spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

visualization

The difference between visualization and experiential embodiment

One of the problems I see occasionally in occult literature and conversation is that a given term will be used to try and describe a wide range of experiences that may not fit that term. For example the term visualization is sometimes used to describe sensory experiences that aren’t visually based. It’s a convenient term because its meant to describe an experience you’re having, but the problem is that the focus on the visual and on the sense of sight influences the understanding of that term.

If I use the word visualization to describe a magical working, what I’m typically describing is an experience where the visual component of the experience takes priority. For example, if I’m doing a pathworking, I might visualize specific imagery that is used to create the environment I’m going to work in. Visualization has become a more prevalent technique, in part, because of visual media and the role it plays in our everyday lives.

The role of visualization in magical work

I discuss the role of visualization in magical work and what the advantages and disadvantages of visualization are as well as how to use it effectively in your magical work.

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Visualization usually isn't

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One of the things I read constantly in magical, occult, meditative, and other works is the need to "visualize" things.  One visualized light, or deities, or anything else.  When it comes to mental and magical work, visualize is pretty high in the buzzword bingo game. Visualization is of course very important as any meditator and magician can tell you, but I find that it's one of those words that's misunderstood and often misused.

When the term "visualization" comes up (when it's not being thrown around casually), it usually seems to mean one doesn't just imagine the site of something, but feels something intensely - site, sound, smell, etc.  One is not "observing" what is to be visualized passively, but is intimately involved with it as if it is a real object.  In my own writing I tend to think o fit as "feeling" an object or image.

Unfortunately, more and more I encounter people that think visualizing really is just conjuring up a visual image.  It's pale, context-less, and uninvolving for the most part.  We can let a thousand images pass before our inner eye and not feel any connection to them - and connection is what magic and meditation is all about.

I think the term "visualization" wormed its way into common usage simply because humans are visual creatures, and the term itself is convenient for the act of actively conjuring up an image.  Unfortunately it's too easy to take the term literally.

Now that being said, ask yourself what other commonly used words aren't actually as useful as they may seem in occultism . . .