What is the logic behind visualization meditation I have practiced meditation for the better part of a decade now. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, but that's immaterial. I've experienced and practiced many kinds of meditation (energy, dream, mindfulness), and all of the meditations I have practiced I have a logic for. I can understand the goal of the meditation and why the meditation works.

One meditation that I've always been troubled by is visualization meditation. The type where repeatedly visualizing a very complex scene leads to certain goals. How is it that by visualizing a certain scene I enact unique changes in my psyche?

Obviously there are many different flavors, but recently every path I turn to has resulted in some kind of visualization meditation and I quite honestly doubt the very fundamentals of such a meditation. When I have such a strong doubt I certainly won't be able to practice effectively.

Are there any resources on this subject?
It depends on the system.

In the sutra system, there are analytical meditations involving visualizing the form of the body of the Buddha, for instance. You do this in order to achieve calm abiding on the mental image of the form of the body of the Buddha. It is very much practiced in Tibetan traditions, since it is said that the object (that mental image) is very virtuous and thus preferable to neutral objects such as one's breath and so forth. It is said that one has to focus on a mental image to achieve calm abiding: if you take the breath, usually from the fourth mental abiding (calm abiding itself being the tenth), your mind becomes so subtle that a mental image of the breath starts to appear. Taking a mental image (such as the form of the body of the Buddha) from the outset makes things easier.

In the tantra system, the way of visualizing, the reasons to do so, and the objects visualized are completely different. I will not go into it here because it is secret mantra. However, in general, one engages in deity yoga so as to take the resultant enjoyment body into a path. It's called "taking the result as a path", or "mixing of the ordinary states with the three kayas."

The idea is to create the substantial cause of the enjoyment body. This substantial cause has to be of a similar type (and in the continuity of its result). It is a special body, a special mental body you create the cause of when you identify with the deity.