Mantras are powerful tools in the arsenal of any magick practitioner to attain your ends. Words of power are to be chanted and vibrated as it's known by everyone here past the beginner level.
Now it appears there are a few things people have wrong about mantras. Mantras are means through which one applies one's own mental force to the manifestation of a goal.
For one, mantras are based a lot on intent. Mere recitation of a mantra without any focus or imagination going into it, can reduce it's effectiveness.
While the same practice of the surface is to pronounce it and say it, in which cases, even this will work, it's not going to be as potent to do this in a half careless manner. The more careless one is, the less the effect.
If you literally just speak the mantra or vibrate it without caring at all, it can "still" be effective, but the effect will be little, to where if you are completely careless you will diminish it.
As one advances, your own energy, potency and force are very much affecting the potency of any mantra used.
In other words, if you are strong, even if you use a mantra or word of power for less repetitions, you will get a manifestation of your goal easier.
In opposite, if you do many repetitions to the point you exhaust yourself, the gauge of exhaustion will affect the mantra, even if you did this for a very long time. Therefore, a balance is required to work the mantras.
Power can also make the situation of being less 'perfect' about the use, have greater effects. More on this later on the topic.
The turtle that wants to create positive and longterm change, wins that race, and those who devote themselves to 40 and longer day circles, are going to reap longer benefits.
The attempt here is to focus these energetic changes to take place and attain a stability in your life. This is how Mantras and Words of Power can help you in the Eight Fold Path as a tool to change your destiny.
If you encounter problematic issues that need immediate solving, you can do a mantra up to 3 times a day. You can space this to 5 hours per setting. Yet, doing this for longer than a week, will not necessarily mean a bigger manifestation where 40 day workings are concerned, or longterm workings.
When you want massive change that is longterm, such as a permanent escape from a situation, the importance lies in longterm repetition over a longer period of time. Doing a thousand repetitions in one day, and then doing nothing, will be like lighting a candlewick that has no oil on it and keeping the lighter on. This can be useful only in some circumstances where fast light is necessary, but it is not where you want to build a big fire.
The person who will 1/10th of this, but maintains for longer periods of time, will reap biggest changes in life.
The state of mind when you do a mantra is important. Running around, doing it haphazardly, and above all not recognizing the procedure, can keep you back. The basic point of takeoff for a working to work is to "DO IT", then, to do it in the way that is most proper.
The state of calmness and focus is necessary to increase the potency, but without the form of trying to force things.
In regards to pronouncing the mantras, yes, pronouncing them has to be accurate, and it helps with the potency of the mantra. But even if you do it perfectly and you spend all time worrying if you could do it more perfectly, then you are not focusing properly on the use.
The person who might not be 100% in pronunciation but is actually focused mentally, will achieve more than the person who utters a mantra "absolutely right" and is 100% unfocused.
A stable self awareness without too many distractions, will yield the best results. As a final tip, repetition seeks to achieve not only calmness and focus of mind, but also raising of energy, yet above all it tries to put you into the necessary state of mind which is reflected by a proper word of power.
Advanced meditators know for example that using a Rune, will have these manifestations a few hours later, but the experienced meditator will get immediate effects, same as the ones that come later. Openness and the soul to be empowered is required to experience more of these effects.
-High Priest Zevios Metathronos