Conway's Moon Breathing

Conway gives breathing as a preparatory drill done before visualization or ritual. Faithful reconstruction of the practice:

1. Settle into a quiet space and a comfortable posture. Sit upright with the spine easy, or lie down — Conway wants the body able to relax completely without slumping into sleep. Loosen tight clothing.
2. Let the body soften first. Release obvious tension (shoulders, jaw, hands). Conway pairs breath with bodily relaxation — the breath leads the body into calm.
3. Breathe slowly, evenly, and rhythmically. The essence of Moon Breathing is a steady, unhurried rhythm — smooth, quiet breaths of roughly equal length, without jerks or gasps. Conway emphasises managing the breath into an even cadence rather than breathing forcefully.
4. Establish a counted cadence. Use a slow mental count to keep the rhythm regular — a comfortable, equal count on the in-breath and the out-breath (with, in some versions, a brief even pause between), so the whole cycle becomes smooth and metronomic. Keep it gentle; never strain for length.
5. Breathe low and quiet. The breath should be soft and drawn from the belly/diaphragm, barely audible — a calming breath, not an athletic one.
6. Let attention rest on the rhythm. As the breathing steadies, let the mind settle onto the cadence itself; this both deepens calm and begins the inward turning of attention needed for visualization.
7. Continue until the body is calm and the mind is still but alert. A few minutes is usually enough. The target is the relaxed-yet-wakeful state — body quiet, mind clear and receptive — which Conway makes the launch point for the visualization or ritual that follows. (Sourcing note: Conway names and prescribes rhythmic “Moon Breathing” as relaxation/preparation before visualization in Magic: An Occult Primer. The slow-even-rhythmic-counted character is faithfully described; precise counts are a practical reconstruction in Conway’s spirit, as he stresses an even, managed rhythm rather than a single fixed number. Verify exact wording in the book.)

Magic: An Occult Primer (David Conway, 1972) systematised practical magical training for the modern reader. Its breathing instruction draws on the long traffic between Western occultism and yogic prāṇāyāma that runs through the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, and writers like Dion Fortune and Israel Regardie, who all taught rhythmic breath as a preparation for concentration and visualization.

The lunar/solar polarity Conway invokes is a staple of that hermetic-yogic synthesis. →David Conway.

Yogic prāṇāyāma (e.g. nāḍī-śodhana, sama-vritti) — the direct ancestor: paced, even, often counted breathing to calm and balance. → prāṇāyāma entries.

• Golden Dawn / Regardie rhythmic breathing — breath as preparation for skrying and ritual.
• Coherent / resonance breathing (modern) — the evidence-based secular cousin: slow ~5–6 breaths/min for autonomic calm.
• Zen / mindfulness breath-counting — resting attention on a counted breath to still the mind.
• Conway’s own relaxation and visualization drills — the practices Moon Breathing exists to prepare.

Breathing too hard or too deep. Moon Breathing is soft, slow, and quiet. Forceful or fast breathing causes lightheadedness and defeats the purpose (and is not the same as deliberate hyperventilation practices).

• An uneven, jerky rhythm. Smoothness and evenness are the active ingredients; ragged breathing keeps arousal up.
• Straining for long counts. Keep counts comfortable; competitive breath-holding creates tension. Lengthen only gradually, never to strain.
• Skipping it before visualization. Conway treats this as the doorway; jumping into imagery with an agitated body yields unstable results.
• Chest-only breathing. Let the breath be low and diaphragmatic for the calming effect.