Lesson 7: Visualization

This lesson will focus on another aspect of meditation, visualization.

The ability to visualize something is a critical one for those who would meditate and travel in otherworlds. Since so much of the content of these otherworlds (whether you call them planes, levels, worlds or what have you) is subjective, it would behoove us to be able to tell the difference between a random symbol, and something that actually means something.

Since you can also manipulate the environment around you, visualization becomes something that is important. We will get into manipulation of the environment later in this lesson.

I have found only one way to improve your visualization; practice. Now, some methods of practice seem to work better than others, and I will relate them here.

The first tool for practicing visualization that I have found, probably because it's the one that I used myself, is Role Playing Games. Games like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (C) and GURPS (C) are wonderful tools for this. In these, the GM or Game Master describes a scene to the players who must visualize the scene their characters are in well enough to interact with that scene. If the player is good enough, some of the details will be somewhat fuzzy, but overall the entire scene will be clear to the player. Eventually the player may advance to being the GM themselves, in which case, not only do they have to be able to describe the scenes to the players themselves, but they also have to keep track of all the other scenes in the adventure they have been going through.

The complexity of this skill is such that even with only 4 hours of practice every week, in about a year and a half I was able to completely visualize any scene described to me. Indoors, outdoors, underground, in the middle of a war, whatever. It also happened without my being aware of it happening.

I have long been shocked by the numbers of people who are psychic who are drawn to groups that play Fantasy Role Playing Games, and I believe there are two reasons. The first is that "birds of a feather flock together" meaning that with the more psychically aware people there are in RPGs, the more their ability will call to others with an awakening ability, and bring them together. The other reason is that this environment seems to be the best honing ground for the visualization circuts in the brain. Without the ability to see something in your head, most psychic and magickal skills remain out of reach.

As a corollary to the paper games, there are groups like the Society for Creative Anachorisms, and NERO (North East Role-playing Organization) who do "live role play". It's kind of like acting without the props, but with the costumes and sets that are designed by the Hand of the Goddess. I find that both of these groups, the paper-gamers and the live-gamers have the same skills in visualization, for all of the same reasons.

One would also assume that the stage actors would have the same skills, along with those who write books and tell stories, but I can't say for certain about that since I don't do either of those.

Now, what do you do when you don't want to go out and spend thousands of dollars on the equipment that is needed for these kinds of activities? You cheat.

It is possible to increase the visualization skills through your own self-discipline and your own meditations, but once again, it has to be practiced consistently. A while back, I found a document that lays out exercises for visualization, and I will share them here with you.

VISUALIZATION EXERCISES

The key to all magickal operations is a strong ability to visualize. Everyone can visualize, but some need to strengthen their visualization abilities in order to gain the effects they are working for. The following technique has proved highly effective in intensifying one's visualizations.

Exercising Your Inner Eye

(Taken from Experiences in Visual Thinking by Robert McKim)

Taking your time, translate each of the following descriptions into a mental image. Go back and do it again in a few weeks and then a few weeks later, and notice the difference. Notice the difference, also in the way you see things--inner as well as outer-- after you've done these exercises.

Now sense (see, touch, hear, taste, smell) with your mind's eye:

a familiar face
a galloping horse
a rosebud your bedroom
a changing stoplight
a newspaper headline
the sound of rain on the roof
the voice of a friend
children laughing at play
the feel of soft fur
an itch
a gentle breeze on your face
the muscular feeling of running
of kicking a can
of drawing a circle on paper
the taste of a lemon
of toothpaste
of a potato chip
the smell of bacon frying
of a gardenia
of perspiration
the feeling of hunger
of a cough
of coming awake

A stone dropped into a quiet pond with concentric ripples forming and expanding outward

These words flying away, high into the blue sky, finally disappearing.

Your shoe coming apart in slow motion and each piece drifting away into space

An orange being cut into five equal pieces and the pieces being arranged into equal patterns

Using these exercises consistently can catapult your consciousness into the Astral Plane.

DeGarcia has stated in his book that it is possible to start visualizing a scene around you, and have it "snap" into focus, in complete detail around you. I have had this happen to me a few times, and it was always a signal that I had achieved OOBE or a Lucid Dream. If you can build up the detail of a scene around you, exactly the way it is, it can set up a resonance that will pull your spirit to that real place.

I don't know if I can explain this in greater detail, but let me try.

Everyplace in the multiverse, the Astral Plane, all the other planes and levels of those planes, exists in one place, we just can't physically get there. That is why Astral Travel is possible. My office is there, with the computer monitors sitting around me on various tables and benches, along with all the parts of different computers that I work on. My desk is there, and the printers I use are around me. To me, this place, my office, has a certain spiritual "feel" to it. I know what this environment feels like to me, and I know what it looks like to my eyes, and I know how it should be.

Tonight, when meditating, I decide that I want to project to my office. I start building the image in my mind of how my office looks, in as much detail as possible. The more detail I get there, the more real the scene around me becomes. I start getting the spiritual feel of my office in my head.

At this point, a curious thing happens. Because I have the feel of my office in my head, and the office itself has that feel in the spiritual world, the two start acting as magnets and iron filings. I become drawn out of my body, to where that spiritual feel is the strongest, i.e.. my office. Suddenly, all the details that I have been skipping in my visualization, like what a document hanging on the wall says, become crystal clear, and I am there.

But without the level of visualization to be able to build up the environment around me in my head, and to start getting a feel for the office itself, this will never happen. I can build it completely accurately, but I won't be able to get there OOB. Or, I may be able to get there, but I won't be drawn there.

As I have said before, going to a place is easy (relatively speaking) but the symbols that you will see OOB can be really confusing. You must be able to separate what is an important symbol from all the red herrings that you will see. Visualization can help you do this.

Remember how I was talking about the "feel" of my office? Well, that same feel exists for those symbols that are important for you to pay attention to while on the Astral Plane.

From my experiences, those symbols that will be important to you will have a definite feel or some other means of standing out to your attention. This is one of the reasons that I asked you all to start keeping a symbol journal for yourself.

Now, while we are on the topic of some symbols, let me give you a symbol that many people have told me about; book dreams. In these types of dreams, you see a book at close range, almost an inch or so before your nose. It will either be very hard to read, or it will be written in a language that makes no sense to you, like cuneiform script.

However, as you read the book, you will know what it is saying, be able to repeat it in your dream word for word, and understand all the nuances of the passage you just read. It's these kinds of dreams that I speak on.

If you have had these kinds of dreams, you know exactly what I am talking about, and if you have not had this kind of dream, no amount of explanation will make the sense of knowledge and honor that comes with this kind of dream clear. Just take my word for it.

In these dreams, I theorize, one is actually reading the Akashic Record in a form we can understand. While it may be in an ancient and dead language, we can still understand it because the emotions are what are conveyed in these kinds of books. When one writes something on the Astral Plane, the words go onto the paper, but it is the emotions that are the true transfer of knowledge. Thus, reading a technical manual will give the reader no sense of the contents, however, reading a book of poetry will have one in tears.

However with this specific type of book dream, the emotions are not all that is conveyed. It is almost as though the knowledge of what is contained in the book springs full into the mind, as though you always knew it. I think that this is in part due to the fact that you are ON the Astral Plane, even if it is on the level of the Akashic Plane. All knowledge is contained on this level, and thus, reading the book will give you the feeling of the contents and the knowledge of what it says will follow, just like the feel of the office attracts a projector who has a sense of that office.

Now, at this point, some of you may be tempted to think that what I am describing is nothing but hallucinations or myths of your own mind. That's okay to think that, but don't believe it. All a hallucination is is an uncontrolled glimpse into the Astral Plane or another level of our reality. It is imperative that you learn to separate out what is a product of your mind, your conscious envisioning of something, and what is not. From that, you can determine what is "real" and what is "false".

I fell prey to this for a long time. Having a very active imagination, being able to visualize anything I wanted, in as much detail as I wanted, left me in doubt of what I saw around me on my excursions out of my body. I didn't know what was a product of my mind, and what was not.

Then I came to a realization. Did it matter what was me and what was real? In some cases, yes it did, but in most, no it didn't matter at all. I would experience something, and even if it was created by my mind, it did not matter if that experience affected me and changed me. At that point I was able to accept many things that I had been in doubt of for a long time (and still fall prey to when I get into my monthly depressions).

The few times it does matter, it is easy to figure out what is your own desires speaking to you, and what is coming from outside of you. All you have to do is to know yourself. Asking your gut, or your interior sense of right and wrong will tell you what is you and what is others.

This is because the Subconscious is directly wired into the IS. The problem with that is that we can't always hear that voice, or conscience unless we listen to it. Since this is the case, and since the Subconscious is much stronger on the Astral Plane, one of the benefits is that any question that is asked, either mentally or vocally, is answered. The trick is remembering those answers when we wake, and some of the answers are disguised as visions, the language of the subconscious.

That's the end of this part. Now we will look at interacting with the environment of the Astral Plane.

All interaction on the Astral Plane is an act of the Will. You decide to move in this direction, and you do so. You decide to launch off the ground, and you do. In every case, it's a decision you make to move in a specific fashion, and you do so. It is easier to walk someplace because it's a decision that we do every day without thinking about it. When you walk on the physical plane, you make a decision to move from point A to point B by scissoring your legs together in a familiar pattern. The process, however, is so ingrained into your mind and subconscious that you don't see it any longer.

However, it is the same for all forms of locomotion.

Flying
Running
Crawling
Riding (a horse or another creature)
Walking
Swimming
Burrowing
Driving
Phasing (walking through barriers as though they aren't there)
Teleporting
Bilocating (being in two places at one time)
Translocation (starting in one place, going to another on the way to a third)

First there is the decision to go to another place, then there is the act of Will to move there. It's different for other forms of transport in that you have to make a conscious decision to move in X manner and then a decision to be there.

Most of these forms of transportation are familiar to us, simply because we do them here on this plane. However, the last four means of transport need some explanation.

Phasing: There are times on the Astral Plane that you will be confronted by a barrier of some kind, like a wall, or a floor or something similar. In phasing, one passes through that barrier as if there was nothing there. Ghosts do this all the time, and so did Kitty Pride (Shadowcat) of the X-Men. It is simply a state of mind where your "body" is slightly out of phase or vibrational frequency with the enitre world around you.

Teleporting: This is when you move from one location to another without crossing the intervening space. Usually it is on the same plane of existence, and the mechanism is usually your visualization skill. You envision the environment that you want to go to, and Will yourself there. It's usually the fastest way to get around.

Bilocation: This is the skill most commonly used when one does remote viewing. My consciousness is in one location, and my "doppelgänger" is in another. I can see it, move it, make it do things, but I am viewing it from the perspective of the third person. It's like I'm watching an interactive movie.

Translocation: This is, simply put, teleportation between planes or levels of the planes. I am on this physical plane, and I want to go to a might-have-been I know of. Translocation is when I teleport there, and pass thought the Astral Plane to get there.

Like I said, all movement is by Will, but the means of you seeing the travel is what varies.

Next lesson we will go over "The Monroe Technique of Astral Projection" out of the book "Journeys out of the Body" by Douglas Monroe. We won't be reading the entire book (although it is a good idea) but will only be examining the techniques he describes to get out of the body. These documents will be posted here for you to look at before the next lesson is posted.

Daven

Assignment: Read that document and practice the techniques that are in there. See if they work better for you than what you have been using up to this point. Write down your reactions and your thoughts in using this technique. There will be practice exercises in there as well.

Write your thoughts on when it would be better to use more conventional means of transport on the Astral Plane. Think about this and come up with examples.

Practice the visualization exercises that are listed here. In your journals write anything you feel is relevant to these exercises, or a specific visual that you use to help or one that helps you the most. See these visualizations in as great a detail as you can. If you feel that these exercises won't help you, explain why to me and describe what would help you.

When you send in your assignments, please include written authorization for me to use your assignments and questions in a book I am going to be compiling off this class. Copies will be available to you all upon completion. I need this for the legal aspects. ;-)

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