Visualization Excercises

Shielding
Shielding is very important for magickal works AND in your everyday life. You should shield yourself from any negative energy first thing in the morning and reinforce this when you go into stressful situations. You will notice that when you are around certain places and people, you will feel as if you lost all of your energy suddenly. Shielding will help prevent this.

One that I use is envisioning myself closing curtains around my body.

Start off by sitting in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and envision curtains opened and flowing around you, a lot like they have in hospital rooms between beds. If this is a bit hard to imagine, try and picture it as sitting in a curtained canopy bed. You slowly take the curtains and drag them around the curtain rod so that they are closed snugly around you, blocking out any negative energy. Think of the curtains as a mesh mosquito net. The negative energy being the mosquitos. Take as long as you need to fully close your "curtains".

If you start feeling sluggish during the day, close your eyes and re-close the curtains if you need to.

There are many different shielding techniques. Choose what works best for you. I recommend trying each of them and others that you may find. A good article that I have found: http://www.psipog.net/art-common-shields.html

Protective Light
This technique uses a ball of white light for protection.

First, find a comfortable position. Close your eyes and visualize a ball of white light above your head. Feel the love and protection radiating from this light. Mentally stretch this ball of light to encompass your entire body. As you surround yourself with this protective, loving light, feel the energy from the body of light filling your body.

Continue stretching the ball of light until your entire body is surrounded. Concentrate on the feeling of the energy within yourself and the energy of the light. Stretch the ball of light so you have a bubble of light around yourself (about 3-6 feet).

If you start feeling low or drained throughout the day, close your eyes and reinforce if you need to.

Meditation and Visualization

Meditation is an important and useful tool to use when working with magick. It helps keeps us focused and relaxed and can help us and inspire us. To find out more on the history and the benefits of meditation go to: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring05/Luft/index.htm

According to Webster.com, Visualization is the formation of mental visual images. Visualization is something we all use. Every time we daydream or mentally “picture” something, we are using visualization. Whenever we are seeing something that is not directly in front of us, we are visualizing it. Even though we all visualize, some people have trouble focusing their thoughts on certain visualization.

Visualization can be a very useful tool, in our day-to-day lives and in our magickal workings. We can use these mental images to direct energy in spells, healing, and in many more ways. You can use visualization before an important meeting, before a job interview, before meeting with a real estate agent, or anything else you feel is important. The more detailed and focused you are during your visualization sessions, the stronger, more effective your results will be. Before important or stressful occasions, I recommend you use visualization several times to increase your desired effect.

Food for thought: What benefits do you hope to receive from practicing meditation and visualization on a regular basis?