Energy work for Manifestation
Successful manifestation depends on maintaining a certain feeling. To make a change in the world, decide what you want to happen, and then feel the way you would feel as if it had actually happened, disregarding the evidence of the senses - and it happens. I was going to write: 'you wait until it happens'... but then you would be waiting, not feeling!
Now perhaps you are manifesting via the law of assumption, so you simply feel this feeling frequently. Or perhaps it is more of a magickal operation, with a ritual which climaxes in a crescendo of feeling, and then deliberate forgetting. Both these techniques will work to manifest a desired change in reality, but the common secret ingredient is feeling. You have to choose a certain emotion, and then raise it intensely - and sustain it in spite of the senses' perceptions.
Energy is also a feeling state
What exactly is a 'feeling' or 'emotion'? You can use the word to describe a feeling, like sad or excited - but beyond the word, what is the human experience of an emotion?
If you look, it's actually a physical sensation. You feel a sensation in the body, perhaps using a simile to describe it, 'butterflies in the stomach' and then give this sensation a label of 'excitement'. It can be in reference to a state. 'I am excited'. Once you have a state, there are various things that radiate from it, mainly mental pictures (for example, receiving and enjoying the expected outcome of what you are excited about), excited speech and body language. Primarily we're interested in the mental aspect here.
What about a negative emotion, say being 'depressed'. How does that feel? There are well known ways that describe it, like 'a knot in the stomach' or being 'down in the dumps', the latter not describing a sensation directly, but negative emotions (if you think about it) are described in terms of location/direction, 'feeling down', depressed/uplifted, feeling 'low', feeling 'high' - because they are describing the location of energy.
It sounds strange to say it this way because we don't usually describe it thus, but that is the experience of emotion, that it is an energy in the body. It's true that some sensations in the body, that are linked to the body, can have a physical explanation, like the butterflies in the stomach sensation might be to do with adrenaline being released, but others not so much. When you become very mindful over time and can both passively see the energy of emotion in the body, and also direct it with will, the fact that it is indeed an energy is beyond argument.
Emotion is consciousness
Energy that is emotion is also consciousness. That's a big claim, but really it can be seen over time. The energy of emotion is consciousness itself, and because of that, it can be directed by consciousness. We live in two worlds, a physical world and an inner world, but the inner world isn't just 'imaginary' or made up or a vague concept; it's a different reality which intersperses the physical. So you have a physical body here in this world and an inner body in the inner world.
The physical body in the material realm follows the physical rules of the realm it is in, such time only going forward, things being fixed and taking time to change. The mental body follows the different rules of that different world it is in. When you think of your embodiment (the mental image of your body), you might imagine yourself vastly different to your physical counterpart, possibly better, but usually worse!
The etheric body
The inner body is an actual body. It's the etheric body and is made of an actual material in some way. It's a less gross form of energy, and that energy can more easily be directed than the physical counterpart. So you can move your physical body in set ways with an act of will or intention, but within very set laws; you can't touch your left elbow with your left hand.
The inner body can be vastly changed and projected over great distances. The focus here, for the purpose of this article, is that energy can be directed to the end of deliberately raising and maintaining it in a certain way to cause changes in the physical world (manifestation).
This is all old news to anyone who has been in new age circles for any period of time. You imagine energy as a light and direct it the same way as you direct any visualization. Perhaps you direct light to a certain part of the body with the intention of a healing. But this does feel just imaginary, it somehow doesn't feel real and doesn't seem to change things very much. Most people who manifest via the law of assumption or attraction rarely use this type of visualization as it simply isn't very effective.
A new way to project spiritual energy
I have been interested in these subjects since I was at school, practically living the occult. Years later I was staying in Kathmandu and picked up a book in a used bookshop (when those still existed) called Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce. The main focus of the book was as the title suggests, to learn astral projection, but there was an extensive section on the energy body and a new way to direct the energy. At the time this blew my mind (and still does) and to this day I don't understand why this masterpiece isn't better known. I want to give a taster of the system here, which isn't based on visualization (as is almost every other previous system) but on kinesthetics (physical sensations).
Getting started working with the energy body
So to give this a try, the first step is to focus on the the etheric body and it's sensations rather than the physical. Hold your hands before you and consider them. Have your eyes open and observe as you touch your thumb to each fingertip, index to little finger, and back again.
Now close your eyes and do it again. You still have the same sensations and are likely 'looking' at your hand, with your eyes closed, i.e. looking at the mental counterpart of your hand.
Next, hold your hand palm up (eyes still closed) and use your fingertip of the other hand to make a little circle in the centre of the palm, use a fair bit of force and spiral round a few times so that when you stop there is a feeling of sensation to focus on. So at the end of the exercise, you are looking at your mental hand and a residue feeling of sensation, which will fade away as you are no longer physically scratching your hand.
Stay focused in the same way, that is, keep your eyes closed. Keep the mental image of your hand with the palm up and watch the sensations disappear now that the scratching has stopped, but keep focused on that same small area - as though you are watching for any changes in air temperature there. Imagine if someone said there is a little ghost living hovering above your palm and you can't see it but you will be able to feel it get a little warmer or colder there. Focus on that spot, watching intently.
What you will notice is an increase in sensations there. Now this isn't because of the scratching or a little ghost or anything like that. Simply, you are focusing on one small part of your body and the focused attention there is drawing energy to that point, and you are feeling it in your etheric body.
Now put both hands on your thighs palms up. Take your right hand, and use it to stroke your left palm up and down, about one and a half seconds each way. Have your eyes closed but have a mental picture of what your mental hands are doing. [So your physical and mental hands are interspearsed and acting in unison at this point] After half a minute or so, stop and put your physical right hand back on the right thigh, palm up as it was.
Now keep your physical right hand where it is, but imagine the counterpart of the right mental hand moves, it's an awareness hand. Your physical hand and the corresponding mental hand are going to be separate. The physical hand stays where it is and the mental hand moves independently as the mental arm it is attached to also seperates from the physical and allows the mental hand (the awareness hand) to go back to the left hand and begins stroking the palm in the same way.
And you will feel it. Obviously you are not feeling it physically, because you are not touching yourself physically, you will feel it on an etheric level.
More energy work exercises
Lets try it with the feet. Rub both physical feet on the floor to create a physical sensation and watch it fade (your attention on the soles of the feet will draw energy there).
Now imagine that each of your awareness hands are holding a little paint brushe, about two centimeters wide. The hands move down to the soles of the feet. Because they are etheric/mental, there is no need to physically lean forward, either your etheric arms can grow or the hands can float down by themselves. Either way, they take the little brushes and begin 'painting' i.e. stroking the soles of the feel simultaneously, heel to toes, and back again. They do this until you get a strong sensation in the centre of both soles (as the energy is drawn there).
Next, imagine that the brushes turn into sponges that are the width of the whole foot, and that they interpermiating the feet. Sponge the whole of both feet up and down until you can feel the sensations raising in both feet. Now there will be far more energy being drawn there and you will be able to feel that fact.
Next, back to the hands. Rub the physical palms together to create an energetic sensation. Now hold them about ten centimeters apart. Close your eyes and imagine an electric blue ball forming between them. Do so until you can feel it energetically, then move your hands apart 30cm. and bounce the ball between them so that you can feel it contacting your awareness palms. Your physical hands stay still and you are moving the ball with your mind, seeing the mental hands with your eyes closed, but most importantly FEELING the sensation caused by the ball, which is a real energy you have now created.
Do this for a while, then change it. Make it so that every time the ball gets to a palm, rather than bouncing off it, it passes through, continuing on about four centimeters to the other side of the hand, then sweeping back through to the other palm of the other hand, which it also passes through 4cm, and so back and forth. You should be distinctly feeling this now.
Next, hold both awareness arms before you with fingers interlinked as though you are hugging a tree (keeping your physical arms at rest on your thighs). Form the ball over your interlocked fingers, interpenetrating them. Now move it up your right arm, across your back back and down the other arm and through the hands and again carrying on to circle through the right arm, across the back, and down the left arm to your fingers. Circle this way for a while, then switch it back and circle it around in the opposite direction.
Lastly, physically scratch your third eye to create some sensation, then form the ball there. When you can feel it, pull it back through your skull, outward about four centimeters behind the bone at the back of the skull. Then bring it forward through the skull to around four centimeters before the forehead, and back and forth -- keep going for about a minute.
That is it for now. A taster, so that you can see for yourself the power of this system. You can physically feel the energy in your body and use awareness to direct it. You used three techniques of 'brushing', 'bouncing' and 'sponging', there is also stirring, wrapping, tearing and breathing from, and also a number of 'astral tools' available. Stay tuned for more instruction.
As I stated at the start. the benefits of this system are twofold. One, it increases awareness of energetic states on a moment-to-moment basis. When you get use to sensing energy, you can feel directly when it is out of whack in someway, where it is blocked or collecting. Secondly, you have the power to change and direct it. This will become a lifetime journey, part of a permanent manifestation practice as a means of not only manifestation and healing but also towards ultimate awakening as the same energy can directly open the chakras and raise the energy towards your crown.
[Above based on work originally by Robert Bruce]