Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Florence Farr's Will-Power Concentration
To train and direct the will by forming a single vivid mental image, gathering scattered thought into one concentrated point of force, and holding it steadily — the foundation of every later act of magical concentration.
Farr’s will drill in 5 lines: First study the feel of will — hot, red, single-pointed. Refrain until you understand; never aim it at another person. Then: build one vivid mental image of your aim, imagine your thought streaming out as rays, pull every ray back onto that single image, and compress it into one glowing scarlet ball of concentrated force. Hold it steady. Use it to focus your own intention — then act.
What it is
Florence Farr — actress, Golden Dawn Praemonstratrix, and one of the Order’s most respected practical magicians — wrote a short instructional paper, Flying Roll No.
II, Part III, “Three Suggestions on Will Power.” In it she teaches will as a trainable faculty of concentrated imagination: you form one clear mental image, gather every “wandering ray” of your thought onto it, and compress that scattered attention into a single, intensely vivid, glowing point.
Stripped of its colour-magic frame, this is a precise single-pointed concentration and vivid-imagery drill — the root skill behind all the Order’s later visionary and ritual work. Notably, two of her three “suggestions” are cautions, not techniques: she taught restraint as part of the method.
The Method
Farr’s paper gives three “suggestions.” The first two are conditions; the third is the actual exercise. Suggestion 1 — Study the nature of will-force first (know before you do). Farr ties will to the red/Mars/Geburah/Fire/Aries column of the Golden Dawn correspondences (the Minutum Mundi scheme): “Mars, Geburah, Fire, Aries, each expressive of the will force on different planes, are all red in colour.” The practical takeaway for a modern user: will has a felt quality — hot, red, forceful, single-directed — and you should first study and recognise that quality in yourself before trying to wield it.
Suggestion 2 — Refrain until you understand; never force another’s will. Her own words: “Until we know we must refrain from doing.” She warns against applying will-force to other people, especially the uninitiated, because forcing another’s will sets loose consequences you cannot control.
This is a built-in ethical brake — restraint is part of the practice, not an afterthought. Suggestion 3 — The exercise: gather your thought into one glowing ball of force. This is the doable core, in steps:
- Form a clear mental image of what you desire. Pick one single, definite object of attention — a goal, an outcome, a quality. Build it as vividly as you can in the mind’s eye.
- Imagine your head radiating thought outward as rays. Farr’s image: your scattered thinking streams out of you in all directions like rays of light.
- Concentrate all the wandering rays onto the single image. Pull every stray thought-ray inward and aim it at the one image — “concentrate all your wandering rays of thought upon this image.”
- Compress it into one glowing scarlet ball of compacted force. Keep gathering and condensing until the image becomes, in her words, “one glowing scarlet ball of compacted force” — a single, dense, red-hot point of total concentration.
- Hold it steady — then (in her schema) project it toward its object. Maintain the concentrated ball without wavering. Farr’s instruction was then to direct that compacted force toward the intended end. (Sourcing note: the three-suggestion structure, the red/Mars/Geburah will-force correspondence, “Until we know we must refrain from doing,” and the “glowing scarlet ball of compacted force” are from Farr’s Flying Roll No. II, Part III. Steps are faithful paraphrase of her wording.)
Source & Lineage
Florence Farr (1860–1917) — Soror Sapientia Sapienti Dono Data (“S.S.D.D.”) — was initiated into the Isis-Urania Temple of the Golden Dawn in 1890 and became Praemonstratrix (chief instructing officer) by the mid-1890s. → (Golden Dawn / occultists).
The Flying Rolls were confidential teaching papers circulated among the Second Order (R.R. et A.C.); Farr authored several, including this one on will power, Flying Roll IV on spirit vision, and Flying Roll XIII on Hermetic love.
Her will-concentration drill descends from the broader Western magical tradition of attention as the engine of magic and feeds forward into Dion Fortune, modern ceremonial magic, and the wider New Thought/creative-visualisation stream that also prizes a single vivid held image.
The Traditions' versions
Creative visualisation / New Thought — hold one vivid mental picture of the desired end; near-identical to step 1 and 4, minus the colour coding.
- Concentration (dharana) in yoga — fixing the mind single-pointedly on one object; the contemplative root of Farr’s exercise.
- Tratak / candle gazing — gathering scattered attention to a single point.
- Coué’s autosuggestion — by contrast, effortless and general; Farr’s method is effortful and pointed — a useful counter-case.
- Golden Dawn “vibration” and ritual concentration — the same gathered, intensified attention applied within ceremonial form.
Common refinements
Letting the image stay vague. The power is in one sharply defined picture, not a cloud of wishes.
- Straining the eyes/body. The gathering is mental; tension defeats it. Concentrate, don’t clench.
- Multiplying objects. Farr’s instruction is singular — one image, one ball. Splitting attention dissolves the effect.
- Skipping the cautions. Farr made restraint suggestions 1 and 2 on purpose. “Until we know we must refrain from doing” is part of the technique, not preamble.
- Mistaking it for action. The held image primes intention; it does not replace doing the thing. Use it before you act, not instead of acting.
- Aiming it at people. Don’t. It’s unethical, Farr forbade it, and there’s no evidence it does anything to them anyway.