Looking for some advice from advance practioners

Thanks, though it doesn't answer my question.
If we would talk about hypnosis I would ask "Is it going to be used for stage shows or for serious therapeutic purposes?"

In addition to all the advice already given, which is wonderful, I would like to add one more point.

Drawing in additional energy in order to replenish yourself also has its side effects. Most notably it causes fatigue and disorientation as the new energy works its way into your system, getting 'digested' and recalibrated to your personal energy signature. These side effects can be minimized by actively recalibrating the energy, which takes a lot of effort for minimal reward (which is made more difficult when you're already feeling energy drained or energy flooded).

So although actively grounding then actively centering then actively recalibrating can be useful to speed up one form of energy balance it will take a lot of effort and still cause another set of symptoms and a downtime (which will be less, but will still exist). Note that some of the symptoms overlap from fatigue to digesting, but with digesting you won't feel weak and vulnerable at least.

It is far more beneficial to manage your energy levels from the beginning and use as little of your own energy as possible when manipulating. Using your personal energy is the easiest since you are already attuned to it but it is possible to attune yourself to other energies as well and utilize them instead. For example, Reiki practitioners attune themselves to 'reiki energy' which is a supernal font of 'healing energy' which they use. Vampires can easily attune themselves to others' personal energies and manipulate them for feeding purposes or otherwise. Some practitioners attune themselves to ambient energy, the small amount of energy which pervades the world in small quantities but can be gathered from an area to focus into manipulations. Some can also attune to plants, animals, ley lines, celestial bodies (sun/moon/etc), electrical or magnetic energy or many other physical sources.

What I do, and many other new agers today do, is attune to the sources of grounding below and above (mana/prana) and use those energies for manipulations instead of my own - essentially grounding before and during practice and allowing those energies to flow through me for use and very rarely adding in my personal energy. It is a little strange at first but once your channels are clear and you are properly attuned you will find that you have access to an even vaster source of energy than you yourself can provide. Note that attuning means utilizing the energy BEFORE it is integrated into your personal energy. Before I start any other activity I always always always ground and center, then open up my energy channels to allow for a flow. I have connected this to a series of triggers to speed up the process and can do it lightly in a few seconds. If I'm going to be doing something intense or major I go back through the intentions and do it properly to achieve a deeper ground.

I have recently (if you can call a year ago recent) also begun attuning to the four directional energies (forward/backward/left/right) to gain access to a variety of vibrational patterns. Interacting with these energies is an interesting learning experience.

Note that using another energy will still cause mental fatigue as you will need still need to focus your intentions deeply, though it should not cause energy fatigue. Also note that what I am speaking about isn't 'feed yourself as you practice', which can be effective to minimize fatigue but will still cause you to require digesting downtime with its own side effects. I'm talking about allowing a foreign energy to flow through your body unadjusted and actively control it.

Rin: Are you asking in general or are you asking joe for his purpose specifically?

I am asking for this purpose specifically. Energy manipulation only for the sake of manipulating energies or for entertainment purposes looks to me rather pointless.
Practising it to increase personal efficiencies, building personal strength for increased performance or better healing abilities would be a legitimate purpose.

learning for the sake of learning is never a waste and eventually one will be able to integrate energy into their lives and learn new applications for it. My path to becoming a healer was catalyzed by my learning of energy for the sake of perfecting the art.

The advice here has been top notch and I thank everyone again for taking the time to answer my questions.

Yamah:
I agree with you about pulling energy from different areas. From my discussions with other practitioners, energy seems to take on a distinct base feeling for each person (heat, static, vibrations, cold, etc.). Understanding the feeling of your energy is essential in finding the best practice to accumulating outside energy.

Now you can manipulate this energy through your thoughts and change the characteristics of the energy or the energy will change over time while you change and grow.

For me, I am more in tune with electromagnetic energy as my base energy feels like static electricity. It becomes even more apparent during electrical storms as my body becomes overloaded with energy very quickly. There is also fatigue involved which could be from the overload. Or it could be that since energy practitioners have a higher awareness we are more in tune with the drop in barometric pressure.

Consequently, I find it easier to pull energy in through breathing as I am more in tune with the charge in the air.

My question to you now is how to disperse the energy before you integrate it through your own system? It takes a little while to accumulate an adequate amount of outside energy.

Then in order to use the energy you have to distribute it through your meridians to the desired intended area.

In addition, what is your mental capacity for energy practice? I am able to move energy around for about two hours before I start to feel some tax on my mind.

Rin:
Sorry I was confused by your initial question. I started practicing energy for a variety of reasons: Increased health, spiritual enlightenment, and healing.

I also have been experimenting a little bit as well. With increased amounts of energy, our bodies are able to support additional functions. This can be seen through the opening of chakras and other effects.

In addition, with meditations and increased awareness we are opening up new neurological connections. This allows us increased bodily awareness and to control areas that were thought to be uncontrollable (such as being able to release adrenaline on demand)

Hope that gives you a little insight into my motivations!

Innerlight, Xan, and everyone else :
Thank you both for the tips. Everyone here seems very knowledgeable. I hope to be able to discuss energy manipulation more with you in the future. It has been a while since I was able to find knowledgeable practitioners.

[Xan]

Okay Joe... Best wishes for your explorations.


Xan

Do any of you feel the after effects and how do you deal with it to minimize the rebound as I call it.

Yes

When i first came across the 'rebound' issue I learned about it and gained some good tips to lessening its affect.

I'd suggest learning how to lower or lessen your energy production rate, so that way you can choose when to stop forcing it to pool within you and flood out.

Finding the limits of how much energy you can expend at any one time would be another suggestion. You could do this by concentrating on the sensations and feeling and recognising that point where the rebound begins (because it is gradual.) To you it might become painfull pins and needles, heavier or gives you a headache or just exhaustion or the heart twitches you mentioned, just generally feeling like your struggling to keep up or that something isn't 'right.'

In conjunction with recognising your limits, staying within what I would call the 'safe' energetic range (the limit) before the rebound begins as often as possible so as to avoid the affects of overexherting yourself and causing actual damage, less wear and tear pretty much.

I would also suggest learning how to recycle your energy as you move and create it instead of spewing it all over the place through your aura and skin. Try to allow it to circulate through your body and aura and return back to you, like a boomerang.

Slowly increasing your energetic capacity by marginally pushing your limits of energy output without wrecking yourself every time might be a good way to go as well so that over time you can go further for a longer amount of time without the rebound.

hopefully that helps

"My question to you now is how to disperse the energy before you integrate it through your own system? It takes a little while to accumulate an adequate amount of outside energy."

By changing the way you think about energy - and the world.

Your consciousness does not naturally know how to control your physical body or your spiritual body. For the former it takes years of neuron forming in the brain before your consciousness can make sense of the world it perceives through its physical form and understands how to interact with the world through the body it has been connected to. A similar process happens at the energetic level - it takes a while for the consciousness to learn to attune itself to the energy of its spiritual body. It is only because we are used to our own energies that we can readily control them.

learning to control other energies is the same thing. It doesn't necessarily mean altering your spiritual body to the vibrational pattern of a different energy, it means familiarizing your consciousness with a different vibrational pattern to be able to utilize it in the same way as it utilizes your personal energy. When this is properly accomplished you won't need to bring the energy in before manipulating it. You will be able to feel the electrical energy around you (for example) and then will it to change in the same way that you will your arm to raise.

That being said, it is possible to bring energy into yourself without integrating it into your body. You must make yourself into a vessel for an external energy. This is a natural process and one you have probably already accomplished in part or in whole. It is simply clearing out all the negative energy from your system, especially the reservoirs found behind each of the chakras. Energy naturally gathers in these reservoirs like electricity into a capacitor and if there are blockages then the energy within the reservoirs can become stuck, stagnate and rot. When the resevoirs are clean you can store additional energy of any type that you wish, including your personal energy (in general or chakra specific) or any kind of external energy. Energy stored in your reservoirs will naturally become digested over time if left there, integrating into your personal energy signature. You'd be surprised at just how much energy a clean reservoir can hold.

Note that different energies feel most at home in different chakras. Chi, for example, is most at home in the sacral chakra. Electrical energy... I'm not sure, where is your center? You probably have more familiarity with it than i do.

Alternately you can gather the energy into an external construct, such as a large energy ball. This is a dangerous process, especially if you are allowing the energy to flow into the construct directly and this should only be attempted with someone more experienced than you, or once you are extremely comfortable dealing with constructs. The first time I attempted doing so was about 2 years into my training and I let the energy get out of control... if my master wasn't there to help me contain it and redirect it into a spontaneous program, well... I still don't know what might have happened!