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Spiritual, Universal Energy, Spirituality, Spiritual Energy kevinkohout.com | Spirituality, Therapy, Healing and Energy Work in Calgary spiritualdirections.com | Holistic Medicine, Energy Medicine, Complementary Medicine,... hugs-edu.net |
"Subtle energy" redirects here. For the mystical concept of psychospiritual bodies overlaying the physical body, see Subtle body.  The term energy has been widely used by writers and practitioners of various forms of spirituality and alternative medicine[1][2] to mean to a variety of phenomena, often (though not always) the supposed "fields" surrounding the earth or any living thing, supposed to be directly perceptible and accessible to the human mind as "auras", "rays", "fields" or "vibrations".[3] There is no scientific evidence for any such fields.[4] In many cases "energy" is conceived of as a universal life force: to this extent "spiritual energy" theories resemble vitalism[5] and may even invoke the Luminiferous Ether of Victorian physics.[6] Additionally, or alternatively, such notions are often aligned with or derived from conceptions found in other cultures, such as the Chinese idea of Qi and the Prana of the Upanishads.[5] Many such ideas arise from the primitive idea of life as breath - a relationship implicit also in the word "spirit". Such a usage is already evident in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793); "Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. Energy is Eternal Delight." [7] Blake's alignment of energy with affective emotion is noteworthy, for it depicts energy as the psychic continuum that unites body and mind, thus reflecting Plato's celebrated tripartite division of the human psyche into the appetitive, the spirited and the rational.[8] Such an integration of "energy" into systematic esoteric expositions of the universe and/or the human psyche is frequently found combined, as in Kundalini and Theosophy, into an account of a hierarchy of "inner planes" or "subtle bodies".[9] [edit] Vitalism and spirituality in the age of electricity The successes of the era of the Enlightenment in the treatment of energy in natural science was intimately bound up with attempts to study the energies of life, as when Luigi Galvani's neurological investigations led to the development of the Voltaic cell. Many scientists continued to think that living organisms must be constituted of special materials subject to special forces - a view which became known as vitalism. Mesmer, for example, sought an animal magnetism that was unique to life. As microbiologists studied embryology and developmental biology, particularly before the discovery of the genes, a variety of organisational forces were posited to account for the observations. From the time of Driesch, however, the importance of "energy-fields" began to wane and the proposed forces became more mind-like.[citation needed] Sometimes, however, as in the work of Harold Saxton Burr, the electromagnetic fields of organisms have been studied precisely as the hypothetical medium of such organisational "forces".[citation needed] The attempt to associate additional energetic properties with life has been all but abandoned in modern research science,[10] but, despite this, spiritual writers and thinkers have maintained connections to these ideas and continue to promote them either as useful allegories or as fact.[11] Some early advocates of these ideas were particularly attracted to the history of the unification of electromagnetism and its implications for the storage, transference, and conversion of physical energy through electric and magnetic fields. Potentials and fields were viewed after the work of James Clerk Maxwell as physical phenomena rather than mathematical abstractions. Aware of this history, spiritual writers positivistically adopted much of the language of physical science, speaking of "force fields" and "biological energy". Concepts such as the "life force", "physiological gradient", and "élan vital" that emerged from the spiritualist movement would inspire later thinkers in the modern New Age movement.[12]
[edit] Modern western psychotherapiesSee also: Psychodynamics and Energy (psychological) These are therapeutic approaches that depend on the idea of "energy". The following are mostly neo-Reichian therapies that aim to release emotional tension from the body;
[edit] Energy medicineMain article: Energy medicine Some alternative medicine practices depend on a form of energy, whether veritable (known to science), putative (unknown to science), or pseudoscience (unfalsifiable). [edit] ParapsychologyThese pages do not cover all of parapsychology but only those that are concerned with some "energy". Some effects studied in that discipline, such as telepathy and dowsing at a distance, are by nature attempting to go beyond normal time-space: these are excluded.
[edit] Dowsing and "Earth energy"Some dowsers talk about "earth rays".
[edit] Chinese vitalismThe traditional explanation of acupuncture states that it works by manipulating the circulation of qi energy through a network of meridians. There is no scientific evidence for these so, to the extent that acupuncture is regarded as efficacious in western medicine, its effects are usually described as palliative and obtained physiologically by blocking or stimulating nerve cells and causing changes in the perception of pain in the brain.[13] However the idea of qi is not confined to medicine: it appears throughout traditional east Asian culture, for example, in the art of Feng Shui, in Chinese martial arts and spiritual tracts.
[edit] Indian vitalism
[edit] Other cultures
[edit] Premise of energy therapiesThe various approaches known collectively as "energy therapies" vary widely in philosophy, approach, and origin. The ways in which this energy is used, modified, or manipulated to effect healing also vary. For example, acupressure involves manual stimulation of pressure-points while some forms of yoga rely on breathing exercises. Many therapies are predicated, as regards the given explanation for their supposed efficacy, on some form of energy unknown to current science: in this case the given energy is sometimes referred to as putative energy.[1] However "subtle energy" is often equated with empirically understood forces, for example, some equate the aura with electromagnetism. Such energies are termed "veritable" as opposed to "putative". Some alternative therapies, such as electromagnetic therapy, use veritable energy, though they may still make claims that are not supported by evidence. Many claims have been made by associating "spirit" with forms of energy poorly understood at the time. In the 1800s, electricity and magnetism were in the "borderlands" of science and electrical quackery was rife. In the 2000s, quantum mechanics and grand unification theory provide similar opportunities. Insofar as the proposed properties of "subtle energy" are not those of physical energy there can be no physical scientific evidence for that energy's existence.[2][14] Therapies that purport to use, modify, or manipulate unknown energies are among the most controversial of all complementary and alternative medicines.[1] Theories of spiritual energy not validated by the scientific method are usually termed non-empirical beliefs by the scientific community. Claims related to energy therapies are most often anecdotal, rather than being based on repeatable empirical evidence.[14][15][16] Some acupuncturists say that acupuncture's mode of action is by virtue of manipulating the natural flow of energy through hypothesized meridians, scientists argue that any palliative effects are obtained physiologically by blocking or stimulating nerve cells and causing changes in the perception of pain in the brain.[13] However, this theory fails to account for the specificity of the locus of successful intervention. The gap between the empirically proven efficacy of some therapies and the lack of empirical physical evidence for the belief-systems that surround them is at present a battleground between skeptics and believers. [edit] Movies and entertainment[edit] Scientific referencesThe activity of biological systems invariably generates magnetic and electrical fields, which can be measured with sensitive instruments. It remains an open question as to whether any of the phenomena listed below bear any relation to energy therapies such as reiki, but claims to that effect continue to be made:
[edit] References
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