Reflecting on... Visualisation

Visualisation is an art form. It is a way of bringing to the visual receptors of the mind anything your imagination can conjure. Your visualisations can be as big or as small as you like, they can be dramatic, mellow, stylish, aquatic, lunar, even spacey-wacey if you’re a Doctor Who fan. It is an intrinsic part of spiritual and magickal practice because almost every part of a working involves some form of visualisation – manifesting intention in the spiritual world, picturing your energy and the energy of other forces, be them deity, elements, faeries, etc. Even the basics, like grounding and centring involve a degree of seeing something change in the world behind your eyelids.

I personally find that visualisation techniques require the Third Eye chakra to be open, cleansed and at peak performance; in fact attempting to visualise without the aid of my Third Eye chakra is like trying to breathe without the help of oxygen. This chakra is your gateway to the unseen and so will be the subject of a visualisation exercise:

Visualisation Exercise 1 – Third Eye

This exercise is for practice only and is not part of a full chakra meditation, visualisation or cleansing.

1.    Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax you – ground and centre.

2.       I like to focus on thinking and feeling how my eyes open and close, how they see. This information I then concentrate on my brow.

3.        Try to open the third eye, using this information – now, when I say open, I do not mean open outward toward the physical world, but inward, into your thoughts, emotions, feelings and imagination.

At first, you may only feel pressure, or heat, maybe tingling in the area but with time and practice, it will open.

4.      Once it does, you can play with how it looks: will it be an eye that looks like your physical eyes? Will it be an animal eye? Will it be decorated with make up? Will it blink/wink a lot? Take your time and work on it till it feels right.

5.        When you are ready to finish, make sure you close the eye; leaving any chakra open can be draining to your energy and can effect your health.

6.        Let it fade into the aether before opening your eyes.

An Eye for Detail

You may have picked up from the visualisation exercise that detail is an important element of visualisation. It is in the detail where manifestation begins… I therefore have a second exercise:

Visualisation Exercise 2 – The Face

This is an exercise to practice conjuring specific detail to a visualisation and is in 2 parts.

Part 1

• Look at your face in the mirror; try to see every aspect of yourself – notice the shape & colour of your eyes; the width, depth & slant of your nose; the plumpness and curvature of your lips, etc…
• Experiment with your expressions to make a more 3D imprint of yourself on your memory.
• Once you feel you have all the information you need, close your eyes and take several deep breaths to relax your body and mind
• Try to recall the image that saw in the mirror: start with the basic shape and make that solid before moving on to features and finally expressions.

Part 2

At this point, it’s time to have a little fun and engage the imagination much more fully. It’s time to play. I have put this part as a bullet point list because it is entirely up to you. With your face sitting fully formed in your mind, try a little change: slim the chin, maybe, or narrow the nose, life the cheek bones, smooth out the wrinkles, change the shape or colour of your eyes, even change your hair.

If you want to get really imaginative, change the colour and texture of your skin, maybe morph your face into that of a tiger or a serpent. The possibilities are endless. That is the point of visualisation, you are only as limited as your imagination is.

Visualisation & Meditation

As I have already mentioned, visualisation is an important part of magickal work but never so much as in meditation. Meditation is, in my humble opinion, a form of visualisation for a more defined purpose. I liken it to dreaming because the relaxation state is so similar to that of when you are sleeping; your mind is wide open to possibilities, messages, guidance, etc… The difference between visualisation and meditation is that a visualisation is all from you, it is your subconscious, your imagination, your manifestations; meditation is when it is not all from you. Visualisation techniques are used to see a location, a deity, a myriad of energies, but if those energies react or interact with you it would be more definable as the practice as meditation.