Creative Visualization
There is a very fundamental part of manifestation that I think most people misunderstand, and it's to do with visualization. No one would argue that visualization, the images we create in our mind - consciously or unconsciously - are the basis for what manifests in the world. However, the assumption that we are all visualizing in the same way is incorrect. This misunderstanding goes unchecked as we're talking about something subjective and so it isn't actually possible to just show each other what we are doing. We share a common semantic and assume we are sharing a a common experience. But understanding what I am about to explain will ten X your manifestation practice.
How to visualize in your mind
How do you visualize, specifically? If I ask you to imagine a flower now, ... 'in your mind', then where is your mind and where does the flower exist within it? First of all you have to ask where 'you' are? Do you exist physically or mentally. When I stop to consider this, then I exist in my body, obviously, it's an embodied reality. I know I am here in my body because I can experience sensations of my body, not other people's bodies, and the sensations are within my physical body. But it seems my awareness coalesces around my eyes. I have a foot, for example, and it's 'my' foot, but the 'me that is 'me' is vaguely existing around my eyes, slightly behind them and raised above them slightly.
Consciousness is an energy. The fact that is centres around the eye for many people isn't fixed. It is only because the vision is a powerful sense and it commands a lot of attention. That repeated attention of consciousness on a certain area in space (our eyes) focuses consciousness there. Some people who are very body aware have a feeling of consciousness around the naval.
When I visualize a flower 'in my mind' I kind of will it and the natural place it appears is where my consciousness is. The flower seems to exist around my eyes, slightly behind. I'd say it's a little bit behind my sense of consciousness. It doesn't have to be that way, it's habit. In a way it exists in relationship in space to my physical body and sense of consciousness, but in another way it's part of another world that permeates this world.
How do I visualize better for manifestation?
But of course, you can choose to change the location of the visualization, in this case, a flower. You could imagine that it in before you on the table. Your physical eyes can be open, So in a way, then, you are seeing into two worlds. Your physical eyes look forward into the physical world and see a bare table, and your 'inner eyes' look forward and see the same thing in the 'mental world' with the addition of a flower on it. So the flower is like a ghost flower, and it's now pushed away from you (where your consciousness seems to be located) to be before you.
Now say you close your eyes. You can no longer see the bare physical table, only it's mental counterpart with a flower on it. Look down at your body, which of course will be a mental body if your eyes are closed. It might actually be quite different, the mental body, to the physical body (dysmorphia) but it illustrates the point I am making, that there's a mental world interspersing the physical world and you exist in both at the same time, sometimes one more than the other.
The difference between visualization and manifestation
Take some item you own and are grateful for, say a much cherished phone. You can put it on the table, look at it and feel gratitude that you own it, and all the cool things it can do and how it makes life much easier. You can be aware of the mental counterpart at the same time. You can feel the sensations of gratitude in your body. If you look at my other writing about energy, you'll know those positive sensations exist high up in the body and you will be able to move or create them if necessary. So the physical object is sparking the joy by it's existence, and has a mental counterpart. The 'ghost' phone in your mind.
Now close your eyes. You should still be able to let the cherished object spark the same joy because you know that things don't disappear when you close your eyes, it will still be there what you open them. Although at this point you only have the mental counterpart and the same happiness and gratitude.
It's location doesn't actually matter, either. You could put the physical object upstairs in the bathroom, and then imagine the mental one outside in the garden thirty meters away, you still have the concept of 'I am owning a phone I love' and that causes the feeling. But if you stop and think about it ... IT'S ALL INSIDE. When you have the phone physically before you, your physical eyes can see it and translate it into an image in the mind, but you can't put the phone into your mind, the brain recreates it there for you.
Consider if you didn't have a phone but were trying to manifest one. You would only have the mental image but not the physical counterpart, but hopefully the mental image alone would spark joy and gratitude and this would then manifest to obtaining a physical counterpart and 'manifesting' into the world. This is the key. You are then not trying to manifest it in your mind, it's already in your mind and causing gratitude and joy, you need to locate it (the mental object) in your physical world in location to your physical body.
How visualization is a part of manifestation
Sometimes you are mostly in this world and sometimes you are mostly in the mental world. If you are practicing creative visualization you might go and lay down and close your eyes and imagine a scene you want to manifest in your physical world. So then you are mostly in the mental world. You have a counterpart body in the mental world and you are existing there. You are still existing in the physical world a little, because you have the sensations of your physical body that anchor you in the physical world, but perhaps it's 95% in the mental world, and only 5% in the physical world. If you fall asleep you might forget your physical body and be 100% in the mental world. If you are awake and looking at your phone and feeling gratitude while you look at it but choose to visualize it at the same time, you might have awareness 90% in this world and 10% in the mental world. Do you see what I mean?
With practice
What does Neville Goddard say about visualization?
This is something Neville Goddard mentioned in one of the books, I don't recall which but it was like The Secret of Prayer or something, he often refers to it. At one point, he says, he imagined that he wanted to be in New York but was somewhere else. Then he 'relocates' himself by thingking, if he were where he wanted to be in New York, then where would his friends be in relation to him (his physical body). They wouldn't be hundreds of kilometers away and to the left, but one kilometer away and to the right. So if you are 100% in the physical they are very far away, but you are not, because the mental world interpenetrates this one and you can control it by being aware of it and willing a certain thing and so become 10% aware there and 'push out' what you want to see (this is me talking now), locate the desired 'mental images' (the things/circumstances you are trying to manifest) around you in relation to where consciousness is in your physical body.
He gives another example where he used to be in his house and he was in one room and in the hallway there was a telephone, and so he would imagine himself getting up and walking to the hallway where there was a telephone. He would imagine himself to be in another room by the phone so strongly, that when he opened his eyes he was shocked to still be sitting in the chair. He didn't perform this exercise to manifest any specific thing, but to strengthen his powers to manifest via the law of assumption, i.e. LIVING IN ANOTHER WORLD.
He referred to this practice as being in a body of light or something, which I straight away recognized as an occult term. He went on to say that when he has done that, people have actually reported to him that they saw his ghost counterpart, at a time and place where he was 'projecting', and I use that term consciously because that is exactly what we are talking about here. He also said that once it is mastered, that it's possible to go completely to another world and speak to the deceased. This is something that most followers happily skip over as being to 'out there' but straight away I recognized that he is talking about projection and it made me think of my lifelong interest in esotericism and the occult.
A visualization ritual and exercise to strengthen your powers to manifest over time
I remember when I first became interested in all things to do with manifestation, more than thirty years ago now. One of the early books I read was called 'The Art and Practice of the Occult' by Ophiel. I loved the author, but remember thinking, how can this book be for real because it just describes one little ritual to do, which takes a few minutes, how can you call that the whole of the occult? Of course, looking back, that's exactly what it is. You basically, on the surface of it, draw a circle around yourself, invoke the four elements around you, banish the negative from your aura and strengthen it. That's what it is ... on the surface.
Now I've done this ritual all of my life and that is not what it is. Well, it is in a way. It's dual purpose. It's like doing a physical job that involves hard labour. The primary purpose is to earn a paycheck, the side benefit is building muscle and being fit.
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
So in this ritual, you draw a circle around yourself. You draw a pentacle in each quarter, and each pentacle starts in a different place depending on which element is being invoked or banished. You also vibrate an angelic name in each quarter. Now for most people, that is as far as it goes. What never clicks for them is that, once you have done it physically, you do it 'in the body of light', mentally.
You sit in a chair in the centre of the circle, and imagine the ghost/counterpart you gets up and you can see through it's eyes and feel it's body. Of course, the pentacles have to be drawn from a certain place, left or right, up or down, depending on where you are in the circle, meaning you need to orientate yourself from the perspective of the ghost to know which place your ghost arm should be. Then you need to 'vibrate' angel names, meaning say them in a very deep, vibrating tone that is felt in your body, but of course, you are in a ghost body and so that will further locate conscious in the mental, ghostly body.
When you first start practicing this ritual daily, it is very hard, Perhaps you will feel 1% in the ghost body and 99% in the physical, but as you continue with it as a life practice, you will be able to switch it to 50/50 most days, and sometimes 100% mental as it sparks a full astral projection and your consciousness leaves your physical body, meaning the location of consciousness changes and you lose contact with the sensations of the physical body and feel the etheric sensations of the etheric body in a different location.
So what is the point of this, well, it's isn't just the art and practice of the occult, well, in a way this ritual is, but this ability to LIVE IN TWO WORLDS SIMULTANEOUSLY is indeed central to the practice of manifestation. Not only that, to be successful and happy at this practice, you need to actually orientate yourself from the ghost world, I mean to orientate your feelings, because IT'S ALL INSIDE. So you feel gratitude for the things you have that you can see with your physical eyes and your mental eyes and you feel gratitude and happiness for the things you can only see with your mental eyes because your physical eyes are actually mental eyes, taking impressions to be recreated on the inside, where you exist and are and experience everything. You feel the same way about things you see with your mental eyes but have yet to see with your physical eyes because IT'S ALL INSIDE.
I've created a very, very simplified version of the LBRP based on tattvas, which are four basic shapes that represent the elements. I'll provide the basic practice if you want to try, and stay tuned for my version of the full LBRP if you want to make this a daily practice.
Visualization exercise for manifestation
Put a chair somewhere with a little space around it and have it facing east. Now stand in the east and point your finger to the ground and imagine a line of blue light like a laser coming out your finger and hitting the floor. Walk around the chair in a 360 degree circle clockwise. Imagine the laser is burning a little circle of blue flames around you so when you are back in the east your can imagine you are surrounded by this blue circle.
Now stand in the east and use your finger to draw a large circle before you, clockwise. The top should be roughly level with your third eye and the base with your waist and the sides about 30cm wider than your body. Imagine it as blue. Say 'In the east, I invoke the power of the air'. When you say the last word, 'air' imagine the sound dropping rapidly in tone so that the word is vibrating throughout your entire chest. Beyond you, imagine a windy forest with leaves blowing everywhere. Feel the breeze on your face.
Walk clockwise to the south. Draw a red triangle, clockwise. The top is again level with your third eye and the bases about 30cm beyond each hip. Do the same but change the word air to fire and the scene is a volcano oozing lava. Feel the heat on your face.
Walk to west. The symbol is a white or silver crescent moon, left to right, the thin tail parts are either side of your body level with you waist, the top part is level with your your upper abdomen and the bottom part your groin. Obviously the word 'water' is vibrated and the image is a beach and ocean, with the smell of salt air.
In the north, the symbol is a yellow square, clockwise starting top left level with your shoulder. The scene is a deep coalmine on a mountainside. Smell the rocky earth on a breeze.
Now go and sit on the chair and say, 'Before me if air energy, behind me is water energy, to my right side is fire energy and to my left side is earth energy. Around me shines the tattvas and above me shines the light of power'. As you state each element, imagine the shape where it is in relation to your physical body and the scene beyond it.
The shapes of the elements - for tracing
At this point you now do the 'astral counterpart'. Imagine a ghost you that intersperses the physical you and it gets up and it walks to the east. Have it standing in the east facing away from you and contemplate it, then locate your consciousness in it's body. Imagine you can see through it's eyes. Do the whole ritual you just did in this body. Your physical eyes are closed, and your physical body is silent. Just do the whole thing in that body.
You might only feel 1% in that body really. When It gets to the west, behind you, your physical eyes are looking east (closed) and your mental body is facing a completely different direction and as you try and maintain the feeling that you are located in the mental body counterpart you will find your physical counterpart getting very tense because you are fighting a lifetime of conditioning and physically your body will be trying to turn or see out the back of it's head. Just try and stay relaxed and hold the visual image of what the ghost eyes can see, from their perspective, the shapes and scenes. Try and feel where your ghost arms are as they draw the shapes. Feel your ghost chest as your ghosts vibrates the words.
When your ghost is done it sits back down in the chair and rejoins the physical. Now you can either take a break but it's a good time to practice some manifestation, perhaps some affirmations, write a manifestation script. or light a gratitude candle.
To finish, you banish the elements. Get up physically and go to the east. Do exactly the same as before but change the word 'invoke' to 'thank and banish' and draw the symbol anti clockwise. See the scene before you remain but the colours diminish so it is like a scene made out of colourless crystal.
You carry on clockwise around the circle, the but shapes are drawn anti clockwise. After you finish the north, sit down physically, get up 'astrally', and your ghost does exactly the same thing you just did in your body. The only difference is when you banish each element, the scene which you are visualizing as now being made of colourless crystal now disappears completely.
