Part Two

New Energy Ways
 

8. Imagination Versus Visualization

Let's face it, 99 percent of people can't visualize for peanuts. That is, 99 percent of people think they cannot visualize for peanuts. But, this is all wrong too, because 100 percent of people can visualize perfectly - they do it all the time - but they just don't know they are doing it!

This confusion comes about simply because visualization is generally so poorly explained and taught. Visualization is very easy and does not take any time at all to master. It is a natural ability everyone uses all the time.

I have come across countless developmental problems relating to the issue of energy-body manipulation and development techniques. This problem significantly increases the difficulty encountered with any kind of serious energetic development, seriously lengthening development time. Consequently, most people give up before getting worthwhile results. Note: I use the term energy body as simply another way to describe the pure-energetic aspect of the etheric body.

If you belong to a meditation or development group, ask people - one at a time and in private - how they really get on with visualization. Note the slightly worried and uncomfortable looks you get, especially from those teaching it. Most people, if they are completely honest, will admit they have a few problems with visualization, or that they just can't do it. You will find the occasional few who claim they have no problem whatsoever with visualization. These lucky few can easily see in their mind's eye whatever they visualize, just like watching TV behind their closed eyelids.

The lucky few with this type of visual ability are unintentionally also a big part of this widespread and self-propagating problem.
 

Mind's-Eye Visual Ability
The commonly used term visualization is at the root of this problem. Many teachers tell their students that, with a little practice, they should be able to see what they are visualizing. Unfortunately, while this is partly true, it is not something that can be learned quickly, barring strong natural ability.

To put it in a nutshell: visualization is not a visual skill. You are not supposed to actually see what you visualize. If you do see something, it is no longer visualization, but a mind's-eye vision type of ability.

During any meditation or training exercise requiring deep physical and mental relaxation and visualization, a few people will develop partial clairvoyance, or an awake semilucid dream type of visual ability, or both. These mind's-eye visual abilities enable these people to actually see what they are visualizing, as in the lucid dream state - in which the conscious mind takes creative control of the dream environment.

Clairvoyance and lucid dreaming are both very visual abilities.

Now, there is nothing wrong with using this type of lucid dream-cum-clairvoyance type of ability to enhance visualization. It's very interesting and useful-but it is not an ability that most people can easily learn.

The problem compounds when this type of creative visual ability becomes the accepted norm, and people think they must develop this visual ability to visualize properly. When one person, especially a group leader, tells the rest of the group that they can really see what they are visualizing, the rest of the group thinks they are doing something wrong or that they lack natural ability, and therefore cannot keep up. If they continue believing this, they never will be able to develop themselves to any significant extent.

A similar problem can arise when neophytes are exposed to more advanced students, or to those who have realized that visualization is really the constructive use of imagination. These people, although they do not truly see anything when they visualize, use visual terms when describing their visualizations or nonphysical perceptions.

Development groups and the New Age movement commonly use the visual terms I see, I saw, lam seeing. More accurate terms should be used instead, such as I sense, I perceive, I feel, I intuit, I am imagining, or lam imaging. But they are not.

Now, here's the other side of the problem: The vast majority of energy work, energetic developmental exercises, and projection techniques taught today completely rely on visualization techniques. Given no viable alternative, you obviously cannot do development exercises properly and simply cannot develop yourself if you have a problem with what we might call "visual visualization". Understanding exactly what visualization is and is not thus becomes a crucial issue to all aspects of development. Yet everyone, without exception, can visualize easily and perfectly if taught correctly.

The development exercises and techniques in this book are based not on visualization, but on a concise, non-visual imaging system I developed called tactile imaging, based on the active use of the sense of touch and feel and body awareness. This is very easy to learn and is extremely effective, far more effective in energetic manipulation and development than visualization-based techniques could ever be.

People who actually see what they visualize may be at a slight disadvantage when they begin using the non-visual tactile imaging techniques in this book, if they do not change their way of doing things. They will have to stop trying to see what they are doing and learn how to feel what they are doing for these techniques to work effectively.

If you are like most people and cannot visualize very well, you are going to do very well indeed with these new techniques.
 

Using Your Imagination
We are all capable of easily creating and visualizing the most complex scenario in our minds, without training and with no exceptions. Over the years, I have asked many people who claim they cannot visualize if they ever reminisce, fantasize, daydream, or imagine things.

The answer is always "Yes!" Everyone is perfectly capable of using imagination to build complex and detailed fantasies in the mind's eye. So, let's get something straight here: Imagination is visualization. Visualization is imagination. They are one and the same. And neither is truly a visual ability.

Visualization is not a visual ability. You do not actually see what you visualize, just as you cannot actually see your imagination or fantasy. True visualization is pure imagination. Imagination is the generator of all daydreams and fantasies, whether memories are relived or something fictional is created based on memory. You cannot really see memories or fantasy creations, but they are so vivid and realistic that they are indistinguishable from any mind's eye creation that is more visual.

Concise imagination and concise imaging are terms that are much more apt and workable for the use of imagination to construct detailed fantasies or visualizations.

Memory plays an important part in constructive imagination. Imagination is based on memory. If you have ever lost anything, you have most probably tried to re-create your past actions in your mind's eye to help you remember where you lost it. You have replayed these, using imagination, going over your every movement step by step. This is perfect visualization, concise imaging - based entirely on memory.

As a sample exercise: get up and go to the kitchen, get a drink of water, and return. As you do this, carefully take note of everything you do and see and feel along the way. Then sit down, close your eyes, and relax. Remember what you just did, from the beginning, and re-create this sequence of actions in your mind - in your mind's eye. It is important to feel everything as if you were actually doing it. This is exactly like creating a fantasy based on real-life events.

Remember getting out of your chair and how the room looked as it moved around you as you turned; remember your steps as you walked to the kitchen, what you saw and felt when you arrived, and how your hand looked and felt as it reached out for a glass; remember filling it and drinking; remember how the water tasted and smelled and felt; and remember returning the glass, walking back to your original position, and sitting down again. Do this in real time, taking roughly the same length of time to re-create it in your mind's eye as it took to actually do it.

You cannot actually see these actions, but you can remember them and feel them easily. This is exactly like any fantasy you have created in your mind's eye. You can almost see a good fantasy, they can be so real. Fantasies are constructed with imagination. Today this is more commonly called visualization.

Again, relaxed and with your eyes closed, try constructing a completely fictional scenario in your mind's eye, with all the necessary parts taken from memory. Remember what it's like to brush your hair.

Rehearse this action in your mind, in your mind's eye, without actually doing it first. Imagine there is a table in front of you with a hairbrush on it. Carefully feel yourself reaching out (without actually moving your arm), take the imaginary brush, and lift it slowly to your head and brush your hair. Feel your arm moving all the way as you do this in your mind's eye. Feel your hand pulling the brush through your hair over and over, without actually moving. This is constructive imagination (fantasy or visualization) only.

Finally, return the imaginary brush to the imaginary table.

You must feel all these movements as you construct them in your mind's eye. Do not try to see this happening, imagine and feel it happening. If may help if you consider that you are using your projected double's arms and hands to perform these actions.

You have just successfully created a construction of pure imagination (a complex fantasy or visualization) in your mind's eye. Any visualization or imagination exercise, no matter how lengthy or detailed, is simply an extension of what you have just done in these two exercises.

One last constructive imagination exercise: with your eyes closed, remember what it feels like to walk barefoot across a beautiful lawn on a lovely sunny day, with trees and shrubs and flowers all around you. Construct this from your memories in your mind's eye, and ^/yourself as being there inside your creation. Remember a time when you actually did something like this, or remember a scene from a movie you can use for this purpose.

Feel yourself walking across the lawn toward a massive ancient tree with heavy leafy branches hanging down all around it. Some of these branches are touching the ground. Imagine the tree becoming bigger and bigger as you approach it. Walking through a small break in the branches, you now move into the restful shade under its leafy boughs. You find yourself standing inside a secret clearing behind the branches.

You can smell the living wood and leaves of the tree, intermingled with soft, earthy smells like moss, bark, decaying leaves, and damp earth.

Walking around closer to the great bole of the ancient trunk, you see the shape of a comfortable chair carved into the wood and massive roots of the tree. Soft green moss is everywhere and you can feel its friendly touch underfoot. Moving over to it, you sit in this chair and relax. Leaning back, hands clasped behind your head, you close your eyes and listen and feel and smell the secret world around you.

You hear the wind gently whispering and murmuring through the branches. You hear small birds fluttering and fluting and insects humming and buzzing all around you, calling and chirping softly to each other. Sit here a while, feeling totally relaxed and at peace with the world, letting all your cares and problems melt away into nothingness.

You have just successfully constructed a detailed fantasy scene in your mind's eye. This was full of actions, sights, sounds, smells, and tactile perceptions, based entirely on your memory and imagination. This is exactly what you need to do when you follow any led meditation, where a voice leads you through a fantasy scenario while music and special effects help stimulate your imagination and transport your mind there.

You don't actually see what you are visualizing or imagining, but you can generate a detailed mind's-eye perception of it all the same.
 

Non-sighted Adjustment
If you are blind and cannot imagine in a sighted way, please convert the exercises in this book into more tactile imagination exercises by replacing the colors, scenes, and sighted descriptions with something from your own non-sighted memory.

Use your remembered perceptions of a lovely walk taken in a park and adapt the exercise to suit. Enhance all exercises like this to take into account enhanced perceptions of sound, smell, texture, taste, and spatial awareness. This can easily be done with any constructive imagination or visualization exercise, and can also be done with any led meditation containing sighted details or instructions.

Note: Some of these early exercises may cause slight feelings of vertigo or localized dizziness in the stomach and lower chest areas, and even some bone-deep tickling sensations in the arms and legs.

Many of these exercises move a point of body awareness outside the bounds of the physical body, which tends to affect the etheric body and often causes energy-movement sensations.

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