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Energy (esotericism)
Electro-metabograph machine 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.[7] 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." [8] 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.[9] 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 heirarchy of "inner planes" or "subtle bodies".[10]
Bio-energy and field theoriesThe success of the scientific Enlightenment's treatment of energy in natural science quickly led to attempts to study the energies of life, a process which at first derived much strength from Luigi Galvani's neurological discoveries. Some, like Mesmer, identified these energies with magnetism, others continued to assume that living organisms were constituted of special materials subject to special forces - a view which became known as vitalism. 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. 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".
The attempt to associate additional energetic properties with life has been all but abandoned in modern research science,[11] but spriritual writers and thinkers have maintained connections to these ideas and continue to promote them as either useful allegories or even as fact in spite of their dismissal by the scientific community.[12] Scientific references to electromagnetism in living systemsThere are legitimate scientific factors that associate electromagnetism with living things including the following:
Modern western psychotherapies(See main articles Energy (psychological) and Psychodynamics) These are therapeutic approaches that depend on the idea of "energy". The following are mostly neo-Reichian therapies which aim to release emotional tension from the body;
There have also been attempts to align the psycho-analytic theories of C.G.Jung regarding the archetypes of the collective unconscious with the memory-like morphogenetic force-fields postulated by biologists like Hans Driesch and Rupert Sheldrake. Energy MedicineComplementary interventions that depend on a form of energy, whether veritable (known to science) or putative (unknown to science). See main article Energy medicine. ParapsychologyThese pages do not cover all of parapsychology but only those that are concerned with some "energy". Some effects studied in that discipline, such telepathy and dowsing at a distance, are by nature attempting to go beyond normal time-space: these are excluded.
DowsingSome dowsers talk about " earth rays".
Earth Energy
Chinese theoriesChinese acupuncture theory states that acupuncture's mode of action is by virtue of manipulating the circulation of qi energy through hypothesised meridians. To the extent that acupuncture is regarded as efficacious in western medicine, its palliative effects are usually described as 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.
Indian vitalism
Other Cultures
References
de:Energie (Esoterik) pt:Psicoenergia ru:??????? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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