Energy

Pseudo-scientific use of the term

Devotees of New-Age beliefs use the term "energy" for almost anything for which they don't have a scientific explanation, including for emotion ("I'm feeling some bad energy") and for processes within the human body ("the flow of energy seems to be blocked"). They believe that crystals, sounds, light, pyramids, and numerous other objects with which they associate magical properties, give off or transform some sort of "energy" that is traveling somehow through some postulated universal ether and affecting everyone with a positive or negative effect.

When science types complain that they can't detect these energies, the advocates call them "subtle energies" - thus they don't have to explain why they can't be detected.

Qi (chi) is the ancient Chinese form of life-giving energy, as manipulated in acupuncture and in reflexology. It doesn't exist either, any more than does orgone energy.

Everything is energy

Those who promote some form of pantheism or universal consciousness, as well as woomeisters, sometimes claim that science has proven that "everything is made of energy" and that this somehow explains the unity of all things (or psychic powers, or the "law of attraction") [2][3]. While it's certainly true that any system has an energy associated with it, saying that "in science, everything is energy" is not even wrong. In the physical sciences, energy is a computable quantity, a number that can be associated with any system. Energy is not a substance any more than "mass" or "volume" are substances, and therefore nothing can be "made of" energy any more than it can be "made of" volume or "made of" mass. This technical sense of the word "energy" is different from the vernacular usage (which often treats light, sound, heat, and electricity as substances which are types of energy).

Regrettably, various forms of the "everything is energy" meme have been propagated in popular science, where it is sometimes used as a shorthand for the principle of mass-energy equivalence.

This is different from "String Theory" which suggests as a theory of everything that electrons and subatomic particles are 1-dimensional "strings" of energy, and from some related principles which suggest that possibly all strings are pieces of the same string (so that all things are connected but not, at all, in a hokey spiritual way). Though several string theories have exceptional cleverness and math behind them, there has been practically no suggestion for tests of falsifiability.

Energy as life/consciousness/goat

In keeping with New Ager's usage of "energy" to describe anything and everything, "spiritual" concepts such as God, the soul, consciousness, or life itself are often described as types of energy.[4] Assuming that they mean anything like what real scientists mean by the term, it's total bunk to call any of those things "energy". For one, God and souls are physically undetectable, whereas energy is. How could we possibly know that God is a form of energy? For another, consciousness and life seem to be very specific, complex processes.[5] Energy is a single scalar measurement of a system (one which can be easily calculated, by the way, without including any contribution from "consciousness"). To compare energy to these processes seems to be meaningless, like comparing the aesthetic appeal of a Picasso painting to its total weight.

Confusion with force

Exerting a force on an object does not necessarily result in the expenditure of energy. This is somewhat counterintuitive to us humans, whose muscles have to vibrate (and thus expend energy) every time they exert a force, even if the thing they're exerting a force against doesn't move.

Think of it this way: You have a Volkswagen beetle with a big heavy spring strapped to its front bumper. In front of you is a building with a bathroom scale strapped to the side, level with your front bumper. You slowly drive the Volkswagen into the building spring-first, compressing the spring tighter and tighter, until the bathroom scale you're driving it into reads 100 pounds. You then set the parking brake, turn off the engine, and walk away. The spring is still exerting a force of 100 pounds against that building, as evinced by the bathroom scale, but you're no longer expending any energy. That spring can keep on exerting 100 pounds of force against that building until it rusts away. Only if you release the parking brake, and let the spring push the Volkswagen backwards, will the energy stored in that spring be released.

Confusing force with energy is a common thread to some geocentrist arguments. "Scientists say the sun keeps the Earth in orbit around it by exerting a gravitational force continuously -- but when I light a stick of dynamite the force of the explosion is expended and then stops. The sun can't exert a force against the Earth i

ndefinitely, it would run out!" Joseph Newman also made this mistake in at least one place in his self-published Energy Machine screed.

Pseudosciencentific conceptions of "energy"

Woo

Vibrations bring about the New Age.[2] New Agers believe it is crucial to keep their vibration high by forcing themselves to experience the emotion of happiness at all times. And somehow it helps the planet too.[3] You too can learn how to raise your personal vibrations "to a more empowering state such as love, gratitude, and peace" in just under ten minutes. The audio program costs just under $20.[4]

Crystal woo comes in here. The Law of attraction comes in here too: whether good or bad things happen to you depends on "thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and feelings" which somehow create good or bad vibrations.[5] With such wonderful empowering text who needs evidence?[6]

Vibration or succussion or oscillation is important in homeopathy and if you suggest the whole thing is silly, powerful corporate lawyers could descend onto you.[7] The discoverers of this earth-moving phenomenon have as yet failed to copyright the popular concepts expressed by the phrases "good vibes" and "bad vibe".

Reality
There is no truth to the rumor that celestial realms vibrate with higher energies. In fact, no one outside the New Age movement even understands what that's supposed to mean. There is equally little evidence for homeopathy, or for vibrational medicine.

Subtle energy (or woo energy) is any supposed form of energy that is powerful enough to create healing effects but too tiny to be detected by scientific instruments sensitive enough to detect a single quantum leap in a very, very cold piece of metal; or the quantum 'jolt' caused by fluctuations on mirrors with a mass of forty kilograms.[1] These energies sometimes vibrate; apparently direct current is insufficiently subtle. Some notable alternative therapies based on subtle energy include Reiki and therapeutic touch.