10.5 Exercises in Mental Command

Exercise 15. You will by now have discovered that you are able to call up images far more easily than you could before, and that the mind no longer wanders away so wilfully as it used to do. The next step is to make a series of experiments in calling up images bodily and complete before the mind. For this purpose you will probably find that repetition of the name of the object is necessary at first. Suppose that you have been using a portrait in one of the foregoing exercises. Now, with your eyes closed, look into empty space and mentally call out the name of the person depicted, repeating it again and again and trying to discern the form. Suddenly it will spring up before your mental vision, and the complete picture will present itself in idea or in form.

Vary this exercise with the practice of ``transformations'', somewhat as follows. There is a paper-knife on the table. Shut your eyes and imagine it. Convert it gradually into a pen. Change its form gradually into a statuette of a horse - it has thickened, shortened, curved itself, sprouted legs and tail, modified one end to a head. Modify this into a human statue. Now let it become a pagoda, a tower, a fountain, a tree and so on. Make the transformations as slowly as possible, and try to avoid any abruptness or jerkiness in the thought-stream.