Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Cunningham's Raising & Directing Personal Power
Generate a vivid bodily sense of ‘personal power’ through muscle-tensing and breath, concentrate it with visualisation onto a concrete need, and release it toward the goal — the core energetic mechanism Cunningham places beneath all his spellwork.
Cunningham’s personal power: Settle and name one concrete need. Rub the palms briskly until they tingle — that’s the energy you’ll use. Raise it: tense the body and breathe deeply and rhythmically until you feel charged and humming. At the peak, see the goal as already real and feel the charge condense in your hands. Push it out through the sending hand toward the goal, release completely, ground, and act. Honestly read: an embodied state-induction and intention-focusing ritual.
What it is
Beneath every spell Scott Cunningham (1956–1993) taught lies one engine: personal power — the life-energy he held that each person carries in the body and can deliberately rouse, concentrate, and project toward a goal.
In his system, magic is the movement of natural energies, and he names three sources — personal power (your own bodily energy), earth power (energy resident in herbs, stones, flame, water), and divine power (the deities) — but personal power is the one the solitary practitioner raises and directs in the body.
The method is concrete and physical: tense the muscles and breathe to build a felt charge, hold the goal vividly in mind so the charge concentrates on it, then release it with a sending gesture. Whether one reads the “power” literally or as a psychophysical state of focused arousal, the procedure and its felt effect are the same.
The Method
A faithful summary of Cunningham’s raise-concentrate-direct sequence (Wicca 1988; Earth Power 1983):
- Settle and state the need. Sit or stand quietly, breathe slowly a few times, and fix on one clear, concrete aim. The need gives the power its direction.
- Feel for the power. Cunningham has the beginner first notice personal energy — e.g. rub the palms together briskly until they tingle and warm, then hold them slightly apart and feel the “charge” between them. This proves the felt sensation is real and learnable.
- Raise the power by tensing and breathing. Build the charge deliberately: tighten the muscles of the body (Cunningham describes tensing progressively until you feel yourself “humming” with energy) while breathing deeply and rhythmically, optionally with a soft chant. The body becomes the generator.
- Concentrate it with visualisation. As the charge peaks, see the desired outcome vividly as already accomplished (The Inner Creates the Outer), and feel the raised energy gather and condense — Cunningham often locates it pooling at the hands or solar plexus, ready to be sent.
- Direct and release. Project the power toward the goal or into a focus object — Cunningham uses the idea of a projective (“sending”) hand and a receptive (“taking”) hand — pushing the visualised energy out through the projective hand with a clear release. Let it all go at the peak.
- Empty and ground. Release any residue (relax fully, touch the floor), stop dwelling on the working, and turn to practical action toward the aim. (Sourcing note: faithful paraphrase of Cunningham’s personal-power model — the three powers, hand-rubbing to feel energy, muscle-tensing-plus-breath to raise it, visualisation to concentrate, and projective/receptive hands to direct it. Short concept terms are his; prose is paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Earth Power (1983) was Cunningham’s early manual of natural magic, framing magic as the conscious movement of natural energies and giving simple techniques for raising and using them. Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (1988) made the personal-power model central to a self-taught, coven-free practice, teaching readers to feel, raise, and direct their own energy as the foundation for casting circles and working spells.
The projective/receptive-hand idea and muscle-tensing energy-raising he shares with the wider modern-witchcraft current (e.g. Starhawk’s cone of power). → suggested node.
The Traditions' versions
Folk-spell framework (Cunningham) — the same raise-focus-release applied as a full spell with correspondences.
- Cone of power (Starhawk / Wicca) — group raising of energy to a peak, then release; the collective form of the same mechanic.
- Pranayama / energy work (yoga) — breath-driven cultivation of a felt inner energy.
- Qi / chi cultivation (qigong) — sensing and moving a bodily life-energy, including palm-charging exercises near-identical to the hand-rubbing step.
- Creative visualisation (New Thought) — vividly picturing the realised outcome to direct attention and motivation.
Common refinements
Straining. Tense firmly but don’t clench to pain or hold the breath to dizziness; gentle, rhythmic build is the aim.
- Skipping the felt charge. Reciting words without actually raising the bodily energy is the most common failure — the tension/breath/sensation is the engine.
- Fuzzy target. Power with no clear, concrete need disperses; name one specific aim before raising.
- Weak or absent visualisation. The image of the accomplished goal is what the charge is concentrated onto; thin imagery wastes the raise.
- Not releasing. Holding the energy (and the worry) keeps you tense; the clean send-and-relax is part of the method.
- Treating it as a substitute for action. It sets state and direction, not results; follow with practical steps.