Developing willpower

by A. Likhanov

Developing willpower A. Likhanov from the book "The Tablets of the Magician or a Guide to the Development of Psychic Abilities"

Will can affect the course of ideas, feelings, and other psychic emotions. It is also found in physical body movements. The first act of willpower will be internal, and the second will be external. The main condition for the development of willpower is its exercise, that is, the performance of volitional acts. Essential for the act of will is the feeling of effort that accompanies it. Physical exercise develops external will-action, and psychical exercise develops internal will-action. Gymnastic exercises, doing any work of an uninteresting nature strongly develop the will. The following exercises to strengthen will are based on this principle.

1) Mix together a handful of different seeds (hemp, sunflowers, etc.), and then, straining your will, sort them out into varieties.

2) Every day, at a fixed time, for 2-3 minutes, try to draw circles with one hand and squares with the other. This exercise serves both for focusing attention and for concentrating will.

3) Go through the rosary, counting at the same time to 100, 200, etc.

4) Having taken a comfortable position, repeat in an undertone or mentally some word, for example, the sacred syllable "Om", without stopping or distraction, overcoming fatigue and laziness.

You need to do these exercises at first for 5 minutes, and then increase their duration to 15 minutes. The last exercise should be done as long as possible, as it not only develops willpower, but also promotes concentration. These exercises are not done all at once, but one at a time. Once you've learned the first exercise (which takes about 1-2 weeks), move on to the second, then the third, and so on.
A variety of techniques are used to develop willpower. The fakirs sit motionless and hold their raised arms until they become numb. Christian and other ascetics use other methods, for example, they put a certain number of prostrations to the ground or read any prayer several thousand times a day, stand motionless on a stone, take a vow of silence, etc. It is true that both explain their actions by different motives, however, in essence, all these actions boil down to strengthening the will.

Exercises for the development of will are found in life at every step, you just need to be able to use them. Still, here are some examples that can serve as models for other exercises.

1) When you feel like talking, silence yourself.

2) If someone has offended you, restrain yourself.

3) Force yourself to do unpleasant work conscientiously and attentively, without irritation.

4) Try to refuse food for a day or more.

5) Try not to drink anything for a day.

6) If you smoke, stop smoking.

7) Stop drinking wine, coffee, etc.

Come up with such exercises yourself and try to constantly exercise your will, that is, do some exercise daily related to the development of the will. When inventing exercises, you need to remember that the whole point of developing will is to do what you don't want to do, and not do what would be nice. It is necessary to strengthen the will so that it does not obey sensual impulses, while acting at the same time under the influence of motives of an exclusively rational nature. This will is the key to many of the phenomena of fakirism.

 From the "Isida" magazine 

Translated by Eric Midnight, 2020 

The text was prepared by the Teurgia.Org team, 2020