It is not enough to merely raise energy and then ground it back to the source it came from. For you to truly do magick, you must raise energy, hold that energy at least long enough to give it direction, and then send it out into the world to do work. Remember that energy work can be divided into one of three categories: Magick, Divination, and Worship. All three follow the same basic set of steps; a connection with an energy, the imbuing of energy with your intent, and the movement of energy into the world.

If you’ve been practicing your Grounding and Centering, you’ve been practicing moving your own energy, and connecting with energy sources outside of yourself. It’s time to expand your focus and use of energy.

Remember that Grounding is creating a cycle, a circuit, between yourself and an energy source, in which energy flows through you, back and forth with your source. Into and out of yourself, and the source you have connected with. To move from Grounding to raising and then holding energy, change your focus just slightly. Instead of creating a circuit in which energy moves both into yourself and out of yourself, only allow energy to move into your energetic body, and not back out again. 

It takes practice to learn to pull and hold energy, and the more you try to hold at any one time the harder the task can be. Practice pulling and holding small amounts of energy first, before attempting a large spell that needs a lot of energetic work. Build up your mental skills and stamina, so that eventually, you can draw, and hold, the energy needed for truly massive workings. 

In a way, through your Grounding practice, you have been learning to send and move energy. Most of the time, the energy equalizes between you and the source you have connected to, and thus requires very little direction. However, you might have needed to really focus on pulling energy, and then pushing your own energy outward to find a balance and create a circuit. Now you’re going to learn the techniques for moving and sending energy deliberately. 

Moving Energy

Raising and holding energy can be thought of as turning yourself into a balloon. You’ve pulled in energy and expanded your Self to hold it all. You can also conceptualize yourself as holding the energy in the outer layers of your energetic body, or as a reservoir you’ve created to hold the energy. Whatever feels most natural and ‘right’ to you is the way you should approach the work. Experiment with different approaches and find the framework that allows you to work most efficiently.

If you conceptualize your holding of energy as being an expansion of your Self, you may find that when you begin to move energy into your Work, you move too much, and drain yourself. A divide between the energy raised for magick and the energy you need to keep on metabolizing may be useful for you. If you chronically feel drained after spellwork or magick, find that you need to take a nap rather suddenly, or feel poorly after doing energy work, change the way you’re thinking about the energy you’re pulling for working with, and create a greater divide in your mental landscape between energy for You and energy for Work.

Moving energy around can be a purely mental exercise. However, most people find that it is useful to be able to add a gesture, words, or other guiding and directing haptic action to their Work. You’ll find that in manuals on energy work there’s a reference to your dominant hand and your receptive hand. Your dominant hand is also your projecting hand. This may not be the same as the hand you mainly write with! Instead, your projecting hand is the hand that you use when directing energy out of yourself, or when you are actively interacting with the physical world. Your receptive hand is the hand through which you perceive the world, and pick up energetic nuance.

I’m right handed, and right eye dominant. My projecting hand is my left hand. You can figure out which of your hands is projecting vs receptive by paying attention to how you interact in the world; try laying out a deck of cards, tarot, oracle, or otherwise. Fan the deck, facedown, over a flat surface. Gently touch the backs of the cards, until you feel one that is calling to you, or has a message you need. It may feel warm, staticky, cold, or just, like it’s the right card. What hand did you use to choose  your card? That’s more than likely your receptive hand. 

After you have connected with your energetic source, raised energy, held the energy, visualized your intended outcome, it’s time to move the energy outward so it can manifest your intent. 

For some workings, simply sending the energy to do the work you’ve programmed it to do is enough. Prayer and worship often follow this pattern, with energy raised, imbued with intent, and released either to the divine being, or into perhaps an offering or sacrifice to that being. Prayerful working can be done by asking all sorts of entities and beings and energy sources to aid in your work. You can combine a petition to a greater being with your other works, too, and split your energy, half to the being, half into a physical representation of your spell.

Empowering a sigil or charm, talisman, or symbolic representation of your intent is something we’ll go into in greater detail in the next lesson. As a general guideline, you’ll use your projecting hand, or a wand, athame, or other tool, to direct the energy from your energetic hold into the physical (and now also energetic) structure and anchor of the spell. Building permanent wards and shields, long lasting attraction spells, prosperity and health spells, all require that you create the energetic form first in your mind, and then either release that form to do work in the world, or anchor it to a physical representation and/or alternate energy source.

The reason why you gather items for your spells that correspond with your intent is because you’re going to tie their inherent energies into the spell, and use them to power the work. When you add your energy that you’ve raised, and imbued with intent, you’re creating the energetic structure of the spell and then anchoring it to the corresponding energy of the components. A jar with herbs and stones in it is just a jar of herbs and stones, unless you’ve raised energy, imbued it with the intended outcome, and put that energy into the jar, while also knowing and understanding that the contents of the jar will power the spell.

Your visualization practice will be useful for moving energy around. It helps immensely to be able to feel the energy in yourself, and around yourself. Practice Grounding and Centering, meditation, and other mental disciplines. Practice visualization as a holistic endeavor: it’s not just seeing things, it’s also feeling them, smelling them, holding entire complex concepts in your mind.

In the coming lessons, we’ll go over empowering and charging things, as well as cleansing and banishing energies. These are the most common uses for energy in the hands of a witch or high ceremonial practitioner. For now, practice connecting to energetic sources, raising energy, holding that energy, and then releasing it again.

Energy Building and Sensing Exercise

Briskly rub your hands together, palms together, until your palms feel warm. Seperate your hands by an inch or two. Now move your hands together and apart. What do you feel?

This is part of my Energy Work 101 course, as first taught through the Urban Conservatory discord server. If you’re enjoying this content, please feel free to join the server and the community. You can also buy me a coffee!