Why Is Visualisation Important? Options

Is it possible to manipulate some energy flows through visualisation only?

If so, what's the direct effect of visualisation?

Does it somehow land onto the subconscious which makes out of the images a rouhly matter thing?

Or does it somehow land into the astral? or is there something else?

sorry for my silly questions

Visualization takes place strictly in the brain. The usefulness of visualization extends only so far as ultimately learning to actually manifest, which does not require visualization or any other pseudo sensory activity.

To get to this point, visualize something, then strip every sensory element away from it. There is 'something else' left behind. This is the something that you want to develop. It is not always there with visualization, however, and in the long run visualization will hinder this 'something'. We don't have a word for it because it isn't within the range of the five traditional senses. It's a kind of knowing or raw information that transcends the brain based intellect we are used to dealing with.

You can manipulate energy through visualization, but only to a point - more likely you will get caught up with the visualization itself and lose touch with the energy. The best way to manipulate energy is to do so directly with your energetic anatomy, which can be felt as a sixth sensory organ capable of manipulating energy the way the hands are a tactile organ capable of manipulating physical matter - and with similar limits and a grander scale.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jun 8 2009, 06:28 PM

does it mean there is some state of mind where the entity usually called homo sapiens sapiens is able to directly operate energy?

frankly speaking, I've been searching for this since eons

how can I intentionally get into this state? is it a very deep meditation / trance-like state ?

anyway, thank for you reply, Vagrant Dreamer!

Vagrant is right. Visualization isn't always visual; it can be tactile or an extra sense.

You can send energy to different parts of your body just by focussing on the target bodypart. My teacher used to say, "Energy follows intent." For instance, if you look at your hands and 'feel' them, put your awareness into your hands, then energy will surge into your hands. You have put your intent or your awareness into your hands. However you may not be able to feel the extra energy in your hands when you first begin. It will be there, but you can't likely feel it.

Meditation will help strengthen your energy field. Also it helps relax you so that energy flows through your body more easily and freely. But as important as the strength of your energy is your sensitivity to energy. Meditation and practice will through trial and error teach you how to feel energy. When I am going around in normal life I tend to put up shields that don't allow me to feel energy unless it is fairly strong. But when I am treating someone or doing energy work on a client, I put myself into an altered state of consciousness. I can put me into the correct state of consciousness fairly easily now because I've been doing it for many years. There are many different levels of consciousness. It is less like pressing a channel selector to, for instance, channel 13, than it is like turning a dial where you move gradually through different frequencies. Its more like a thermostat than a channel selector you might say, but with practice you can tune into the right station fairly quickly.

You might say that visualization is active while sensitivity is passive. In using the energy model for spell casting, visualization is how you aim the spell and release it. Sensitivity tells you when the energy raised has peaked so that you can get the biggest bang for your buck.

what kind of energy do I need to focus on if I want to influence things that lie outside of my body?

e. g. to make a political party win an election or sports team a game or win a lottery?

does it mean there is some state of mind where the entity usually called homo sapiens sapiens is able to directly operate energy?

...

how can I intentionally get into this state? is it a very deep meditation / trance-like state ?

Yes, there is a state of mind associated with it, which is difficult to describe - this is why I gave the process mentioned above. Goibniu gives another dimension to this state of mind, like tuning a dial to the correct frequency.

The thing to remember is that operating energy directly is like any other action, because all actions involve the manipulation of energy. To become more efficient and effective at directing that energy, it is necessary to learn to separate the energetic action from the material (including the 'material mind' or brain mind if you will). When your attention is generalized, it's difficult to direct either in any fine-tuned fashion. So for instance when you focus on doing some mundane task like difficult calligraphy (as an example of a material action), you cannot just haphazardly do this until you have had years of practice. You have to shut everything else out and work with total focus and attention to the movement of your hand, to the minute details of the work itself to the exclusion of all else.

With energy work it is the same way - to maximize efficiency and effectiveness you have to learn the state of mind (a kind of trance state at first although it gets easier to maintain after practice) so that you can operate within it without much difficulty.

what kind of energy do I need to focus on if I want to influence things that lie outside of my body?

e. g. to make a political party win an election or sports team a game or win a lottery?

I saw the other post about winning the lottery. I can say that it's easier to have a pronounced effect when there are fewer people directing energy - consciously or otherwise - to the same goal. So to win the lottery or an election, etc., you're contending with the energy of a lot of other people - millions in some cases - which makes your own efforts ultimately not worth very much. The trick to those situations is to find the element that few people are considering and place your attention there - a tactical application if you will, and there are ways to divine what this is. Any kind of divination that you are versed in - enough to get such a specific answer at least - or developing the ability to translate what you see into energetic terms. Many people may be rooting for one candidate to win an election, probably fewer are thinking in terms of accentuating one particular negative that might cost the other candidate the polls. A sports team is a team, and if you direct energy to cripple the star player or enhance one of the 'co-stars', you might have a more effective push.

The two approaches to lottery winnings are basically getting the balls to fall right, or predicting the numbers - unfortunately almost everyone is going to be directing energy consciously or otherwise to both of these possibilities, so that's a pretty slim chance of effectiveness there. Energy manipulation would not be my route to winning the lottery - I'd go with evoking a spirit that can either assure the numbers will fall some way (spirits operate differently than material beings and can do things that we can't do, just as we can do things they can't do) or who can predict the numbers. I wonder if imperial arts has attempted this with the goetics?

As to what kind of energy, there are different schools of thought. Energy tends to take the shape of one's intention. Some frequencies are better than others for certain intentions, so considering a particular energy for a particular intention is the most efficient application of energy direction in most cases. However there is also a kind of universal substrate, the essence of energy, as it were, which is in a way the medium for intention - without this medium, no intention would come to pass. It is this essential energy which is transformed by various means into the other energies which ultimately carry out other intentions. This energy is difficult to define and difficult to grasp, but comes upon us in a kind of 'quickened' state of inner emptiness in which those same variegated energies are harmonized into one whole, making us sympathetic to this essence.

In the practical example I gave originally, one might come to know and utilize a particular intentional energy - say that of the elemental family, or the astrological family, though any archetypal 'symbol' representing these energies in there raw (or as close as it gets on the material level) form - by visualizing this symbol in some way and then subsequently stripping all of the basic sensational elements from that 'image' until only the essence remains.

Take the energy of mars. One might spend some time reading into astrology, the history of humanity's understand and research into mars, the various mythologies associated with the planet, and then settle into meditation on these things, constructing a scene which depicts the essence of 'mars' - visual (the planet itself or a landscape similar to it), Auditory (perhaps the sounds of battle or action in, well, action), Tactile (perhaps heat, roughness, qualities of battle/mars), Olfactory (the smell of blood or iron, burning things as mars if fiery in nature), taste (the taste of iron, dust, grit, again the elements of battle, etc). Ultimately this scene develops into something representing the nature of Mars. You might include as an introduction to your meditation the symbol of mars itself, or several symbols arranged artfully in some manner. This method is commonly referred to as 'pathwalking'. At its essence pathwalking is intended to elucidate some particular energy through description, ultimately stripping away the descriptive elements and leaving behind the sublime 'silent' understanding of the energy itself.

peace

Vagrant Dreamer (sorry my post will be directed towards you, the PM function didn't seem to work for me): I'm very interested in more information and practice in energy manipulation. Since visualization can only take you so far, what other resources would you suggest for more guidance on this topic?

It takes a certain number of posts to utilize the PM function is probably what you are encountering. We get this a lot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

As far as more information goes, I've written class lessons that cover a large extent of the introduction to this particular topic. However, what you are looking for as a subject is basically pathworking. Did you have a particular question?

As an aside, it is worth noting that there are different kinds of magic for different purposes. Evocation, invocation, energy work, sympathetic magic - these all have their particular applications which are good for accomplishing different ends. It's good to use the right tool for the right job.

Energy work is effective for direction and control over one's own energy - in terms of what we attract and repel, what currents we invite to operate in our lives, etc., in a way a form of invocation to a particular 'current'. It's effective in a lot of meta-magic, that is directing other magical currents constructed through ritual and enhancing the effectiveness of ritual magic of any kind, once experienced in locating and directing specific energies. Its useful for constructing thoughtforms/servitors. Healing magic (more so the individual at first, others usually later on), protection magic, luck magic possibly more effectively than almost any other.

It is not, for instance, as effective at sympathetic magic for 'cursing' or other destructive magic for some reason (can be effective, just not as, at least in my limited experience there - to be fair, I haven't hexed anyone since I was a wee magician and filled with teenage angst!). It isn't as useful for manipulating people in drastic ways in general, although subtle applications have their uses if some tactical approach is used. Evocation is better for retaining the service of entities, gaining information, etc.

In all cases the key to using energy work effectively is accomplishing as much as possible with as little work as possible, focusing the majority of one's effort on the smallest possible detail of any given situation or goal which will ultimately bring about the change one desires.

The greatest gift of learning energy work, in my opinion, is that over time one simply becomes accustomed to seeing the world and acting in it on an energetic basis rather than a material basis, which lends a degree of honesty to the world around the practitioner. A gesture or phrase may look/sound the same materially from different people, but energetically they can be very different and warrant a different response. The flow of time, of information, etc., is energetic in nature and the more in touch we become with the subtle reality the more our unconscious mind begins to pay attention to that subtle current - as a consequence our natural intution becomes sharper and the number of 'coincidental' occurences begins to drastically rise. It's as though we become aware of some higher current of intention in the world and by that awareness have an unconscious understanding of how to act and when, usually without even realizing that we're doing it. It becomes important to begin trusting our instincts when the occur, and not over thinking decisions or spur-of-the-moment actions.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jun 12 2009, 04:43 AM

my view on visualization in magick is that by visualizing something you are giving that something existence. you visualize an object, you give it traits, such as color, smell, texture and whatnot. it exists in your mind. you give just enough belief in it to substantiate it's existence. which is the first step towards realization. in my opinion anyway. you guys really digress alot by the way. you know that?

visualization is a 'facilitator' for energy manipulation. it is not itself 'literal', but it can serve as a framework for the mind to work with forces which it is not really wired to comprehend or perceive clearly.
I really very much liked vagrant's comment about stripping away every visual element in the visualization, and realizing that the 'something more' that remains is the actual substance of what you're doing... that's a really excellent way to describe it.

here's an excerpt from an essay I wrote a while back :
(please respect it as copyrighted material)

...

What is "visualization"?
by: Kathryn

Visualization is the practice of using a familiar format (visual) to attempt to work with an aspect of yourself and the reality around you, which (in it's natural state) does not directly correlate to any of the familiar 5 senses. You could just as easily use any of the other 5 senses, but the simple fact is that sight and sound are the 2 primary senses of the human brain. Sound is also popularly used, but it tends to appear in a more physically vocalized format than visualization (which occurs abstractly in the dojo of the mind).

Imagine you've been in a coma for a couple years, then you wake up. your body will be stiff as a board, your muscles will have lost flexibility, your strength will be nearly nonexistent, and worst of all, your motor cortex will have forgotten much of what it knows about 'how' to move. So for the next year or two, you'd end up learning how to move again, and rebuilding strength & flexibility. You'll have a long hard uphill battle against the atrophy you've suffered. For the learning how to move again part, you will likely be coached to use visualization to help the process. visualize you grasping an object, etc. until you find a state of mind where you're not *just* imagining it, and your fingers move...

Now imagine you have a part of 'you' which you are largely unaware of, a part of you which is not 'physical', and not 'physically' wired into your nervous system, and so it has been left mostly idle for your entire life. that'd be a LOT of atrophy, and in many ways learning to move such a part of yourself would be even harder, because its something you don't have past experience with (at least that you are consciously aware of). So learning to move this part of yourself, increasing its flexibility and strength, and just getting a feel for actually consciously applying force with this part of yourself... it's a long and arduous process.

Using visualization for the purpose of energy manipulation is the most common approach. It's just a simple way to present what you're trying to do, to your brain, in a format which it is naturally more capable of comprehending. It is NOT literal. Instead it is an interpretive format. For example, spiritual energy is not basically visible (setting aside the use of spiritual energy to manifest, it is not basically visible in it's static state). So if you try to work with it in a visual way, you are entirely applying this visual imagery to the energy, it doesn't actually have a 'look' per say. The visual content is like a make-believe image, which you are (hopefully) tying to the actual energy in a very direct way, such that the visual elements of your mental image directly correlate to the actual elements of the energy you are working with.

Visualization is meant to be a 2 part process. Only the first part of it is "picturing stuff". If you picture a pink elephant having tea... that's fine & all, but you haven't actually *done* anything energetically speaking. The goal of visualization is to both picture a form or movement or state change, and then tie that 'imagined' visual imagery to an actual etheric movement. It's exactly like using visualization to help rehabilitate an atrophied limb. just picturing it is not enough, you have to tie that to an actual "ooomf" which actually effects your limb and moves it. This is a difficult process to grasp, since the defining bit, the actual process of tying thought to action, defies explanation. It's like the difference between thinking about what you're going to type, and typing it. there's a different state in the brain between the two, and that is the definitive difference between using visualization as a energy manipulation facilitator, and just picturing stuff.

Moving energy, shaping it, changing it's state... these are the 3 basic processes by which you will impact energy with your Will. Everything else you do will be based on these basic building blocks. Eventually you will learn to be able to work with the energy in question directly, without imagining a visual framework for your Will to work with. But it is instrumentally useful to use visualization to get to that point. A key to direct energy manipulation is that energy innately responds to thought (which opens up another whole avenue of study, into the nature of 'thought' itself). But the important thing to remember about this, as a someone new to direct energy manipulation, is that by way of energy's responsiveness to thought, you can bring Will to energy.

Bear in mind that spiritual energy seems to tie into a sort of fractal omnipresence, so 'shaping' energy is itself a bit of an abstraction. Distance and Form are two concepts which simply work very differently than what we are familiar with on a physical level. Spiritual energy simply exists in a spatial dimensional state which is other than our familiar 3-D volume based space. It will take a "lot" of practice to get a feel for this aspect of energy, but once you do, it will open new doors in terms of how to actually use it. Likewise, learning to get 'out of body', by way of intentional astral projection, will open a new world of possibilities for your energy manipulation based work. It will also help you to gradually come to understand the illusory nature of 'distance' and 'form', and 'separation' (or more accurately the lack thereof). Which will be instrumental in moving the mind/will closer to a more direct faculty with energy manipulation. But visualization is a great place to start. Until fairly recently, I still tended to lean back to visualization when I was 'trying something new', at least until I got more of a sort of clairsentient 'feel' for what I'm doing. I guess I could be described as having just recently stepped away from still relying on visualization as an energy manipulation 'crutch'.

Most tend to feel that learning energy manipulation is 'easy'... but for the most part what is 'easy' is learning to wiggle your etheric pinky toe. Many see some sort of perceptible effect and assume 'aha, i've done it!' and then later after learning to move all of their toes on one foot, they think "now I am an expert!". Without never even realizing there is more to their etheric body than toes. It IS relatively easy to practice direct energy manipulation until you achieve some sort of perceptible effect. It is also very easy to assume that once you can do a few useful things with it, and learn to perceive energy directly, that you've "graduated" and know all there is to know. But learning to actually be 'muscular' or have true 'dexterity' or 'savvy' with energy manipulation is a very long and difficult process that takes many years of concerted determination and effort in my opinion. And I have not personally found a true 'upper limit' to one's growth potential in this field. I have found many stages which might feel like 'ok, that's all there is', but by wielding a stubborn refusal to submit to such a boundary, they always give way and reveal still more capability and room for growth. I guess it might be more useful to view it in a positive light, and say that it is easy to get started with energy manipulation and there is an astounding amount of room for growth in the field. I tend to characterize it as 'hard' in the sense of trying to conquer the immensity of all of that 'room for growth', because it's simply an aspect of my personality that monumental challenge only arouses my will and determination. Look at it in whichever light better motivates you, but do know that it is a huge field, and that just because you've mastered all the basic practicing forms which people write about, only means you've scratched the surface. There is so much more that is simply difficult or impossible to put into text.

All of the visualization descriptions I have used to describe energy workings, are simply 'models'. They are, in and of themselves, arbitrary and imaginary in nature. I have tried to make them 'easy' to correlate to actual effects upon energy, as well as perhaps interjecting a slight bit of drama to sharpen focus. But you could use almost 'any' visualization to perform almost 'any' actual energetic effect. The crucial bit is not the specifics of visualized content, but the actual action upon energy which your Will effects. Please regard all visualization content as not being a 'formulaic' recipe, but merely as examples which try to encapsulate the specific energy effect being described.
...

This post has been edited by Kath: Nov 15 2009, 03:56 PM

Visualization takes place strictly in the brain. The usefulness of visualization extends only so far as ultimately learning to actually manifest, which does not require visualization or any other pseudo sensory activity.

To get to this point, visualize something, then strip every sensory element away from it. There is 'something else' left behind. This is the something that you want to develop. It is not always there with visualization, however, and in the long run visualization will hinder this 'something'. We don't have a word for it because it isn't within the range of the five traditional senses. It's a kind of knowing or raw information that transcends the brain based intellect we are used to dealing with.

You can manipulate energy through visualization, but only to a point - more likely you will get caught up with the visualization itself and lose touch with the energy. The best way to manipulate energy is to do so directly with your energetic anatomy, which can be felt as a sixth sensory organ capable of manipulating energy the way the hands are a tactile organ capable of manipulating physical matter - and with similar limits and a grander scale.

peace

This reply was perfect. Thanks Vagrant Dreamer. Im quite new to the occult and have been reading a doing what I can here and there but was quite lost as to the direction I should head. I think this however has opened up my eyes (As you said "visualization will hinder" things at times). I especially like your class guide on "developing the astral senses". Thanks again.

It makes the spell and ritual more successful it directs the energy. It focuses your goal however it can be a negative thing, because the spell may try to manifest exactly how you visualized it.