Introduction To Visualisation and Astral Ritual Working

The Welcome

The title of this workshop has caused me a lot of anguish as I personally find there is a fine line between Visualisation and working on the Astral, or any other non-material plane. How vivid the visualisation working is makes it quite possible you are already projecting and not aware of it as you are wrapped up in your imagery.

Visualisation, or a more the proper title of Creative Visualisation serves a number of functions, it can provide the means to enjoy successful meditation, take you on a journey to your inner self, bring about change in your life, or, for the purpose of this workshop provide the basics to enable journeys to what people call other planes.

I say other planes, and will stick for brevity sake to calling it the Astral Plane, but it can be any plane you desire, the point being is that we are looking at is the difference between physical and non-physical working.

As the subject matter for both topics is vast and overlapping, I will touch on many common themes, and as most aspects are my personal opinions if you don’t agree with me, or you have a question then just ask in local chat or IM me if it’s personal. I welcome a fair amount of discussion on this subject, because as I say, what I am presenting is my personal view and others views will vary. This workshop is to bring out any viewpoints to be discussed so we can all benefit and learn from them, there will be points where we will stop and discuss if feels they want to, so if you can save up questions until then, that would be most helpful.

However you do need to find your own way and I always say, read extensively, question everything and go with what you feel is good and right to YOU.

As this is my personal opinion on a path that not everyone follows, what I will present here has been greatly coloured by my guide so it’s worth giving a by of my background to explain it’s context.

My guide, Selket has been with me since I was very little, and through that time I have been essentially a solitary with no group or coven working to help me along, so what I’ve found has been self taught from reading and from what guidance Selket has given me. So some things may sound a little odd from what you’ve read or know, that’s only because I may have discovered this or was guided to try that particular way as it’s more suitable for me.

My frequently used phrase and I will repeat it again, do what you feel is right for you.

Onwards we go!

Introduction To Visualisation

What is Creative Visualisation?

In it’s simplest form it can be used as a tool to push desires and wishes to the subconscious or externally so that they can manifest in this reality – the process involved is highly debatable and I won’t be going into that metaphysical question here. I will however discuss some of its practical processes as they do lend themselves to firming up the mental muscles which will be needed later on. However you reach or begin visualisation, to me it’s primary function is to focus the mind and imagination to create imagery that can be a literal or symbolic representation of something with which to interact with.

There are few limits on it’s list of features, and many of them I consider are successive stages in the process of using visualisation to higher goals. At the lowest level it gives the grounding in relaxation, gaining and maintaining a focused state of mind, another gives the mind something to actually work with, and once those skills are mastered then it can be used to create and maintain a convincing reality.

Any questions or items to discuss?

Setting The Environment

First principles are really to do with setting the environment, here we must set our ground rules. Many of them will be familiar and I wouldn’t be surprised if you use them already for other things. Importantly setting these ground rules enables the right focus and consistently doing them will provide a repeatable experience and a way to measure progress. This is important as early on there will be failure and it can be very disheartening if you can’t repeat the workings so as to over come the failure.

For me the following are the things I try to maintain each and every time I use these tools (I say try, it’s sometimes not possible for many reasons but I do try as I know the importance of it):

• Lighting low to dark. Bright light distracts my attention and if I close my eyes I don’t get complete darkness.

• Sit or lie down. I prefer to sit. Standing could be a problem, should you lose it enough to fall over and that’s not helpful.

• Try to isolate daily life and distractions, kick the family out, or wait for them to go to bed or work or school etc.

• Noise can be distracting unless of course it forms part of the process. At least get rid of annoying noises.

• If you can find somewhere outside to do this then all the better, in some woods, by the sea or water. Up a mountain, whatever feels good. And importantly safe from harm should you not have full attention. So no doing this while driving your car or riding a bike please!

• Room temp does not bother me unless its extreme hot or cold.

• Clothing loose depending on room temp. With or without I’ve tried and found no advantage either way.

• If you are finding it hard to empty your mind as they say, then try a candle or any bright point of light as it can help with a dark room to focus on a point and keep it from wandering.

• Try and ensure no one is going to walk in or try and talk to you. It takes enough effort when learning and there is nothing like almost getting there and the door bell or phone rings.

• Keep in mind the simplicity and belief and perhaps the naivety of a child’s imaginative mind. They are open to so much more than us conditioned adults,.

• Keep food and drink to the minimum, just my preference, as I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

Right frame of mind.

Most will understand this for any workings whether they are physical or not, you have to be in the right frame of mind, and that is be open with no day-to-day thoughts and worries in the way.

• Mood is also important. Be happy as they say!

• Calmness of mind.

• Not tired.

• Mental stability. Any instability such as depression or anxiety will not necessarily cause a block, but it will impact the quality of the working and could throw up some surprisingly bad images. I’ve ignored this on occasion and immediately regretted it.

• Look at your relaxation methods but not too relaxed though, want to try avoid falling asleep, although sometimes it can’t be helped.

• Avoid using substances as they can have unpredictable effects on this process, some of course say it’s positive when you think about some elements of Shamanism, but I’ve never had the need to use them and don’t think I’ve missed out because of it.

With practice you will come to realise what aspects of the environment and mood level are required for successful workings and those that have an impact on them. Take note of them and work with them knowing your limitations, it’s not worth pushing in the wrong direction and doing yourself mental or physical harm.

Any questions or items to discuss?

Off we go!

So now we have our environment, the right mood and so we can moves smoothly on to the next stage which is the actual methods we can use to trigger effective and vivid visualisation.

Many books are around to help you, all that I’ve seen contain at least one guided meditation as an example. They have never worked for me straight from the book and that may be the same for you, but long term but its always worth a try if you are stuck for inspiration on how to get started, or for clues to help develop something more personal and hence more effective.

The book that got me started was Applied Visualisation: A Mind-Body Program by James Lynn Page (ISBN 0-572-01555-0) and I suggest trying a few books to see what might work for you, I will however use my personal and most frequently guided working later on.

In addition to a guided workings, I advise looking to apply other methods to boost the effects, one of which is the use emotional triggers. This works particularly well for me and serves two purposes, one as before about getting in the right frame of mind, the other as a way to draw myself into the working. It’s not something I’ve come across in many books but perhaps the reason I find this highly effective for me is that I’m empathic and a typical Piscean and emotions are quite significant for me.

Taking this method further, there are a number of ways to achieve an emotion link, colours, sound, taste, visual, but my preference is sound or more specificity music. Music can be left on in the background with no direct focus required which makes it less intrusive through the working should I no longer require it’s use. I will show my use of it later on with my guided working.

The idea with music is that I want to use music to trigger a positive state of mind with very strong pleasant emotions, it can be something that triggers memories of someone, a place, a thing I really love or a memory of an event.

Therefore the choice of music is very significant, and very personal. But that’s good. I personally don’t get on with the fancy meditation ones in the shops, and as I just said, I need a strong personal connection to it, so I use music from my past such as Wham, Kylie, Kate Bush, various dance, rock, jazz tracks. There are a number of key in my choice and it much depends on what I a going to use a particular track or set of tracks for, one important aspect is to avoid sudden changes in tempo (unless I need it to heighten the working). To illustrate here are a few of my choices:

• Careless Whispers by Wham (emotional tie).

• Kylie track called Slow (hypnotic beat good bass).

• A dance track called ‘You’ve Got The Love’ by the Source (combination of emotional tie and good bass),

• And recently found ‘Fiesta de Amor’ by Inkubus Succubus (wave like feel with a few crescendos, feels like the sea).

Unless you already have a strong emotional tie to piece of music, you will need to build that association and that takes a lot of time and effort. Most of us have something that means something to us.

Whatever the method or combination of methods you use its important to use them repeatedly so that your mind and body becomes programmed.

Any questions or items to discuss?

A Guided Working

Lets now pull all of that together and look at one of my workings. do bear in mind that this works for me and may not work for you. As I go through I will explain some of the key points in how I constructed mine going back to the previous comments.

My process.

• If I feel in the mood for music as I know I’m going to struggle because I’m not completely in the ‘right frame of mind’ then I will switch something on for either the whole working or just a quick listen before I begin to invoke a change of mood.

• Breathing is measured and calm – not too deep enough so that it’s not laboured and requiring too much thought about what I’m doing. I am trying to visualise, not do breathing exercises!

• With my eyes closed I try and loose any thoughts. This is a really difficult bit so sometimes if something keeps popping back in then I just move on and hope that some focus will push it away.

• I then start to chant my usual spoken ritual words (or rubric) for Selket

This is one of a very few spoken rituals I have ever used and I use it when I’m serious about doing some work with my goddess, she knows then to prick her ears up and take note that this is something other than idle chat between us that’s the daily norm. it focuses my mind and intent and purpose.

• The rubric forms a rhythm and is quite short but I can repeat it if I feel it not had the desired effect on my mental/emotional state and what I’m looking for is a sense of calm, awareness outside my normal senses, presence of my goddess above the normal background sense of her, and a nice slight tingling on my back and neck.. When I am there I continue on.

• Once ready I visualise I am standing in an endless ocean (at this stage I’m not actually aware of hot/cold, sound of the water, the opposite to what I will discuss later).

• This ocean is more than just visually easy for me to use, it has a significant symbolic function too as the primordial waters of creation. I am saying to myself and my goddess that in my ‘created world’ I exist alone, and I am the creator, all that is around me is chaos and I can fashion it as my will sees fit. its a strong symbol, and I don’t like to presume that I and the creator of all in general, but in my ‘world’ I am.

• While in this water my mouth is just level with the surface.

• Now I begin to notice the music around me if its playing.

• I start to visualise the surface of the water vibrating the the rhythm of the music with the ripples going out from me.

• I try and keep this going as long as possible. I tend to have my most common tracks on loop for this!

• Next when I feel ready to start the task in hand if this session is for a working I then start to call the name of my goddess and bring to mind the desire that I want to begin the journey to my temple. The subject of the following sessions from this point on.

• This process consists of visualising a serious of symbols approaching me, like road side signs, flashing past at speed. As this beings I tend to be distracted from the background music and it’s presence will start to fades I focus on the symbols around me. The water may still be bobbing but it can be independent of my concious thought.

• The first is the winged goddess Maat starts off a long way and passes by me

• Then the symbol Ankh.

• Sometimes I then let my subconscious pull any more in and this can be quite interesting to see what comes by, its a little like some people do when on a guided working and they wander around say a forest and see what animals pop by to talk to them.

• By now the temple is starting to solidify around me like its coming out of a mist until it’s solid.

• Alternatively if I am not doing any workings then I stay with these symbols and in the water.

• I find visualising the water very relaxing and requires a fair amount of focus but not too much to give me a headache. I feel quite refreshed afterwards. its worked for me.

You might ask how long this takes to do. That would be a good question and one that’s very interesting when working with visualisation. Time does not function the same, and you’ve might have noticed that with dreaming too as they are both connected. The time varies quite a bit, sometimes when I come back any where from minutes to an hour or two even though it’s felt the same inside.

Any questions or items to discuss?

What Can Go Wrong And How To Deal With It

Whatever you are trying to learn, failure happens, mostly in the early days but can occasionally occur again for a variety of reasons. In particular using visualisation you can encounter more than it’s fair share and we shall discuss some of the problems that are commonly encountered.

A frequent one I’ve experienced is ending up being too relaxed and falling asleep! I don’t worry about it as I end of having a pretty good sleep with no side effects.

But if you end up having deep sleep by accident and no memory, something could still have happened and its down to personal taste if you want to dig into it and go along exploring this route. If you want to stay in control or don’t feel comfortable with discovering what was behind it then chalk it down to experience and try again. Remember I said there are a number of ways to go in visualisation? You could progress down this road and investigate lucid dreaming, and try and keep awake. It’s not a method I’ve explored so I’m not able to give any advice on that, but I’ve seen many books around on this so check them out.

Blocks are another hazard to overcome, it could be blocks on meditating, on trying to visualise or to travel. Knowing its something I want to do, and not need to do, its forced and just does not flow naturally. Happened recently as part of this research. Just ended up feeling frustrated by not being able to do it, something that’s been natural for many years felt a block, a resistance and try as I might could not get focus. Do some physical exercise which helped with relaxation, got a bit further through but not enough. Forcing it does not help, and if this was an early learning process I could understand when some would say give up and not try again.

In a way perhaps this was to give me some material for this course. She has a funny way of teaching me sometimes.

Whatever the problem, just step back, think is there something I’m missing? Am I happy with what’s going on, is it causing the block? If you can’t pick any particular glaring faults, then take a break it might not come to you straight-away.

I have very deep sleeps with rarely any memory of what if any dreams I had, so going down the lucid route put me off as from what understand you need to be in the dream and then learn to place markers so that you can take control and know you are not in a dream. If I have no dreams that would be difficult for me to change. I just don’t want to mess with my sleep patterns, so my focus was on attaining waking visualisation that will overlay and replace my perceived reality.

If you can work with dreams and go the lucid way then that is fine I don’t have experience of that path.

When you feel ready to give it anther go, like all aspects of following a path there is always self doubts, insecurities. These are normal human traits and they can and will be overcome, if this was easy, everyone would be flying around Harry Potter style wouldn’t they? It all takes time, energy and determination, I personally don’t care how many times I fail, I learn from it each time and gradually move forward. Sheer bloody mindedness it is. Don’t let it beat you, but don’t beat yourself up about it either? If it truly does not work for you then try something completely different for a while.

As one of my favourite films Galaxy Quest says, ‘Don’t give up, never surrender!’.

Any questions or items to discuss?

What You See When You Are There

Assuming then you are progressing and stuff is appearing in your mind, what do you see? How should you deal with the images? Do they actually mean anything?

I’ve not said much apart from a few clues in my example, of what you will see when you visualise. Do you see forests, wilderness, cities? Are you trying to let the mind show images as a form of divination? Don’t be afraid, and this is what I previously said about not being depressed, can be quite a shock for the mind to see what comes in.

Going back to my working, it has a number of stages that I can put to use for various things. There is the floating in the water with ripples from music if I just want to relax. There is the motor way signs flashing by that I can use for divination symbolism or listening to my subconscious. And finally should I choose to reach the other end then I’m off to my temple.

As well as the visual sense, what about your other senses? What do you hear? Smell? Touch?

And gravity, what is that doing?

Pay great attention to what you sense around you, and as soon as you can regain conciousness back then write it down. Look for patterns, anything that could be meaningful. If there is any symbolic images then like dream interpretation, those symbols will have had significant focus of your attention through the process, or show up in stark contrast to any surrounding detail. They could be clues to help you or other forces trying to attract your attention.

Detail is everything.

Touching slightly on other topics that use elements of visualisation, There is always the possibility that a guide of some form will try and make contact. That path is a little out of the scope of this topic.

Any questions or items to discuss?

Using Visualisation To Bring About Change.

For this final section on purely visualisation we will look at the most common use for it and that’s to bring about change in your reality, or essential making wishes. This is where most books on the subject will lead you so we will now discuss this area of use.

I will keep things brief as this usually covers a few chapters of most books.

First a list of the points, and then some examples:

• The first task for ‘wishing’ is setting your goal, and set one that is reasonably attainable.

• Don’t make wishes too specific as they are harder and take longer to come about.

• Keeping it going to refresh the desire – keep the wish in your mind, recall it once in a while and then push it back.

• Act as if you have it – acting as if you have the result brings it on quicker.

Wishing can play big tricks so be careful of what you wish for. In that I mean should you wish for more money, then that has to come from someone or somewhere, will someone have to die so that you can inherit? An accident for an insurance claim? Wishing is a dangerous game to play and if you’ve ever experienced working with Thought Forms who exhibit similar tricky behaviour then you will know what I mean. Keeping the wish non-specific means there is a greater chance of success as the result can come from multiple sources.

I won’t go into how it works in any great detail as that subject is highly debatable, but my personal view is the wish is adjusting causality to bring about the wish, as well as the self being more mentally open to opportunities that may present themselves. It’s a complex subject and not one I admit I know all the answers to.

Any questions or items to discuss?

That ends visualisation, from here we go on to more interesting uses of the technique.

Introduction To Ritual Workings On The Planes

This section has been quite hard to come up with a suitable title. Astral Projection is a big area like visualisation and there is much to say about it. Although I’ve had a long time to play out there, to be honest, I’ve not gone far exploring. It does not serve my purpose to go off playing with the various inhabitants or travelling to amazing places. They are there, but my purpose there was and still is to create and maintain a safe place to work which removes the need to require physical rituals and that is what I will focus on in this workshop.

I chose this route for a number of reasons:

1. I’m highly creative therefore I find it easy to work with my mind

2. My goddess wanted me to as it suits her better. Perhaps the biggest reason.

3. It’s more convenient for me as I can be anywhere physically and if I feel in the need to do something its’ just a jump with the mind away.

4. And finally as I’ve moved deeper into the Egyptian path I’ve taken on more of the traditional form, but that requires some fairly serious physical changes such as shaved body hair, various make-up and odd costumes that can be a difficult thing to maintain along side a contemporary life style. Through this method I can drastically change my appearance with minimal effort.

What Is The Astral or Other Planes?

Before we get to far into what I will be talking about, a little step back to discuss the location where we will be going.

There are so many books on the subject, many with wildly differing interpretations, but some of the more common themes we will now discuss.

The first is that outside this physical plane that some call the Material Plane, there are set of planes of varying energy levels, many books will list names for them, and include describing various areas and their inhabitants. There is also a frequent referral to seeing a silvery thread that links you with the material plane which you should endeavour to keep safe from breaking. In a lot of books there is a morbid fear of this line breaking or being broken by mischievous things to stop you getting back to your body. There are a so few as to be considered no examples of someone not getting back. I’ve long since stopped noticing mine, can’t honestly say if it’s there and I’ve stopped noticing it or I’ve modified my environment so much that it’s no longer visible.

I think another workshop exploring theses views are in order, but for this one, I think that’s the furthest I will go into what the astral and varying levels are. The view or interpretation will depend on your particular path, or experiences. The gist being that we are going to or already are somewhere other than the physical plane using our mind, whether you visual travel to a dark empty plane, an elemental plane or woodlands. That’s up to you, this is your workings and you have to find your own way, something that books tend to forget and take you down a particular road which can be quite distracting if you are not comfortable with it.

Before we continue I will fix the terminology a little to make things brief, I will continue to refer to the Astral Plane, but as I’ve previously stated the plane of choice is irrelevant and you choose where you want to site things.

Any questions or items to discuss?

How Does Visualisation Help In Working Astrally?

All planes are essentially blank canvases, the appearance is subject to the will of those that inhabit it, and this goes for you too. Going to an inhabited area will be problematic as their effect on their home plane obviously be greater than yours, choosing somewhere empty and there are lots of of it considering they are infinite, you will stand better luck in doing what you need to do.

As the environment is under your control obviously this is more convenient than the physical reality so whatever you find difficult in the physical world you can change here, and like I said, I need to apply a variety of physical changes to my own form.

If you work with deities or other worldly entities, then working on a non-material plane can benefit both sides as they will normally find it easier manifest there, so the experience can be a whole lot more intense – so be warned!

So there are no limits? That is true, but there is also greater risk from the environment that is essentially chaotic in nature and from any thing that may be in the area. This is where we will go next in discussing forming safe environments against these external risks.

Any questions or items to discuss?

Forming You Own World

Building on all that experience and effort from creating convincing visualisations, this is where the most rewarding part comes in, it’s also the biggest is it takes time and effort to at least initially construct and maintain your environment there. Like general visualisation, and more specificity when you are trying to ‘wish’, its important to really keep it there, go there frequently to reinforce its existence and tweaking it so that you really can believe it and ensuring its real to you, otherwise this will will weaken its effect.

As an example I have placed my temple in the middle of an endless desert. when I go there I sense

the heat on my skin, and the sand between my toes and it you know me well then you will know I hate sand between my toes! But I’m aware of it and it reinforces my awareness of and connection with the environment I have created, even if it’s an annoyance, but that’s what would happen in reality. I could change it to never happen but that would feel odd as I expect sand to be everywhere, and sometimes when go there sand is heaped against the closed door as somehow managed to work it’s way along the corridors, but a brief desire to clean it up is all that’s required.

This is why grasping visualisation skills are important, for analogy think about driving a car. at first its hard work understanding all the controls, getting them to work together, lots of thought is required to co-ordinate things over time you can actually have a conversation while working the pedals, all of it comes naturally in the end. so with visualisation. frequent use builds up the skills and mental agility to keep the images in you mind without having to constantly think about it which will only distract you from any workings you do there.

If you are asking why I am repeating the same things from the visualisation classes? then my answer is that you may already be on other planes and depending on the environment you have created there is a chance that it’s gravitated towards a suitable planner location to house it’s self. But as it is self contained you may not reliases it. Create a door, go see what’s the other side? What is the other side

of the door?

Now something that’s occurred to me while analysing my workings for this workshop, and that’s the use of physical rituals and more specifically the use of protective circles. Some times I’ve cast them, sometimes not so my advice is that although I’ve not noticed any change in effect, you might have to experiment yourself. Whatever works is always good.

From your visualisation you may already be somewhere you feel you would like to set-up camp, that’s great, if not then go looking. If you feel you are getting no where, then perhaps you may already be there so you might have to make a little room, either way we are then ready to start making camp.

The area you want to construct will take some time to do. There are a few things that can really help with this:

• Draw a picture – you don’t have to be a great artist but sketch out, artistically or technically as a plan, how ever you think you can then use to visualise it. The aim is to ensure that each time you are there you can keep the images of the area consistent. That will strengthen it’s existence in the place it’s in and in your mind.

• Jot down words to describe it – think of the senses. If its a leafy glad, are the leaves on the ground dry or wet to your bare feet? Can you hear animals? Water? Wind? Is it warm or cold?

These things provide a rough model in your mind and as previously mentioned once you have something in your mind you can push it out to your subconscious where the real magic can begin.

Now how to apply that to where you end up in your visualisation? Depends on how much you really believe in this model or can handle with picturing it in your mind. The more creative people could perhaps find picturing it easy, so in their case maybe either picturing a door and when you walk through its into the area you’ve modelled, or you can just blank out what you see around you and replace it with the model.

If this is too much to keep in your mind, then what about changing it bit by bit. Add one small feature at a time. Think jigsaw puzzle. You can see lots of little bits that you collect over time and fit together to form the whole.

While building need to make a decision on how to get to it if you want it different to your normal visualisation workings. If you have placed it as a door off of your normal journey make a common entrance even if its to magically appear in a puff of smoke, as previously repeated, routine is key to successful progress.

As this workshop is being done in Second Life, and you have building skills here, then what about build one here? Some of you may already perform rituals here, what is to say this reality is no different to planer realities?

Any questions or items to discuss?

Making It A Safe Place

So you have a room, a glade whatever, so what makes this feel safe for you? If you have experience of shielding then applying some of those concepts like walls of fire or other visual means that create an impenetrable wall to enclose your special area.

For example with my temple I have it situated in the middle of an endless desert, but bizarrely on the horizon, very faint in the intense heat of a blazing sun, is an encircling range of mountains. That is my border. I’ve placed my temple infinitely away from the edges. Distance, mountains and baking heat of the sun is my protective shield. No one can survive that intense sun for such a long journey to my temple, except me.

Anything you have previously learnt on magical shielding will apply here too and can be a little more literal. Multiple layers are more effective, just remember that this is not your home plane, there will be inhabitants that will be stronger so layers are more effective.

Another highly effective form of defence is to keep the location secret, keep the door secret. Now I’ve been telling you about my temple, but I’ve not told you it’s exterior or interior details, only the desert, so you will not be able to visualise it and be drawn to where it is. And as I’ve been working this one for many years then it’s sort of matured and the layers hiding it are thick. The knowledge of it’s appearance is important as this will aid in you and anyone (or thing) in finding the pocket you’ve created.

There is little more that can be discussed as this now become a very personal journey but I hope I’ve stimulated some thoughts on this subject.

Any questions or items to discuss?