Imagination · “Feel It Real”
The Nuptive-Moment Prayer
Impress one clearly-defined desire on the soul/subconscious by holding it as a vivid, silent, felt-as-real image at the instant of the most intense emotional–physiological feeling, when (Randolph held) the mind is most open and the impression most deeply set.
Nuptive-moment prayer (core principle): Decide ONE desire in advance, clearly and concretely; carry it silently through the build-up holding calm will (Volantia) and the settled decree (Decretism). The image must precede the peak. At the instant of supreme, sincere feeling, impress the desire as already real. Then release into receptivity (Posism). Consenting adults only; never coercive; calm conviction, not strain; sober.
What it is
This is Paschal Beverly Randolph’s signature and most historically influential teaching: the idea that there is a single moment of supreme emotional and physiological intensity at which the human mind/soul stands wide open, and that a clearly-defined desire, held silently and vividly as already real at that instant, is impressed with extraordinary depth.
In Randolph’s own system the peak moment is sexual — the “nuptive moment” of (ideally simultaneous) orgasm — and he taught that a prayer or willed image carried into that instant is set deep in the soul. Stripped to its transmissible psychological core, the principle is broader and is the seed of all later “moment of intense feeling” / “charge-and-release” magic: a pre-formulated, single, emotionally-loaded image impressed at the apex of an intense, altered state. Randolph’s contribution — introducing erotic alchemy to North America — made this the founding template of modern Western sex magic.
The Method
From Eulis! and the Eulian material (presented here in its faithful structure, with the secular core foregrounded):
- Formulate ONE desire, clearly, in advance. Randolph: “the end sought, the power coveted, or the thing desired must be clearly defined in each mind.” This is done beforehand and “kept in mind during the whole period.” You arrive with the wish already sharp and single — never improvised in the moment.
- Hold it across the whole build-up — silently. The desire is carried in mind throughout. In the formal working, no word is spoken; “the thing desired [is] strongly thought,” with Randolph’s three principles enforced together — Volantia (calm will), Decretism (the settled decree that it shall be), and Posism (receptivity).
- The prayer/image must PRECEDE the peak. Randolph is explicit: “the prayer must precede” the moment. You do not start formulating at the apex — you carry the already-formed, felt image up to it.
- At the instant of supreme feeling — impress it. At the “nuptive moment” — the peak of intense, holy, affectional feeling (in his system, simultaneous orgasm) — the held desire is impressed with the full force of that state. Randolph’s claim: “whatsoever male or female shall truly will for, hopefully pray for, and earnestly yearn for, when love, pure and holy, is in the nuptive ascendant. that prayer will be granted.” The image is held as already true, not as a strained wish.
- Then release into receptivity (Posism). After the impression, sink into the quiet, open, receptive state — having decreed, you cease willing and let it be “received.” The arc is: define → carry → decree → peak-impress → release.
- Purity of intent and mutuality. Randolph framed the moment as holy, requiring sincere, “pure” feeling, and (in the partnered form) the genuine shared participation and orgasm of both people — not one person using another. (Sourcing note: the quoted phrases — “clearly defined,” “the prayer must precede,” “whatsoever male or female shall truly will for. that prayer will be granted,” and the Volantia/Decretism/Posism enforcement — are Randolph’s documented teaching. The non-sexual peak-feeling generalisation is an honest extraction of the underlying psychological principle; Randolph’s own working is sexual. Authorship of parts of the later Magia Sexualis is disputed, with material likely added by translator Maria de Naglowska — so primary weight rests on Eulis!.)
Source & Lineage
Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875) set out this teaching as the heart of Eulis / the Ansairetic Arcanum, his system of erotic alchemy — he “may have been the first to introduce the principles of erotic alchemy to North America.” Its lineage is direct and large: it shaped the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Theodor Reuss / early O.T.O., Aleister Crowley’s sexual magick (and the related “eroto-comatose lucidity”), and Maria de Naglowska’s circle.
The generalised principle — impress a single clear image at a moment of maximum emotional/physiological intensity, then release — recurs throughout 20th-century practical magic (e.g. “gnosis” and charge-and-release in later chaos magic) and rhymes with the New Thought emphasis on feeling the wish as real (The Inner Creates the Outer). → (Paschal Beverly Randolph node).
The Traditions' versions
Neville’s “feeling it real” / SATS — impress a single, defined scene felt as already true; here the “receptive state” is drowsy pre-sleep rather than peak arousal, but the imprint-by-feeling logic is the same.
- Charge-and-release (later magic) — raise intensity, impress the sigil/image at the peak, release. Randolph is the ancestor. - Decretism + Posism — the decree at the moment, then receptive surrender; this practice is the two combined at maximum charge.,
- High-affect memory consolidation (psychology) — emotionally/arousal-charged moments are encoded more strongly; the supported analogue of “the impression is set deep.”
- Coué’s law of reversed effort — the image is held as real, not strained for; forcing breaks it.
Common refinements
Formulating at the peak instead of before. Randolph’s explicit warning: the prayer/image must precede and be carried in. Scrambling for a wish at the apex fails.
- Vague or multiple desires. As with Decretism — one, clearly defined. The intensity amplifies whatever is held, so it must be a single, clean image.
- Straining at the moment. The image is held as already real and then released; clenched effort breaks the impression (reversed effort). Calm conviction, not force.
- Skipping release (Posism). Decree-and-cling keeps you in wanting; the arc ends in receptivity.
- Treating arousal as the goal. The state is the vehicle for impressing a pre-formed intention, not the point in itself.
- Coercion or using a partner. Randolph required mutual, sincere, “holy” participation. Any non-consensual, manipulative, or one-sided use violates both ethics and his own framing.