Today we are going to cover one of the most basic and yet most elusive concepts found within spirituality and magical practices.  Today even many modern self help and positive thinking programs talk about the effect of energy and working with energy.  Yet none ever really seem to cover and explain what this concept really is.  As a seeker this vague yet all important concept seems to be essential to any and all spiritual development.  So learning about an understanding what this concept is is important.

Energy: What it is and how to work with it

Spiritually the concept of energy is rather vast.  You have it as a force of life.  You can have it be seen as simply magic itself.  Energy comes in many forms, shapes and workings within the spiritual world and work.  As a seeker it is important to come up with your own basic understanding of the types and styles of energy out there.  I am going to provide you a few of my own examples and definitions.  With each type of magic I am also going to provide you with an exercise to work with and create your own understanding of that style of energy.

The first thing I am going to do though before I explain the different types of energy out there and how to work with the magically, spiritually, and effectively in day to day life is provide you with a simple exercise for sensing and feeling energy.  This technique is one of the first energy exercises I ever learned so placing it here will give context to the rest of the energy exercises.

Energy Ball exercise:

This deceptively simple exercise remains one of the most effective exercises for energy manipulation and energy work.  It is from this basic exercise that basically any specific type of energy work can be done.  This exercise teaches to feel and be aware of energy.  It also teaches shaping and direction of the energy.  This is essential to directing more complex energy forces later on in spell and ritual work.

1. Vigorously rub your hands together creating friction.
2. Cup your hands about a foot apart.
3. Focus and see the energy on your hands from rubbing them form a ball between your hands.
4. Gradually move and shape your hands until you feel a ball in between your two hands.
5. Move the ball to one hand and then another.  Feel the weight of the ball as it transfers from hands.
6. After a while start to stretch and change the shape of it to anything you can think of.  Use your hands and your mind to shape the image of the energy force between your hands.
7. After a few minutes see the energy disperse into the air.
8. Rub your hands on your legs to return the energy remaining on your hands to your body.

Now write down and note everything you just experienced.  This was your first magical exercise with energy.  You through that exercise were able to raise, maintain, manipulate, direct, and disperse the energy into the world.  For fun you can place thoughts and goals into the balls as you shape them and then when you disperse them those thoughts and goals are sent into the universe.  Try it both ways.  Write down different experiences with your mind, your body, and your emotional state.  You have in that exercise experienced all forms of energy.

Types of energy

Energy as I said comes in many forms.  Each form and style of energy has its use in day to day life, spiritual work, and magical work.  By understanding the different energetic forces in your life you can more effectively work to create a spiritual balance.  You can work more towards a sense of inner peace and have an effective way to work with the world.  We have physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy, and spiritual energy.  All of these energetic forces are working with you at all times.  These are the forces that allow us to live and have day to day experiences as well as significant spiritual experiences.

Physical Energy

Physical energy is probably the most obvious style and type of energy that I have mentioned.  This is the energetic force that gives our body motion.  This energy is created both by activity and by food.  This energy is effected by the foods we eat, physical health (sicknesses, pain, etc), sleep patterns, and behavioral patterns.  Physical energy is also greatly impacted by your mental state and thus your mental energy as well.

Physical energy in magic and spiritual work may not seem to have a place but it actually does.  In ritual the physical energy is the energy our body raises by performing ritual actions.  In some styles of ritual physical energy is also used in the worship through the means of dance or physical movements and actions related to the myths and tales being told.  In working spells the physical energy is the energy you spend manipulating the objects for example in crafting incense the energy spent grinding the herbs in a mortar and pastel or weighing, pouring, and mixing with a grinder is put into the incense to be used for the completion of the spell.  In magic using physical energy is an excellent way to raise and direct energy to the universe through physical actions or directions.

Physical energy exercise

The following exercise is going to help you understand how to judge and feel your personal physical energy levels.  This exercise will also teach you how to work magic using just your physical energy and sending that energy out into the universe.  All you need for this exercise is a space to stand and not be disturbed for 10-15 minutes.  You may also want some music as there will be “dance” involved.

1. Turn on any music you desired to use for this exercise.  It should be instrumental in nature.  Irish or Celtic instrumental music will work well for this.  Clear the area and make sure you wont be disturbed.
2. Stand in the center of the area.  Take note of how you feel right now.  Listen to the music and let the music’s beat take an effect on your energy stance.  Slowly start to move to the music.
3. Think of an idea you want to “grow”.  This should be a new plan, a project, or something you have been working towards you want a boost on getting completed.
4. Bring your body to the ground.  Basically be a seed.  Make your body into your idea as you dance.  Begin to as you feel a plant would slowly grow towards the sun move your body in this fashion.  Repeat this motion over and over again.  Eventually you will get into a rhythm.
5. As you dance if you feel the desire to move in a circle or outside of your standing position do so.  Continue to see your desire go from being a seed to a seedling, to a bud to a full mature plant for harvest.  As you dance you will build speed and energy.  Focus and direct this energy.
6. When you feel you can dance no more jump straight up and move your arms into a point above your head directing the energy from your body into the universe.  See all the energy you have raised going into the universe knowing that it will be worked on and you will get your desire.
7. Get your notebook and write down your experiences before, during, and after.  Take real note of any physical changes or feelings you had in your body during the exercise.
8. Eat and drink something to ground and refocus your mind and body on reality.

What you had right there is an experience of working with the physical energy created by our body in movement and through exercise.  That exercise there was given to not only give you an idea about working with physical energy but also about working magic in general.  There are other ways you can work with and experience physical energy.  Exercising is one way-though regular exercise in a gym or through an at home system of some form you can learn the differences before and after exercise in your body’s energy.  It will be different for each of us as all of our bodies are different.  The technique though is something you can apply to basically all bodies.

Mental Energy

Mental energy is another energy that is really simple when you think about it.  In our day to day life this is the energy that we expend on thinking and problem solving.  This is also the energy we use when we focus on a task or concept intensely.  Mental energy then is simply the energy of our thoughts and our brains natural processes.  Mental energy is also the level of our ability to concentrate and focus on a concept and idea.

In our day to day life this is what allows us to write business proposals.  This is what allows us to focus on our tasks at work or at school.  With out our mental energy we can not get anything done.  We could have all the physical energy in the world but if we have no ability to focus nothing will get done.  This is why mental energy is effected by physical energy.

Mental energy like physical energy is also effected by our sleep patterns and behavior patterns.  More than physical energy though our mental energy is tied to the state of our emotional energy.  These three energetic forces (mental, physical, and emotional) make up our basic energetic health and these three all impact spiritual energy.

Now that we know what mental energy is and what it does for us in our day to day life we need to know what it does for us in magic.  Mental energy and magic have a very special relationship.  In magic mental energy is tied to belief energy.  By working mental energy, and belief together amazing results can happen.  This is why it is possible and even effective to cast spells and perform entire rituals just in the mind.

The power of the mind in magic is really what makes magic work.  Magic is the ability to work mental forces to create external and internal changes to the best of ones abilities.  This is why affirmations are a form of magic.  This is also why visualization skills and mental focus training is of great importance in most magical and spiritual practices.  Here is a meme to basically illustrate what I mean:

Our thoughts create our reality.  That is the role of mental energy in magic.  Have you ever wondered why the things you spend the most time thinking or worrying about are always what seem to manifest in your life?  By focusing on those things you are sending those thoughts into the universe and that is what the universe will bring to you.

This next exercise set will help you learn how to focus your thoughts and use your thoughts to work magic and create noticeable changes in your life.  There are two exercises here because there are two ways I want to illustrate working with mental energy to create changes in your life.  The first is sort of silly but effective for when you are running late and the second is more long term but also effective.

Time bending mental exercise

This first mental energy and mental magic exercise is something I use frequently when I am running late.  This technique here is something I picked up originally from Instant Magick by Christopher Penczak, but I have modified it slightly for my own use as it works effectively both ways.

1. See yourself and your time stream in one place.  See the time stream of your location or if you are meeting a type of transportation service see their stream going the other direction.
2. As you focus on the time streams see the other stream slow down and your stream speed up.
3. See the streams eventually meeting the same speed, direction, and flow but with you slightly ahead of the other.
4. Hold this visualization until you can no longer focus.
5. Release the thought and the energy to the universe knowing you will be on time.

You can modify the exercise so that if you only have so much time before you have to leave and you want it to feel longer by slowing down your time stream.  This will allow you to mentally experience time passing slower.

This next exercise is about positive affirmations.  This is about thinking to yourself and saying to yourself repeatedly that you are something or you have something.  By seeing yourself with these attributes and thinking about having these attributes you will begin to develop them and the universe will manifest them for you.

Positive Affirmation Exercise

1. Write down and consider five different items you are looking for in life.  For example you can write down love, succsess, friendship, prosperity, and appreciation.  These could be five goals that you are looking at working on.  They could be things you need to improve on.  Just have five goals in mind.
2. Take each goal and write in at least five different ways that you have the goal.  For love for example you might write I am loved.  I have love.  Love surrounds me.  I love.  People love me.  You then do the same for each other goal in a similar fashion.  Note you write these in the current stance.  By saying I have love and I am loved it is manifesting in the known here and now while if you say I will be loved or they will love me it will manifest maybe at some unknown time in the future.   If you focus on not having something like not having debt you will manifest debt because you are focusing on the negative rather than the positive so in stead of saying not having debt or nor debt focus on prosperity or having enough to cover all your needs.
3. Keep the affirmations by your bedside, probably on your nightstand.  Put them basically somewhere you will see them to recite them every day.
4. In the morning shortly after waking or in the shower recite each individual affirmation for each goal five times.  Do this for each goal.  The more often you say them aloud the more you will believe it.  The sound of you saying it confirms your mental belief in it.  The two work together to manifest these five goals.  See yourself with each affirmation firmly.  Believe and know that you have them.
5. In the mid morning repeat the affirmations aloud and mentally as before.
6. In the afternoon around lunchtime or your midday meal repeat them again as you did before.
7. Do the same with your afternoon snack or break after work.  Repeat each affirmation for each goal five time.
8. Before bed once more perform the affirmation exercise for each goal.  This will program it into your dreams and also into the universe.
9. Perform this exercise daily for two weeks and take notice of how you feel.  You may not believe the affirmations at first but give it time and it will work.
10. Continue for another two weeks and notice any changes in your state of mind, life, and emotional states.  This will show any progress in manifesting these goals.
11. After a month you can either continue with the same goals or you can try new ones.  The process of reflection and practice starts again though.

The affirmation exercise is a long exercise but it forms mental bonds and beliefs.  By changing the way you think about something you change the way you work and view the world.  Thoughts and thought processes are very powerful in forming the world we live in affirmations are a way we can work on ourselves and change our thoughts and thus change our reality and our world, and if that is not magic I don’t know what is.

Affirmations may take a little longer to take effect than other magical works, but at the same time the repetition of the visualizations and the verbalization as a daily spell will cause changes.  This is why I have you make a note of the progress after two weeks and then after a month.  After you have done the exercise a month you can change or continue to work.  Its up to you.  However a month is enough time to see some sort of change in your own mental views of the world and yourself which again is magic.

Emotional Energy

Emotional energy is a hot one.  Often times emotional energy and mental energy can become confused.  Emotions are how we feel and how we work.  Our emotions often effect our mental and physical energy is substantial ways.  When we are feeling depressed for example we have little focus (mental energy) and may have less drive or desire to do anything (physical energy).  When we are feeling excited about something we can have either a lot of focus on the subject at hand or we could have no focus on anything until the thing we are excited about happens (mental energy) and physically we typically have a lot of energy when we are excited (physical energy).  The emotional energy then is the excitement.  The mental and physical energy states are the reaction to the emotional energy.

The one thing that drives magic more than the mind is desire.  Desires are formed from emotional reactions to situations and stimuli.  The stronger our emotional reaction to a need the stronger our desire will be and the more emotion and intent we can put into the spell to make magic work.  The emotions we have can be very effective in driving our thoughts and then our behaviors.  In magic we can use this to create thoughts and behaviors which will effectively bring the desires to us rather than keeping the desires in the distance.

So how can we work with emotional energy in magic?  That is simple.  our emotions become our intent for the spell.  Intent is desire or wanted outcome.  Without an intent there is no reason to cast a spell.  So emotions and intent form our reasons for casting spells.  However the emotional energy can also be the force behind the spell physically through actions.  This next exercise is actually going to be a spell for removing stress (often a very difficult emotion to deal with) that uses emotional energy and physical behaviors and reactions to the emotion to drive the spell.

This spell will show you how emotional energy effects the body but also the mind.  This exercise and spell focuses on releasing the emotion through intense focus and action.  This spell is simple and effective.  It also works with the basis of elemental magic.  It actually comes in four different forms (one for each element) for now we will focus on fire.  I will probably post the other spells in elemental theory when I post on that next time I focus on the letter E.

Emotion energy exercise:

Fire stress relief spell

Materials: a candle, a fire safe container to collect ash and burn paper in, paper, and a pen
Spell:

Take the paper and write on it as many details as you can about the stresses you have going on in your life that you want to be gone. Push as much of the stress energy you can into writing down the stressors or stressful situation in your life.

When the paper is full or you have written out everything you can light you candle. Charge the candle with the power of fire. See the fire burning away everything that does not serve you.

Take the paper and rip it up into small pieces. As you tear the paper throw any more frustration and stress you have into the act. Grab the fire safe container. Light each piece of paper on fire from the candle. As the fire burns chant something along the lines of “Fire burn away all that does not serve me on this day”. Repeat the chant as long as each peice of paper burns. See the fire burning away each issue.    See the stresses get burned away with the ashes of the paper as well as with the burning of the candle.

Once all the paper is burned, the candle has burned out, and the ash collected gather the ash and the candle remains. Throw it on the ground outside and stamp on it. As you stamp the ashes into the ground state “Stressors no longer control me” Release any final stressful energy into the ground with that stomping. The forces the stress to be under your feet no longer being what controls you.

As you can see by looking at the spell above you the emotions in stress, anger, frustration, confusion, and even simply stress itself become what you charge the paper with.  You force those emotions out into the paper and into the candle.  The candle and the paper become full of those emotions and when they are destroyed through being burned the emotions are also burned away in your life.  The stomping in the ground is the announcement that those stressors no longer bother you and you have control over your life.

Spirit Energy

Up to now all of the energetic forces are forces that are directly observable and slightly measurable forces and effects on the human body and in our daily lives.  Spirit energy is not really observable or measurable.  It is something that can really only be experienced.  Spirit energy is the energy of our soul.  It is our life force.  This is the energy that makes up ghosts and phantoms.  This is also the energy of the various plants and crystals or physical items used in magic for the spells to work.

Spirit then is something that we can only experience.  Our spirit energy is expended basically by living.  It is effected by physical illnesses, mental states, and emotional states.  Our spirit energy is also our energetic connection to the greater world of nature around us.  It is our spirit energy that we use to communicate with spirits of loved ones through divination, but it is also the energy we use when we try and objectively think about and work for our best needs and desires.

Spirit energy is made up of physical, emotional, and mental energy.  Though it also has divine energy forces.  Spirit energy is the energy of magic.  This is the energy that makes up the universe.  For us it is connected to our soul and thus our minds and bodies.  Though our spirit energy is also connected to the land and the world of spirits around us.  Spirit energy is basically the known yet really unsubscribed and unmeasured force put forth by philosophers and some scientists.

In spirit work it is our spirit energy that leave the body for astral travel.  It is this energy that we use to align to our various spiritual allies.  This is also the part of us that is always connected to the divine currents in the universe.    Some believe our spirit energy is also the form our guardian angel or guardian spirits take.  Though I disagree with that.  Our spirit energy is us and not another being or part of us manifested seperatly.  Our spirit energy is unique to us and lasts for all lives.  It modifies and changes but is always our signature in the universe as it were.

This next exercise is a way for you to align your spirit energy with another spiritual force.  By aligning your spirit energy with another force you are actively working on your spirit energy.  This alignment and vibration exercise will teach you where your original spiritual energy is and where it will be after the exercise.  This exercise will also help you develop a stronger connection with various spiritual forces as you are trying to be at their spirit energy level.

Spirit Vibration energy exercise

1. Set up a space with quiet instrumental music.  You may want candle light as well as some incense.  The idea is to create an atmosphere for meditation and spiritual work.  Make sure you will not be disturbed for 10-15 minutes.
2. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to calm and center yourself.
3. Get yourself into a meditative state through self hypnosis, breath control, or what ever means you find useful for entering meditative states.
4. State mentally and verbally “I vibrate in harmony with (insert spirit name or type of spirit here)”
5. Repeat the statement over and over again.  As you repeat the statement see yourself spiritually becoming one of those spirits.  Feel yourself becoming filled with and full of that spirit energy.
6. Continue letting your vibrations rise and your visualization develop.  As you continue the chant and the visualization if the spirit allies are welcoming to you, a door will open to their spirit realm and world.  Enter the world.  Take note and try to remember what you see and feel.
7. Hold on to the energetic forces, visualization, and chant until you can no longer hold them.  Then release the energy and the vibration back to the universe.  You will slowly find your self returning back to your body.
8. Record and note your feelings throughout the process
9. Eat something to ground and center yourself.

You mat notice now that you physically and mentally feel a little different.  This means that the alignment was successful.  By repeating the exercise with those particular spirits you will be able to establish stronger vibration connections and a deeper relationship with those spirits.  This exercise also provides you with a simple and effective way to experience astral travel and astral spirit work.

Conclusion

This entry has provided you with several different exercises for spiritual development and focus.  This entry also introduced you to some of the most basic concepts of energy work.  You have felt and experienced all the different types of energy that exist within ourselves.  This entry has given you many tools to effectively start working magic and to start making simple and effective changes in your spirituality every day.

By working through these exercises our connection to the energetic forces will grow stronger.  We will be able to sense the energy of the world around us and we will more effectively be able to judge how much of each energy to use in a specific working.  These basic exercises will form the foundation of much deeper work.  They will also strengthen spiritual mussels and connections to our self and our spiritual guides.

The tools are now yours.  Discover for yourself what these energetic forces are.  Use these tools now to create your own theories about magic and spirituality.  The world is yours to explore and discover the mysteries.  I can provide you insight and tools to have experiences but you must do the work yourself.

Good luck.  As always if you have any questions, concerns, or comments feel free to ask and post them.  I will do my best to answer and respond to them.  The more you ask me the better I can provide information and insight for you.  The better I can assist you in your spiritual development.