations, effectively training our conscious mind to use imagination to our advantage.

The author’s text is interesting, and the concepts that Keane introduces are certainly appealing. At times, the language can become a bit convoluted or even difficult to understand, but that also speaks to the difficult nature of the idea that Keane is discussing. Because this is something that may be wholly unfamiliar to some readers, there is some work to be done to understand how, exactly, Keane encourages us to use our subconscious as a database of ideas to lend to our conscious imagination. Overall, though, the topic is appealing, and anything that can make us better thinkers—about ourselves and others—is a positive thing.

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