Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Powering Up
A stepwise solo method: choose one specific intention, get into a focused peak state, state it with all five senses and emotion, mentally rehearse it as done, then let it go.
Pick one specific intention. Spend ~5 minutes relaxing into a calm, focused peak state. Hold the outcome with all five senses and real feeling. Mentally rehearse it as already done. State it clearly — then let it go. The reliable payoff is your focus, motivation and rehearsal; it is not a remote control on the world, and never a substitute for care or action.
What it is
In The Intention Experiment (2007), Lynne McTaggart distils her reading of the intention literature into a practical personal routine she calls “Powering Up” — the way to get yourself into an effective state before sending an intention.
She summarises the key elements as: powering up, reaching a state of peak intensity, developing mindfulness, merging with the object, being compassionate, and stating the intention specifically. This entry presents the solo, this-worldly version of that routine: a structured sequence of relaxation, vivid multisensory rehearsal, feeling, and release.
The companion heart-and-merging step is treated separately (see Cross-links); here the spine is choose → focus → state with the senses → rehearse → let go.
The Method
Step 1 — Choose one specific intention.
Decide on a single, clearly defined aim. McTaggart stresses specificity: vague intentions scatter; name exactly what you want. Step 2 — Power up into a peak, focused state. Take several minutes (in her online experiments, about five) to relax deeply and become mindful — a quiet, “alpha,” meditative state of “peak intensity” in which your ordinary chatter quiets and attention narrows to the intention. Step 3 — State the intention with all five senses. Hold the desired outcome in mind using every sense — see it, hear it, feel it, even smell and taste it — so the picture is vivid and immersive rather than a flat thought. Step 4 — Charge it with emotion. Engage feeling — desire, conviction, and (in her framing) compassion and gratitude — so the intention is felt, not merely pictured. McTaggart treats emotional intensity as part of what makes an intention “powered up.” Step 5 — Mentally rehearse it as already accomplished. Run the outcome through like a film in which it has already happened, drawing on the evidence that mental rehearsal can train the mind much as physical practice trains the body. Step 6 — State it clearly, then let it go. Frame the intention plainly and specifically — and then release it. McTaggart explicitly pairs stating the intention with letting go of the outcome rather than gripping it.
Source & Lineage
The routine is McTaggart’s synthesis in The Intention Experiment (2007), drawing on meditation research, sports-psychology mental-rehearsal studies, and the “Zero Point Field” interconnection thesis of her earlier The Field (2001).
Its mechanics overlap heavily with mainstream visualisation and mental-rehearsal practice; its distinctive wrapper is the claim that a properly “powered up” intention can act on external targets — a claim her own (contested, mixed) experiments were built to test and did not settle.
Common refinements
Skipping the power-up. Stating an intention while distracted skips the part that actually does the work.
- Thinking it instead of sensing it. A flat mental sentence is far weaker than full five-senses, emotionally charged imagery.
- Gripping the outcome. Forgetting Step 6 turns it into anxious wanting; the release is part of the method.
- Expecting it to move the world directly. Use it to sharpen your focus, motivation and action, not as a remote control on events.
- Refinement: pair it with concrete follow-through — intention plus action — rather than treating the session as sufficient on its own.