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Ever wondered why it is that most people prefer new things to second-hand?
Apart from the fact that new things are generally in better condition than second-hand things, a large part of the joy of new ownership lies in the fact that they arrive in your life like a blank slate, ready for you to use and imprint with your own energy to make them feel yours.
The difference between second hand and new:
You can save a lot of money buying things second-hand but the drawback is that they nearly always have some level of energetic imprinting from the previous owner. The more the item was used and the longer the person owned it, the more imprinting it will have.
Of course, if the previous owner was someone you love or respect, this can be a good thing. It’s also the reason why so many people seek to own an item that once belonged to a celebrity, because some of that person’s energy will be imprinted into it.
But most objects you acquire second-hand, including antiques, are unlikely to have such desirable histories. It’s pot luck. You have no idea what embedded imprints you’ll be taking home with you or how they will affect you. More often than not, they will have energies that hinder rather than help you in your life.
Most brand new items, by comparison, have no discernible imprinting. This is certainly the case with factory-made items where there has been no human handling at all. Manufactured items may have slight imprinting, and hand-crafted items or pieces of art in which the creator had some emotional involvement will have considerably more imprinting. In my experience, just as much discernment is needed when acquiring these types of items as with second-hand objects.
Passages from Karen Kingston @ https://www.spaceclearing.com/blog/energy-imprints-in-second-hand-things/
Energy Imprints and Constructs
It is important to understand that our energy is not static. It doesn’t just glow around us like some kind of painted halo. Our energy is engaged in a constant exchange with the energy of the world around us. Our auras are more like a candle flame than you might imagine. Like the flame, they constantly radiate energy outward, and that energy is dispersed into the world around them. For the candle, there must be some kind of fuel, such as paraffin, to sustain combustion. However, the flame would not burn without additionally taking in a vital component from the atmosphere surrounding it: oxygen. Through this interaction, there is a constant exchange going on that feeds the candle flame even as it sends its heat and light out into the world. So it is with us, a constant and dynamic exchange. We are sustained by the energy naturally generated by our bodies, yet even as we are constantly radiating energy outward, so too are we taking energy in to continue the cycle.
A candle flame warms the air around it with its shed energy. We affect the world around us with our energy radiation as well. Spent energy constantly disperses from us, being shed in the process of our burning. This energy drifts off of us, settling like psychic dust in the subtle world. This trace of our passing will linger for some time until the energy is picked up by one of the currents of the subtle reality. Once it gets caught in one of the eddies or floes, the energy is moved and agitated, reduced to a neutral state again, and eventually recycled into the greater whole. However, it can also drift into stagnant places like the store room used as an example several chapters ago. In that case, the energy simply adds to the detritus already built up there, helping to create a very rank and oppressive atmosphere. As no currents move through places like this in order to clean them out, the energy will remain there until something comes by to consume it or until it is consciously stripped away.
Not all of the energy that we leave in the world around us is simply cast-off detritus. Some of the energy fingerprints we leave on objects and places are imprints that we very actively put there. By attaching special significance to certain places or things, we actually invest some of our energy into that location or object. Whether we are conscious of the process or not, the more attention and emotion we focus on something, the deeper an impression that we leave upon it.
Think of it like this: a candle lit in an empty room will burn regardless of whether anything is there to receive its warmth and its light. However, a flame can also be used to warm someone’s hands, or it can be used more directly on an object, to burn a mark into it. How close something is to the flame and how long it is exposed to its energy determines how deeply it will be burned. Some objects we merely scorch with our personal energy, but some things we practically brand with our individual signatures.
A Memory Ghost
Let us say that your grandmother has passed away. You’ve inherited her house and a good portion of her personal effects. Sad, but a little excited to be gifted with such tangible memories of her, you move in. You have one of her rings resized so you can wear it as a constant reminder of what she meant to you in life. You are very happy in your new home, but after a few weeks, you start noticing things that seem a little strange. For instance, every time you walk past the kitchen, it seems like you can see your grandmother standing over the stove. You catch the image just out of the corner of your eye, and of course when you look directly at it, there’s nothing there. But it seems like her presence lingers in the kitchen, even when you can’t actually see her. You also get a strong sense of her radiating from her favorite rocking chair. This is so strong that you unconsciously leave the rocking chair empty, almost as if you’re expecting her to sit down in it at any moment. And sometimes, when you’re sleeping, you wake up all of a sudden, and it seems like your grandmother is hovering over you, watchful and protecting. You can’t see anything in the darkness of your room, but the sense of her presence is almost palpable.
Now, you don’t get the feeling that your grandmother means you any harm, but the strength of the impressions has got you a little spooked. You hardly intended to be sharing your new home with a ghost. Feeling a little out of your water, you decide to do a little research. You check out a few books on the subject and learn that ghosts often linger due to unfinished business. Furthermore, they often appear to family members that they need to communicate with. You experimentally try talking to your grandmother, assuring her that you love her and, although she is terribly missed, she really needs to move on. Yet this is like talking into a phone that has no one on the other end. There is no response, and you do not even get a sense that the spirit is listening to you. The impressions of her presence continue, but always in the same places, and no matter how hard you try to communicate, she never responds.
In this case, it is very likely that there is no ghost and your grandmother has already moved on. The feelings and impressions that you’re picking up on in the house are simply lingering echoes of your grandmother’s energy. In the kitchen, for instance, she was always cooking, and a special way she expressed her love for her family was through her desserts and her food. It follows that a great deal of her energy was invested into the kitchen, and this energy residue is strongest near the stove. The rocking chair was somewhere she sat when she needed to think and ponder the direction her life was going, so of course a lot of her energy still lingers here as well. And whenever you wake up at night with the feeling of your grandmother’s presence nearby you, the ring of hers that you now wear is sitting on your night stand. If you really think about it, you realize that the impression of her presence is actually coming from the ring itself, a piece of jewelry that she always wore, for as long as you can remember.
We leave little echoes of ourselves in the places and objects that are important to us. Sometimes, we are half-conscious of this. For example, if we want a close friend to have a reminder of us, we often give them some piece of jewelry or some little object that was very precious to us. We usually even give it with the words, “Keep this close; it will remind you of me.” The reminder is not simply in the gesture of giving the gift. We could just as easily go to the store and pick out something expensive. But some of the most precious gifts we give to others are things that we’ve had with us for a while, things that we’ve attached a great deal of sentimental value to. Why? Because our energy is all over these things. When we give this to someone, we are giving them a piece of ourselves, and that energy, unique to us, will radiate out of the object, constantly reminding our loved one of what it feels like to have us near.
Emotional Imprints
It is possible to for us to leave traces of our energy on objects or places without having that energy resonate with our personal presence. Strong emotions can very easily imprint themselves on the world around us. Homes, workplaces, even hotel rooms can develop a distinct build-up of emotional residues. These residues linger in the subtle reality, affecting everyone who comes into contact with them on a deep and unspoken level.
Emotional residues, like our psychic dust, build up over time. Unlike psychic dust, however, emotional residues can linger for quite a while. Since we tend to associate places with the emotions we’ve experienced in them, we have a habit of experiencing the same feelings in the same places over and over again. The pre-existing energy of the place only encourages this, and so it creates a self-perpetuating cycle of emotion.
For example, a teenager almost always retreats to her room for sanctuary from the “unfair” world. Whenever this young person has a bad day at school or has an argument with her parents, she takes all her hurt feelings with her to her private space. Now, her original intention is to simply find some place that is separate and away from those things that seem to always be hurting her. And yet by constantly taking these bad feelings into her personal space, she imprints the negativity on the very walls. Over time this builds up, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of negative emotions.
Given the tumultuous energy of a teen, this cycle can get pretty intense. Before too long, her room has become a kind of emotional pit, where anyone walking in can just feel the angst and anger dripping off the walls. A little bit of this negativity rubs off onto anyone exposed to it, inspiring similar emotions which then feed back into the pre-existing residue. Like breeds like where emotional residues are concerned, and every time the lingering impression inspires that self-same emotion in a person, that person’s emotional energy feeds back into the residue, strengthening it. So, whenever her parents come up to her room to comfort her, they find themselves instead inspired to a confrontation. They wind up yelling and arguing even more, unaware that a large part of their feelings are being influenced by the general feel of negativity radiating from her room. In such an atmosphere, it’s almost impossible not to react to the ambient emotion.
Negative emotions often leave the strongest lingering impressions, but not all emotional residues inspire bad feelings in people. We can invest objects with very positive impressions as well. Consider that favorite teddy bear you had as a child. You carried that thing with you everywhere, and for you it was the ultimate talisman of safety and security in an unpredictable world. When you went to bed at night, you knew beyond any kind of doubt, that that bear would protect you from all the monsters under your bed. You lavished love and attention upon it, so much so that it almost seemed to take on a personality of its own.
Once you outgrew the need for the teddy bear, you still kept it around, and eventually it was given to a very special child in your adult life. And the very first time that child held the teddy bear, he could feel the comfort and safety radiating off of it. Each time he took it to bed with him, he knew just by the feel of the bear that he would be safe. And his own feelings of comfort and security fed back into the bear, perpetuating the emotional impression.
Some day, at a much later time, the bear might end up in an antique shop, and the person who picks it up will immediately sense the love it was given. The impression of childhood trust and comfort breathes almost tangibly from the worn cloth of the toy. All of us have handled toys like that, little childhood talismans that seem to have taken on a life of their own. As children, our energy is unguarded and pure. We focus that energy into things without any kind of hesitation or reserve. And so the lingering impressions of childhood emotion are some of the strongest we can encounter.
Energy Constructs
There have been movies made about dolls invested with enough energy that they achieve a weird kind of life. Usually this is the stuff of horror films and nightmares, but let’s look back at the teddy bear example for a moment. Think about all the energy that a child puts into a toy like that. The child names the toy, makes up stories about it. The toy becomes in his mind a special friend, almost more real to him than the kid who lives down the street. How much innocent energy does it take to invest the toy with some kind of actual personality? Is there such a thing as a created spirit?
It is possible for enough energy to be invested into a residue that it takes on a life of its own. This process is very rare, but it can still happen with unintentionally. More common, although still far and few between, are intentionally created energy constructs. These are sometimes called elementals by witches and magickal workers. Another term for them is “astral construct,” because they exist entirely in the non-physical realm.
What is the difference between an energy construct and the impression of your grandmother lingering in the house? First and foremost, the construct is something which had no existence separate from the energy which makes it up. Your grandmother was a living person, unique and vital and very physically real. After her passing, a great deal of her energy lingered in her living space and on those objects precious to her. When you “saw” your grandmother in the house, it was an impression only, even though your mind interpreted it as her actual presence. A second spirit was not born out of the lingering energies she left behind. These were just echoes of her.
An energy construct, on the other hand, is created purely out of energy. It has no real existence in the physical world prior to or after its creation. It can be tied to a particular physical object, or even a place, but this serves as a focus only. The real existence of the construct is in the subtle realm. Such constructs are born of a continuous build-up of focused energy – either the energy of strong emotion, or the equally potent energy of a person’s intentionally directed will.
Intentional constructs can be invested with a limited amount of sentience – kind of like a spiritual program that dictates certain actions they should perform. Unintentionally created constructs usually play out a limited set of actions inspired by whatever created them in the first place. Thus, a construct that has developed in a home where there was constant anger and fighting will simply roam around, inspiring the same sort of feelings in others and feeding off of the energy those emotions produce.
The significant difference between a simple residue and a construct at this point is the independence it has achieved. The construct can move from place to place in the subtle reality much like any other spirit, while a residue is usually tied to the place where it was created until it is worn away or removed. The construct also actively seeks out the kind of energy that will perpetuate its existence, whereas a residue does this only passively. Finally, a construct will instinctively avoid anything that might harm it or bring about the end of its existence. This indicates at least a limited amount of sentience, a fact which is just a little unsettling, considering this created spirit developed from nothing more than a build-up of cast-off human emotion.
Michelle Belanger