Welcome @drizzo
Where are you from?
Do you practice anything? You haven’t told us if you have any actual experience or not beyond tarot.
I know @Keteriya has so maybe she will chime in.
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I’m from the US (New Hampshire/Mass)… I have done a few simple spells when I first started, simple things like finding my keys or getting some money. Everything worked but it was all stuff that probably would have happened without magical intervention. The more I read the more I realized how much I didn’t know and stopped actively practicing lol. I’ve meditated on a few demonic enns while researching the demon to see if I could get a sense that they’d be willing to work with me at all. Bathin gave my husband nightmares which was amusing but after doing a reading she said I had a lot to learn before working with her. Now I’m realizing it’s probably not theoretical knowledge but more knowledge of self. The more I read the more I feel like I need to know more but I feel like it’s a vicious cycle. Thank you for the response 
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Thank you for elucidating more upon your experience, and again, welcome to the BALG forum.
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@drizzo , was there something specific you wanted to know? I have anphantasia and I cannot make images with my mind, I do not even get after images. I can explain how I work with literally every grimoire or resource that I pick up, if that’s what you need.
I noted early on that, there is pretty much nothing out there for people who do not have a visual imagination and decided if I was going to do this magic thing, and I was pretty sure from childhood experience, that I could do it and vainly thought I could do it well- that I had to figure out how to do it in ways that would work with what I did have, and forget the way the world operates with magic. I did try the after image exercises and things recommended to build visual skills, and after a few months, I knew it wasn’t going to happen and I had to figure out how to do what everybody else does without images.
It took a while, and a fair bit of work, but I don’t struggle magically anymore. I just do things differently than the rest.
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Welcome… Enjoy your stay…!
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Pick a Taro card - perhaps best to skip The Magician (Atu I) to begin with - look at it, take it in, close your eyes and see it. Eventually you’ll be able to pull it up and see it at will. These things take time. Try walking through the image of the card as a gateway into ‘that card’.
Al.
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Keteriya, I think I have the same thing. No matter what I do all I see is black. It’s weird because when I read books I can create the scenes but in an abstract way, almost like it’s a different part of my brain or consciousness conjuring these images. I can do it with my eyes open or closed because I don’t actually ‘see’ anything. I tried to do the Pathworking with Lucifer and the Hidden Demons and hoped that my abstract imagination would be sufficient but it wasn’t. Someone on here recommended some energy work books which I’m going to try out. I’ve also heard that strengthening the other senses is beneficial. I’d love to know what you do instead of visualization or if it depends on the context. Thank you for the response, it’s good to know I’m not alone 
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Something like less than 2% of the population can’t make images with their mind, so you’re not alone, but there’s not many that are the same. Good luck getting most people to believe you, a good portion of the population just needs to exercise the proper skills in order to get better with the visual imagination, but a handful of us, will never be able to do it, and that’s all there is to it.
Honestly at first I found this magic thing to be impossible. But I realized a few things early on that helped a lot. One was that despite the fact that I could not conjure up even the image of my children’s faces, I could remember in vivid detail. I can’t see the detail, that but doesn’t effect my ability to recall the detail. For example, I can’t picture my daughter, but I realized I could recall how her hair smelt, how it felt to cuddle her, I realized that if I focused, for a hot minute I could not only vivid hear her voice, I could feel her. I can describe the colors of an outfit, or the images on a shirt, like you would if you could see it.
Being an empath I realized I describe almost everything in words that tell others how they feel. I can recall things like color and smell and such, but the feeling of something, is what stands out the most to me. I already knew a lot about energy and linking to others, but I didn’t understand how it worked exactly. I just knew that I could accidentally push things I felt onto others, much like I would accidently pick up on how they felt. I thought I was crazy actually, between things I sometimes saw and felt, up until I accidentally pushed an asthma attack onto someone else. It was my first day in a homeless shelter, and let me tell you, I never imagined finding myself in shelter of any sort. That just wasn’t in my plan. I felt the attack coming on and I told myself nope, not happening right here, right now in front of this stranger. Suddenly I was looking at a woman, bent over gasping and grasping her chest while she screamed at me to stop.
Ooops.
Didn’t mean to do that. But I realized if I could do things like that unintentionally, there had to be a way to do it on purpose. I spent hours, on the floor of my room overnight, (after I got my ass out of the shelter) while my roommate slept, trying to imagine, what it would feel like, if I could visualize energy flowing from the palm of my hands or into it. Eventually I figured it out, but luckily for those that can visualize and maybe for you, I figure out how to work with that, without being able to see it. In the last few months I came across tactile imaging by Robert Bruce, and realized he actually teaches you, exactly what I was teaching myself to do. lol Wish I’d seen his work a few years ago.
So here is where I would start, I imagine that while you can’t see a paint brush, but Robert Bruce uses it as an example, and I since I think that is one most people can imagine, especially if they can see it, but even if they can’t I’ve been using that to explain this. Basically you lay down, and Imagine that there is an invisible hand and an invisible paint brush hanging over top of you. You don’t need to see, just to pretend that its there. As you lay there, pretend that someone is using that paint brush against your skin, brushing up and down, back forth across you. I like to start right where Robert Bruce does, with the bottoms of your feet and working all the way up your body, not forgetting the top of your head, your arms, or your hands. If you can commit to doing this 10-15 minutes a day, within a few weeks, you should notice that you feel warm, wherever you are imagine this happening. This is what energy feels like, or rather your energy. You’re basically stroking your own energy. From there you can learn how to move and manipulate that, how to draw in energy from other sources, and how to push it out, onto other things.
Now aside from that. I realized right away that I may never see spirits like others do. Some spirts I see like they are right fcking here in the flesh, despite knowing that they are not. Same as I can see orbs of light, and wiggly worms in a sunlit sky. Sun and water trigger my sight like no tomorrow, but that is a story for another day. Other spirits I can’t see at all. Point is a realized that most people are able to structure the image in their mind and then the spirits can essentially manipulate that into whatever it should be. So how does it work when you can’t do that…
Well I personally stopped worrying about it. I decided if I spent the time to properly open a sigil, and call out to the spirit I wanted, that they would hear me. Plain and simple, I decided that a one way call was still a call, and if they could hear me, it didn’t matter if I could hear them or not. Bingo, that was the answer. I realized right away, when I stopped trying to do things like everyone else, that I noticed things changed around me when I called out to spirits. The room temperature might change, I might get chills up my back, I might feel like something was watching me, the energy around me might be stimulated etc.
Now when it comes to working with grimoires that tell me to picture things that no matter what I do, I’m never going to be able to picture… I work with what I do have. So we know I can feel energy and we know I can remember things. So the grimoire tells me to visualize a beach, well I’ve never been to the ocean, but I’ve stood on the lake shore type beach and I can remember for a hot minute what the texture of the sand feels like under my feet, getting into my shoes or wiggling between my toes. I can recall what the splash of water sounds like when someone runs and jumps in, I can feel the cringe my face makes when I get wet with cold water, cuz someone decided to splash me. I can smell the cool crisp air. Sometimes it’s hard to describe these things in words, but I think in words, so usually I can get close, and since I think in sentences, I just talk my way through it, usually in my mind. Ok I am in a dark cave, I can sense the cool damp rocks around me in the darkness. I can feel the coolness against the palm of my hand. I look up and I see the entrance to the cave, on the other side is a waterfall, I can hear the water roar, and the splash as it hits the body of water below it. Now I’m next to the waterfall, I notice their are beautiful little rainbows, from the sunlight streaming over head.
I can’t see the damned waterfall. But I can imagine the sensations I would have if I was really there. Not having a visual imagination, doesn’t mean that you do not have an imagination and chances are if you spend sometime flipping through grimoires that tell you to visualize this or that, you can conjure up some sort of memory either from waking life or the dreamscape that gets you damned close to what your supposed to visualize. The fact that you don’t see it, doesn’t matter a tiddly wink, as long as you can feel it, or hear it, or smell or talk yourself through the visualization.
Nowadays I get what I call impressions of most spirits I work with, in addition to feeling them. It’s not a full blown picture, but it’s a fuzzy, almost feels like a memory way out there in the distance, hazy, outline of them and what they are wearing or doing or saying to me. It’s not perfect but it works for me. It’s miles from where I started. I still don’t get impressions of everything. For the longest time I joked that Angels must not like me, because I just couldn’t get anything from them-except results. After working through a book by Damon Brand and picking up singing instead of just calling to them, now I get impressions and feels too. God’s and goddesses still allude me, but I imagine, some day in the near future I will figure out what works for me with them and off I will go with them as well.
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You’re AMAZING. Thank you so much for that. I’m going to start practicing the paint brush exercise. I need to get that book from Robert Bruce, you’re the second person to mention him to me in here. I’ll use my memory and other senses when working with Grimoires and trust that they are enough. You’ve literally given me renewed hope. I can’t thank you enough 
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Yepper, no problem. The one bright side of anphantasia is if you see something, that you know without a doubt is not physical, then you know you saw it. You won’t be one of the dozens of newbies on here everyday asking if it was a real experience or a wild imagination.
Doesn’t mean there are not days that I didn’t wish I could just see in pictures, but it is what it is. Waste a few months doing the exercises that should produce after images a few times a day and things like that, and you may find it not worth the effort if it’s not meant to be for you anyways. Few years later I still don’t get after images. 
Hell I didn’t know for 30 years that people could actually see in pictures so. Not any point in getting worked up over it now.
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Right. I like your outlook. I’ll still try some visualization exercises but I’m not going to force it and get worked up over it. If you ever decide to write a book let me know so I can preorder
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Hehe, I’m lightyears from being able to do that darling. Plus my grammar still sucks- despite a lifetime of of being an avid reader
I do have a short journal on here, but it’s mostly related to childhood paranormal experiences. Once in while I’ll explain how I do something, but not real often. 
I’m honestly not sure why it has so many views, if you don’t know what I’m working on currently and the full story, I don’t know how it would be interesting at all lmao. 
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The English language is nonsensical, don’t feel bad lol. If you ever decide to get your ideas down for that I’ll edit it for you. Think I was an English major in a past life. I actually read some of your journal and think it’s a really good idea. I’ve been trying to unprogram my brain for a while now. I have an awful memory though so keeping a journal like that would probably help me a lot. I have very few childhood memories, even as an older child and teenager. After reading a few of your entries it’s amazing how much clarity you had at such a young age, especially not being able to visualize. Definitely a lot to think about
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Welcome to the forum 
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I think that sometimes, but others I realize I remember things quite clearly, I just need to focus in a slightly different way. I’ve actually been delaying later entries, because a lot of them are really quite painful to think about. It’s helped a lot as far as identifying what the hell it is I was scared of, I knew it was holding me back, and I still can’t recall the memories that scared me, but I have discovered what it was that scared me, so I consider that progress for sure lol.
Sometimes a good memory is a curse, I’ll remember something someone said that was hurtful, for years and it can make it hard to let go of, but it also means, that I can thoroughly work through issues, if I can identify what it is about it that bothers me.
On the flip side of the coin, once in a while I’ll bump into someone who has clear childhood memories like I do, but it’s not that often. For one reason or another I find most people have a few vivid memories of their younger years, and usually not as early as I can recall- but not nearly as many as I do. I have no idea why, though I have pondered it often.
I will keep that in mind 
I appreciate it for sure, I’m certain someday I may do more than journal about my work, but for now I feel like too much of newb and an asshat to share most of it :). I have a lifetime of weird, but only two years actually practicing magic. 
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Welcome to the forum
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Good! Been doing the paintbrush exercise, starting to sense my energy more and I’ve been doing a lot of guided meditations
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Hi there drizzo, welcome and nice to meet you.
I noticed that you got plenty of information and help already.
Simple exercise if you want to call it an exercise, find yourself a tall old tree, that you can place your back against, whether sitting against it or standing and close your eyes and connect/meditate for a little. That would be my suggestion.
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Welcome!