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When I first started magick, I learned new skills by practicing. A lot.
Then, I met some spirits, and a few other mages, and I learned skills by having them demonstrate, trying to copy, and practicing. A lot.
These things too so much practice because, before I could even learn the technique, I had to awaken the mental muscles in charge of the task. And awakening mental muscles by trying to use them is slow.
These days, I awaken the mental muscles first, then practice using them. The awakening technique can range from focused practice to advanced direct magick, but the point is: Awaken the mental muscles first, and only then worry about using them to perform a specific technique. It’s much faster.
So, here’s what I do when I want to learn a new skill:
1. Find the mental muscles, usually by trying to do the skill. Alternately, skilled spirits can sometimes show me the required muscles.
2. Awaken the mental muscles, connect them to thinking mind. (I explain some techniques here.)
3. Use the new muscles until they’re fully awake and used to moving. Think of this as strength and coordination training for athletes.
4. Get a little training. Mostly, I just want to be shown the major pieces I’ll be working with.
5. Look at those pieces until it stops being tiring. This usually takes an afternoon.
Now that I have the mental muscles awake, and I’m used to using them to find and look at the major parts I’ll use in the technique, I’m ready to learn the actual technique. I find that doing this is much faster than just trying to learn the technique from step 1, and also less frustrating, because I have a series of minor successes, rather than a string of failed attempts at a technique while my mental muscles wake up.
If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.Tags: Learning Magick, Mental Muscles
When you use your “awaken” mental muscles, you make a relation with a mental posture to do it, or actually pass energy through the areas of the mental muscles which do that task, or just practice the task after the “awake”?
Good question. I do mental posture in step 3, where I use the new mental muscles until it’s comfortable. To actually awaken them, you can either do focused practice or use energy. I discuss both in the series.