The Unintentional Magic of Thought Forms

It’s no exaggeration to say that anyone can create a thought form – we do it every day, whenever we experience strong emotion or stress. Basically you create them according to the following formula:

Mental energy (thought) + desire or passion (emotion) + elemental essence (matter which is all around us) = artificial elemental (thought form)

This may sound complicated but in practice it isn’t. You can create a thought form without any special equipment or knowledge. Every one of us has both a mental and a physical body. The latter is easy to identify, we can see it and touch it, but the mental body is made up of many layers (auric bodies), which a psychic sees as vibrations of colour and form. Every single thought we have passes through our mental body before being projected out into the world beyond us. 

But although we may have discarded the thought, in the external world there is something called the elemental essence which can pick up on these discarded thoughts, and give them some sort of physical existence. The elemental essence is a life-form of low intelligence, which can be animated by human (and sometimes animal) thought. It is all around us, and one of its main occupations is finding and absorbing thought forms. The trick in creating our own (deliberate) thought forms is to create the thoughts we want and make sure they are picked up by a suitable elemental essence. Conversely, the trick in avoiding the creating of harmful thought forms is to avoid creating thoughts that might damage us or others. Easier said than done!

Luckily thought forms are usually short-lived, perhaps no more than an hour or two. To create something more substantial requires a certain intense state of mind. Five year olds whose peers have excluded or bullied them are quite capable of brooding on this and coming up with an imaginary friend as a solution. For the duration of their existence these thought forms are as real to them as anyone at school or home. 

However although we are all capable of creating these forms you should observe certain precautions. I cannot stress too strongly the importance of proper purification procedures in this work, and I don’t just mean bathing in salt water with rose petals floating round you! This may be enough if you are just playing at magic (and even then I have my doubts) but with thought forms you have the added hazard that if they do not reach their intended destination they are quite likely to come back and attach themselves to you. Maintaining a beneficial aura is therefore a form of psychic self-defence since it denies negative thought forms anything they can relate to, and prevents them gaining a foothold in your auric field. 

Initially you should decide what you want the thought form to do. Like the ushtabis of ancient , a thought form is essentially a servant. You have to tell it what to do, where to go. For example, it can guard your home while you’re out at work, or even spy on people you think may be hostile to you. Others build on the imaginary friends they created in childhood, creating a psychic confidant.  But remember the saying ‘Rubbish in, rubbish out.’ Creating a thought form requires precision and clear thinking as indeed does resisting the thoughts forms that others have created. 

You should always bear in mind that like attracts like. Just as beneficial, healing thoughts will work much better on people who already have good positive vibrations in their aura, so malevolent thoughts will attach themselves more easily to those who already entertain similar vibrations. Therefore if, for example, you create a thought form to deter vandals from your property, you must ensure it will find something it can relate to in the auras of those people it will have to deal with. You cannot expect a gentle, reasoning thought form to have much effect on an axe wielding homicidal maniac. 

Whatever its function, the method for creating it is roughly the same - you aim to give form to your creation by the power of your thought.  Some people find this comes naturally to them, others have to work at it. Assuming you have no experience of this sort of work, the easiest way to begin is to use a picture to show what it should look like. Although unintentional thought forms usually have purely abstract shapes, when deliberately created you will find it easier to work with something that looks roughly familiar. If possible draw it or find a picture in a magazine that looks similar [tarot cards are often a good source of inspiration], and make sure you have a copy of the picture small enough to carry round with you at all times. 

But if you only concentrate on how something looks you are short changing yourself. We have five senses, so use them all.  Some are much stronger than others. So if you find visualising appearance difficult try to imagine what your thought form sounds like, and give it a voice. Or what it feels like to touch. 

I like to name my thought forms. A name bestows individuality and a psychic soul. It is unique, not generic. You can choose an everyday name like ‘Fred’ or something more unusual but try and avoid irony since it has a nasty habit of backfiring, and don’t be tempted to call it after any chthonic or demonic entities. You don’t want to encourage it to seek out and absorb energies from these entities or you could well end up with a thought form that has taken on a life of its own. This can and does happen, and can be tricky to deal with so it’s better to pay proper attention to what you are doing at these early stages of creation. If things go wrong, it almost always happens in the early rather than later stages.

Although sudden outbursts of emotion will create their own unintentional thought forms, deliberate forms take time and commitment and you must be careful not to bestow too much power at the outset. Years ago, at a time in my life when I had much on my mind, I created a thought form to be a supportive friend. Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Unfortunately, because I was distracted with various other matters, the thought form grew increasingly strong and became difficult to control. It wasn’t malevolent, but it was active and unruly, and began attracting and absorbing other (similar) thought forms like a magnet. When I discovered claw marks on the bathroom door one morning I realised it had to go. That was not the sort of thing I wanted wandering around my home at three in the morning, thank you very much! I learned the hard way that it’s much easier to make the effort to get it right first time instead of trying to banish it later. 

Having given your thought form a physical form (the picture) and a name, you must now think of the attributes you want it to have. These could include loyalty, energy, strength, the list is endless but you should bear in mind the end purpose.  It’s no good stressing energy if all you want it to do is guard your car. In that case you would be better off stressing watchfulness and steadfastness. Otherwise you run the risk of your thought form getting bored and wandering off.  Write down the attributes, so that you can read and think about them while looking at the picture. Your written notes are only reminders – the real work is done in the mind.

You then have to spend time imagining how these attributes will influence the thought form as it slowly begins to evolve. Again, some people find this difficult so I suggest you begin by imagining how it will react to various scenarios. For example, if you have created a form to be a friend, and want to endow it with patience, good listening abilities, wisdom etc., you must imagine yourself approaching it with your problems. How does it listen and respond to you? At the end of each scenario (and as you get more experienced you will find you can play out several at a time, one after the other) you must mentally conclude ‘this is how [Name] will conduct herself.’

Now make a symbol to encapsulate everything the thought form represents.  Don’t be afraid to work on this over several days, modifying and refining it. For example, if you are creating a thought form to watch over your property you might start with drawing an eye. But you also want it to deter vandals and burglars, so perhaps you would add an ‘X’ to symbolise force, or even a straight line that cannot be crossed.  Is there a way of simplifying and uniting these symbols? At its simplest just superimpose one sign on top of the other, or place them side by side. You would rarely expect to have more than three or four symbols combined, and some people work successfully with just one or two. 

When you are satisfied you should draw the symbol on paper and keep it safe for the period when the thought form is active. Once you no longer need it you should ritually destroy the symbol in fire and cast the ashes to the four winds (or even running water). This symbolic pictogram can also be ritually destroyed if the thought form shows signs of beginning to get out of hand. 

Finally, remember that even when you have finished with a thought form, you have to formally disperse it otherwise, bearing in myself that like attracts like in the psychic world it will be capable of going out into the big wide world and attaching itself to someone else who produces similar types of thoughts and emotions. It’s a bit like throwing a pebble into a large pool – the waves disturb the surface and ripple outwards, eventually reaching the very edge. In other words although the pebble only actively disturbs a tiny area of the pool, its effects are felt over the entire surface. In this way, if you are not careful about maintaining a healthy aura you can find yourself overwhelmed with a feeling of despair without ever knowing the precise nature or source of the despair that generated the original thought. Therefore people who habitually think dark, unpleasant thoughts may, albeit unknowingly, have a negative and detrimental effect on those around them.

Although many people claim that once you stop thinking about something it ceases to exist in the psychic world, in my experience this is a little optimistic.  Thought forms only cease to exist once the originating thought has lost its energy. Unless of course, they decide to return to sender (You!), or have been picked up by someone else’s mental energy or attach themselves to energies collected in a particular geographical place. (Haven’t you ever noticed that some places have a really bad – or good – atmosphere?) 

The creation of thought forms is a huge subject, ranging from psychic self-defence to just about any field of magic you can think of. Once you master the basics you will see the world around you in a slightly different light, because you will be able to recognise not only those forms you have created, but also the forms created by other people which may intrude on your own life. So even if you never feel the need to create a thought form for yourself, understanding the principles involved may help protect you from those created by others!