How Life and Death Currents Are Transferred

The transfer of life and death currents is one of the most foundational practices within esoteric, occult, and transformative spiritual traditions. These currents are not physical substances, but subtle energies shaped through intention, will, visualization, breath, and alignment with the desired state. The practitioner becomes a conduit, allowing the energy to move between themselves, another person, an object, a ritual space, or a spiritual force. Understanding how these currents are transferred requires an examination of the internal mechanisms that initiate, shape, and direct the flow.

The central mechanism of all energetic transference is focused intention. Intention determines the quality, direction, and purpose of the current being moved. The life current responds to expansive and generative intention, while the death current responds to the quieting and dissolving intention associated with release and transformation. Intention is the silent command that calls the current forth and directs its movement.

Breathing operates as the pump that drives the current. When channeling the life current, the practitioner breathes deeply and draws energy upward through the body, feeling it rise from the belly into the chest and head, then pushing it outward on the exhale. When channeling the death current, breath is drawn downward and released slowly, creating a sense of sinking, cooling, and grounding into stillness. Breath establishes the rhythm of the current and provides the power behind its flow.

Visualization gives the current its shape and form. Through visualization, the practitioner translates intention into subtle energetic motion. The life current may be visualized as warmth, fire, light, or rising movement, while the death current may be visualized as shadow, mist, darkness, or a downward pull. Visualization defines the frequency of the current, allowing it to take on a specific transformative quality in accordance with the practitioner’s purpose.

The physical body serves as a symbolic conductor. Hands are the most common channel, as they naturally express intention through touch or proximity. Outstretched palms direct energy outward, while inward-curled hands draw energy toward the self. The heart can also become a channel when the practitioner focuses their intention and breath through the chest. Even eye contact or presence can create a subtle energetic link that allows the current to flow. Physical contact is not required, but posture and gesture amplify the clarity of the transfer.

Emotion acts as fuel. Life's current work draws on emotions such as passion, strength, devotion, and determination, which produce heat and upward movement. Death's current work draws on stillness, acceptance, emptiness, or the refined form of grief that accompanies release. Emotion intensifies the current, giving it depth and potency.

Ritual acts as the container for the work. Symbols, lighting, movement, invocation, and atmosphere all influence the practitioner’s internal state and create a stable environment in which the current can move freely. Ritual structure reinforces the frequency of the current, whether one is working with the fire of life or the void of death, anchoring the practitioner in the desired state.

Alignment with the current source allows the practitioner to draw from something greater than themselves. In life-current work, this may mean aligning with inner vitality, ancestral strength, cosmic fire, or a deity associated with creation or awakening. In death-current work, the practitioner aligns with the void, ancestral shadow, underworld forces, or a deity who governs endings and transformation. Through alignment, the practitioner becomes a receiver, allowing the current to flow through rather than from their own reserves.

The actual transfer occurs once the practitioner is fully engaged with intention, breath, visualization, emotion, and alignment. The transfer may manifest as projection, in which energy is sent outward; extraction, in which stagnant or unwanted energy is drawn inward and then released; or exchange, in which both sending and receiving occur simultaneously. Exchange-based transference is common in devotional or paired ritual practices and creates a balanced cycle of movement between the participants.

Closing the transfer is essential for maintaining balance. Life's current work is often grounded by returning to stillness, cooling the breath, and centering the mind. Death's current work is grounded by reconnecting to the physical body through food, drink, movement, or contact with the earth. Grounding stabilizes the practitioner’s energy and ensures that the currents do not linger in a way that causes emotional or energetic imbalance.

In this way, life and death currents are transferred through an interplay of intention, breath, visualization, bodily conduction, emotional resonance, ritual structure, alignment with a greater source, and conscious grounding. Together, these elements form a complete energetic process that allows the practitioner to work with the expansive nature of life and the transformative power of death as two halves of a single spiritual current.

Annotated Reading List: Life/Death Currents & Esoteric Energy Transference

1. Energy Work: The Secrets of Healing and Spiritual Development – Robert Bruce

Focus: Practical methods for energy movement, tactile imaging, clearing, and channeling.
Relevance: Bruce teaches the mechanics of moving subtle energy through intention, visualization, and breath—almost exactly the framework used in life/death current transference.
Use: Adaptable for sections explaining the mechanics of how currents move and how practitioners sense them.

2. The Body of Light – Aleister Crowley

Focus: Subtle-body development, astral projection, channeling forces.
Relevance: Crowley’s concept of the “Body of Light” maps well onto life-force transference.
Use: Good foundation for describing the practitioner’s energetic vessel and how it conducts currents.

3. Liber ABA (Book 4) – Crowley

Focus: Magickal energy dynamics, concentration, invocation, and developing the will.
Relevance: Crowley frames magical energy as both vital (life-current) and destructive or banishing (death-current).
Use: Supports structured ritual sections and philosophical reasoning behind transference.

4. The Psychic Energy Concept in Occultism – Dion Fortune

Focus: Western esoteric theory of subtle energies, magical currents, and polarity.
Relevance: Fortune’s polarity theory maps cleanly onto life (positive) and death (negative) currents.
Use: Theoretical backbone for explaining the metaphysics of dual currents.

5. Psychic Self-Defense – Dion Fortune

Focus: Absorption, projection, and manipulation of hostile or stagnant energies.
Relevance: Her explanation of “drawing out” intrusive energy mirrors death-current extraction.
Use: Useful for writing about safety and grounding after channeling.

6. The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol)

Focus: Consciousness through death, dissolution of identity, transitioning currents.
Relevance: Excellent resource for understanding the metaphysics of dissolving energies and rebirth cycles.
Use: Philosophical depth for death-current practices.

7. The Book of the Law & Commentaries

Focus: Energetic ecstasy, will, dissolution, and rebirth cycles.
Relevance: Contains metaphors of life-fire and death-fire currents.
Use: Inspires devotional, poetic language for describing initiatory transformation.

8. The Spiral Dance – Starhawk

Focus: Feminist witchcraft, energy raising, ritual trance, polarity, and group energy work.
Relevance: Contains detailed descriptions of how energy is built, transferred, and released.
Use: Useful for describing collective or priestess-based transference work.

9. Energy, Ecstasy, and Sexuality in Magic and Tantra – Georg Feuerstein

Focus: Kundalini, pranic currents, union of life and death principles.
Relevance: Provides foundational knowledge on rising/lowering currents.
Use: Helps articulate bodily sensations and internal energetic pathways.

10. The Serpent Power – Arthur Avalon

Focus: Kundalini, chakra systems, subtle centers, nadis.
Relevance: Deep mapping of how energy travels through the body.
Use: Provides a metaphysical anatomy for describing transference.

11. Temple of the Vampire (various volumes)

Focus: Life-force feeding, transference, vampyric energetic exchange.
Relevance: Though extremist in some areas, the metaphysics of energy taking/giving are relevant.
Use: Provides examples of death-current feeding metaphors (non-literal).

12. The Horned God of the Witches – Murray / Hutton (contextual)

Focus: Chthonic, underworld, and death-aligned archetypes.
Relevance: Helps contextualize death-current deities and their symbolism.
Use: For shaping devotional and mythological aspects.

13. The Red Goddess – Peter Grey

Focus: Divine feminine, blood, lust, death, initiation, LHP erotic energetics.
Relevance: The text evokes the simultaneous destructive and creative power of the dark feminine.
Use: Inspiration for Lilith-centered devotional material and the interplay of life/death.

 

14. Apocalyptic Witchcraft – Peter Grey

Focus: Blood, bone, death, fertility, sovereignty, ecstatic witchcraft currents.
Relevance: Captures the visceral, ecstatic, life-and-death nature of witchcraft currents.
Use: Stylistic inspiration for the emotional and devotional tone of your writing.

15. Cosmic Trigger – Robert Anton Wilson

Focus: Altered states, energy flow, psychological frameworks behind occult experience.
Relevance: BALANCES mystical experience with psychological interpretation.
Use: Helps articulate the internal phenomenology of transference.

HPS Mortisma St. Macabre