The Hierarchy
Above is a common chakra model with some relating words to give you an idea on the basic hierarchy. As you see, the etheric or spacial level which we've been working with a lot is around the throat, while our imagination is one level above in lightness, or that imagination or astral energy is less dense than etheric energy. Similarly, pure consciousness and intention is the highest form, this is pure divine energy. You will learn how to use all of these three magical realms naturally in your practice.
So now that you know the basic hierarchy, we can explain more on how it relates to magic. Simply put, the highest sphere shines its light down and that pure light transmutes slowly downwards until it densifies into physical, material matter. Study alchemy more to understand this.
In magic we need to be able to manipulate life in a "ghost" or imaginary form, a non physical way. This means being able to think, create, develop and design anything you want in your imagination. An example is what if you wanted to create a new flavor of drink. First imagine what kind of color the liquid is, how it smells, tastes, the bottle it is stored in, etc.
Simply put, if you don't know or have a strong idea of what you want to do, how can you do it? Well, there is actually another method, more of an earthly method which is by pure feeling, intuition and of memory. This is using the lower elements. You'll want to use both, hence why thus far we've trained with using our imaginary sight and sense of feeling. Feeling is a lower more physical sense while sight is a higher, more etheric. So, using both the lower and higher imaginary senses is a part of magic, but also using physical objects, areas, various movements, sounds and such is a viable way or addition. To use the physical world to change the mental world and mental world to change the physical world is one key idea of magic. Though this book is more interested in purely using mental force and formation in order to cause magical effects. I will add a chapter later on more "physical" forms of ritual and how they work so that you can try it out yourself.
Thus far a lot of this might be incomprehensible. That's normal but it will make more sense in the future.
How Magic Works
The hypothesis of magic is that by you applying pressure to reality you're able to make your will take form or control and command it to your specifications. Depending on the power of your will and level of magic abilities will be how far you can manipulate it. Hypothetically you could turn an apple into a chair or levitate a car if your magical power is strong enough. Of course, choose what you want to believe. So the idea we're working with is simply "Apply an intentioned willpower or pressure to reality". That honestly tells you a little more than nothing. It's similar to saying cooking is preparing ingredients and combining them, usually with heat or writing is typing out or drawing words together to say things. While in reality that's true, it still is only a basic idea, not the actual practice.
In the past exercises you were made to practice your sense of feeling and visualization so that you can create various objects and effects internally and externally. This is the practical part of magic where you're trying to create a mental overlay or form of what you want to happen.
Next step is essentially powering it up or holding this form in a strong way, trying to make it more and more real, more physical, more dense. This in practice feels as if you're imagining something in a phantom, mental way, then trying to make it actually physical by densifying or solidifying the image, the spell. You can almost think of it as imagining in a physical way instead of a mental way.