What's in a name?
Darren Testani, Ph.D.
"What's in a name? That
which we call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet." Now let us apply Shakespeare’s wisdom to an
energy concept that has lasted throughout the ages.
In Asia, there is a
fundamental concept of Qi or chi. Its meaning is often
defined as “air” or “breath” and by extension, “life
force” or “spiritual energy”, and is a part of
everything that exists. Theories of traditional Chinese
medicine assert that the body has natural patterns of
chi energy circulating throughout it, and symptoms of
various illnesses can be ascribed to a disruption of chi
flow or an imbalance/deficiency in chi energy. With
practice, it is stated that a person can become willful
in their movement of chi energy within their system,
even to the point of expressing it outwards as in the
case of Qigong practitioners who can heal others with
their chi energy.
In
Hinduism, Prana is the vital, life-sustaining force of
both the individual body and the universe. Prana is
part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body
and the mother of thought and thus also of the mind. In
yoga, pranayama techniques are used to control the
movement of this vital energy within the body, which is
said to lead to an increase in vitality in the
practitioner.
The Oceanic languages,
including Melanesians and Polynesians have a traditional
term and called Mana which refers to an impersonal force
or quality of power said to reside in people, animals,
and inanimate objects. Even places can possess mana.
The power of mana is said to be able to be transferred
from person to person directly, or through the means of
an inanimate object. One might have a stone or crystal
that possesses an extraordinary amount of mana and the
owner may benefit from its source. At any time, the
owner may also give the mana imbued object to another
whom will then benefit from the mana.
The concept of a
life-energy inherent in all living beings seems to be a
fairly universal archetype and appears in numerous
ancient religions, mythology and systems of
metaphysics. In Eskimo mythology, the term Inua refers
to a sort of soul or force which exists in all people,
animals, lakes, mountains and plants. Inua was
sometimes personified in mythology. And if
science-fiction can be considered modern mythology, then
we find the Force in the Star Wars movies a current
synonym. As it is said, the Force penetrates and binds
all things together. It controls your actions, but it
also obeys your commands. Many people have related the
Force in Star Wars with the concept of the Tao of Lao
Tsu’s Tao Te Ching, hypothesizing that Lucas
borrowed the idea from this religion.
One last look at
ancient wisdom concerns the Greek notion of the Ether as
a basic element of man. Aristotle says that there is
something besides the bodies nearby and around us,
something other than and separate from them, something
having a more honorable nature to the degree that it is
distant from the world at hand, as he describes this
fluid force.
Possibly the first
westerner to mention a similar idea was Franz Anton
Mesmer, the father of modern hypnosis. Mesmer
postulated the existence of an invisible, universally
distributed fluid that flows continuously everywhere and
serves as a vehicle for the mutual influence between
heavenly bodies, the earth and all living things. He
felt that he could manipulate this force, which he
called Animal Magnetism, to influence the health of
others, thus the process of Mesmerism was born. Mesmer
was denounced as a fraud by the French authorities.
A century later, Baron
Carl von Reichenbach, an accomplished chemist, came up
with a hypothetical vital energy or life force. Giving
it the name Odic force, it is suggested to permeate all
living plants, animals, and humans. Similar to
magnetism, it had a positive and negative flux,
individuals could supposedly emanate it, particularly
from the hands, and it was believed could be stored in
inanimate objects such as crystals. His idea was never
accepted in the general scientific community.
Scientist Nikola Tesla
described the universe as a kinetic system filled with
energy which could be harnessed at any location. This
universal energy he called Free Energy and his attempts
to provide its power to the general public were met with
harsh antagonism.
Orgone energy was
discovered in the 1940’s by Wilhelm Reich. It is
described as filling all space and is everywhere; it is
mass free and is the primordial cosmic energy; it
penetrates matter, it pulsates and is observable and
measurable; it has a strong affinity and attraction to
water; it is accumulated naturally in the organism by
foods, water, breathing and through the skin. Reich,
who was a psychiatrist trained by Freud, found himself
investigated by the FDA who believed he was a quack,
peddling a cancer cure.
Beginning in the
1930’s, Harold Saxton Burr published over ninety-three
scientific papers, was professor at Yale University
School of Medicine, and became well known for his claim
that all living things are molded and controlled by a
dynamic field he called life fields or L-fields.
Changes in L-fields directly relates to changes in one’s
physical, mental and emotional health. Burr’s ideas
failed to gain a lasting impression in science.
Today there are claims
of a mass free energy which is of a universal, dynamic
and non-electric continuum that manifests primarily as
the volume of space itself and the energy latent in that
space. The term “mass free energy” is not in use by
mainstream physicists and is not supported by scientific
consensus.
Maybe there are points
of valid criticism and specific differences among
theories. Yet, love has been known to effect the
physical, mental, and emotional state of human beings,
and has yet not been known to be scientifically
measured. I doubt anyone would deny its existence.
