Have you heard of these words: chi, shakti, prana, kundalini, qi, mana,?  None of them are English, of course, but in a global world where concepts travel quickly they have made their way into many vocabularies.  They are names for subtle bodily-based energies.  Unfortunately, they are still missing from the vocabulary of “science”.

“Western science defends a mechanistic world view-if something cannot be measured or observed then it is not real. Modern science, and subtle energy concepts do not happily coexist, as the very definition of subtle energies, is that they are unknown/too refined to be measured by present levels of technology.”

I have taken this quote, which seems a common point of view, from http://www.visionutopian.com.au/subtlenergyparadigm.html, and the article goes on to talk about what subtle energy might be, and, since the site has a purple color to it, you can tell that it will fall under the new-age category.  “New Age” is not a positive term in scientific circles.  No mystic would disagree with the author’s understanding.  But no scientist accepts the existence of anything having to do with “magical thinking”.

Science rejects the unprovable. A very rigorous blog in this regard is http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php which can be a very tough place for a mystic to show up and make comments.

Here is a quote from a recent article there …

“Have you ever had the sense that you were not alone, that another person, perhaps menacing, was in the room with you? And yet, when you look around, no one was there? This is a common experience, which researchers call a “sensed presence.” Neuroscientists hypothesize that this common experience likely has a neurological correlate – meaning that activity in some specific part of the brain is responsible for generating the sensation of a presence.”

… and it goes on to conclude

“The understanding that our brains are electrochemical machines, albeit highly complex ones, liberates us from grasping at mystical explanations for brain-derived experiences.”

Being skeptical is a sign of professionalism, and a commitment to the code of science.  Which, like many religions, insists that its way is the one true way.  Fundamentalists, in short.  As they need to be, to keep their standing in their community.  That there is a correlation between experience and brain-state is enough to prove that the brain creates the experience.

Ok.  And it is pointless to argue this assumption.  When you look inside the radio for the source of the sound you are not allowed to think that it might be transmitted from elsewhere.

Does subtle energy exist?  That is a silly question to much of the world.  Of course it does, they would answer, and it is an experiential reality for millions.  Not only are there words for it, there is a large body of literature about it, in several cultures. Daoist and yogic texts are numerous.  In fact, whole cultures are built on the understanding of subtle energy, such as India, but that is beyond what i want to say.

One problem for science is language.  English is a very clumsy language for talking about the mind, for example.  Sanskrit has words for five aspects of what we call just “mind” in English.  Imagine research that was informed by a more subtle language than English.

Why is this important?  Because an understanding of subtle energy will lead to a very useful concept, needed to understand life on a hyperconnected planet … collective consciousness.  We need more sophisticated ways to understand group dynamics, and the behavior of markets, economies, countries.

We need whole-system thinking.  One big help would be if science would open its mind a bit more.  Ok, a lot more.