How to practice visualization for magic

Almost every magical text written in the last century describes “visualization” as the key to success. But what if you have trouble forming mental pictures?

Visualization exercises are everywhere in magic. Whether we’re talking about “seeing” yourself in a new car, or “scrying” into the Astral Plane, this idea of mental imagery is a near constant. It’s also something many people struggle with when they’re first getting into magic.

Visualization

I was one of those people.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve had exceptionally vivid dreams. I also read constantly, with horror stories being among my favorite, and could get lost in a book for hours. These worlds I visited, either in dreams or books, all seemed incredibly real to me. And yet, the first time I tried a visualization exercise I saw described in a how-to-magic book, I failed miserably.

The second time was a failure, too. And the tenth. And the hundredth.

I started studying magic when I was twelve years old. It wasn’t until I was sixteen, four years after I started practicing, that I finally got visualization. Now, at the ripe old age of grumble mumble something, it’s second nature to me.

In this post, I’d like to give you an “exercise routine” to help you practice visualization. If you’re struggling, maybe this will save you a few years.

Not everyone can do visualization

Believe it or not, some people are simply incapable of visualization–at least as it’s described in the books. In this section, I’ll discuss some of the reasons why, and try to give you some advice where I can.

Vision impairment

First, let’s talk about people who are vision impaired. When the impairment is the result of an illness or injury experienced after a person was born, they usually have no more trouble visualizing things than people without vision impairment. If this describes you, I’ll say that the first exercise in this post requires sight, but you might be able to adapt it and the rest this post to suit your needs.

If someone has been totally blind since birth, that’s a different story. There is evidence that the brains of such people still experience vision-related electrical activity, but they’re certainly not “seeing” in the “conventional” sense of the word. If this describes you, this post might not be of much help to you.

This post also won’t be of much help to those people who experience aphantasia.

Aphantasia

Aphantasia is the inability to voluntarily form mental pictures. It was first noted back in 1880, but no one actually began to study it until 2005! As such, there’s not a whole lot of data on aphantasia. Based on the studies we do have, though, it seems that about four percent of the population experiences some form of it.

Ever since aphantasia gained wider awareness, I’ve seen a lot of people claim to have it. And by “a lot” of people, I mean way more than four percent.

Almost always, these are people who are relatively new to magic.

Now, it’s certainly possible (even probable!) that the prevalence of aphantasia has been wildly understated. It hasn’t been studied for that long, and there’s a lot we don’t know about it. If you think you might have aphantasia, I strongly encourage you to seek out a medical professional in your area and speak with them. You might not only be able to help deepen our knowledge of this condition, there’s evidence that it could be linked to dementia later on in life.

BUT…visualization is also a skill, and it takes time and effort to learn. Remember up top when I said it took me four years to get it right? Don’t expect to be an overnight success with this. I think this post can help speed the process, but it’s not going to do the work for you. Even if you get absolutely no success, try as you might, please give it some time before self-diagnosing a neurological condition.

With that out of the way, let’s get visualizing.

Visualization #1

So, we want to see something in our mind’s eye. That’s the goal, here, right? We want to be able to close our eyes and picture something, anything we want, in detail. How do we start? We start simply.

I’m going to give you a basic shape, you’re going to stare at it for thirty seconds (trying not to blink too much), then you’re going to close your eyes. When you close your eyes, you’ll see an “after image” of the shape. Your mission in this exercise is to hold on to that image. You want to keep that image for as long as you can. If you have a timer you can start without having to look at it, it’ll help you track your progress. You’ll be doing this exercise more than once.

Ready for the shape? Here it is…

A red, equilateral triangle for visualization.

Simple, right. It’s just a red, equilateral triangle. (There’s a reason I chose this for your first shape. It was the first one that I used back in the day!)

Click on the triangle to make it big, and keep your eyes on it for thirty seconds. Just count one Mississippi, two Mississippi, etc. Then close your eyes and hold onto the triangle you “see” there. Fun fact, the triangle you see behind your eyes will be blue! (Assuming you don’t have certain forms color vision deficiency.)

Go on, try it. I’ll wait.

Results?

You’re back? Great! How’d you do? Did you “see” the triangle? Was it blue? How long were you able to keep it there?

If staring at the image above hurt your eyes at all, or you’d like to be able to do this exercise away from a screen, that’s fine. Just get a piece of white paper, and either draw the triangle on it, or use some red construction paper and paste it on with a glue stick. It’ll work the same way.

Do this exercise three times a day for three days, but give yourself a break in between attempts. Your break should be no less than twenty minutes, but an hour is better. Give your eyes and your mind a chance to relax and reset. Once you’ve taken a break, try it again. See if you go a little longer this time.

After three days of practice, take day four off before moving on to the next exercise.

While you’re doing this, though…

Bet you didn’t know this first exercise was a two-parter. Yup. You’re going to do this on the same days you’re staring at the triangle. It’s okay, though. You don’t need a computer screen or a craft project for this. All you need is a towel.

Well, that and a table and chair. And about ten minutes.

Clear a couple of square feet off the table, pull the chair up, and lay the towel down to your right if you’re right-handed, your left if you’re left-handed. You want to be able to comfortably sit, reach out with your dominant hand, and lay it flat on the bare table without touching the towel. You also want to be able to lay it flat on the towel without touching the bare table. Got it? Good.

Towels and tables

Now, sit (if you’re not already), put your hand on the bare table, and close your eyes. You want to sit like this for one minute. While you’re doing that, really try to feel the table under your hand. Don’t massage it or anything, keep your hand still. Just feel it. Is it cold? Warm? Rough? Smooth? Really sink yourself into the feeling.

Once the minute is up, open your eyes, move your hand to the towel, and close your eyes again. You’re going to spend one minute feeling the towel. As before, keep your hand still. Just feel what you feel. Is it fuzzy? Is it rough? Should you maybe switch fabric softeners? Again, try to feel the towel as intensely as you can. And yes, I’m aware of how that sounds. Just go with it.

After you’ve spent a minute feeling the towel, open your eyes, move your hand to the table, and do this whole thing again. One minute of table, one minute of towel. You want to spend a total of six minutes doing this–three minutes for each, one minute at a time. At the end of six minutes, your hand should be on the towel.

Do you know where your towel is?

This is the fun part. Don’t open your eyes, and don’t move your hand. Instead, imagine moving your hand to the table. Keep your “real” hand where it is, but “see” your “imaginary” hand move to the table and “feel” the table under it. Really try to see your hand move, really try to feel the table. Don’t worry if this doesn’t seem to be working, just keep at it.

After one minute, keep your eyes closed, move your “imaginary” hand back to the towel, and “feel” the towel. This should be easier, right? I mean, your “real” hand is actually on the towel.

A minute later, open your eyes, actually move your hand to the table, then close your eyes again. You guessed it, you’re feeling the table for another minute. After that, you’re going to keep your eyes closed and imagine your hand moving to the towel. Feel it under your hand? Try to focus as hard as you can on what the towel feels like for one solid minute.

Then you’re done! See, I told you it would take about ten minutes.

How’d you do? Are you wondering what the point of this was? I’ll tell you in the next exercise! In the meantime, do this towel trick once a day for three days, then take the fourth day off. On the fifth day, move on to the next exercise.

Visualization #2

Visualization is about “seeing” things, sure. But seeing is just one way of perceiving. The visual part of the first exercise is specifically about seeing. The towel part of the exercise was partly about seeing, but it was mainly about feeling. We’re working two senses, sight and touch, at the same time. Why?

Because what we’re really trying to do is to get your mind to perceive something which “isn’t really there.” By working double-duty, you’re going to get to where you want to be a lot faster.

Anyway, it’s day five (if you’ve been following the schedule I suggested) so it’s time for another exercise. And this one you can do pretty much anywhere, so long as you aren’t driving or operating heavy machinery or something.

During day five, and as often as you can during day five, you want to take a minute to close your eyes and see the triangle from the first exercise. That’s right, we’re trying unassisted visualization now. Try to see that blue triangle behind your eyes.

You can do this on the bus, or while sitting in the bathroom, or waiting for your order at the cafĂ©–wherever and whenever you can give it a shot safely, go for it. Don’t do this for more than about a minute at a time, though, and give yourself at least a five-minute break before trying it again.

Success?

Here’s where you might be in for a surprise. Some people start seeing success at this point! Not a lot of people, and certainly not most, but some do. The triangle is usually quite dim and “flickery,” but you’ll know if it’s there or not. It’ll probably go a little lop-sided, or it might stretch or shrink. The triangle–if you see it–will seem to do everything but stand still.

If, by the end of day five, this describes you, then congratulations! You’re visualizing!

However, if you just don’t get any sort of triangle at all during the whole day, it’s back to the first exercise for you. And that’s okay! Most people don’t get this on the first pass. Go back, do three days of triangles and towels, take the fourth day off, and try this exercise again.

Keep at it until you can get the triangle at least somewhat reliably without the visual aid.

Visualization

Ongoing Practice

Once you can see the triangle without using a visual aid, keep doing the towel and table trick every other day or so. You want to aim for three times a week, with a day or two off in between. It really will help speed your progress.

I mentioned that the triangle you first visualize is probably going to be dim, flickering, and it will almost constantly shift around. This is normal when you first begin, but it’s not where we want to end up. This section is going to give you an ongoing program which will help you not only make the triangle behave, it will also lead to you visualizing whatever you want.

This practice should take no more than fifteen to twenty minutes. If you can do it every day, great, but don’t try it more than once a day. I also wouldn’t try it if you’re feeling tired, or just ate a large meal. You want to be at your best, otherwise you’ll just be spinning your wheels and frustrating yourself.

Setting

You want to set aside about twenty minutes or so, and find a comfortable place to sit where it’s quiet and you won’t be disturbed. We’re going to be doing some meditation, so make your space as amiable to relaxation and concentration as possible.

Sit and breathe

Sit in your space, take a deep breath, and slowly release it while you let your eyes gently close. Don’t try to visualize anything yet, just breathe. You don’t have to breathe in any particular way, except that you do want to completely fill, then empty your lungs. This is sometimes called “belly breathing.” If you’re reading this blog, you probably already know what I’m talking about.

Take a few minutes to just “check in” with your body. Feel your limbs, let your thoughts do whatever, then slowly bring your attention to your breath. Again, don’t try to time it or control it. Just let yourself breathe naturally and fully, inhaling, then exhaling.

Keep your attention on your breath for a few minutes. If you feel your mind start to wander, bring it gently back to your breath. Inhale. Exhale. Relax.

Triangle time

Once you feel relaxed and focused on your breath, call up the triangle and shift your attention to it. You’re about to begin the hard part. You want to hold the triangle in your mind and keep it still.

The goal is to maintain the triangle at a constant size, and keep it’s shape and orientation the same. If it starts to grow or shrink, gently reset it to its proper size. Do the same if it moves or tries to change its proportions. The keyword here is “gently.” Don’t get angry or frustrated. This is really hard to do, and it takes a lot of practice to do it well.

When you first begin, if you’re able to keep the triangle still for even ten seconds that’s a serious accomplishment.

Simple shapes

After you have reached the point where you can hold the triangle still for at least thirty seconds, you’re ready to try another shape. Getting to this point will likely take you a few weeks of consistent practice. That’s right. Weeks. Again, don’t be discouraged. Be patient.

What shape should you use next? Dealer’s choice. I suggest trying a square, a circle, or a five-pointed star, but it’s really up to you. Just keep it simple, and don’t make a visual aid for it like we did with the triangle. By now, you should be able to call up one of these simple shapes on your own.

As to color? You can stick with the blue you’ve been seeing, but you can try another primary color as you wish. When you can hold any simple shape of any color in your mind for a full minute, without any noticeable movement, you’re golden.

Three-dimensional solids

At that point, try any simple, unmoving, three-dimensional object. It may seem more challenging at first, but if you’ve come this far it shouldn’t take you more than about a week to start seeing some progress. Start with a cube if you can’t think of anything else.

Once you can hold a 3D object for a minute, then you can try making it move. For instance, if you’re using a cube, make it slowly rotate. Have it rotate along one axis at first, in one direction then in the other. When you have the hang of that, make it rotate along two axis. Sooner than you think, you’ll be able to make the cube tumble through space, in any direction at all, exactly according to your desire.

Multiple objects

By now, you’re so far along that you really don’t need any more guidance. I’ll throw this last bit out there just in case, though.

Move on to two simple solids. Hold them still at first, then have them move and rotate. Even have them bump off of each other. Then you can move on to three, four, and even five objects. Make them all the same, or make them all different.

Try complex objects that you’re familiar with, such as your favorite chair, or the lamp on your desk.

If you can manage to do that, congratulations! You should be able to visualize anything you need or want to.

Next steps?

I assume you read this post and went through all of the work above because you had a goal, a reason for wanting to get good at visualization. Well, whatever that goal is, your next step is obviously to go and do it. Most people practice visualization as a prelude to Astral Travel, or what I usually call “Journeying.” If that’s you, then you’ll have no trouble beginning that practice now.

Beyond that, the only thing I can do is remind you that visualization is a skill. Not only does it take time and effort to learn, but it can also get “rusty” if you don’t use it regularly. You can probably stop with the towel and table routine, but you’d do well to keep meditating and building those concentration muscles.

Anyway, I hope this post helped!

If you have any tips or thoughts on visualization, feel free to drop them in the comments below. I’d love to read them and I’m sure other people would too.

Have a blessed day!

Meditation isn’t everything

If you hang around a group of occultists for long enough, sooner or later you’re going to hear some variation on the phrase: “You need to meditate every day.”

Sometimes this is presented as a kind of best-practice recommendation, but other times folks will outright state that without daily meditation, magic (effective magic, anyway) is impossible.

This is…certainly a position one could take, but it’s not the only one. And in this post, I kind of want to unpack the role of meditation in Western magic. I also want to offer what might be a different perspective on what “meditation” even is, as well as a few different “meditative” techniques which you can try.

Why daily mediation?

The idea that you have to meditate in order to be good at magic is a common one. If you read most any “How To Magic” book printed in the last few decades, you’re bound to find it. And while we can argue about the precise origins of this idea, for all practical purposes it really comes down to one person: Aleister Crowley.

Now yes, yes, I know! If you’ve taken more than a cursory glance at the history of what we might as well call “The Western Esoteric Tradition,” you’re already shaking your head and wagging your finger at the screen. Crowley neither invented the idea of meditating for magical success, nor is he the only one of his contemporaries who practiced it.

But he did popularize it, to a degree that no one else in the tradition could even pretend to claim.

Crowley’s whole magical “schtick” was that every human being has a “True Will,” and that it’s both the right and responsibility of every human being to discover what their True Will is, and then to go about doing it. And in Crowley’s opinion, the best way to accomplish this was to combine ceremonial magic (as taught to him by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) with the meditative disciplines of yoga (as taught to him primarily by Swami Vivekananda).

The idea is that by mixing “magick” with “mysticism,” one could most reliably achieve what the Golden Dawn described as connecting with one’s “Higher Divine Genius” and what Crowley called the “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.”

The key word in the above sentence is “reliably.” Crowley acknowledged that there were many people throughout history who appeared to have made contact with their Divine Whatevers, without any real training or practice, but that it was more or less by happenstance that they did so. It was his goal and aim to provide a consistent, guaranteed system, by which the average person could attain this connection. And the system he developed along with George Cecil Jones required both daily magical ritual as well as daily meditation.

In one of the very first books written for Crowley and Jones’s magical order, Liber E vel Exercitiorum, they include instructions for the fundamental meditative practices required of members. Here’s an excerpt describing four positions or “asana” which are recommended for meditation…

You must learn to sit perfectly still with every muscle tense for long periods.
You must wear no garments that interfere with the posture in any of these experiments.
The first position: (The God). Sit in a chair; head up, back straight, knees together, hands on knees, eyes closed.
The second position: (The Dragon). Kneel; buttocks resting on the heels, toes turned back, back and head straight, hands on thighs.
The third position: (The Ibis). Stand, hold left ankle with right hand, free forefinger on lips.
The fourth position: (The Thunderbolt). Sit; left heel pressing up anus, right foot poised on its toes, the heel covering the phallus; arms stretched out over the knees; head and back straight.
Various things will happen to you while you are practising these positions; they must be carefully analysed and described.
Note down the duration of practice; the severity of the pain (if any) which accompanies it, the degree of rigidity attained, and any other pertinent matters.
When you have progressed up to the point that a saucer filled to the brim with water and poised upon the head does not spill one drop during a whole hour, and when you can no longer perceive the slightest tremor in any muscle; when, in short, you are perfectly steady and easy, you will be admitted for examination; and, should you pass, you will be instructed in more complex and difficult practices.

So that’s Crowley’s take in a terrifically-simplified nutshell. But what does that have to do with meditation in the occult or esoteric schools today?

Well, like it or not, Crowley’s thinking—and even many of his specific methods—is woven throughout almost every corner of the esoteric tradition you’re likely to come across these days. Whether you’re looking at Wicca, “ecclectic” witchcraft, or “New Thought,” you’ll find concepts like “True Will,” “visualization,” and, yes, daily meditation showing up over an over again.

And yes, as I wrote above, he’s not the only one to blame for this situation. One can point to Theosophy, and folks like Edgar Cayce as other examples. It’s my contention, though, that the seemingly inseparable marriage of magic and meditation is mostly Crowley’s fault.

Blame? Fault? Is meditation a bad thing?

If you’ve been reading this blog of mine for a while, you might have gotten the impression that I’m not super on-board with many of Crowley’s takes. I don’t subscribe to the idea that we each possesses a “True Will,” for instance.

As for his take on meditation, I’m in slightly more agreement with him than I usually am, but we are definitely not on the same page. I think he presents a far too narrow view of what meditation is, and I also think that meditation isn’t the only way to achieve the results most practitioners are actually going for.

I should also point out that there are many magical traditions out there which neither recommend nor require daily meditation. Medieval grimoires, astrological magic from the renaissance? You won’t find much that looks like meditation in there, and you can find countless other examples from other cultures and time periods.

So let’s do some unpacking, and think a bit about why many of today’s Western magicians meditate, and what might be some other ways to accomplish those goals than sitting on the floor for an hour.

What is meditation, really?

The general idea of meditation you’ll find kicking around the magical community today tends to represent it as “sitting still and quieting your mind,” or words to that effect. You’re supposed to find a comfortable spot, hold a particular position, and either tell your brain to focus on one specific thought, or else to shut the hell up entirely.

To do this, you’ll see a number of different techniques, many of which have been cribbed from Eastern religions. Mantras, mudras, breathing techniques, and various visualization exercises are scattered throughout most of the literature in print today. Sometimes these techniques are presented using Sanskrit terms (such as “asana” and “pranayama”) but sometimes they’re just described in an exercise and left unnamed.

Here’s the thing, though. A lot of the people I see writing about meditation in a Western magical context seem to have missed the forest for the trees. They spend an enormous amount of time describing technique after technique, and exercise after exercise, but they often fail to describe what the actual goal of doing all of this is.

In my opinion, the goal of meditation, in this context, is to achieve what I’m going to call “The In-Between Mind.”

The In-Between Mind is a state of awareness and thought which is somewhat in between that of your typical, waking consciousness and your typical, dreaming consciousness. It’s a bit like being half-asleep, yet profoundly aware at the same time. It’s “daydreaming,” but directed and purposeful.

I’ve heard this state referred to as “The Numinous” and “Gnosis,” but those few times I’ve seen or heard it adequately described all more or less explain it in terms similar to what I wrote above. You’re looking for a state of mind where, on one level, you feel disconnected from “mundane reality,” but at another level, more deeply connected to “something else” than you can easily put into words. And that lack of words is probably why so few authors even try to write about it. Regardless, you’ll know it once you experience it—it’s an unmistakable feeling.

Now, to be fair, in other contexts the goal of meditation is different. This is particularly true when you look to the Eastern religions from which a lot of the techniques are derived. I’m not addressing these other purposes, but rather sticking solely to that In-Between mental state which I believe sits at the heart of the “Western Esoteric Tradition.”

Mystical mind states without meditation

Now that I’ve at least tried to explain what meditation is actually for in a Western magical context, let’s talk a bit about alternatives. As I said, it’s possible to get into this In-Between Mind without using the typical meditation techniques you’ve probably read about.

First up, yes, there’s the use of increasingly-legal entheogenic or psychedelic substances. Let’s get that out of the way.

Cultures all over the planet, all throughout history, have made ritual or ceremonial use of plants and plant compounds to achieve an altered state of consciousness. And yes, this goes for people of “white, European” descent as well. Despite the pearl-clutching admonitions of certain witchcraft authors from the 1970s through the 1990s, there is absolutely a long, storied history of mind-altering “flying ointments” and other such chemical aids in European cunning traditions.

So, if that’s your jam, well…I’m not saying get busy with the hashish and psilocybin, but I’m also not telling you that it’s wrong or “ahistorical propaganda.”

However, when I say “meditation alternatives,” I don’t really mean mind-altering substances, but rather other practices which can get you into the In-Between Mind.

See, the meditation you read about more or less relies on that idea of “quiet” that I wrote about above. It gets you to the In-Between Mind by dialing down conscious thought. Put in more technical terms, meditation is an inhibitory process. There’s another kind of process, though, which can get you to the same place—an excitatory process.

Consider dancing to the steady rhythm of a drum beat. Just like the use of entheogens, you’ll find ritual or ceremonial music and dance all over the world. Sometimes this dancing is accompanied by elaborate costumes, and multiple dancers all playing at or performing certain roles. They are wholly immersive experiences which are designed to excite the mind and drive it toward the In-Between state not by quieting conscious thought, but by more or less drowning it out.

You work yourself up to an “ecstatic state” and overwhelm your workaday, mundane mind.

It’s important not to go too far down the often-problematic road of cultural comparison, but even a cursory survey of world religions shows a wide range of excitatory practices with long histories of uniting the mind to something “higher.”

One’s “Higher Divine Genius,” perhaps?

A grab bag of exercises

Since I think it’s legal requirement that any occult or esoteric author who writes about meditation has to provide an exercise or two for the reader to experiment with, here are a few of mine. Some of these fall on the “inhibitory” side of the graph, but others are more “excitatory” in nature. Also? I think most of them are quite fun and fairly easy to do.

The Counting Walk

Here’s my favorite inhibitory method: go for a walk.

If you can, do this outside, but this is also excellent when you’re on a treadmill. Wherever you do this, though, make sure you aren’t in an environment where you need to keep a constant awareness of your surroundings. Busy streets, bad neighborhoods, or bear country probably aren’t the best places to attempt this.

Begin just by taking a leisurely stroll and breathing normally. After you’ve settled into a relaxing, comfortable pace, start counting every time your right foot hits the ground. Don’t stomp your foot or anything, just walk naturally, but start counting whenever your right foot lands. “One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.”

That’s it. Just count from one to four, saying the number either in your head or softly under your breath each time your right foot makes contact. One. Two. Three. Four.

If you like, you can begin to add a bit of counted breathing to this exercise. Exhale completely, then on the next “One,” begin to inhale, filling your lungs completely by the time you’ve hit “Four.” Then, at the next “One,” begin to exhale and finish with your lungs empty when you hit “Four” again. Repeat. When you do this, though, be sure to adjust your walking pace if needed. If you try this while walking briskly up a hill, well, don’t mention my name to the paramedics.

After a while, and a fair bit of practice, you might find a pace where this is very comfortable and relaxing. At that point, you might want to try expanding your breathing practice into what Israel Regardie called the “Four-Fold Breath.” That is, inhale for a count of four, then hold your breath for a count of four. Then you exhale for a count of four, and hold your lungs empty for a count of four. In four, hold four, out four, hold four, repeat.

It can be pretty tricky to do the four-fold breath in this walking manner, so definitely just ease into it at the start. Find your pace on some decent, level ground, then do one cycle and see how you feel. Then maybe try doing two cycles. Then maybe three. Give yourself breaks in between if you need to, and don’t push yourself too hard.

I find that a ten or fifteen minute Counting Walk with the Four-Fold Breath is really relaxing, and I quickly enter that In-Between mental state without feeling light-headed or that I’m struggling for air.

The Movie Scene

Here’s a fun excitatory exercise. I call this the “Movie Scene,” but you can use any scene from a movie, television show, or novel. Regardless of the source, choose a short scene from a work of fiction which speaks to you. Maybe it’s inspiring. Maybe it’s energizing. Whatever the feeling, make sure it’s something which you want to experience and deeply explore.

Give yourself between ten and fifteen minutes to try this out. When you first begin playing with this technique, you can do this while sitting down, laying down, taking a walk, or taking a shower. As with the Counting Walk, I wouldn’t do this somewhere dangerous, and I certainly wouldn’t do it while driving a car.

With that said, imagine the scene in your mind as best you are able. Maybe you can picture it, maybe you can hear it. Whichever of your senses you can engage, engage them all and really try to immerse yourself in the scene. At first, you can imagine that you’re just a bystander, observing the scene without participating. With practice, however, you may find yourself able to take on the role of one of the characters. Regardless, go through the entire scene in exactly the manner in which it was written or performed.

To be clear, don’t try to make any changes to the scene, or add your own editorial flourishes. Rather, let it play out just as you remember it. Once you’ve hit the end of the scene, start it again from the top, only this time try to add even more details. For instance, if the scene takes place over a breakfast table, be sure you’re picturing (or smelling, or tasting) all of the foods which are present. If it takes place on a frigid mountaintop, make sure you’re feeling the cold wind.

Go through the scene several times, from beginning to end, adding in as much detail as you can, and immersing yourself in it more and more deeply. Really feel as though you are there and participating. Let the events and emotions completely envelop you.

As you improve, try physically acting out the scene and saying your lines out loud. This might be easier for some scenes than for others, and again make sure you’re in a safe place to do this, but it’s well worth trying.

The actual act of performance is incredibly excitatory if you can pull it off, and it’s not really that hard once you have a little practice. To be honest, the hardest part is probably working past the idea that you’ll seem “silly” doing it. Give it your sincere effort, though. Do it while alone in your room, or otherwise not around prying eyes or ears. Or, if you’re in a magical group with other like-minded people, maybe offer it up as something you can all try out.

Depending on the sort of Movie Scene you’ve chosen, and how often you practice this, you can get quite deep so be sure you’re in an environment where it’s not only safe to immerse yourself in the scene, but also that you have the time and space to mentally and emotionally recover afterward.

Self Possession

This is another fun one, and it’s incredibly useful even outside of a meditative context. It can be either inhibitory or excitatory, depending on where you take it. As with the Movie Scene described above, give yourself a good ten or fifteen minutes to try this at first. With just a little practice, though, you’ll probably find that you’re able to do this for an hour or more at a time with ease.

Before you begin the exercise, take a few minutes to think about what you’ll be like in twenty years. Think about the studies you’re pursuing now, the practices you are working on, and the life experiences you are aiming for. Consider what twenty years of patient effort and success will mean for you. Really give this some thought. Maybe you can picture where you’ll be living or what your average day will be like, and that’s great, but what you’re really looking for is how you will feel and how you will think.

Once you’ve got an at least somewhat decent handle on this, take a few relaxing or “clearing” breaths, then try to immerse yourself in the future mind you imagine. Trust me, this is easier done than said.

I call this exercise “Self Possession” because that’s the sort of “vibe” you’re going for. You want to imagine yourself reaching forward in time, making contact with yourself twenty years from now, and then bringing that future self back to “possess” your body in the present. You want to connect with yourself after two decades of life experience, practice, and study.

What will it feel like to achieve most or all of the goals you’ve set for yourself in the present time? How will your thought processes seem after so many years of magical practice? What will you think about your current struggles given twenty years of perspective?

I wrote that this exercise is useful even when employed outside of meditation, and I meant it. After only a little practice, it’s possible to enter a “Self-Possessed” state almost at will. And I find this especially helpful when I’m angry at something or someone, or when I’m otherwise not necessarily thinking all that clearly. What’s more, I’ve actually found myself “remembering” solutions to various problems I’m experiencing, almost like my future self remembers how he solved them.

Where this exercise really shines, though, is when you’ve progressed to the point where you can not only bring up this mental state at will, but can retain it as you go about your day. I don’t mean to say that you can always live in a “Self-Possessed” state, but rather that you can invoke it before, say, taking a test or speaking in front of a group. Any time you feel ill-at-ease, try taking a few moments to bring in your Future Self, and then see how that affects not only your attitude but your performance.

As an added bonus, there are various visualization or “affirmation” practices which have at their heart imagining how “success” will look and feel. For example, if you are looking to move into a new home or apartment, you might meditate on how it will feel to sit in your new living room, or to work in your new garden.

In this Self Possession exercise, you’re immersing yourself in the most ideal future you can imagine, and then living and acting as though it has already come to pass. That’s a powerful affirmation.

Do it on the daily?

So I’ve shared my thoughts on how the whole “daily meditation” thing became so popular, and I’ve given you some ideas about alternative practices which are a little less of the “sitting around and clearing your mind” variety. Now, I should probably say something about how often you should practice.

The bottom line is that meditation, of any sort, is a skill. And skills really only improve with regular practice. The key to being able to enter into that In-Between Mind state with ease is to get into it frequently. So I don’t think it’s a mistake to say that yes, you should probably do something to get into this state every day.

Where I think some people do make a mistake, though, is in thinking there’s only one way to get into it in the first place. Or that once you find one method which works, you need to stick with that method and avoid experimenting with others.

In my opinion, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Maybe one day your practice looks like sitting on the floor and getting your mindfulness on. But the next day? Maybe it looks like taking a Counting Walk. Or maybe it looks like Self-Possession while you’re standing in line for coffee, or working out at the gym.

Also, there’s an idea that with regular practice you should find yourself sitting and meditating for longer and longer stretches of time. I really think this is missing the point.

One of the earliest forms of meditation I experimented with was a simple count-down technique, versions of which I’ve seen in several books since. It begins with sitting in a comfortable spot, taking a few deep breaths, then closing your eyes. You relax your body, usually imagining that relaxation like a wave spreading over you from head to toe, and then you begin counting down in your head.

The version I learned had me count down from one hundred to one. With each number, you’re supposed to imagine that feeling of relaxation deepen, so that by the time you reached “one,” you were completely relaxed and completely at peace.

I still do this exercise from time to time, since I find I can get really deep when I do, but for the most part I find that just a few deep breaths and a conscious effort to relax is enough to get me into a fairly decent In-Between state. Most days, it takes me about thirty seconds to get there. What’s more, I don’t tend to hang around in this meditative state for very long. I’m usually there just to accomplish whatever magic I need to attend to. If it’s, say, something like an affirmation or just checking in with the spirits, then I’m probably in and out in around five minutes. If I’m “journeying” or doing “astral travel,” then yeah, I might be in this state for anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.

The point here is not to boast or anything, but rather to explain that once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you should be able to get into a meditative state quickly and reliably whenever you need to. Also? You shouldn’t find it much of a challenge to stay in that state for however long you wish to or need to.

So that’s my take on meditation. Let me know if you try any of these exercises, and how they work for you.

If nothing else, I hope they’ve inspired you to look beyond the “conventional” techniques and try something new.

Have fun!