system
A chat on 4chan
human
Literally try levitate small rock everyday using your will power, no hand gesture or anything else, just sit look at rock and imagine pushing it upwards.
start with 1 min and with every week of doing so add another 1 min.

Congratulation you can lift small rock using your mind after whatever time frame.
You failed? Congratulation for exercising your brain with this fun test that improved function of your brain and entertained you a little.

People forget that if you train your mind by imagination and determination your brain enters new exposure to neural network stimulation which might lead to literally developing inhumane abilities.
gpt
mind/willpower>everything(rituals, etc.)?
human
Damn, I am surprised this thread still is alive. Since OP and a few others anons I already answered...


Not exactly. You use your mind to direct your will but you also need some 'spiritual authority' (wisdom, practice, knowledge and understand of what you want to do, practically converted to vague 'power') behind it. And you need to train your mind to both control your thoughts (the chatter that is in your mind), quiet the ones that aren't necessary for your work (as they just decrease your success chance and power of the effect) and perform mental operations (what you want to do, how, with what visualization, symbols etc) in particular order. That's why meditation is one of the basic fundamentals of almost all, even drastically different spiritual/occult traditions - it helps you train your mind to do so.

Rituals, spells or 'techniques' are both crutches to get there and simplified procedures of going about it. You associate certain symbols, gestures etc with mental steps, visualizations, symbolic declarations of intent while having easier time to concentrate.

So it's not that mind is more important than ritual, but a properly conducted ritual is what is meant to help you use your mind. Rituals and spells rarely have any innate powers (though there may be some potential exceptions depending on their nature) but help manage the 'power' of practitioner who would be able to do a lot without those rituals, but may have harder time. Same with spells - the way you can create a little mnemonic to remember your grocery list or some phone number, the same way an occultist can make a lil spell - no matter if it's one done by word, gesture, sequence of thoughts - to simplify all steps necessary to work on some effect. It's also why a spell won't usually work for random shmuck, even if they'll find some respectable grimoire - they didn't have any ability to cast a spell in general, so a procedure to simplify what they cannot do at all won't usually be enough.