1. Using your Imagination, in which you visualize an astral body or scene, and project yourself into it with your imagination.
2. Will (Dynamic or Passive), in which you try to push yourself out of your body, or wish yourself to have an experience of leaving your body.
3. Holding on to Hypnagogic Images, in which you relax yourself to the very border of sleep, grabbing hold of subconsciously created images or energy phenomena to gain freedom from your body.
All three are interrelated, but distinct from each other. Each has its value and its drawbacks. Each one also requires greater and greater depths of trance in descending order. The first is obviously the most subjective, the second often results in feelings of failure, and the last is by far the most difficult to control. However, the first is very easy, and makes it possible to travel far and wide, and easily allows you to be entirely in control of the experience. The first method is really the best for traveling on higher planes, and communicating with their residents. When you do this, you will often get so completely involved in the vision that you do lose all sense of your body. The second gives you a very profound sense of accomplishment when you succeed, and still allows you a fair amount of control and ability to explore. The third is relatively easy to accomplish, and gives you a strong sense of detachment from your body. It is an excellent way to explore learning from the lessons of your subconscious and superconscious. It is really a variation on lucid dreaming. Now we will explore a few simple methods for achieving all three.
For all three of the following exercises, I do not specifically note it in the instructions, but you may wish to perform these exercises in the protective sphere of your magical circle. This is not necessary for success, but it will help to prevent too much interference from outside energies. This is of particular importance if you plan to visit other planes to contact non-human entities such as elementals or other spirits. In this case, it is highly suggested that you cast a circle, perform the pentagram ritual, and then use the techniques you will learn in the next chapter to invoke the proper energies. When you return to your body, you will also want to properly banish those energies and perform another pentagram ritual.
Exercise 69 – The Body of Light (Using Imagination)
Time Required: 30 to 40 minutes
With this technique you are basically just going to be imagining yourself into your Astral body. You will be creating an imaginary body and moving your consciousness into it. Although it may all seem to be totally subjective, you must remember what I said earlier about your consciousness. What you pretend is real to all parts of your consciousness except for your waking mind. If you use this technique enough times you will eventually lose all sense of your body, becoming completely involved in your visions.
1. Use your pendulum to make sure your subconscious is willing to work on this right now.
2. Go into the Alpha state using your anchor.
3. Relax yourself even more deeply using the Theta state technique until you feel a sense of lightness or floating. This is unmistakable and you will be able to get there quite easily, if you just relax and let yourself go.
4. Imagine the focal point of your consciousness shrinking so that you’re whole consciousness is in the center of your being. You may associate this center at your belly, your heart, or in your forehead. Just use what is easiest for you to imagine. Don’t worry if it seems like you’re just pretending.
5. Imagine a shape made out of light resembling your body, and floating a few feet above you. Allow this shape to become just like you, an image of yourself made of light.
6. Move your point of consciousness into the Body of Light.
7. Fully associate yourself in this new body.
8. Look around the room from the vantage point of this new body. See your body sitting or laying immobile a few feet away from you. Look at your body of light, seeing your hands and feet made out of light particles.
9. Move away from your body and start examining the objects in the room around you. Again, this may seem like a mere daydream, but continue pretending.
10. Go out of the room and look around the rest of the building you are in.
11. You can now go anywhere you wish, simply by willing yourself to move there. Again, it may seem imaginary, but you will discover things that you could not otherwise know some of the time. Other times you will experience things that are not actually real in the physical world. This is the nature of the astral plane. It is not reality, but the place where all possibilities reside. The more often you practice this pattern the more real your experiences will seem and the more really out of your body you will seem to become.
12. Return to your body and slowly re-associate, imagining your body of light re-entering your body, even if this just seems imaginary. It is still important to go through the whole motion.
13. Record your experience in your journal.
Later, you may want to use ritual techniques to invoke specific energies, and try using this technique to explore other planes associated with these energies. You will create the appropriate atmosphere, then imagine that you are rising up into this atmosphere until you encounter beings or a landscape. You could also imagine a doorway with appropriate colors or symbols on it and travel through the doorway to experience other planes. In other words, if you are interested in exploring the Venusian plane, you would imagine a green doorway with the symbol for Venus on it. Travelling through this doorway will give you access to the psychic plane of Venus. There will be more about the colors and energies associated with the planets and the elements in the next chapter.
Exercise 70 – The Pineal Gateway (Using your will)
Time Required: 40 to 60 minutes
In this technique you will exit your body directly through your third eye. It too may remain somewhat subjective at first, but you will endeavor to be deep enough in trance and focused so single-pointedly that you really experience this as a separation. If it seems impossible, simply use your imagination as in the previous technique to pretend your way out. Don’t allow yourself to become frustrated or tense. This will only make things harder for you into the future.
1. Use your pendulum to make sure your subconscious is willing to work on this right now.
2. Go into the Alpha state using your anchor.
3. Go into the Theta state.
4. Move your point of consciousness upward until you are entirely focused on your Ajna chakra, the third eye.
5. Imagine that your third eye is a trap door and start to push this door open. Make sure that this is not a physical pressure, don’t tense up your body in any way. Push on this doorway with your energy. This may cause some strange perceptions and sensations, including hallucinatory voices and images. Just keep willing yourself through, remaining totally relaxed.
6. Move out of your head and “look at” the room that you’re in. You may be in the room with your body or some other place.
7. Go out of the room and look around the rest of the building you are in.
8. You can now go anywhere you wish, simply by willing yourself to move there.
9. Return to your body and slowly re-associate.
10. Record your experience in your journal.
Exercise 72 - Holding on to Hypnagogic Imagery
Time Required: 40 minutes or longer
In this exercise you will allow yourself to drift toward the very edge of sleep, remaining aware so that you can use this transitional moment to slip out of your body.
1. Use your pendulum to make sure your subconscious is willing to work on this right now.
2. Go into the Alpha state using your anchor.
3. Go into the Theta state.
4. Stay aware of the sensations in your body and the images popping into your mind.
5. Allow yourself to relax even more deeply.
6. Begin holding on to the images that are coming to mind, while letting your body relax even more. Become involved with them, allowing yourself to move into them and
interact with whatever you are seeing, hearing and touching.
7. You will experience a falling or slipping sensation and then you will be out of body, in some place. You may also momentarily black out, but as soon as you become aware again you will be out on the astral
8. To change locations you may will yourself there or look at your hands.
9. You can now go anywhere you wish.
10. Return to your body and slowly re-associate.
11. Record your experience in your journal.
All of these techniques are really just meant to be guidelines. Eventually you will find your most productive method for accomplishing astral projection. It may combine elements of all of these exercises, or you may adjust certain parts of these exercises to suit your particular needs. Astral projection need not be hard. You can succeed the first time you try, as long as you just let yourself go, and experience what you experience, rather than trying to fit your experience into a preconceived idea about how it should be. Set yourself free.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Manifesting Your Will
“We have, therefore, to treat in this place of the grand and terrific question of magical works; we are concerned no longer with theories and abstractions; we approach realities, and we are about to place the wand of miracles in the hand of the adept, saying to him at the same time: 'Be not satisfied with what we tell you; act for yourself.' We have to deal here with works of relative omnipotence, with the means of laying hold upon the greatest secrets of Nature and compelling them into the service of an enlightened and inflexible will.”
-Eliphas Levi Zahed[1]
In this chapter you will learn how to use your growing magick power to manifest anything into your life including prosperity, love, health, and everything else you could ever need. Miracles can and will happen in your life. Miracles already happen to you all the time, if you would but observe them. By miracles I mean manifestations or occurrences in your life that seem to be meaningfully connected with practical metaphysical work, or even with just positive thinking. You will experience synchronicities and serendipities more and more regularly the longer you work with the powers of your mind. I have been keeping a list of miracles in my journal for the last few months, and on average I experience 15-20 miracles per month. Most of these miracles occur in fairly mundane ways, traveling through the normal channels of manifestation.
To choose one at random, a while back I broke up with a girlfriend, and found myself without a car, because we'd both been using her car. Looking at my finances, I realized that I really couldn't afford a new car on my budget at that time. I realized that the only way I could have another car would be if someone literally gave me one for free. I closed my eyes and briefly expressed this to my own superconscious mind. Literally less than an hour later my dad called and offered me his car as a gift, because he was moving to another state. Manifesting your desires can be this easy.
This does not however mean that everything that you wish for will come true. There are dozens of mediating factors that will determine your success in creating miracles in your life. You must have, create or discover some causal way for any manifestation to occur. If you attempt to manifest money, but have no friends, no relatives, no job, no plan to get a job and no way for income to flow in, money will not manifest. If you have some sort of internal block to something, a fear, neurosis or other complex, you will inhibit or prevent its manifestation. The universe will not give you something you can't handle. This is why personal development goes hand in hand with psychic and magical development, and why I so highly encourage you to explore the empowering techniques of The New Hermetics alongside those found in this book.
I am not going to cover the use of herbs, poppets, sachets and other folk magick in this chapter. These things have been written about exhaustively by a multitude of other writers, and I don't really use these techniques myself, so I don't feel I would do them justice. The basic principles that you are learning in this book could easily be applied to these techniques, but I think you will find the exercises in this book just as powerful, perhaps more so, than any other kind of practical magick. You will occasionally want to use various implements in your work, but for the most part these techniques are clean and easy, and you will be able to accomplish your work quickly and effectively. The magical techniques in this chapter are by no means traditional, in any sense of the word. Elements from traditional magick have been incorporated, along with bits of modern ideas such as Chaos magick, and a few of my own personal techniques and modifications that I’ve found to be effective myself. At all times, use your own judgment and feel free to try your own experiments and modifications.
Many of the techniques in this chapter are fairly similar to techniques in The New Hermetics, but I have attempted to provide alternate approaches in most instances, sometimes simplifying these techniques even further than I did in The New Hermetics, sometimes adding a few more ritual elements for the practical magician. In all cases I have kept these techniques simple enough that anyone could use them quickly, easily, and painlessly.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS FOR MANIFESTING
A positive, hopeful and relaxed attitude is the most important thing to develop if you expect to manifest anything in your life. Too much effort shows anxiety and fear. A fearful attitude, or a great sense of need or lack, will block your subconscious mind from working properly to manifest your desire. Be relaxed and accept the idea that you will succeed with confidence so your subconscious will be comfortable. Sometimes, your subconscious will be irrationally fearful about something that you really need. If necessary, help your subconscious to feel appropriate emotions toward what you want. Avoid conflicting with your subconscious if it is overly resistant during the pendulum consultation. Instead, try programming your subconscious with positive affirmations as you are going off to sleep, or regularly throughout your day, until all parts of you are feeling congruently positive toward your desires.
Wish success upon everybody. Generosity of spirit will create an atmosphere of success and prosperity in your life. The universe is infinitely abundant. Particularly wish success upon people you feel may be in competition with you. This will show your subconscious that you believe in abundance, generosity, and will pave the way for success. Never hate or resent anybody. Never be cruel or wish cruelty upon others. Having any kind of negative attitude brings more negativity into your life. What you are habitually thinking is what your life will be.
Imagine your desires vividly and joyfully. If you think negative thoughts about your manifestation, your subconscious will swiftly take those up and negate your work. For this reason, it might be smart to start with manifesting small things at first, things that you believe you could receive easily. Then, when you are more confident, you can work on the big stuff.
Keep in mind that your manifestations may come to you in different ways than you anticipated. You may not get exactly what you’ve asked for, but instead the universe will provide with something even better that more appropriately fits your needs. Always attempt to notice how your magick has affected things, looking for ways to feel successful in your operation even if the results seem tangential from your original intent. The more you can feel successful, the better you will feel about your magick, and the better you will succeed in the future.
One of my magical teachers recently told me that he has a 90% or better success rate with his magical operations, and I wondered what his secret was. So, I’ve observed his attitudes and his work and I realized that his secret is very simple. When he casts a spell, he looks for any tiny little part of it that succeeds, and considers his work successful. If he does a prosperity spell, and finds a ten dollar bill on the ground, he considers that a success. Or he might simply have someone forgive a debt, and considers that a success. In other words, he’s an optimist, and he places meaning on his actions that make him feel successful in everything that he does. This improves the quality of his life, and his magick is often quite amazingly success
ful as a result. So, whether your results are dramatic or tiny, consider yourself a success at magick. Always have fun.
Gratitude is one of the most important emotions for you to experience if you want to manifest new things in your life. Have gratitude for all that you have. You may find it useful to think regularly, daily or even hourly, about the things in your life that you are grateful about. Be grateful often, and you will be rewarded with more.
Exercise 72 - Setting Personal Goals
Time Required: 45 to 60 minutes
Before you can really begin to manifest your desires, you need to know exactly what it is that you want. To get what you want, you need to know what that is. I am a huge proponent of goal setting, and of putting your goals in writing. Often just this action is enough to set the wheels of manifestation into motion.
In The New Hermetics I basically created a whole goal setting workshop for you, and I don’t want to simply repeat that here. Rather, I will just give you some categories of goals that you might find helpful in creating your ideal life.
The Book of Magick Power Page 19