What Is Energy?
Hi all! So, I wanted to talk a bit about energy work today. I’m still working on continuations for the spellweaving and astral work series by the way, but at the current moment my focus is toward energy work.
So, what is energy?
Energy exists in all things; alive or dead, animate or inanimate. Handmade objects and crystals hold just as much energy as an herb or small plant. You’ll notice that energy is everywhere. It’s in the air, in inanimate objects, in people, in animals, in plants, both living and dead. Knowingly or not, every time you do a spell you are using energy. You may not realize it, but how else do you think the correspondences of the things you are using are getting connected and programmed? Emotional energy is used a lot in spells, especially in curses or cleansings or banishments. With a little practice and an understanding of exactly what you are doing, you can choose what type of energy you use for spells and other such things. Every time you do divination, you are using energy. In fact, you’re reading it in a way.
Lemme expand on that a little more, because I feel it’s necessary.
In normal divination, most people use a medium to read the “future” or the “past” or something like that. The medium is just a tool (in most cases a very lively and interperative based tool, but still a tool.) They are using a medium to read certain energy patterns in the world around them. Energy exists loosely, but also as a string that ties events and people and objects and places together. When you do tarot, you’re using the cards as a medium to read those patterns. Energy runs through the cards, and you connect with that energy, and the cards, almost as if they were alive, guide your hand to pick the ones that will reveal the answer to your question.
Energy readers do not use a medium. They read the energetic patterns directly. That is why energy reading is so difficult and may come out as “fuzzy”.
Things like tarot and pendulums are basically like a pair of glasses that help you read better.
We’ll begin to read energy by looking at how energy can be used to derive correspondences. Correspondences are normally derived one of three ways. One can look at the history that thing has and determine correspondences from that (for example, charcoal has a history of being used to write and create, as well as being used to feed fires. Therefore, a few correspondences we can derive from it would be to empower spells (feeding the fire, so to speak), creation, and creativity.)
The second way to derive correspondences is what the thing is used for. Take, oh, honey, for example. We use honey to sweeten things. It can be used in face masks to cleanse the pores. It’s also used to tenderize meat. So, some correspondences for honey could be cleansing and “niceness”. perhaps you would use it in a spell to help a friend (or enemy) become a little sweeter, or something similar.
The Last way to derive correspondences, and what we’ll be doing today, comes from the thing’s inherent energy. You can look at the energy of any object, and if you take the time to read it, the object will tell you what it can be used for. And, although the energy for similar objects has a similar “feel”, no two energy signatures will ever be the same. Meaning, one labradorite crystal might be used for divination, another as a dedication to a god, etc.
Do you have any herbs or crystals you don’t know the metaphysical correspondences of? Pick one for now; you can do this with the rest of your witchy ingredients later. Having your own personal correspondences for your things is a great way to make your spells more powerful.
Hold the herb or crystal in your hand; doesn’t matter which one. Then, try reading its energy. You can do this in a number of ways. You can absorb its energy and internalize it, noticing how it behaves and what kind of “feel” it has. You can simply focus on the herb or crystal directly and see what kind of things you can sense from it. Really spend some time on this, focusing on your witchy ingredient and reading it. If it was a person, how would you describe it in three words or less? (There is NO wrong answer to this by the way. Your personal correspondences are personal. No one else necessarily has to agree.)
Anytime you come across something new you could use in your spells, you should spend a few seconds trying this. It’s a great practice to get into. Also, since herbs and crystals and much are easier to read than people, it’s great practice before you try reading more complex, living beings such as spirits or humans. Not everyone derives personal correspondences like this, but I’ve seen many energy workers do it in a similar way to this; we all have our variations. For example, I like to send my own energy into the herb to form a connection and explore it, instead of internalizing its energy. Find a way that works great for you as you do this more and more.
As you found when you read the energy of the cloves, Energy can tell you the inherent qualities of anything. In a way, it is the thing; just a non-physical form of it. Energy does not exist in our physical world. It is connected, yes, but you cannot see it. Not in a physical sense. You can’t touch it. Even though it is everywhere, you are never interacting with it in this world.
You’re interacting with it in a sort of energetic world. Many people, including me, call this place the Astral. There are many layers of the Astral, but there is one layer that exists side-by-side with our physical world. On it, everything has an energetic copy, so to speak. Most people that are drawn to the occult inherently know how to interact with this energy, and it is partly what draws them. There are humans and beings in our world that will never know or be interested in how to interact with this energy, and that’s okay. When you do a spell, let’s say a jar spell, you throw all of the ingredients in a jar. What you probably don’t know is that, simultaneously, you are also throwing the energy of all the objects into a jar in this non-physical energetic world I call the Astral. Some people call it something different–others don’t label it at all. Still others have many other definitions for what the “Astral” is (and if you’d like to learn more about my take, go here.) People organize things like this into categories and label them so it makes more sense. No matter what anyone calls it, it is the same thing. What it is hasn’t changed. But that is where confusion of perspective lies when trying to teach things like this or talk about it with another practitioner. I always explain the terms I use so that people know what I am talking about it and can recognize it, even if they may not call it by the same name.
The energy of the objects react with each other, and you program the energy by throwing your intent into it. This can be done by writing what you want this jar spell to do on a piece of paper and including it in the jar. Now the energy knows what to do and how to do it, so the energy of the ingredients you included combines and does what you told it. Eventually, unless you charge the jar or program a way for it to draw more energy, the energy in the jar will run out.
A lot of energy workers that are just beginning, and even some that have been doing it for a while, do not know this or use this aspect of energy in their craft. They use the energy in its raw form, and yes, I suppose that is the attraction of energy work; mostly, it does not require any ingredients to do anything. But the true value of energy work lies in the fact that once you understand exactly what it is and what it is capable of, you can use what you have learned to enhance literally any aspect of your craft. You can make your spells more powerful by attaching an energy source for the spell to draw from–for example, the sun, yourself, the moon, a god (with permission). Then the spell will never “run out” of energy. You can use it to find correspondences, as you have seen. You can use it to read people, as you have experienced. Energy workers work to understand energy, how it works, how to use it. Even I am still discorvering ways to use it. I can find someone in a crowded place simply by following their energy to where they are. I always know where home is because I have set a beacon for me to follow when I get lost through energy. You can work with energy in its raw form, and you can also work with it through physical things. It’s an extremely volatile form of magic, and there are so many uses, that I honestly wonder why more people don’t try to work with it… but I also understand that it is volatile and difficult to work with. There are some people that just don’t have the patience to work with it… although, I hold the firm belief that anyone can work with energy if they apply themselves to it.
So, now you know that energy work is a bit more than simply creating energy balls. That is generally what most people perceive to be the first step to energy work, and in part I agree. It’s important to know how to shape energy if you’re going to be working with it on a greater scale like what I have described here. But many people stop there. Please know that there is no limit to energy work. There is no “stopping point”, and it is much the same for any area of magic. If you choose to go down this path, you will likely be traveling it for the rest of your life unless you decide that you have learned enough for your purposes. Also know that it is not the only path you have to travel, but this depth of information is exactly why many of us choose a few things to specialize in some years down the line.
Now that the heavy info is out of the way, let’s try a little exercise. I told you that energy was in everything, so now I want you to experience that for yourself. Meditate for a bit in your room or something, somewhere you won’t be questioned if someone walks in. You can even pretend you’re reading or taking a nap or something. While you’re meditating, Cast your senses out of yourself. See what kind of things you can pick up on; what kind of energy you can sense. It’s okay if your first time is a little fuzzy. It’s even okay if you barely pick up on anything, or even nothing at all. Just, sit, and explore the contents of your room–if you want to expand a bit further, you can explore the rest of your house from inside your room too. Where are certain people in your house? In what room? Where in the room? See if you can tell where they are by the position of their energy in your house. Are there any other beings in your house? When you’re finished and think you’ve gotten all you can get or get tired, you can write about the experience in your grimoire and come tell me about it. I’m curious to see what you’ll find. You can also do this outside, in a forest, etc. I took one of my students to a forest one time and we did this together, it was fun.
Fair warning: You should probably set up a protective circle or some sort of protections when you do this. You’re basically a beacon of energy whenever you do this, so it’s good to sit inside something that will protect you because there is a chance that you will attract spirits.
Final note: This is only my own take on energy and how it functions. Many other energy workers will have completely different takes on energy. My practice is not research-based, so i’ve foraged my own understanding of things like energy work, spellweaving, and astral work based on my interactions with others and my own experiences. As such, it’s important to note that this post (and most of my others) are based on UPG. I’ll always encourage you to also seek out other’s veiws. Thanks for reading~
