Ritual Meditation
Meditation is used quite a lot in most areas of magick, it is basically the total relaxation of the mind and body to attune your senses to the world your in. When it comes to Magick it changes slightly as it is then used as a tool,to increase energy charge sigils amongst others but more commonly to enter the crossroads, a state of mind with increased brain waves enough to enter a specific state. It is referred to as many things but E.A.Koetting refers to it as the Theta Gamma sync or Rapture state.
The cross roads essentially is the place between two worlds, where the world you are in blurs and is overlaid or transfigured by another. In this place of spiritual reality, reality itself collides with the magician, not only altering the world around them but also heightening the magicians senses, giving the ability to see, commune with and summon other entities or manifestations.
What Ritual meditation does require is a daily practice of meditation to attune your body to the feeling and discipline of being totally relaxed and to do it when needed.. Now meditation like anything else is a discipline that must be practised to get anything out of it worthwhile. So to begin meditation you need to be free from distractions and to do this you need a few basic things, Firstly you need to be in a place away from any interruptions from people, noise , smells anything which might draw your attention too much. Secondly you need to wear loose fitting comfy clothing, so as not to make you fidget too much or make you too hot or cold you need to be at your ideal temperature. Finally you need to get into a comfy position, this can be sitting down or laying down or kneeling whichever suits you the best.
Start by breathing in and out, in and out, drawing all your attention to your breaths, notice you chest rising and falling as you do and begin to count your breaths, keeping them nice and slow and steady. Empty your head of all thoughts, feelings and emotions, and just be one with yourself,when you are at the most relaxed you can be you are meditating, the key is keeping your focus for a period of time. At the start do a little every day and slowly increase it for example start at like 5 minutes every day for first two weeks and then when comfortable increase to 10 minutes, then to twenty and so on and so forth till you do about an hour. I wouldn't go any longer than an hour as it becomes very difficult to do this daily. There is also different types of meditation, if you do it as stated it is called self guided meditation, if you listen to music or follow a persons voice it is called guided meditation and if you concentrate on a specific object or idea or ritual it is focused meditation, highly used in Magick. After you have mastered this basic form of meditation you can adapt it into your magick which allows you to perform divination, clairvoyancy, invocation, evocation, astral travel and many more rituals.
To get into the crossroads, which will then allow you to leave your physical form and interact with other worlds and beings you will need to take this deeper. I find being outside is easier for this at the start. Begin your meditation as before but at the pinnacle of your relaxation begin to sink deeper and deeper within yourself, go as deep as you feel comfortable going and find yourself in a completely serene state, keep breathing and open your eyes to view your surroundings feel them as a place of wonder and non mundane. As you inhale and exhale feel the energy of the world flowing through you, in and out, in and out. Focus all your attention on a spot comfortably in the distance without straining your eyes until you begin to see a mist or grey rain in front of your eyes. Immediately switch your attention to a spot just off from your original point, this will enter you into a trance like state known as the theta gamma sync. Practice may be required to achieve this. Still breathing and maintaining the sync begin to see the other world appearing over the top of your world, merging into one another. A sense of equilibrium will be present, don’t panic just keep breathing and maintaining the state. This is the crossroads where the magick truly comes to form and you can now perform the afore mentioned topics.
Learning techniques such as these are not easy but the benefits are great and will really advance your magickal practices, the key is to stick at it and never give up as people develop quicker than others but in my opinion everyone has the ability to perform magick locked away within them, they just need to find the key.
