I have been taking this subject methodically through the pre-cursors and steps, until now I want to deal with the specific direct techniques. I am detailing these with intervals, because I have been especially busy of late, if not with work, then with a new recording phase I am in, plus now, the Tour de France is on. It's not something I can forget though, because I am in the build-up of a long trip to India in a few months. There are so many things that can derail this expedition, that I have been utilising these future-choosing techniques and principles daily. All I have to do is try to recall the techniques I tend to now use instinctively.
Imagination.
You do need a good facility at imagination to employ this technique, which not everyone has, but this is my most extensively deployed method.
1. Visualisation. Remember we are attempting to transport our path to a specific destination, so the best way is to imagine ourselves, and others, in that destination. The details don't matter for the final outcome, but they are important to galvanise our inherent capacity to draw that eventuality into our perceptual reality. For example, suppose you want some health outcome, then you imagine yourself in the state of health you seek - actually saying to yourself, how wonderful it is this outcome eventuated. Recently I was having a lot of trouble booking a place to stay in Mussoorie, India - everything was so expensive and we couldn't just wing it as we would be there in the peak season. I pictured myself saying to Julie that we had booked the perfect spot. Things had got so that Julie had said to me we just had to go somewhere else - it was impossible to find reasonably priced accommodation (Julie is very good at researching such things on the internet). Thus I set to work internally, as well as externally. I pictured us being very happy with finding the right place and then being successful in booking it (that was a subsequent step once we found there was no way to contact the place we found). All this finally eventuated, after considerable anguish and effort.
I'm not saying the visualisation was responsible. I'm saying that the visualisation (and other similar techniques I include below) cleared the way on the astral plane. We still had to do the hard work of searching through forums and links, until we finally found this wonderful place. Then I still had to work through all the problems of actually contacting them, which once done and successful was a tremendous relief for me. Of course, this is only finding and booking - actually getting there is a whole other task, which I am also working on - many stepping stones along the way, each of which requires individual attention. This is very intense project we are on.
Visualising an outcome is a very extensively documented technique, and you should get some books on the subject, as it is one practice where even the modern books are good. There is one famous older book, but really, I think it is exhaustively covered by many authors.
2. Light. Once you have visualised the frame you seek (to borrow nemo's term), you need to somehow empower it. One way is to add light visualisation. I have experimented with all kinds of variations - gold, green-flecked gold, white radiance etc - but in the end I found, from being shown in dreaming, that clear light was the best. Clear light is very hard to visualise, but it is more a sense of compressed potency, much like the look of an area of land just before it is struck by a bolt of lightening. It is a kind of pregnant translucence, like the scene has been dunked in clear silicon, except not sticky - pulsing with potency.
I see these visualisation techniques as an energetic trick, to assist us in drawing a selected frame into our timeline. It is really all about intent, however intent is such a vague concept for those unfamiliar with its practice, that I am astounded such a word actually exists. The whole practice of choosing a future, really has little to do with actually commanding our own future, but much to do with exercising this innate capability every living being has, called intent. As much as we should exercise our mind, emotions and body, we should also exercise intent. I will say that those who have not developed will, will be unable to develop intent.
Ask
Odd this might sound, but it's a good idea to simply ask for an eventually.
1. Talk. Talk to everything - the weather, the future, the rocks, the sky, the trees, your own body. This is definitely a practiced skill, but actually it is something we learn in an instant, despite practising for years. In one moment, most adepts will tell of how they collapsed internally and found themselves pouring out their emotions to something, usually a plant (for some strange reason). In a flash, all our inhibitions drop and we speak with utmost sincerity to some object. After that, it become easy to speak with everything without a hint of feeling uneasy about what people would think - it becomes natural. We know we are not mad, and that just like birds sing and water gurgles, we talk. We can also sing, but that's another technique outside this current writing.
2. Ask who? We are so configured that we need some element to address. Remember we are channelling intent, and that all these are psychological tricks to assist in rallying intent. Whatever you feel comfortable with, is a good start, but best try first some 'higher power'. For some reason we become extremely precious about what we perceive as a higher power. For some it may be a concept about who we really really really are - a deep self, like our 'higher self' or our ancient self, or our subconscious. I don't know why people become so precious about such words, when it is all just an element for energetic focus, but nonetheless, we do have to appease our beliefs in order to feel completely sincere, and thus garner the right energy.
We can also ask God, or Buddha, or Jesus. In fact, I am a great believer in gods. It always provides me with a strange comfort to have a god on my side - seems to activate aspects of my being that can't be activated in any other way. I know many atheists and other variations of the same approach like agnostics and humanists, who are truly wonderful people, but they always seem to lack something visceral, something of the blood. Love of person is one thing, but the love of a god is a real trip. I am lucky, since I have transited my field of practice into Hinduism, as I have thousands of gods to choose from, and they are the most fabulous creatures imaginable (they also actually exist on the street unlike other gods, but only in India - otherwise they remain astral archetypes like all gods ... another subject for another time).
Whatever your divine being, it doesn't matter here - simply talk to it with a feeling absolute sincerity. I also talk with all manner of sub-divine beings - I love the whole thing.
3. The Complete Assembly of Adepts and Divine Beings. Walk into the Grand Assembly, knowing full well you are surrounded by beings who know far more than you will ever know, and put your case to them. This is a court. You have to pull yourself together, wear your best clothes, and present your case in the most mature way you can. This is a good exercise for the soul.
Ceremony.
This is the ancient shamanic technique, and is very powerful, if you know how to conduct a powerful ceremony. It is a such a large area, that I will only itemise it here - it requires a completely different topic to do it justice. Know however, that you can significantly boost the potency of your choice by conducting a ceremony, or what I call a pooja.
Don't talk about it.
Don't tempt the gods - keep it all internal until the outcome is secured. This is about avoiding the strange power of hubris to derail our intentions. There are variations on this, as sometimes talking before the outcome can be helpful, but rarely. Talk to the world or gods etc, but not to people. There are different opinions about this - the effect of a 'whispering campaign' - but in general, never speak to other people of a project-in-process. Speak once the outcome is secure, as that always helps others who are on the same path. If you feel you must speak, then speak of it as something you are seeking to achieve, not of something you will achieve (reserve that for your inner world).
In the end, we are talking about the mysterious practice of pulling ourselves into the frame of our choice. Everyone has their own little and big techniques to facilitate this process, and always remember we are exploring the mystery of intent. We have to extricate ourselves from the soul-condition of almost all humanity: that of the leaf-in-the-wind. We have to develop force in our life. It is a bad mistake to allow ourselves to become the pawn of others - we have to develop personal density. This idea is not obscure - it is well practiced by many in the world, but what is increasingly obscure is the purpose of our force. In all this discussion, I have not covered the ultimate frame of choice. It is all practice for that one ultimate goal.
Everything is conditional on something else. Do you own the final condition, or are you ultimately living intent of others? Stake your own claim!