Take Me Home!

Hello and welcome to the first Visualization Newsletter! I am excited to present a chronological course of study that will allow you to build and develop your visualization skills. You will be able, in time, to see images clearly with your eyes open. These images will have tastes, tactile elements, sound, etc. and will be three-dimensional. They will be strong enough, when you are fully concentrating, to almost override your physical sense of sight altogether. You will feel like you are actually there!

But, this level of development is just one of the goals of this course. You will be given some information that will assist you in manipulating your imagined experiences, and will allow you to get the fullest Spiritual benefit from your present Spiritual practice, your highest results possible in magic and ritual, and will allow you to go deeper in your meditative work.

Because I am attempting to answer the needs of a fairly diverse group of people with a variety of different takes on �Spirituality�, I would like to ask you for your patience and tolerance in hearing what I have to share. Please approach this material with an open mind, and choose to honor Spiritual paths other than your own by being tolerant. We all know what it is like to suffer under the harsh reign of intollerance, so we don't really need to go there ourselves.

My own Spiritual work over the years has been a twisting road with many turns. I couldn�t have arrived at where I am now without a very eclectic variety of experiences to guide me. Also, visualization practice is considered in some circles a �secret practice� that is potentially harmful for the uninitiated. It is not my intention to harm anyone by exposing practices that are best kept secret.

I think that the time is ripe for people to have access to this kind of information, because we need to fight the prevailing materialism in our society and reintroduce Spirituality into our lives. Visualization practice, if pursued seriously, can lead to the development of certain abilities or �powers�. This depends to a certain extent on what abilities you already latently have.

You should be aware of the fact that you might at certain points in your practice develop unusual abilities, such as seeing auras, hearing disembodied voices, or hearing music with no apparent source. You may notice periods in your practice when you will think about having something and then have it manifest unexpectedly soon after, and have this happen over and over again in a short period of time. You may have the experience of feeling like you are not alone, or have very intense Spiritual experiences where you feel almost overwhelmed.

You may experience an increase in emotional sensitivity to the suffering of others. You may have the experience of sensing incredible evil in the environment or others, or of being attacked by �demonic� forces, or feel a sense of doom or paranoia for no apparent reason. This practice may worsen existing psychological problems in some ways, while relieving them to a certain degree in other ways.

Visualization practice increases your sensitivity to environmental energies, and in opening you to those energies, you may have some positive and negative experiences. I value both, but avoid reading too much into them. Like a radio that is turned on, you pick up a lot of information that is best ignored. For those of you who think I am nuts for mentioning the possibility of hearing voices, I need to warn you that I have taught this technique to several people, and had them give up the practice because of hearing voices and being scared by it. It is important to not be frightened by this phenomenon. You are opening up an innate property of your consciousness by doing this practice and you will change your mode of perception over time. It is natural to become more open to the unseen positives and negatives in the environment. Like a newcomer in any new neighborhood, you will soon learn your way around. So, enough with the darned disclaimer already!

Visualization practice starts with the development of basic skills. This constitutes approximately six weeks of your initial practice. From there, you will begin to branch out and explore some of the uses for visualization. We will explore aura reading, empathy, object reading, meditation enhancement, magic and ritual enhancement, channeling, communication with deities, charging with energies, planes of existence and love work, among other topics. I will, along the way, deviate from talking about pure visualization practice, and discuss other ideas and techniques. I will in particular focus on a technique I have developed for entering and staying in certain states of consciousness for extended periods of time.

Please take what you find valuable and file the rest. If you know anyone who has similar interests, please invite them to share in this website. It is IMPORTANT that you keep a Visualization Journal. You can�t do this work properly without one. Go out and spend two dollars and get a lined pad. Keep it updated with your experiences, blocks, observations, etc. Secondly, please be patient with the first six weeks of your practice and do it right. It is this practice that will allow you to have a strong, stable skill to build on for the rest of your life. This one exercise, if done daily for six weeks will easily get you 75% of the way to your highest level of visualization function. I can't stress this enough. Here is the exercise for this month�s Newsletter.

Exercise: Basic Visualization Skill-Building Exercise

Take some time when you are not distracted. It can be helpful take a walk in quiet surroundings while doing this exercise. The ambient light outdoors will enhance the quality of your visualization. Imagine, with your eyes open, that you are looking into a clear blue sky. Try to see it as if you were physically there. Now, see a red square in the sky, filling about two-thirds of your view. (see below)

Tell yourself that you are seeing it, even if you have trouble seeing it. Look at the color you are actually seeing and compare it pure red. How does it compare? Are you able to �see� anything at all? You can mentally adjust the color to make it lighter or darker, or redder. When you have done that for a few minutes, move to seeing an orange circle. Adjust it as before. Work on this for several minutes. Now, see a yellow triangle. Repeat as above. Now see a green oval. Repeat. Now see a blue rectangle, repeat. Now see a purple crescent shape, on its side, like a bowl. Repeat. Now see a small white oval with a black circle in the center. Repeat. This is the last shape. Now, imagine you are flying up into this black hole and into a dark, star-filled space. Above you are stars that grow denser at the center. Below is pitch black. Feel the restful vibrations of this place. Stop and practice passively �seeing� and listen quietly. You may hear your own voice speaking, or another voice, and may receive some advice. Now, look around you and re-orient yourself to the physical world. You may feel a little disoriented. Do this practice once per day. If you absolutely can�t �see� with your eyes open, try daydreaming with your eyes open. You will find that you are doing it naturally. Now, use that same kind of passive attention, and try again. You can start doing this with your eyes closed if you absolutely can�t do it with your eyes open, but I would recommend giving that up as soon as possible. Please keep notes on your experiences in your Visualization Journal. GET ONE if you don't have one yet! Remember that to persist leads to success! Note: if you are using a different sequence of shapes and colors from the Fall Conference Workshop, then please stick to that pattern and ignore the above until you get to the star-filled space.

FAQ:

Question: What do I do if I find that the shape only is distinct when I am looking directly at it?

Answer: That is a skill you will learn as your practice continues. Practice, practice, practice!

Question: What about colors that turn gray when I don�t look directly at them?

Answer: That will come with practice as well.

Question: I seem to see everything but what I want to see! What should I do?

Answer: See in the sense that you would look at a beautiful natural scene. Relax and �see� passively. This will help you to not struggle with your own mind and create obstacles for yourself.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions! Chris R.

Take Me Home!

Visualization News January 2001

Hello and Happy New Millennium! I hope you had a good holiday and are well rested for the New Year. Our theme for this month�s newsletter is vibration. Hopefully, you have been working daily on the exercise I gave you last month. If you have not, then you might want to make a New Year�s resolution to master visualization this year. It�s easy to convince yourself to work overtime because you want the money, but difficult to get yourself to do anything that benefits your Spiritual life. So, get crackin� if you haven�t already. If you have been working on the exercise, congratulations, because you have already won the war. Visualization is partly about creating new habits that will ultimately redefine you. If you have been working on the exercise, you are probably now ready for new material. I have loads of interesting stuff to work on in this issue that will hopefully keep you occupied for quite a while.

Vibration is the key to the bulk of your work with visualization. Light is vibration, and sound is vibration, and there are emotional �vibrations� and thought �vibrations�. We enter an abandoned building and get �creepy vibes� or �good vibes� from a new acquaintance. When, in the first exercise, you finish by entering into a three-dimensional world of darkness with stars above you, you are entering a visualized space. The stars and the darkness do not really exist outside your own mind, just as they would in a dream. But, also just as in a dream, you artificially create a �self� that exists in an �environment� that is made by your mind. None of these constructs are what they appear to be, but they serve a purpose. In the realm of mind, we can enjoy a greater psychic and emotional sensitivity, and a greater intellectual freedom than we do in the physical. In the exercises included, you will learn to use this space to explore some aspects of your Spiritual work that you may have felt that you didn�t have access to.

I will begin by creating Joe Doe, who is our imaginary newsletter subscriber. Joe is an energetic healer, who worships Isis. We can take a look at some ways that Joe can apply his visualization practice to his situation. Joe creates a visualized �workspace� in Exercise 2, which we have not discussed yet. He meets his current patients there and asks them questions about their physical conditions. He takes notes in the physical. He examines their energy field in the workspace, and takes notes on anything he missed previously. He can pull out blockages in their energy field an examine them, pulling out memories of traumas or isolating specific blocked emotions. He asks a �being of light� to be with him and assist, and performs a healing in his workshop. Then, he re-interviews the patients after their treatments and gets some feedback, and after getting feedback on treatment options from the �being of light.� Joe examines the energy of the goddess Isis in Exercise 3. He also uses this exercise to examine the healing energy that he works with in his healing work. He makes some changes in this energy, refining it more to his liking. He names this new refined energy and writes it down in his visualization diary, so he can use it at a later date. He examines the energies of his healing tools, and takes notes. He later decides to examine his own home-office treatment room from the visualized space perspective. In visualization, he sees his treatment room, and can examine negative energies that might have accrued over time, in Exercise 2. He cleans and charges this space with the energy that he wants for this environment in Exercise 4. He also uses this exercise to clean and charge the energy tools that he works with in healing. He also cleans and charges his meditation space. These are some examples of possible uses for the following exercises.

Please do the first exercise that you have been practicing first, to lead you into visualized space. Then, do the following exercises in order. Keep your visualization diary close by with a pen ready, and take notes as needed. Always visualize with good ambient light, and with your eyes open. Clarity will come with practice.

Exercise 2: Creating a Visualized Workspace

I would like to note that although this exercise has appeared in books, I was using it long before I ever read about it. This space will be like a home away from home, where you can relax and work with ideas, other people and energies. Begin with Exercise 1. After entering the dark space with stars, form in your mind a place where you can relax and feel comfortable. You might want to have two sofas facing each other, a window with a beautiful view, and duplicates of any meditation, ritual or healing spaces that you work with. You might want the space to be totally outdoors in a peaceful or vibrant setting, or have it indoors, whatever works best for you.

Take some time to explore your space, and then invite a friend to join you there. You will hear a knock or a chime. Invite the person into your space and they will come in and talk to you. Over the years, I have noticed that you can communicate things to people that they will seem to pick up on in the physical. The person when asked a question may give you an answer here that is the same as the answer they will give you later in the physical. You may find that their personality is different here than in the physical. While most people are more accessible here, some are meaner. Generally, if someone is unpleasant on this level, it is a very bad sign. You can ask a person who is a total stranger if they would like to get to know you, and they may be very open to the idea. You can often arrange a chance encounter in advance this way, with the other person�s agreement. You can also do this with people you know but can�t see on a regular basis. Get comfortable in your space and explore. Take notes. Stay in this space to enter exercise 3.

Exercise 3: Exploring Energies

Create a spare room/space in your workspace that is just an empty room/space. Create a block of wood and set it in the middle of the floor. Now, you will explore some energies from the visualized space perspective. Imagine that the wood is magical, and can emit any energy or idea you can imagine, and flood the room with it. Start by telling it to flood the room with love. You may be surprised at how strongly you feel the energy. You should feel it internally, not just around you. If not, adjust it so that you feel it internally. Now, select a person you know, and tell it to emit their energy. This energy that fills you and the room will give you a good sense of what it is like to be in that person�s presence. Explore that energy a little, then, move on until you have explored everyone you want to. Now, think of a deity, angel or other energetic being that you would like to work with. This can be an idea, such as Higher Truth, or Light of Transformation, or a deity that you have invented, or a deity from a game or fictional story. Create and explore the energy, and take notes. You may be very surprised by the quality of the energy. I am always somewhat surprised by what I find. This exercise automatically raises the issue of whether or not you can trust what you feel/see here, in terms of accuracy. I believe you can, but you will have to draw your own conclusions over time, just as I have. Belief systems have to be carved out by yourself, not handed to you. I don�t know if how you conceptualize a deity effects the energy you get from your worship, but I believe it is critical in deciding what you get back, because as you change your conceptualization of a deity, you are actually worshiping a slightly different deity, which is the same in name only. You will have to decide for yourself as you progress.

Exercise 4: Cleansing and Charging Spaces/Objects

This exercise is very useful in removing accumulated heavy energies that may have attached themselves to your work or home environment. Imagine a bubble surrounding the object or space. This exercise uses Spirit, which is an energy that I work with, that is very high vibrating and conscious. Spirit is a plane that is made up entirely of consciousness, so you create your own body, identity and environment. From Spirit�s vantage point, the physical plane is not physical, but is an idea made up only of consciousness. Seeing the bubble, say, �I make this space/object Spirit Pure.� Then, count slowly from one to ten. As you do so, the heavy energy will be pulled back into Spirit as consciousness, and the space/object will be charged simultaneously with Spirit energy. If you want to see this process, you can visualize it passively. Spirit energy always appears to me as brilliant and multicolored. Try this on your space and see how it feels to you. If you prefer another energy, you can pull the negativity into Spirit, and pull out another energy, as Spirit can create any energy you desire. I often use this exercise to remove negative vibes from food before eating, and without visualizing anything but the bubble. It is important, as the energy of food merges with our own body, and meals cooked in restaurants can be filled with negative emotional vibes from those people who are doing the cooking.

So, you are now knee-deep in new material and may feel overwhelmed! Don�t worry, because I want you to use and re-use these exercises, along with Exercise 1 from December�s issue, on a daily basis. You will soon be using them like an old pro. Keep writing in your visualization diary! Remember that from this point forward I will share what I know, but your visualization practice will quickly take on a life of your own. You will soon be teaching yourself more than I could ever teach you. Use this skill daily and you will find a broad range of applications for it.

Exercise 5: Homework

This is your homework for February. Continue using these exercises listed above. Also, look at the auras of people you know in your visualized workspace. Use Exercise 3 to explore the meanings of different aura colors and shades. Write up your observations. We will discuss reading auras in more detail later.

FAQ:

Question: What should I do if I find that a friend or deity that I have liked so far has an energy that I find uncomfortable to be with in the visualization space?

Answer: Do more research on the deity, and find out who you are worshiping. Meditate on it and remain open to insights. As far as getting negative insights into friends, I have to recommend taking it all in and doing what feels right. I trust my insights, but you will probably have to learn to trust your own insights with practice. Any decision you make to end a relationship comes from you, not me, and not from any exercise. Take responsibility for your choices. You and you alone have to make the best decision in your relationships and nobody can take that responsibility from you. I would recommend putting your insights to the test through observation and by reevaluating your relationship.

Question: What should I do if my visualized insight is proven wrong?

Answer: It may not be wrong! When examining relationships or energies, you have to be specific and not project your own feelings on the person. Be clear that the person you are visualizing is really the person you know in the flesh, and the object/space is also literal. This will reduce your problems. As you gain experience, you will gain confidence in your abilities. But, be forewarned that people tend to lie about themselves. Enough said! Good luck and please send any questions to me at [email protected]. See you in February!

Take me home!