The working library
The Practices
2,025 ways the wise have worked the mind — imagination, stillness, attention, breath, release, ritual. Each laid out in full, with its source and lineage.
2,025 practices · 11 families
Level
Imagination · 178
“Feel It Real”
Imagination · Beginner
Emotionalized Mental Rehearsal
Daily, vividly rehearse the desired outcome using all the senses plus strong emotion, so the brain treats the…
John Assaraf
Imagination · Beginner
Time Travel & Archetypes
Use imagination and soft intent to revisit a past event and shift its felt charge, or to invoke an archetype/q…
Richard Bartlett
Imagination · Beginner
Behrend's Mental Picture
Form one clear, detailed mental picture of the desired thing or condition as an already-existing fact, and hol…
Genevieve Behrend
Imagination · Intermediate
Believe in Imaginal Acts as Facts
Help another person into a desired state (a job, health, a partner) by inwardly representing them as already t…
Neville Goddard
Imagination · Intermediate
Building a Thought-Form
To use the mind’s image-making power to build a single clear, definite, sustained mental image — well-formed,…
Annie Besant
Imagination · Intermediate
The Art of Memory
Build an inner architecture of ordered places and store vivid, emotionally striking images in them — to rememb…
Giordano Bruno
Stillness · 345
“Stillness Reveals”
Stillness · Intermediate
Centering in the Gap
To rest attention in the interval (madhya) between two breaths, two thoughts, or two experiences, where the su…
Abhinavagupta
Stillness · Advanced
Tzeruf
To free the mind from ordinary forms and images by systematically combining and permuting the Hebrew letters,…
Abraham Abulafia
Stillness · Beginner
Constant Name-Remembrance
Keep the flow of a chosen Divine Name running through the mind as often as possible — ‘to repeat His Name is t…
Anandamayi Ma
Stillness · Beginner
Three Magic Words
Relax the body deeply, withdraw from the senses, and silently realize the ‘three magic words’ — that the deepe…
U.S. Andersen
Stillness · Intermediate
Silence of the Mind
Establish inner silence by ceasing to identify with thoughts — letting them run to a standstill, refusing them…
Sri Aurobindo
Stillness · Intermediate
Occult Meditation & the Great Invocation
To align the personality with the soul through staged mental meditation, then invoke and ‘distribute’ spiritua…
Alice Bailey
Attention & Focus · 154
“You Become What You Hold”
Attention & Focus · Advanced
Untying the Knots
To use the letter-work to progressively detach the mind from sensory thought and material attachment — ‘untyin…
Abraham Abulafia
Attention & Focus · Beginner
Anapanasati (Mindfulness of Breathing)
To anchor attention on the natural breath as a gateway to calm, clarity, and insight.
Gautama Buddha
Attention & Focus · Beginner
Goal Clarity + the RAS Focus Practice
Write clear, specific goals and review them daily so that deliberate focus ‘sets’ the reticular activating sys…
John Assaraf
Attention & Focus · Beginner
Innercise
Use a short calming-breath reset to lower stress arousal, then an Awareness–Intention–Action loop to interrupt…
John Assaraf
Attention & Focus · Beginner
Listening for Insight
To listen to others and to life with a quiet, receptive mind—listening for a fresh feeling or realization rath…
Sydney Banks
Attention & Focus · Beginner
Concentration
To make the wandering mind one-pointed by fixing the attention on a single chosen image and steadily checking…
Annie Besant
Affirmation · 210
“The Subconscious Says Yes”
Affirmation · Beginner
Affirmations
To deliberately repeat short, positive, present-tense statements to shift habitual self-talk, belief, and self…
Catherine Ponder
Affirmation · Intermediate
Atkinson's Dynamic Mentation
Set a definite, energized mental ‘vibration’ by concentrated will and repeated affirmation, so that the domina…
William Walker Atkinson
Affirmation · Beginner
Remembrance of the Beloved
Keep God continually present in the heart by repeating the divine Name or the testimony of faith — but driven…
Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār
Affirmation · Intermediate
Bailes' Seven-Step Mental Treatment
Heal a condition by building and holding, wholly in one’s own mind, a clear ‘mental equivalent’ of the perfect…
Frederick W. Bailes
Affirmation · Beginner
Om Namah Shivaya
Keep Shiva in continual remembrance by repeating ‘Om Namah Shivaya,’ carrying devotion wherever one goes — bec…
Basava
Affirmation · Beginner
Behrend's Daily Sitting
Keep a fixed daily regimen — a dawn breathing-and-affirmation sitting plus timed periods of ‘steady recognitio…
Genevieve Behrend
Emotional Release · 88
“Die to Be Reborn”
Emotional Release · Beginner
The Focus Wheel
Shift the emotional set-point on a chosen subject from resistance to relief by writing a series of progressive…
Esther & Jerry Hicks
Emotional Release · Beginner
Simcha & Hitlahavut
Serve God in gladness rather than gloom — meeting prayer and daily life with deliberate joy (simcha) and warm…
Israel ben Eliezer (the Baal Shem Tov)
Emotional Release · Intermediate (best with a trained therapist; some exercises self-usable)
Bioenergetics (Bioenergetic Analysis)
To release chronic muscular tension (‘character armor’) and free blocked emotional energy through breath, move…
Alexander Lowen
Emotional Release · Beginner
RAIN of Self-Compassion
To meet a difficult emotion with mindful, compassionate presence in four steps — Recognize, Allow, Investigate…
Tara Brach
Emotional Release · Intermediate
Integrating the Emotional Charge
When triggered, recognize the upset as old suppressed ‘emotional charge’ resurfacing, take responsibility for…
Michael Brown
Emotional Release · Beginner to follow; emotionally demanding
The Completion Process (Teal Swan)
To heal trauma by deliberately re-entering and ‘feeling fully’ a painful emotion/memory from a safe inner sanc…
Teal Swan
Breath & Energy · 114
“Breath Is the Bridge”
Breath & Energy · Advanced
Hokhmat ha-Tzeruf
To vocalize letter-permutations with specific breaths, vowel-sounds, and coordinated head-movements in order t…
Abraham Abulafia
Breath & Energy · beginner
Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana)
To calm the nervous system, balance and steady the mind, and prepare for meditation by breathing slowly throug…
Classical hatha yoga / prana…
Breath & Energy · advanced
Astral Projection
Deliberately induce an out-of-body experience — the vivid sense of consciousness separating from and moving in…
Robert Monroe
Breath & Energy · Beginner
The Two-Point
Sense one point of ‘stuckness’ in self or another, find a second point that feels connected, hold both lightly…
Richard Bartlett
Breath & Energy · Beginner — safe and accessible
Box Breathing (Four-Square / Tactical Breathing)
Down-regulate the nervous system and restore calm focus under stress through slow, equal-ratio breathing.
Popularised in modern form b…
Breath & Energy · Intermediate
Brennan Healing
To perceive a person’s ‘energy field’ / chakras via ‘high sense perception’ and then, by hands-on or hands-nea…
Barbara Brennan
Inquiry · 302
“You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Inquiry · Advanced
Recognition of the Perceiver
To recognize the aware ‘I’ (aham) that shines in every act of perception — turning attention from the perceive…
Abhinavagupta
Inquiry · Intermediate–Advanced (powerful; needs grounding)
Active Imagination (Jung)
To consciously dialogue with autonomous inner figures (the unconscious) — letting images and ‘others’ in the p…
Carl Jung
Inquiry · Beginner
Disidentification
To loosen one’s automatic identification with body, feelings, and thoughts, and rest instead as the ‘I’ — a ce…
Roberto Assagioli
Inquiry · Intermediate
Locating Your Valley
Use ʿAṭṭār’s seven valleys as a diagnostic map of the inner path — honestly recognising which ‘valley’ one is…
Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār
Inquiry · Intermediate
The Halls of Memory
To explore the vast interior of one’s own memory and inner life as the field where self-knowledge and the pres…
Augustine of Hippo
Inquiry · Intermediate
The Inward Turn
To withdraw attention from the outer world into the soul’s interior, and then to pass beyond even the self tow…
Augustine of Hippo
Surrender · 151
“Let Go to Receive”
Surrender · Intermediate
Tonglen
To cultivate compassion and dissolve self-protective grasping by reversing the ordinary instinct: breathing IN…
Atisha (Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna)
Surrender · Advanced
Fanāʾ
Loosen identification with the separate ego-self so that the boundary between seeker and Sought is seen to fal…
Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār
Surrender · Beginner
Restless-Heart Prayer
To recognize the restless longing beneath all desire and re-direct it, as a prayer of the heart, toward God as…
Augustine of Hippo
Surrender · Intermediate
Consecration of Works
Turn everyday work itself into yoga by changing its motive — doing each action not for the ego’s gain but as a…
Sri Aurobindo
Surrender · Intermediate
The Triple Labour
Make the one personal effort Aurobindo asks of the sadhak — aspire steadily toward the Divine, reject the lowe…
Sri Aurobindo
Surrender · advanced
Ayahuasca Ceremony
Enter a deep, often cathartic non-ordinary state via the ayahuasca brew to surrender to and release psychologi…
Indigenous Amazonian traditi…
Ritual · 88
“Repetition Rewires”
Ritual · Beginner
The Vision Board
Assemble a board of images of one’s goals, view it briefly twice a day, and actively generate the feeling of a…
John Assaraf
Ritual · Beginner — very accessible
The Candle / Intention Ritual
Use a simple candle-lighting ceremony to focus, declare and commit to an intention, marking it with deliberate…
Folk and ceremonial practice…
Ritual · Intermediate
Sound and Colour
Intone the musical tone and divine/letter sound assigned to a particular Key, Hebrew letter or Sephirah while…
Paul Foster Case
Ritual · Beginner
Cunningham's Folk-Spell Framework
Cast a simple solitary folk spell by raising personal energy in the body, focusing it on a clear goal through…
Scott Cunningham
Ritual · Beginner
The Despacho
Build a beautiful prayer-offering bundle of natural items, each placed with a spoken intention or thanksgiving…
Alberto Villoldo
Ritual · Beginner
Sealing the Aura
Restore a sense of bounded, self-contained calm when one feels drained, intruded upon, or emotionally overwhel…
Dion Fortune
Scripting · 64
“You Assign the Meaning”
Scripting · beginner
Automatic Writing
To produce written material without conscious deliberation, accessing subconscious content (or, in the origina…
Spiritualist mediumship
Scripting · Beginner
Behrend's Written Picture
After building the mental picture, write it all out exactly as you saw it, in the present tense with the feeli…
Genevieve Behrend
Scripting · Beginner
Morning Writing
Write the moment you wake — before talking, reading, or the critical mind engages — to tap the ‘richness of th…
Dorothea Brande
Scripting · Beginner
The Magic
Build a sustained daily gratitude habit by writing specific blessings (and giving thanks in advance for desire…
Rhonda Byrne
Scripting · Beginner
Morning Pages
To clear the mind of its surface chatter and bypass the inner censor by writing three pages of longhand, strea…
Julia Cameron
Scripting · Beginner
Control Thy Expenditures
To separate necessary expenses from desires and write a budget that lets you live below your means and protect…
George S. Clason
Embodiment · 331
“Being Precedes Having”
Embodiment · Intermediate
Aesthetic Rapture (Rasa)
To take a moment of intense aesthetic or sensory delight — beauty, music, wonder — and rest in the pure savori…
Abhinavagupta
Embodiment · Beginner — universally accessible
Acting 'As If'
Deliberately behave, carry oneself, and respond as the person who already has the desired trait, state, or out…
William James
Embodiment · Intermediate
The Valley of Love
Deliberately turn the heart’s longing toward the Divine Beloved — making love and yearning, not willpower or t…
Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār
Embodiment · Advanced
The Two Openings
Open the being to a higher consciousness by two concentrations — in the heart-centre, a loving call to bring f…
Sri Aurobindo
Embodiment · Beginner
Trusting Innate Wellbeing
To recognize that wellbeing, mental health, and peace are innate and always accessible regardless of circumsta…
Sydney Banks
Embodiment · Beginner
Dropping into the Heart
Shift attention into the ‘field of the heart’ and into a relaxed, playful, non-analytical state — Bartlett’s c…
Richard Bartlett