Featured Image by Sara Edwards Under Creative Commons License

Imagination is key to magick. What you see in your mind’s eye you can bring into being in your external reality.

The image can be unstable and imperfect and still bring the desired result into being. As with all things, practice makes perfect, and perfect should never be the enemy of good.

But the more vivid those images are, the more you’re able to do – this includes astral projection and lucid dreaming.

This is why visualization is heavily emphasized in everything from grimoires to the fucking Secret. You aren’t just daydreaming when you picture things in your mind – you’re interfacing with the subtle energy that becomes matter.

The better you can concentrate – and the more detailed you can make that image – the better your results. In everything. Meditation, manifestation, spirit communication. It’s how you awaken latent gifts – the more detailed your mental images, the more likely you’ll be able to do things like sense energies from objects or receive clear guidance from your ancestors.

The Psychic Senses Are Holistic

That doesn’t mean if you have trouble forming images that you can’t perform magick or that you can’t work with spirits. You have a variety of psychic senses and if you can’t form an image in your head whatsoever, you can still accomplish your goals using gifts related to sound or even smell. (It’s not talked about much, but yes, there is a psychic sense for smelling things that are not physically there.)

It’s best not to think of these things as something you do in a specific order but a foundation you build, maintain, and build upon. On working with spirits – a lot of people will tell you “don’t jump right into deity work,” and they’re not wrong – you should have a solid meditation practice at the very least before you try communicating with them.

But you can use chants or perform devotionals before you try establishing two-way communication. You can invite spirits and deities to make themselves known to you as your senses awaken, or to provide specific synchronicities to confirm that you have made a connection with them.

Don’t go making pacts the first time you contact a spirit, but don’t treat the spirit world as something that will devour you whole if you so much as dip your toes in the water. Fear and treating every small action as if it has dire consequences can backfire as much as arrogantly diving into the deep end. Purchasing a statue of Athena and reciting a poem to her every day is not going to destroy you. You can build resonance and rapport with spirits before jumping into more intensive work with them, and just building that connection will make you aware of your gifts and strengthen them.

You’re Already Dealing With the Spirit World

The division is mostly an illusion.

Mostly. You have a physical body and brain. You’re bound to flesh and the experience of the five senses.

But you ARE a spirit. You are surrounded by spirits, both benign and hostile. Stepping into the astral isn’t entering an entirely different world – it’s becoming aware of how vast a world you already inhabit.

There’s no wrong way to approach this (outside of, y’know, snorting cocaine and deciding you’ll try summoning the entire Goetia or taking ayahuasca under the supervision of a hobo shaman); there is no bad place to start.

There are many astral senses – sight is just one of them.

When you see words like visualization or images in the context of magick and manifestation, it refers to an entire experience, not just a moving picture.

If you have trouble forming or maintaining images in your mind but you can imagine sounds with crystal clarity – or at least you can do it more easily than you can form a picture – start with that.

You’ll find images come easier when you’ve engaged your other senses. That’s regardless of whether you’ve got a knack for pictures or not.

I’m speaking from experience. My ability to sense energies is my strongest with my second strongest ability being clairaudience. If I try to form a picture without using my other gifts I get frustrated; I get stuck in my head, and once that happens I’m done.

If instead I focus on sounds or sensations and stir the feelings I want the image to embody, the image rises on its own and I can alter it as it takes shape.

You’ll have to experiment to find the approach that works for you, but remember – you need to feel it for it to have any power. (If you’ve stirred strong emotions or sensations, you can make things manifest or ensure your rites succeed even if the only image you were able to form was the darkness behind your eyelids.)

Put differently: if you’re feeling something, you’re on the right track.

Exercising the Muscle

So let’s say you’re brand new to visualization and can’t hold an image of a stick figure in your head for more than a second. What do you do?

It’s no different than training at the gym. You’re not gonna show up your first day and do a 100 push-ups or use the heaviest free weights on the rack.

People get discouraged when they can’t imagine epic scenes in perfect detail their first go around. They judge themselves and stop trying.

But again, it’s like the gym – if you can lift 5 pounds, you’ve got what it takes to lift 50. The difference between that version of you and your current self is consistency and time.

Learn to love the process – the basics that build you up are 90% of your practice even when you’re advanced. For every epic astral battle you’ve heard a magician recount they’ve spent hundreds of hours doing things that’d bore you to tears. (And do remember – a lot of the people talking about battles and such are making shit up so be careful who you believe.)

You’ve got to have peace within the silence to build anything of worth – that includes your own skills. The following exercises will focus on creating images in your head, but you can take the principles I’ve talked about – like using your other psychic senses if they’re stronger, or focusing solely on them if you can’t visualize – to achieve the results you’re after.

Start Simple

Pick a shape, like a square or a triangle. Envision black lines within a white void, or white lines in a black void.

Hold it in your mind as long as you can, preferably until it’s practically burned into your retinas.

Count if you need to in order to keep your mind from rebelling out of boredom.

The problem isn’t that most people can’t visualize – the problem is people are so used to constant stimulation that going within, into silence, and creating an image is torture for a brain conditioned to consume and absorb.

The brain wants dopamine. Initially this won’t offer any. You can’t change that with a snap of your fingers, but you also can’t be lax in your discipline. You want to feel like you can reach out and touch it and it would behave like an object in the real world. As you progress, you want to try and visualize yourself touching it and perceiving how the shapes feel between your fingers. Don’t force it – the more stable the shape is, the more you can experiment and the more complexity you can add.

Build Up Gradually

If you want to work with a spirit to develop your sight, memorize their sigil and hold it in your mind the same as you did circles and triangles.

If they have more than one sigil associated with them, try envisioning one sigil morphing into another.

If you can, see the sigil in the space immediately in front of you. If that’s too much, envision it floating in a void.

Now – sigils can be made of more than just lines. Any shape can, really. Try envisioning it as if it were carved from wood, or maybe etched into the bark of a tree.

Depending on the spirit, maybe the sigil could be made of Earth, fire, or water. Maybe it could be made of metal and float upon the surface of a pool.

Use your knowledge of the spirit and your intuition to get a grasp of what feels right. As you make the visions more complex, keep them simple but specific.

At first you’re going to feel like you’re in your own head. You might not be sure you’ve made contact with a spirit, or you’re shaping anything on the astral. Then it’ll take on a life of its own. That’s when you know your senses are coming online.

Your imagination creates a bridge – your thoughts are an intention. If you’re calling to a spirit by holding its sigil in your mind, you’ll start seeing things take shape that are relevant to that spirit. Watch for things you didn’t know that you’re able to confirm with research.

Add Detail

Another good exercise is to study your surroundings, close your eyes, and imagine them in as much detail as you can.

If you’re in your bedroom, think of how you sheets are folded. If there’s laundry on the floor, what color is it? Which clothing items are in the pile? How large is the space you’re in? If you got out of your chair and walked to the door, how many steps would you take?

If there’s a bookshelf, how many books are on the top shelf? Are they in any specific order? You can turn this into an exercise in itself – pick one book on the ends, memorize the title, the creases along the spine, the wear along the top and bottom, the scent of the pages – picture that as vividly as you can within your mind.

When you can do that comfortably, envision the book next to it. Work your way up to being able to thumb through an entire shelf the same as if you were physically doing so.

When you’re ready, envision yourself stepping into a different room, or going for a stroll down your street. When you’re physically walking through your neighborhood, take note of small details – stains on the sidewalk, spots where the bricks on a building have faded more than the rest because of exposure to the sun. Capture those details as best as you can.

Picture yourself going from your room to the entrance of your home, down to the end of your block, and then returning. Pace it just like it would play out in real life. Would you put your jacket on? Would you need an umbrella? Is it sunny? Is it after dark?

What do you have strong associations with? What pictures do you look at where you know exactly what something smells like or tastes like even if you haven’t had it in years? Use that to your advantage.

Do you have a strong memory of a place from your childhood? Treat that memory as a space you can step into and explore as you wish. Try to see yourself standing next to that younger version of you, witnessing that memory from a third person view. Try to think of what was happening around you, or happening elsewhere, at the same time your memory took place.

There’s a lot of ways to build up your sight. The one thing they all have in common is that they require consistency and concentration. If you’re flexing your mind in ways that are doable but at least a little uncomfortable, you’re making progress on developing your sight. This is just as true if you’re working on a different gift.

Challenge Yourself

If you use porn, stop for a while. Stick to your own imagination.

Read fiction from a variety of genres written in many different styles. Seek novels written with painstaking detail, and novels with sparse or dream-like prose. Go slowly and take the time to thoroughly construct what the author is describing in your head. Even better – try to feel it and smell and touch and taste (where applicable) the things that are being described.

If you aren’t a reader, pick your favorite movie and reconstruct its sets in your mind. What kind of props are in the background? What pictures are on the walls in each scene?

You get the idea.

You have everything you need to develop your astral senses right now. Your biggest hurdle isn’t going to be getting your hands on the right book or finding the right spirit to work with.

It’s going to be that initial hump where it feels impossible to tame the monkey mind long enough to hold an image for more than a second, or you’re trying to hear or touch something and you can’t get the relevant senses to respond.

It’s likely you’ll struggle with feelings of boredom and frustration and first. I’ve done exercises where my head literally hurt when I was done.

Take your time. Don’t devote more than a few minutes to it when you’re starting out.

It isn’t sexy, but this is the real work of magicians and mystics the world over. All paths converge on these basic disciplines. The monk on the mountain and the transgressive Satanist both need mastery of their mind to have any magickal power or ability to move reality.

With consistency the images will eventually take on a life of their own, and that’s the point where you enter Narnia.

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