I need to start at ground zero – the very axioms of visualization. I have come to believe that most people who visualize are not visualizing – they are imagining, and I am under the conviction that these are two very different things. I can do the latter, but have realized that I am simply deceiving myself into thinking I’m visualizing. I’ll try to explain as briefly as I am able.
When I think I’m visualizing, it’s the same phenomenon as when I am reading a fiction novel – I see nothing with my eyes (except the words on the page) but somewhere in my mind I am able to “see” the scene. So, when I try to visualize a tattwa, I am not able to see the tattwa. I can imagine it in the back of my mind, but with my eyes I only see blackness with a bit of texture.
I’ve had untold issues explaining this issue, but I hope the reader understands. I wish to actually see my visualizations, and eventually get to the point where they appear just as real and vivid as if there was a television screen on the backs of my eyelids. I think so many magicians miss out on the fundamentals of visualization because they think imagining something is the same as visualizing something. This causes them to progress without a foundation, but when they post about their experiences on Internet forums, their accounts sound indistinguishable from those of people who are truly visualizing. Two people may share their scrying experiences, but the real visualizer actually saw his vision with real-life clarity, while the pseudo-visualizer imagined his vision the same way one imagines a story while reading a novel.
I can’t see a darn thing when I close my eyes, no matter how hard (or how soft) I try. I sit there trying to bring a red triangle into existence and I just can’t make anything happen whatsoever. Just blackness with the occasional change in color or texture. I want to be able to visualize a blue circle with the same vividness that I get if I stare open-eyed at a triangle for a minute and then close my eyes to appreciate the after-image.
Does such a guide exist that explains the absolute basics? I read a comment on this site (can’t remember where) that discussed exactly the skill I wish to develop. He talked about starting with lines, then adding shape, then color, starting from the ground up and going from there. The closest thing I’ve found is Initiation into Hermetics, but this doesn’t go into enough detail to get me started.
Every visualization guide I’ve ever read either confuses imagination with visualization, or already assumes that the reader can visualize to some extent. Even Crowley’s advice, when talking about Dharana in Part 1 of Book 4, is of no use to me:
“The moment then that the student takes a simple subject -- or rather a simple object -- and imagines it or visualizes it, he will find that it is not so much his creature as he supposed … the object itself will begin to play all sorts of tricks. … It will move its bar up and down, elongate the bar, turn the bar oblique, get its arms unequal, turn upside down, grow branches, get a crack around it or a figure upon it, change its shape altogether like an Amoeba …”
This quote is completely out of touch with my experience – I can’t even see an object to begin with and can only imagine it. So my object never mutates or changes shape or anything because it isn’t really in my sight – it’s just imagined in the back of my mind.
Does anyone know of any books or guides that truly start from the very basics, i.e., creating lines, adding color, making a shape? I’m looking for a step-by-step guide to get the very basics down so I have a firm foundation built. Alternatively, if no such guide exists, any advice or techniques someone is willing to share would be very much appreciated. I covet any and all comments.