It is interesting to note that the attempt of the scientist to release the energy of the atom is of the same general nature as the work of the esotericist when he endeavours to release the energy of the soul.
Alice Ann Bailey (1880â1949)1
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1 Introduction
Few ideas have fueled the imagination of late modern culture as powerfully as âenergy.â It is a key term in a wide array of holistic healing systems and mind-body practices, as well as within martial arts, neo-paganism, and eco-spirituality. Concepts of energy have been employed by the protagonists of alternative religious discourse since the late nineteenth century. The American psychologist William James (1842â1910) captured the theme in his essay âThe Energies of Men,â in which he discussed how to unlock âreservoirs of energyâ (1907, 4) to quicken the mind and the body. Acknowledging the psychological aspect of these energies, he investigated how dormant powers could be unleashed through a wide range of approaches, including yoga, auto-suggestion, religious conversions, and the techniques of the American mind-cure movement (i.e., Christian Science and New Thought). To date there is no precise definition of energy in the religious-therapeutic milieu, where the term functions as a floating signifier with various context-dependent readings. Although there is no single authoritative interpreter of the idea, it has been historically bound up in a web of physical, medical, and occult theories that is yet to be reconstructed.
Although energy is chiefly regarded as a physical quantity, the term is characterized by multileveled semantics that go well beyond the boundaries of science. Whereas physics applies a mathematically precise definition of energy, the fuzzy, âesotericâ notion of energy is connotated more closely with colloquial meaningsâfor example, âto feel full of energyâ (or a lack thereof), âto boost your energy level,â or to relax and âlet the energy flow.â In the 1970s, a genre of popular literature on physics emerged that bolstered parapsychological and mystical outlooks, which expanded further into the areas of holistic healing and self-help a decade later (cf. Leane 2007, 32â35). Riding on this wave of popular physics, William A. Tiller (1929â2022) proposed the term âsubtle energiesâ in order to acknowledge human perceptions that may be described as âenergetic.â2 A Stanford physicist and prolific author of the âNew Age scienceâ genre, Tiller asserted that if current physical models are unable to explain energy healing,3 homeopathy, or psi-phenomena such as psychokinetics, then their premises must be incomplete. To account for subjectively experienced powers that supposedly exceed conventional physical explanations, he suggested to introduce âsubtle energiesâ as a complementary to the acknowledged fundamental forces of physics (Tiller 1977; 1993).
âSubtle energiesâ rapidly entered the standard vernacular of the holistic milieu as an umbrella term during the 1980s and subsumedâacademically homeless yet immensely widespreadâvitalistic notions such as âlife force,â âuniversal life energy,â âvital energy,â or âbioenergyâ (Davidson 1987; Werthmüller 2005; White and Krippner 1977). Tiller himself contributed regularly to the journal Subtle Energies (1990â2010), which aimed at studying the physiological and therapeutic effects of biofeedback, energy healing, yoga, and other mind-body exercises.4 Subtle energies may include gentle physical applications such as the use of light and colors; magnetic, electrical, and electromagnetic impulses; acoustic vibrations (e.g., singing bowls); as well as the soothing effects of physical touch (e.g., laying-on-of-hands). Likewise, the term has been used to signify teleological agents, powers associated with magical symbols, the qualitative state of a social or organizational system, as well as creative, transcendent entities.
As a generic category, âsubtle energiesâ encompasses heterogeneous ideas that hail from diverse cultural and historical sources. Jürgen Wolfâs entry on âPowerâ in the Brill Dictionary of Religion (2006) discussed the central role of âenergyâ or âcosmic powerâ in âtodayâs independent religiosityâ including yoga, therapeutic applications, or the Earth mysteries movement (âgeomancyâ)5 (Wolf 2006, 1484). Wolf gave a glimpse of the vast number of presumed synonyms that typically appear in the religious discourse on energies:
The two areas, physical and spiritual, are connected by a super-fine matter. This energy too is quasi-identified with the Melanesian mana, the Indian prana, the Chinese ki, and, finally, od or ether, and Wilhelm Reichâs (1879â1957) Orgone, which last is said to correspond to the âetherâ (the physical cosmos of light waves). (Wolf 2006, 1485)
Wolfâs description reflects the eclecticism one often encounters in source material on subtle energies.6 Implicitly, this condensed list of the semi-transcendent powers most prominent in the field indicates two distinct pools of influence that have merged into the idea of subtle energies: out-of-date or fringe scientific theories (ether, Od, Orgone) on the one hand, and terms of non-European origin (mana, prÄá¹a, qì) on the other. As disparate as these concepts may first appear, they can be shown to have formed a shared discursive nexus that has roots in nineteenth-century occultism. This and the next chapter explore the notion of subtle energies by outlining two sub-discourses that profoundly influenced its genesis, namely, occult physicalism and occult orientalism.
2 The Inversion of Scientific Naturalism
The formalization of energy as a scientific term was a key moment for the advancement of physics. In the mid-nineteenth century, physicists introduced a definition of energy that soon became the foundational and unifying principle of physics and the natural sciences. Physical energy came to denote a quantity measurable in terms of work. A set of energy equivalences allowed physicists to link thermal, electrical, chemical, and biological processes, eventually leading to the universal application of the notion of energy within the sciences. The basic theory of energy that is still valid in contemporary science emerged from the particular context of a German-British discourse as vividly illustrated in Crosbie Smithâs (1998) cultural history of Victorian physics. Notably, the motive for establishing the term of energy in physics derived from the study of physiology and the aim to set up the field on a rigorous mechanistic foundation.
The question of teleology, that is, purposeful organization, was still an intricate part of the biological and physiological discourse in the early nineteenth century. Physiologists harboring Romantic vitalist convictions drew from earlier medical and biological discussions about the existence and function of the soul as a hidden, organizing force. In this vein, the German physiologist and Naturphilosoph Johannes Müller (1801â1858) pondered the origin and nature of the soulâs supposed forces in his magnum opus Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen7 (1833â1840). Taking recourse to the anima-theory of the physician Georg Ernst Stahl (1659â1734), Müller speculated that the manifestations of two principlesâthe âvitalâ (Lebensprincip) and the âpsychicâ (psychisches Princip)âhave their common root in a reasonable soul. Whereas psychological reason can only be conscious of the reasonable, the life principle generates the purposeful organization of biological matter, albeit in an unconscious manner (Müller 1835, 821).
Regarding both the vital and psychic principles as being âimmaterial,â Müller did not identify them with known physical phenomena. However, for the sake of illustration, he drew parallels with the effects of âimponderable substancesâ on matter. In a section of his compendium titled âPhysics of Nervesâ (Physik der Nerven), Müller cautiously suggested an analogy between influences of immaterial agencies on organisms (i.e., conscious actions or unconscious self- organization) and transfers of âimponderablesâ between material bodies:
There are, however, forces of nature, or imponderable substances, whichâalthough not independent of matterâcan leave a body without changing its material state and pass over to others, such as light, electricity, magnetism. The existence of these principles, their appearance in the bodies, and their flowing over from one body to another, shows us clearly that materialism, which recognizes nothing but the forces of atoms, is groundless; and without remotely wishing to compare the life-principle and psychical principle with those imponderable substances or forces, we see at least that there is nothing in the facts of physics which cancels the possibility of an immaterial principle that is independent of matter, though acting in the matter of organic bodies. (Müller 1835, 822; my translation; cf. Müller 1838, 824â25)8
Within a decade, Müllerâs vital principle and similar notions of âlife forceâ were rendered superfluous through the introduction of the idea of energy (Smith 1998, 129â31). In 1847, an outstanding student of Müller, the German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821â1894), articulated the conversation law of energy in its general form. This law stipulates that the total amount of energy in a closed physical system is neither created nor destroyed; it remains constant. One form of energy (e.g., motion) can be transformed into other forms of energy (for instance, electricity). Superseding the concept of imponderables, the notion of energy enabled precise calculations of the properties of physical systems, including physiological organisms. The hypothesis of a soul and its vital forces had no function in âexact scienceââcharacterized by mathematical models, empirical verification, and predictive powerâand was deemed to be without heuristic value. As a consequence, assumptions of an inherent purpose or organizing principle operating in living organismsâa crucial idea among Romantic scientists and physiciansâwent out of fashion within the natural sciences and academia at large (cf. von Stuckrad 2022).
Speculations on a vital principle had been the hallmark of German Naturphilosophie. Although identical with science throughout most of European history, Naturphilosophie came to be distinguished from the natural sciences when the latter emancipated from philosophy in the eighteenth century, institutionally reflected in the formation of separate faculties at European universities. Idealistic and Romantic representatives of Naturphilosophie variantly positioned their projects either as a rival enterprise to science, its speculative prelude, or a philosophical engagement considered superior to science. However, compared with the progress in physics, chemistry, and biology, Naturphilosophie ultimately proved too narrow and pretentious to provide orientation for the empirical sciences (Böhme 1989, 7â9; cf. Mutschler 2002, 7â13).
Naturphilosophie faded out as a philosophical pursuit and university discipline in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Against this backdrop, new types of thinking about nature took the stage. Some philosophizing scientists, such as the physician Ludwig Friedrich Büchner (1824â1899) or the biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834â1919), asserted the sole autonomy of science and advocated for a materialist Naturphilosophie as the basis for an inductive metaphysics.9 Other scientists and laypersons still adhered the emotional appeal of Romantic Naturphilosophie and envisioned a cosmos that was replete with vital, teleological, and/or divine powers. Putting science into the service of anthropocentric worldviews, physical terms such as force, ether, vibrations, and energy were recharged with meanings that went beyond the qualities of inanimate matter and were applied to vitalist agents and mental powers.10 A decisive player in this type of reaction to the pressure of scientification was occultism, an array of authors and movements that envisioned social reform by advocating for a new synthesis of science and religion (Bogdan and Djurdjevic 2013, 1â2). By embracing a belief that hidden, supernatural forces were at the disposal to the adept, occultism (metaphorically speaking) formed a photographic negative to naturalist scientism.
Scientism sensu lato refers to worldviews in which science wields the highest epistemic authority and âtheâ scientific method is held to provide the most trustworthy knowledge about reality (see Bogner 2021, 121). Olav Hammer applied the notion of scientism to his analysis of late modern esoteric discourses and defined scientism more narrowly as the âactive positioning of oneâs own claims in relation to manifestations of any academic scientific discipline,â without using âmethods generally approved within the scientific communityâ (2001, 206). In other words, scientistic models borrow from the dominant scientific culture and aim to partake in its authority and prestige without being constrained by its rules. A problem with this definition is the implied clear-cut distinction between socially accepted science on the one hand and âesoteric,â science-related speculation on the other. However, given that science is a gradual process, such a binary opposition overlooks the more nuanced differences between proto- (emerging), para- (lateral), and pseudo- (false or fraudulent) science and their highly intricate historical relationships (cf. Rupnow et al. 2008, 8). As Richard Noakes (2019) has argued for Victorian physics, the interest in occult and psychical themes immensely enhanced the curiosity and creativity in scientific and technological endeavors, which underscores the fluidity of boundary walls set up around science.11
Nonetheless, from a history of religion perspective, it suffices to acknowledge that in late modernity anyone who claims an integrative worldviewâbe it a naturalistic or an esoteric oneâis practically compelled to take science as a reference point and resort to science as a âlanguage of faithâ (Hammer 2001, 205). The assumption of a hierarchy of sciences stems from the cultural pre-eminence of the exact sciences as they consolidated in the nineteenth century: physics and the interaction of elementary particles came to be regarded as the most fundamental science which determines the principles of inorganic and organic chemistry; the biological sciences (including physiology); and ultimately psychology and the social sciences. This order was first proposed by the French mathematician and positivist philosopher Auguste Comte (1798â1857). Comte conceived his scale of âpurityâ and ârelative perfection of the different sciencesâ based on the criteria of abstraction, precision, and application of mathematical analysis (1853, 29). His blatantly reductionist approach led to the conviction that physics somehow encompasses all other sciences.
The term âphysicalismâ first emerged within the Vienna Circle in the early 1930s and stressed the idea that all sciences could in principle be expressed through the terminology of physics (see, in particular, Carnap 1931; 1934). Rudolf Carnap (1891â1970), the major spokesman of logical empiricism, identified the logical-mathematical language of physics as an intersubjective, universal language that supposedly serves as the foundation of a âunified scienceâ (Einheitswissenschaft).12 Pursuing the coherence of and the inter-translatability between the sciences, the Vienna Circle argued that all meaningful sentences are expressible in one language and all facts are knowable by means of a single methodology. This ideal was thought of as the linchpin of a âscientific world conceptionâ (wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung) (Stadler 2015, 231â32, 361). The Vienna Circle formed the pinnacle of scientific naturalismâthe secularist variant of scientismâthat emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century and sought to elevate the authority of science over matters of worldview, thus forging a materialistic version of Naturphilosophie (Böhme 1989, 9).13
The hegemonic position attributed to physics has thus impacted philosophical critiques of religious views and the field of religion itself. Although âmodern esotericismâ has been argued to be a form of knowledge popularization in the ideological heritage of Naturphilosophie (Hanegraaff 1998; Hammer 2001; Erdbeer and Wessely 2009), the widespread image of physics as the most rigorous and fundamental of sciences inevitably came to function as its social currency (cf. Leane 2007, 6â7). As major players of modern esotericism, occultists shared a âstrong belief in âscienceâ as an arbiter of truthâ (Hanegraaff 1998, 66), although their views were starkly opposed to any form of scientific positivism. Occultists aimed to undermine materialism by lending a scientific (or rather scientistic) explanatory framework to cosmologies, anthropologies, and therapeutic-soteriological ideas: if everything in the universeâincluding life, mind, and the soulâcould be reduced to matter and force (or energy), a physical explanation could in principle be provided for the domains of the occult. âOccult physicalismâ shall here be understood as the appeal to physical terms and theories with the aim of rationalizing an inherently occult worldview. Its emergence is concomitant with the rise of physics as the dominant science in the nineteenth century and its quest for uncovering fundamental natural laws behind the plethora of phenomena.
The genre âoccult physicalismâ extends previous discussions on âoccult forcesâ (Hanegraaff 2006, 885â86). As indicated in the program of the Theosophical Society (est. 1875; see section 5), âoccult forcesâ encompassed those qualities or phenomena that could not easily be assimilated into mainline empirical science. Whereas electricity, magnetism, and the curative effects of medical substances had been increasingly understood and hence demystified by modern science, other phenomena remained mysteriousâfor example, the altered states of consciousness produced by animal magnetism and spiritualists. Paying little attention to rivalling psychological explanations, the quest for unlocking psychic, spiritual, or divine powers believed to perfuse the cosmos and the human soul has been a keen interest of occultists and closely related scientific and religious figures.
What I argue in this chapter is that the occult discourse on energy emerged from an inversed scientific naturalism that was propagated by Romantic mesmerists, (proto-)spiritualists, (post-)Theosophists, and New Thought adherents. Their scientistic apology presumed that the hidden powers of nature could in principle be unveiled by modern science. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how the idea of subtle energies resulted from aânever fully completedâphysicalization of occult worldviews. Responding to the scientific discourse of their time, occultists sought to subsume the belief in vital forces and the power of the human mind (loosely corresponding to Müllerâs âvitalâ and âpsychicâ principles) within a physical frame of reference. Five key themes have decidedly informed the semantics of subtle energies: (1) the mesmeric fluidum; (2) Reichenbachâs Od; (3) ether models; (4) the concept of vibration as the mediator between mind and matter; and (5) occult energy theories. These themes will be elaborated on in the next sections, followed by a discussion of the main features of occult-physicalist agents.
3 Mesmerâs Fluidum
Arguably, the most outstanding precedent to the physicalism of nineteenth- century occultists was the cosmological model conceived by the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734â1815). Mesmer theorized that disturbances in the human body were caused by obstructions of a natural agency that he referred to as fluidum, that is, streams of an extremely fine matter that hypothetically permeates the cosmos. The restoration of health depended on harmonizing the fluidumâs flow via so-called magnetic strokes above the patientâs body. Other mesmeric interventions involved the concentrated gaze at or gentle breath upon a patient, as well as the use of non-human media of transmission such as the administration of magnetized water or group therapies around a âbaquet,â a vessel filled with magnetized objects (Baier 2020b).
Mesmer introduced his medical theory of âanimal magnetismâ to the public in 1775 as a therapeutic application of the physics of his time (Feldt 1985, 31). He promoted his approach to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (est. 1759) as an enlightened and rational alternative to the exorcism practiced by the Roman-Catholic priest Johann Joseph GaÃner (1727â1779). As he was able to produce similar cures as GaÃner without recourse to religious notions such as demons, possession, or Christ, Mesmer enhanced his scientific reputation even if only for a short period. Conversely, as Karl Baier has pointed out, it is highly probable that Mesmer was influenced by GaÃnerâs method of laying- on-of-hands, which prompted him to dispense with magnets and rely on his hands as the chief therapeutic instrument for radiating the fluidum (Baier 2015, 60â61).
The term âenergyâ was rather uncommon in the scientific mindscape of the eighteenth century, which was primarily occupied with discussing âforcesâ (Feldt 1985, 31). Distinctions between physical, physiological, and psychological processes had not yet been strictly drawn. Thus, notions such as magnetism, heat, aether or ether, spiritus, soul, and life force (vis vitalis) were still integral part in the investigation of the so-called imponderables, that is, postulated material substances whose weight could not be quantified. In theorizing his universal fluidum, Mesmer variably referred to the known imponderables of gravity, light, heat (or fire), electricity, and magnetism, finally settling on the latter (ibid., 33). Mesmer did not view his fluidum as operating in an intermediate position between physical and trans-physical dimensions that might suggest the âunification of opposites: religion and science, mind and matter, even God and the universeâ (Hanegraaff 1998, 435)âan interpretation that would emerge among Romantic mesmerists. Rather, he remained a firm physicalist in his cosmological outlook. Instead of supposing the existence of spirit or soul, he proposed that matter and movement were the two fundamental principles of the universe, both having their transcendent origin in God (Baier 2024, 556).
Despite Mesmerâs enormous influence on nineteenth-century occult discourse, it would be anachronistic to classify him as an occultist. He was a physician who embedded his therapeutic method within the program of the so-called iatrophysics of the Leiden School. This medical current was initiated by Herman Boerhaave (1668â1738) and aimed at developing medicine on the basis of René Descartes (1596â1650) and Sir Isaac Newtonâs (1643â1727) mechanical theories of nature (see Baier 2024, 545). Not only did Mesmer present his approach as a science-based substitute for exorcism but also claimed to have found a superior medical theory that explains the nervous systemâs role in the origin of disease. However, his theory of a fluidal curing agency and the almost theatrical performances of collective healing séances in Paris did not escape the criticism of the scientific community. Although animal magnetism was at first repudiated by the Viennese and Parisian medical establishment, it repeatedly drew intense academic interest in the nineteenth century, particularly during the Romantic period (Baier 2020a, 18â19; 2020b, 43â48). The interpretational ambiguity of the fluidum and the phenomenon of trance induced through mesmeric séances significantly influenced (1) Romantic philosophy, medicine, and religious thought (c.1790â1820); (2) the development of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy; (3) the evolution of nineteenth-century new religious movements encompassing spiritualism, New Thought, and Theosophy; as well as (4) research in parapsychology.14
Mesmerâs physicalist framework proved too rigid to fully explain the idea of fluidum, which from the outset had a salient psychological aspect and was thought of as responsive to the mindset of the mesmerist. Bertrand Méheust distinguished three major branches of animal magnetism that emerged in France by the mid-1780s (Méheust 1999; cf. SocieÌteÌ de lâHarmonie dâOstende 1786):
(1) The mesmerists (mesméristes) followed Mesmer in explaining the physiological and psychological changes generated by magnetization as a result of the fluidumâs circulation. This position was decidedly physicalistic.
(2) A branch headed by the theosopher Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743â1803), termed by Méheust as âspiritualistsâ (spiritualistes), dismissed the agency of a fluidum and interpreted animal magnetism as the direct influence of the magnetiserâs will and prayer. In exceptionally gifted subjects so-called somnambulic states were induced for the purpose of contacting celestial entities.
(3) The psychofluidists (psychofluidistes) that were inspired by the teachings of Armand Marie Jacques de Chastenet de Puységur (1751â1825), who coined the term somnambulism (somnambulisme) to describe the sleep-like state induced by mesmeric techniques. Puységur acknowledged the fluidum but regarded it the substrate of the will, which he understood to be the primary principle behind the subtle influences on magnetized subjects.
This latter line of interpretation diverged from a purely physicalist framework without giving up the concept of a physical substrate. Puységurâs school was crucial in the development of new forms of âreligious psychologyâ including New Thought (see section 6). Adam Crabtree went a step further and suggested that mesmerism was a prelude to what could be termed âthe psychological turn in the Westâ that opened the path toward psychiatry, hypnosis, and depth psychology (Crabtree 2019; cf. 1993).
Theories of âenergyâ were one of several attempts to revise the concept of fluidum. French mesmerists of the Romantic period still spoke of âenergyâ (énergie) not as a physical agent but as a mental force akin to âconfidenceâ (confiance) and the power of âwillâ (volonté) (e.g., Deleuze 1819: 21â22, 55; Dupotet de Sennevoy 1838, 218, 220). The practitionerâs skill in using his mental energies was seen as the key to the success of a magnetic treatment. In the medical literature of the anglosphere before 1800, energy had adopted a physiological connotation in the form of ânervous energy.â In 1845, the majority of physiological textbooks in Germany, France, and England still assumed the existence of a ânerve principleâ (Nervenprinzip), ânervous forceâ (Nervenkraft) or âenergyâ (Energie) that provided a material explanation for the nervous systemâs organic functions (Heidler 1845, 1).
Along these lines, the English poet and mesmerist Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798â1868) crafted a monumental apology for animal magnetism titled Facts in Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism, with Reasons for a Dispassionate Inquiry into it (1840). Seeking to render mesmeric phenomena consistent with reason, Townshend thought of the mesmeric influence as a âsubtle, elastic, and ethereal mediumâ that constitutes the power of human vitality known as ânervous energyâ (Townshend 1840, 504â5). Suggesting a synthesis of physiology and metaphysics, Townshend postulated that this subtle agent could bridge the âpalpable hiatusâ between âmind and matter,â âthe visible and the invisible,â and âthe subtle and the grossâ (505). He thought the agent to be âwithin the domain of physicsâ (408) and that it could excite the nerves to vibrate in unison âjust as tended strings have a capacity to vibrate in correspondence with the airâ (463). Townshend regarded this âvibratory mediumâ to be a necessary hypothesis to explain the ânearly simultaneous and correspondent action of the nervous systemsâ of a mesmerizer and patient when in the state of ârapportâ (464; cf. Anonymous 1845, 219).
Rivalling theories strove to reestablish animal magnetism even firmer on (iatro-)physical ground. An early attempt to substitute the cosmic fluidum itself with energy as a purely physical term was put forth by the British physician William Newnham (1790â1865) in his book Human Magnetism: Its Claims to Dispassionate Inquiry (1845)âthe title clearly echoing Townshendâs apology. Drawing on the ideas of Casimir Chardels (1777â1847), a psycho-fluidist of Puységurâs school, and the British physicist Robert Hunt (1807â1887), Newnham postulated that the mesmeric healing agent constituted the âprinciple of lifeâ emanating from the sun.15 He identified this vital principle with âenergia,â an âimponderable elementâ coined by Hunt (Newnham 1845, 193â95; cf. Zoehrer 2024). Newnham quoted the definition of âenergiaâ directly from Huntâs Researches on Light (1844):
Energia, that power which effects all the changes, whether chemical or molecular, which are constantly in progress; it is that agent which is for ever quickening all the elements of growth, and maintaining the conditions of a healthful vitality. (Hunt 1844, 270; emphasis in the original)
It does not appear that Newnhamâs identification of the magnetic fluidum with âenergiaâ found much resonance among scientists, physicians, or other practitioners. A probable reason was that Newnham himself retracted the term in a post scriptum where he pointed out that the British Association for the Advancement of Science recommended to abandon Huntâs notion of âenergia.â The term was at the time limited to describing the âprinciple of a substantial elementâ (including light), that is, the purely physical realm. To denote chemical and biological processes through another term, i.e., âactinism,â was therefore suggested (Newnham 1845, 213). In any case, to Newnham it was âobvious that the change of term will exert no influence uponâ his basic physical theory (ibid.; emphasis in the original).
Within the narrow context of mesmeric theories, the above examples already revealed multilayered meanings connected to the term energy in the first half of the nineteenth century. Energy continued its semantic career through the texts of the New Thought movement, where its physical and psychological dimensions were expanded to include divine powers. However, two other notions should be discussed beforehand: Od and ether. These were employed to revive the idea of a mesmeric agent and would crucially shape occult views of energy.
4 Reichenbachâs Od
A universal, imponderable agent of a slightly different kind that prefigured the notion of subtle energy was postulated by the German industrialist and chemist Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Reichenbach (1788â1869). From 1841 and until his death, Reichbach asserted the existence of a fundamental force-principle (Dynamid) he christened Od (derived from Odin, the Norse god), which supposedly combined the qualities of electricity, magnetism, heat, and vital force. He claimed that Od emanated from both physical objects and biological organisms, but that its mysterious rays were immeasurable by instruments. They were perceivable only by âsensitives,â the majority of whom happened to be women and children. Notably, Reichenbach counted himself among those who were blind to the Odic radiations (Noakes 2019, 34â35).
In his two-volume tome Physikalisch-physiologische Untersuchungen (1849), Reichenbach referred to Od as a âworld forceâ (Weltkraft), the source of all known physical and chemical phenomena as well as the force of life itself (Lebenskraft, also referred to as Biod) (von Reichenbach 1849, 120, 164). Although he was reserved toward animal magnetism, Reichenbach de facto rehashed Mesmerâs physicalist notion of fluidum, including its features of polarity, imponderability, and therapeutic means. Thus, pouring old wine into new wineskins, he classified mesmerism as a subordinate âspecial applicationâ (spezielle Anwendung) of the Odic force (von Reichenbach 1854, xxix). As a recognized natural scientist (Naturforscher), Reichenbach assumed the role of a detached and objective investigator, and developed a sophisticated series of tests with the aim of proving the existence of his postulated agent.
Nonetheless, the broad scientific disapproval of the Od theory was anything but subtle.16 Reichenbachâs teaching was alternately derided as delusion, heresy, fiction, and pseudoscience. James Braid (1795â1860), the Scottish surgeon and pioneer of hypnotism, viewed the effects described by Reichenbachâs ânew forceâ as âdue entirely to a mental influenceâ and âattributable to the power of the mindâ on human physiology. (Braid 1846, 214, 216).17 A scathing polemic was meted out by the German physiologist and staunch critic of vitalism Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818â1896), a friend of the aforementioned Helmholtz. He described the doctrine on the Od as âmagnetic wizardryâ (magnetischer Zuber) and the âNew Testament of Mesmerismâ (Neue Testament des Mesmerismus) (du Bois-Reymond 1847 [1845], 522). In his inaugural address in Munich, the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803â1873) explained âwhy the new Od-science will find no entry into the natural sciences.â18 Inducing âvisual and perceptual apparitions in neurasthenic ill personsâ could provide no evidence for the âexistence of a new natural forceâ (von Liebig 1852, 18â19).19 At the outset of his rise as a science popularizer and leading spokesman of scientific naturalism in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Büchner conducted his own series of experiments in order to test Reichenbachâs hypothesis because he could not believe âthat anybody could invent such a web of liesâ (Büchner 1854, 11).20
A more sophisticated refutation of Reichenbachâs Od was put forth by Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801â1887), a physicist and pioneer of the neurophysiological measurement of sensation. In a tragicomical autobiographical narration titled Erinnerungen an die letzten Tage der Odlehre und ihres Urhebers (Memories of the Last Days of the Od Doctrine and its Originator; 1876), Fechner offered his critique of what he admitted to think to be âa kind of subjective phantasmagory.â21 The historian of science Robert M. Erdbeer pointed out that in contrast to many of the aforementioned opponents, Fechnerâs scientific satire did not dismiss Reichenbach from a materialistic point of view but sought to establish clear boundaries around what constitutes exact science, and demarcate it from now disreputed Naturphilosophie.22
Relentless criticism notwithstanding, Reichenbach must be credited as the last experimental scientist who seriously attempted to explain the full range of physical, biological, and psychic phenomena by means of a single agent (Erdbeer 2008, 143). His case is particularly instructive as it illustrates the emergence of a fracture in the style of thought (Denkstilwechsel) that led to the bifurcation of the scientific and occult discursive cultures in the mid- nineteenth century (ibid., 146). Despite the clear refutation of the Odic force as a qualitas occulta by the experimental science of his day, his work vigorously stimulated the transatlantic discourses on mesmerism, spiritualism, and psychical research during the latter half of the nineteenth century (Nahm 2012, 322). European and American occult authors readily welcomed Reichenbachâs ideas as an authoritative scientific reference point that justified their belief in subtle powers (e.g., Hittell 1860; Sawicki 2017, 236â48). Interpretations of the material property of the Od ranged from an ephemeral ray, glow, or current to a form of subtle matter, sometimes identified with the âectoplasmâ postulated by spiritualists (OâByrne 1926, 1).
A notable systematic theory of Od was formulated by the German philosopher and occultist Carl du Prel (1839â1899).23 In his final work Die Magie als Naturwissenschaft (1899),24 du Prel dismissed both monistic materialism and Cartesian dualism, and argued that Od could explain the mind-body-interaction. Reinforcing Reichenbachâs vitalism and in line with Müllerâs distinction between vital and psychic principles, he stated that the Od constituted the vital substrate (Lebenskraft)âan agent that governs both subconscious self-organisation of the body and conscious mental activity.25 Du Prel imagined Od to be the subtle medium underlying magnetic rapport, somnambulism, clairvoyance, dream oracles, and other psychical phenomena (du Prel 1899b, 1â25), including apparitions of ghosts (du Prel 1916). His elaborate project amounted to a list-ditch attempt to defend the idea that all physical, vital, and psychological phenomena could be accounted for by a unifying agent. Whereas du Prelâs efforts to establish the credibility of the Od in academic circles were mostly unsuccessful, his thought on the unconscious, dreams, and the afterlife attracted considerable interest among writers, artists, and psychologists.26
In addition to serving as the cornerstone of grand occult narratives, the Od also provided a conceptual framework for practical applications. Under the impact of Reichenbachâs theory and in parallel to the discoveries of electromagnetism, X-rays, and radioactivity, occult theories moved from âmagneticâ or âfluidalâ imageries toward those of radiation (Haupt 2005, 173). By the dawn of the twentieth century, the discourse surrounding the rays of Od had merged with alternative medicine. A case in point was the introduction of a technical device named âOd-ray apparatusâ (Odstrahl-Apparat), invented by the Swiss homeopath and naturopath Hermann Ulrich Ottinger (1879â1924). In external appearance and function, Ottingerâs machine was comparable to other contemporaneous medical devices for phototherapy or electrotherapeutics and similarly described in technical language (Bigalke 2019, 23â24). To market his odic-magnetic machine more effectively, Ottingerâwho practiced in Riethüsli, a neighborhood in St. Gallenâadded the title âYogiâ to his name in advertizing brochures. He did so not to underscore his mastery of a South Asian spiritual practice but rather to endow his therapy with the flair of the exotic and mysterious (Klatt 2009, 13 n. 13).27 Ottinger had befriended Franz Hartmann (1838â1912), a physician, close associate of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831â1891), and prolific key figure of German and international Theosophy with a keen interest in occult healing approaches. During the winter of 1911/12, in the final months of his life, Hartmann applied Ottingerâs invention for treating his ailments. Although he reported a reinvigorating effect on his body, the Od emitter did not prevent the inevitable (Priem 1912, 50).28
Of more lasting influence than Ottingerâs therapy would be the âiatro-physical conceptionâ of the American physician Albert Abrams (1863â1924). Abramsâ medical theory formed a central reference point for the development of machines that prefigured both âenergy medicineâ (the use of electromagnetic fields for diagnosis and cures; cf. Oschman 2000), and âradionicsâ (a device-based form of distant or psychic healing; cf. Tansley 1972). Abrams was convinced that â[d]isocculting the occultâ was achievable if odic sensations, spiritualist materializations, and psychometry (the ability to diagnose disease via touch) were explained in terms of the unifying principle of âenergyâ (Abrams 1916, 9â11, 255â56). However, among early-twentieth century occultists, more in vogue than energy was the concept of ether.
5 Occult Ether Theories
Next to the cosmic fluidum and Odic emanations, a third important precursor to the notion of subtle energies were ether theories. The idea of a superfine, invisible substrate that permeates the universe enticed the imagination of occult thinkers, who built on both ancient and modern ether theories.29 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the notion of ether received increased attention and credibility from the side of Victorian physicists. It should be stressed that ether physics proved to be a highly fruitful scientific hypothesis, ultimately leading to the foundation of classical electrodynamics by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831â1879) in 1873 (Maxwell 1873; cf. Asprem 2011, 132).
The hypothesis of a subtle substrate that transmits light and other electrodynamic waves was taken up by trendsetting occult authors. A pivotal example of occult physicalism as a literary topos with a predilection for ether theories is provided by the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky. In her first major work Isis Unveiled (1877), Blavatsky crafted a loose synthesis of Mesmerâs fluidum, Reichenbachâs Od, and the concept of ether or âAstral Lightâ in proposing a cosmic, magical agent (Blavatsky 1877, 125â62; cf. Baier 2009, 280). One of the major sources for Isis Unveiled was the English translation of A History of Magic (1854). Written by the Tyrolean physician Joseph Ennemoser (1787â1854), the book argued that Mesmerâs teachings contained the scientific key to explaining magic and related phenomena, including alchemy, witchcraft, astrology, precognition, visionary states of mind, and religious ecstasy (Baier 2009, 258â59). Ennemoserâs attempt to provide a theoretical framework that could lend plausibility to magical practices took the same line as Mesmer and other mesmerists who sought to explain the miraculous in scientific terms and trace them to natural causes. However, it was his systematic and historical overview and its translation into English that reached an international audience. He thus paved the way for the Theosophist conception of occultism as a scientific program (ibid., 260).
A second crucial influence on Isis Unveiled was the French author Alphonse Louis Constant (1810â1875), better known by his pen name Ãliphas Lévi. This pioneering figure of nineteenth-century occultism unleashed a renaissance of magic in France that would spread to the rest of Europe and the United States.30 Lévi had adopted the widespread interpretation of magic as an application of the all-connecting mesmeric fluidum, which he also identified with Reichenbachâs Od but preferred to call âastral lightâ (lumière astrale) (Lévi 1860, 19). As Julian Strube has argued, Lévi most likely discovered the notion of lumière astrale in the writings of Jean Du Potet de Sennevoy (1796â1881), the most vocal representative of the French magnétistes spiritualistes, to whom he explicitly referred (Strube 2016a, 65). Lévi was convinced that the astral light functioned as a médiateur plastique and was the power not only behind animal magnetism but the ultimate cause of magical operations. With Du Potet he agreed that this agent magique had been known to and employed by the Chaldean mages, the Gnostics, the alchemists, and the Kabbalists (ibid.). Having both natural and divine properties, the astral light functions as a universal medium that communicates between the corporeal and the spiritual spheresâa marked deviation from Mesmerâs physicalist cosmology. While the astral light itself is âblindâ (aveugle), it may be directed by âspirits of energy and actionâ (les esprits dâénergie et dâaction) (Lévi 1860, 19) as well as the power of âwillâ (volonté) (Lévi 1856, 185).31 The key to controlling the astral light was thus the refinement of the will, a notion that Lévi adopted from the Puységur schoolâdespite sharply distinguishing his own approach from somnambulism (Strube 2016a, 65â66).32
Lévi thought of the astral light in abstract terms as a âsystem of vibrationsâ (système des vibrations; 1856, 184) and retained metaphors of subtle matter throughout his work. However, in contrast to Ennemoser, he was more reluctant regarding the explanatory power of animal magnetism and the interpretation of magic by recourse to natural forces. His critical stance again drew major inspiration from Du Potet, who did not think of animal magnetism as an enlightened science that supersedes magic but rather as a still imperfect attempt to revive the teachings of the ancient adepts. Accordingly, he applied signs and symbols from old works on magic, wizardry, and the kabbalah in his practical experiments, which he believed to be derived from a universal language known to the priests and magicians of primeval times (Strube 2016b, 461â62; cf. Baier 2009, 269â70).
Ennemoser and Du Potet/Lévi thus represent two attitudes toward science that would prefigure downstream positions of occult authors. The first view was optimistic that the progress of science could shed light on ancient mysteries, and rationalized the belief in the supernatural by appealing to contemporaneous scientific frameworks. The second held ancient knowledge to be superior to science in its current state. Isis Unveiled mediated between both points of view. On the one hand, Blavatsky named luminaries of physics and technology such as Michael Faraday (1791â1867), Thomas A. Edison (1847â1931), Alexander G. Bell (1847â1922), William Crookes (1832â1919), and John Tyndall (1820â1893) as witnesses for the âethericâ effects seen in contemporary discoveries and inventions. With the advances in understanding magnetism and electricity, and the invention of telegraphy and telephony, a full scientific explanation of a universal magical agent seemed more feasible than ever. On the other hand, Blavatsky more emphatically argued in line with Du Potet and Lévi that science was still a long way from fully grasping the ether as the force that is at the root of both physical phenomena and occult powers (Asprem 2011, 143). Her âmaster-keyâ would unlock those powers by unveiling the knowledge encrypted in the âscienceâ of the ancient mysteries (Blavatsky 1877, title).
âEnergyâ was a secondary term in Blavatskyâs oeuvre. Her occult quest in Isis Unveiled revolved around the mesmeric fluidum, Reichenbachâs Od, and the ânature of the vital force, and how to command itâ (Blavatsky 1877, 475). She employed fluidal and aerial metaphors interchangeably. Od could thus encompass âvital fluidâ as well as the âbreath of Godâ (ibid., 145â46; Blavatsky 1888, 76). Diving deeper, in The Secret Doctrine she suggested a causal reality behind all life and its biological and spiritual evolution that she called âthe one Universal Lifeâ (Blavatsky 1888, 634). This divine âSource of Lifeâ is identified with âthe Breath of the absoluteness,â the god Viá¹£á¹u, and the âSolar active energyâ from which âseven raysâ emanate (290, 592). The latter signified seven gods, the creative forces of nature, andâmore concretelyâthe known physical phenomenon (âlight, heat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral radiation, motionâ) plus consciousness (âIntelligenceâ) (562; emphasis in the original).
Blavatsky associated (and practically identified) the âone lifeâ33 with a fundamental occult force that she named âFohat,â the objectified manifestation of the divine and absolute âUniversal Mindâ (Blavatsky 1888, 110; emphasis in the original). On the earthly plane, Fohatâs influence is generated by the will of the mesmerist. On the cosmic plane, it is the âcreative Logosâ and formative power behind the planetary system and living organisms (ibid., 110â11). Fohatâs properties are explicitly energetic: it is described as âthe energising and guiding intelligence in the Universal Electric or Vital Fluidâ (ibid., 493), âthe Solar Energyâ and the âpersonified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energiesâ (ibid., 111). By the late 1880s, imaginations of a psycho-physical agent of divine origin that are found scattered throughout Blavatskyâs work had already been a central theme in the blossoming New Thought movement (discussed in the next section).
Theosophical publications on the ether outlasted the climax of the scientific discourse on this hypothesis. Although the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) and Albert Einsteinâs (1879â1955) special theory of relativity (1905) ultimately rendered the ether redundant, a few high-ranking physicists continued to promote the idea. Perhaps most influential in this regard was the English physicist, spiritualist, and prolific writer Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851â1940) (Bowler 2001, 89â101). From the 1880s until the early 1930s, Lodge developed a complex theory of ether as âthe living garment of Godâ that combined physical, philosophical, and theological elements (Asprem 2011, 141â42; cf. Raia 2007).34 His writings provided ideological fuel to early twentieth-century Theosophists who held on to âtheir old argument that modern science was catching up with, and helping to support, occult wisdomâ (Noakes 2019, 311).35
6 New Thought and the Vibrations of Mental Force
New Thought was a vigorous religious-therapeutic movement that first developed in New England during the 1860s and spread to the rest of North America between 1885 and 1895. Its key tenet was the firm belief that âfaith is a forceâ (Horowitz 2014, 30). New Thought authors developed a plethora of practices around the idea that the âmind possesses an actual ethereal powerâ over the body and physical reality (ibid., 101). The âreligion of healthy-mindednessâ (James 1902, 78) has been counted as belonging to âAmerican metaphysical religionââa broader complex of ideological currents that additionally includes Transcendentalism, mesmerism, spiritism, and Theosophy, with offshoots extending far into the twentieth-century New Age movement.
Catherine L. Albanese identified âmovement and energyâ as one of four central themes characterizing metaphysical religion.36 In the metaphysical vision of energy, âthe practical imagination joins forces with willâ in order to change the fabric of reality, bring about healing, and overcome obstacles on the path to personal success (2007, 15). This characterization appears filtered through the lens of New Age rhetoric, where âenergiesâ are indeed ubiquitous. However, in the context of New Thought in the decades around 1900, energy was only one among several physical terms used to describe the connection between the mind and outer reality.
The specific combination of physicalism and psychologization that is so prevalent in New Thought has its roots in American mesmerism. In contrast to the tendency of psychological or spiritualistic interpretations in Europe, American mesmerists preferred a scientistic basis for their practice and refused subjectivizing explanations (Fuller 1986, 38; cf. Noakes 2019, 29). In reaction to the rise of science, scientism was an integral part of the New Thought movement from its inception: âThe modern faith in science and utility was felt in the realm of the spirit, tooâ (Horowitz 2014, 114â15).37 Initially sparked by the magnetic healer Phineas Quimbey (1802â1866), protagonists of New Thought occasionally employed the notion of energy without making it central to their healing theories. A more widely used physical term among New Thought acolytes was âvibration.â
Olav Hammer (2001, 270) suggested that the New Age theme of âvibrationâ echoed the work of the British-American author Alice Bailey. However, earlier occult sources on the power of vibration can be traced. As mentioned above, Lévi already spoke of the astral light in terms of vibrations. Five decades later, Annie Besant (1847â1933) and her co-Theosophist Charles W. Leadbeater (1847â1934) suggested in Thought Forms (1905) that thoughts produce âa radiating vibration.â This vibration would affect the various levels of âmental matterâ but weaken âin proportion to the distance from their sourceâ (21â23).38 Their book set out to explain the idea that âthoughts are things,â a tagline that was coined by the American journalist and New Thought popularizer Prentice Mulford (1834â1891).
âVibrationâ had been a key term in the writings of the first theorist of New Thought, a New England-based Methodist minister-turned-Swedenborgian by the name of Warren Felt Evans (1817â1889). In The Mental Cure (1869) Evans wrote that mental force is transmitted through the âvibrationsâ of an all- pervading âsemi-spiritual essence,â which is âfar more refined, elastic, and subtle, than the etherâ or Reichenbachâs âodic forceâ (271, 251). He thought of this essence as the agent that is active between two minds in mesmeric and hypnotic rapport, and that it allows the mind to act upon matter (272).
In Divine Law of Cure (1884), Evans championed a monistic worldview in which mind and matter form âone substance under two forms of manifestationâ (174). Regardless of his allusions to Newton and other eminent figures of modern science in defending his theory of vibration, Evans ultimately argued in terms of ancient metaphysics and identified the subtle essence as the Platonic âanimus mundi, the soul of the universeâ (206, 356). Moreover, Evans was a strong believer in German idealism and the radical idealism of the Irish philosopher Bishop George Berkeley (1685â1753) (9, 154). Citing Berkeley that âthere is not any other substance than spirit,â Evans suggested a continuum between matter and to mind:
If, as modern science affirms, all the properties of matter are forms of force, and we go one step further, as we inevitably must, and show that all force is spiritual, and all causation mental, then matter itself becomes only the manifestation of spirit, and mind the only real substance. (Evans 1884, 146â47)
Hovering between science talk and religious thought would remain a hallmark in Evansâ system. Evans mentioned âsubtle energyâ in passing in The Primitive Mind-cure (1885), his penultimate book, when hailing the power of thought as âthe primal force and most subtle energy in the universeâ (13). Pure thought is energy, spirit, and the âfirst emanation from Godâ (14). Following Hegel, Evans thought that spirit would precede all actionâboth divine and humanâand in contrast to matter was characterized by âfreedom and spontaneityâ (ibid.).
To further explicate his mind-over-matter theory, Evans provided a similar interpretation of ânervous energy.â Arguing on the basis of a passage in the second volume of Johannes Müllerâs Elements of Physiology (the English translation of Müllerâs above-mentioned compendium), which discusses the effects of ideas (e.g., the thought of food) on bodily secretions (e.g., saliva), Evans proposed a form of cosmic physiology. Müller explained that a thought related to a secreting organ âcauses a stream of nervous energy to be directed towardsâ the respective gland (Müller 1842, 1398).39 The effect of secretion would be more marked if the thought was accompanied by passion or emotion. Evans extrapolated Müllerâs physiological account into an eclectic cosmo-theology that combined philosophical idealism, the Gospels, American Transcendentalism, and Blavatskian Theosophy. The ânervous energyâ only exemplified a more general principle that Evans preferred
to call the universal, divine life-principle in nature, the akasa (pronounced ahasa) of the Hindu metaphysics, an all-pervading, omnipresent, vivific principle of life and motion identical in its higher aspects with the Holy Spirit of the Gospels. An act of faith determines a current, so to speak, of this inconceivably subtle life-force toward the result aimed at and desired. Hence through faith, which is but a mode of thought in union with feeling, a disease is curable that otherwise would be incurable. (Evans 1885, 68â69; emphasis in the original)
This description prefigures twentieth-century discourses of subtle energies on three counts. The first is the manner of arguing for a âsubtle life-forceâ by means of an amalgam of scientific and orientalist notions, although âforceâ will give way to âenergyâ and references to ÄkÄÅa (literally: ether, space) will be replaced by prÄá¹a (see next chapter). Second, it anticipates the association of energy and glands, an idea that was picked up by early twentieth-century esoteric authors and integrated into more elaborate cakra systems (Leland 2016, 226â36). Third, it departs from the brain-body system to envision a universal, quasi-divine vital principle that mediates between the ontological levels of teleology (or mind) and matter. This rehabilitation of the vital principle (albeit outside the realm of scientific discourse) effectively reversed Helmholtz et al.âs dismissal of the vague notion of a life force and preference for exact description.40
According to Evans, the true adept supposedly holds the key to the universal life-principle and thereby becomes a master of âmagic,â âthe science of sciencesâ (Evans 1885, 141). Among the applications enabled by knowledge of the life principle were âthe relief of pain and the cure of diseaseâ (140), ways to obtain longevity (147), âpsychological telegraphyâ (199), and the attainment of salvation, or âthe true spiritual lifeâ (215). With recourse to Blavatsky, Evans wrote that with every inhalation humans imbibed the universal life-principle into their bodies, thus suggesting once more an influx of subtle matter, while simultaneously insinuating that the potential of the vital agent could only be activated through âwill and spiritâ (137; emphasis in the original).
Evans was a theoretician first and foremost and provided only few practical guidelines and exercises, mostly in the form of prayers or affirmations. A more detailed set of practices related to an occult subtle agent would be developed by the exceptionally prolific author William Walker Atkinson (1862â1932).41 Atkinson substantially drew from the ideological ocean of mesmerism, science, and the occult that stretched out between Theosophy and New Thought (Albanese 2007, 438). He extended the Theosophical disdain for control of trance mediums by spirits to the battle against the domination of an undisciplined and obstructive inner dialogue (ibid.). Espousing mental magicâthe command of the conscious over the subconscious mind in order to realize personal goalsâAtkinson taught lessons on how to attain mastery over âthought vibrations,â which he described in terms borrowed from physics.
Atkinsonâs book Dynamic Thought: The Law of Vibrant Energy (1906) openly opposed âthe Materialistic schoolâ and declared that a âNew Scienceâ of force and energy was on the rise, providing a ânew platformâ to philosophy (24â25). He references the state of the art of physics when explaining that âall forms of Energyââe.g., heat, magnetism, electricity, light, and X-raysâare produced by the vibration of substantial particles (125, 154, 171). The idea of ether had already been declared obsolete in the physics of his day. Nonetheless, Atkinson introduced the notion by invoking its sternest defender, Lodge, who had defined ether as âa perfectly continuous, subtle, incompressible substanceâ that functions as the âone universal mediumâ of motion and energy (Lodge 1889, 339, quoted in Atkinson 1906, 102). After illuminating its paradoxical features, Atkinson identified the ether with an ultra-fine substance he termed âMindâ (172)âor more precisely, a âLife and Mind Principleâ (155) inherent in matter. On this basis, he declared âVital-Mental Actionâ to be the more fundamental principle than mechanical vibration. This action is supposedly the ultimate source of all energy and all inorganic and organic matter (156). Capital-m âMindâ would perform its work in the brain and nervous system by virtue of its âFiner Force,â producing thought, and from thought mental âForce and Energyâ (212). Atkinson assertively claimed that his theory would explain mesmerism, suggestion, hypnotism, and telepathy (209). Taking it a step further into the occult, he suggested that the âcurrents of Fine Force coursing through his nervous systemâ produced âan âAuraâ or egg-shaped projection of Mindâ in a person, and that emotions and states of mind would correspond to a spectrum of colors in the Aura, as reported by âOccultistsâ (220â22). Atkinsonâs âthought-stuffâ thus rehashed Besant and Leadbeaterâs aforementioned âthought forms,â once again underscoring the blended discourse that was shared by New Thought and Theosophy.42
In The Kybalion (1908), âone of the most important and influential occult texts written in Americaâ (Deslippe 2011, 1), Atkinsonâunder the pseudonym âThree Initiatesââreiterated the idea of a psycho-physical continuum, that encompassed mind, matter, and energy as modes of vibration:
Modern Science has proven that all that we call Matter and Energy are but âmodes of vibratory motion,â and some of the more advanced scientists are rapidly moving toward the positions of the occultists who hold that the phenomena of Mind are likewise modes of vibration or motion. (Three Initiates 1908, 138)
Vibration, force, and energy were interchangeable key terms in the books that Atkinson wrote in the guise of his yogi-persona Ramacharaka between 1903 and 1909. âAll is in vibration. From the tiniest atom to the greatest sun, everything is in a state of vibrationâ (Ramacharaka 1903, 51), he wrote in The Hindu- Yogi Science of Breath. By tuning into the rhythm of his body and the universe via ârhythmic breathing,â the yogi absorbed âPrana,â that is, âthe spirit of lifeâ (17), ânerve forceâ (19), âvital forceâ (10), âvital energyâ (56), and âAbsolute Energyâ (16). Control over âPranaâ allows the yogi to strengthen his body and acquire desired physical and mental qualities, transmute sexual into âcreative energy,â communicate by telepathy, project âPranaâ to heal others, and attain enlightenment or the âstate of Universal Consciousnessâ (50â73). But Atkinson was less an innovator than a skillful systematizer of already abounding ideas. A decade before him, Swami Vivekananda (1863â1902) had disseminated his theory of an identity between prÄá¹a and energy on the one hand and related yogic exercises on the other for the attainment of superhuman powers (Zoehrer 2020; 2021; cf. next chapter).
Steeped in the occult mindscape, Atkinson tended to heavily frame his theories in scientific language and yogic teachings. In contrast, more Christian- leaning authors of the New Thought genre produced less exuberant amalgams of terms, and directly identified energy with God. In this vein, the homeopathic physician and New Thought author Harriet Emilie Cady (1848â1941) depicted God in Lessons in Truth (1896) as âspirit, or the creative energy which is the cause of all visible thingsâ (8). This energy again bore the qualities of âlife and intelligenceâ (ibid.) and was the source of all physical things and living beings.43 The idea of God-as-Energy foreshadowed later New Age theologies, where notions of ultimate reality alternated between a personal deity (or superconscious mind) and energy as the fundamental principle, source, or essence of the universe (cf. Hanegraaff 1998, 187; Wolf 2006, 1484).
âNew spirituality in America meant energy spirituality, and the energies of mesmerists and ether vibrations were only preparation for what had transpiredâ (Albanese 2007, 514). The âgood vibrationsâ of New Thought physicalism reached a preliminary end point in holistic interpretations of quantum physics. In this variant of scientistic metaphysics, subtle energy is associated with the powers of âconsciousnessâ and their supposed influence on subatomic wave functions, hence material reality.44 Inspired by both Theosophy and New Thought, a major figure that bridged the occult and holistic discourses on âatom consciousnessâ was Alice Bailey, whose esoteric cosmology represented the shift from ether to energy.
7 From Ether to Energy
Speculations on the ether were an expression of a much larger Theosophical agenda. In an early mission statement of 1886âlater entitled by its editor C. JinarÄjadÄsa âThe Original Programme of the Theosophical Societyââ Blavatsky defined four objectives for her organization: first, to establish a Universal Brotherhood; second, to safeguard the primacy of personal merit over race, creed, or class, third, to pursue the study of âthe philosophies of the East;â and fourth,
[t]o oppose materialism and theological dogmatism in every possible way, by demonstrating the existence of occult forces unknown to science, in nature, and the presence of psychic and spiritual powers in man; trying, at the same time to enlarge the views of the Spiritualists by showing them that there are other, many other agencies at work in the production of phenomena besides the âSpiritsâ of the dead. (Blavatsky 1931 [1886], 562; emphasis added)
âOccult forcesâ were believed to provide a deeper explanation of spiritualism, thus holding out the promise of a scientific but non-materialistic theory that was broad enough to shed new light on mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychical phenomena.45 Whereas the first-generation Theosophists insisted on proving the agency of a cosmic fluidum, Od, ether, and other physicalist cognates of âpsychic and spiritual powers,â such notions had already been superseded by psychological explanations in the academic context (see, most poignantly, Braid 1846). Resisting the course of the scientific community, Theosophists held on to physicalist ether theories long after they went out of fashion.
When âetherâ was gradually replaced by âenergyâ to denote subtle powers in early twentieth-century occult texts, their ductus was still heavily colored by Blavatskyâs work and drew from its ideological reservoir. At the helm of this conceptual shift in occult physicalism was Alice Ann Bailey (1880â1949; née La Trobe-Bateman). She was born in Manchester, England, as the daughter of a wealthy civil engineer and raised a Christian. After evangelical work among British soldiers in India and a difficult marriage, Bailey stranded on the West Coast of the United States. In 1917, she joined the Pacific Grove Lodge of the Theosophical Society in California and soon after the Esoteric School of Theosophy headed by Besant. Five years later, she broke with the Theosophical Society and founded the Arcane School, a training institution that offered correspondence courses based on messages she claimed to have received from a Tibetan Master (Leland 2016, 213).
In The Consciousness of the Atom (1922), one of her first books, Bailey argued for a cosmic evolution of consciousness. Rudimentary consciousness, she claimed, exists at the level of the atom and is the driving force behind the development toward higher forms of being. While Bailey still presupposed âetherâ as a primordial, intangible substance on which all matter rests, her idea of the fundamental building blocks of the universe put a far stronger emphasis on âintelligenceâ and âenergyâ (Bailey 1922, 19â24). In her view of the atom, physics converges with psychology. âIf you take these different qualities of the atomâenergy, intelligence, ability to select and reject, to attract and repulse, sensation, movement, and desireâyou have something which is very much like the psychology of a human being, only within a more limited radius and of a more circumscribed degree. Have we not, therefore, really got back to what might be termed the âpsyche of the atomâ?â (23). This psycho-physical microscopic entity partakes in a macroscopic spiritual process as it forms the seed for the cosmic evolution toward âGod consciousness,â which manifests âthat great Life, that all-embracing, universal Mind, that vibrant centre of energy [â¦] Whom we call God, or Force, or the Logos, the Existenceâ (58, 33).
A central feature of Baileyâs writings was what Olav Hammer aptly called âterminological creolizationâ (2001, 270). Reminiscent of the style of Isis Unveiled, Bailey blended the languages of physics and religion. Following the footsteps of the Theosophists, she envisioned an integrative worldview that sought to overcome both scientific materialism and a naïve belief in supernatural interventions:
Where the orthodox Christian would say with reverence, God, the scientist, with equal reverence, would say, Energy; yet they would both mean the same. Where the idealistic teacher would speak of the âGod withinâ the human form, others with equal accuracy would speak of the âenergising facultyâ of man, which drives him into activity of a physical, emotional, or mental nature. (Bailey 1922, 24)
Bailey thus lifted the notion of energy to the level of a divine entity that forms the root of material reality, psyche, and spirit, claiming their ultimate synthesis. Because she is dealing with energies, the âtrue esotericistâ is closer to a âscientistâ rather than a âmystic,â explained Bailey in her posthumously published book Education in the New Age (1954, 59). Esotericism is thus not only concerned with penetrating into secret realms in order to obtain hidden knowledge. It surpasses ordinary science due to the awareness of the true source and full hierarchy of energies that structure physical reality. Initiates would be endowed with superior insight into âthe energy of life, the energies of the soul, and the forces of the phenomenal worldâ and know how to master them (ibid.).
The Baileyan estotericist is engaged in co-creation, thus contributing to the spiritual evolution of the cosmos. She holds the key to shape the various levels of the external world because she is supposedly aware of the vitalizing essence behind all physical reality, that is, the âone lifeâ from which âdivine energyâ flows into all things (Bailey 1954, 18, 65; emphasis in the original). The macrocosmic evolution of the divine is mirrored by the evolution of human consciousness through the physical body at the microcosmic level (Bailey 1922, 4). Aiding the evolution of humankind, the esoteric disciple is supposed to put her knowledge about the ânature, control and direction of energyâ into the service of others (Bailey 1949, 127).
Having attributed a quasi-divine quality to energy, Bailey offered an application of her concept of energy in her posthumously published book Esoteric Healing (1953). Here, she laid out an early formulation of the basic principles that would also form an integral part of leading schools of energy healing including Therapeutic Touch, Brennan Healing Science, Choa Kok Suiâs Pranic Healing, and post-1980 forms of Reiki that integrated the cakras into its healing ritual:46 (1) everything is composed of energy, from the atoms of physical reality to the subtle bodies that structure the human self (Bailey 1953, 35â36); (2) physical and psychological functions correspond to a system of âseven major centres of forceâ located in the âetheric bodyâ (45, 144â99);47 (3) healing is achieved by restoring the unimpeded âflowâ of energy, which the esoteric healer achieves by directing a âstream of energyâ to the center associated with a patientâs disease (101, 205); (4) âenergy ever follows thought and goes where the thought is focussedâ (101). The healer is thus instructed to imagine the pouring out of energy and visualize the patient receiving it (104â105), serving as a âpure channelâ (677).
Similar to the fluidum, the occult ether, and New Thought vibrations, Baileyâs notion of energy was not inanimate but responsive to attention, thought, and intention. The energetic turn in her cosmology and anthropology effectively recast occult etherology and translated it into a program for training what could be termed âenergy workers.â Bailey thus functioned as a hinge joint between nineteenth-century occultism and contemporary energy healing (cf. Zoehrer 2025).
8 Discussion: Characteristic Aspects of Occult-Physicalist Agents
Above historical outline presented five major conceptions of an occult power that were framed in physicalist terms and seeded the notion of subtle energies. Based on this exposition, the following eight characteristic aspects may be distilled.
First, universalism. The various ideas of a subtle force-substrate share the assertion of an agency that operates on physical, biological, and mental levels. Extrapolating the key property of physical energyâthe ability to convert into various formsâsubtle agents are imagined as universal mediums of transformation. In contrast to mainline physics, their semantic spectrum stretches from the material to the impalpable (i.e., the mental, interpersonal, and divine). Belief in an ethereal medium works as a heuristic to conceptually bridge perceived gaps between bodily and spiritual dimensions of human experience. Furthermore, as the contributions in this volume will elaborate, subtle energies operate as a universal currency, bridging distinct domains. They enable connections such as the transmission of ideas from antiquity to modernity, syntheses of âEasternâ spirituality with âWesternâ science, the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, the transmutation of the sexual drive into mystical experience, and the amplification of bodily vitality into collective power.
Second, claims of objectivity. Presuming a quasi-physical nature allows the conception of occult powers as something objective and hence malleable. Reflecting the shifting state of the art in the field of physics, the imponderable fluidum, Odic emanations, etheric vibrations, and the wave function of subatomic physics subsequently added to the ideological matrix from which the notion of subtle energy emerged. Whereas the character of these concepts historically moved from intuition (Anschauung) to abstraction, they unite around the idea of an invisible influence that directly affects immanent, physical reality. A postulated fine-material substance reinforces the claim that a certain ritual or treatment is effectiveâbe it for the purpose of healing, spiritual self-refinement, or contacting higher entities.48 The notion allows practitioners to explain (or rather imagine) the âmechanicsâ underlying the psychosomatic chain of body, subconscious mind, and consciousness.49
Third, implicit metaphors. A widespread tendency among occult and holistic authors has been to take up qualitative, metaphorical descriptions of abstract physical concepts (e.g., magnetism, ether, energy, or quantum entanglements), and then move into speculative realms where such descriptions are literally identified with a universal life principle or extrapolated to denote mystical states (Hammer 2001, 239, 269; cf. Asprem 2011, 133). Of particular influence were the fluidal, quasi-hydraulic descriptions prevalent in mesmerism that still reverberate in the field of energy healing when practitioners describe the healing process by means of vivid and intuitive images such as âletting the energy flow,â âtransmitting energy,â or âbalancing energiesâ (Werthmüller 2005, 34). By contrast, in modern physics, energy is not treated as a tangible substance and thus does not âflowâ in the conventional material sense.50 Implicit metaphorical language is common among practitioners because it effectively translates abstract, distant concepts into ones that are familiar, embodied, and grounded in lived experience (cf. van Rijn in this volume).51
Fourth, vitalism. A defining feature of occult physicalism is its opposition to a materialist narrative of life and the universe. The formal definition of energy by Helmholtz intended to disprove the existence of a life force beyond physical principles. Nonetheless, fluidum, Od, ether, the vibrations of New Thought, and the notion energy itself were repeatedly associated with vitalist semantics. Occult authorsâboth Western and Asianâadhering to vitalist ideas would seek additional support for their stance in pre-scientific, non-European physiological and medical discourses (see next chapter). Vitalistic agencies are integral to contemporary holistic practices, where âsubtle energyâ and âlife energyâ are often used interchangeably (cf. Werthmüller 2005, 35).
Fifth, consciousness. Physics proper is restricted to the study of inanimate matter and its motion through time and space. On a surface level, the strong association between energy and consciousness in alternative religion thus appears somewhat paradoxical. But a closer examination of how physical phenomena and theories are described in the source material reveals an underlying anthropomorphic style of messaging. Anthropomorphic imagery attracts lay readers more than purely technical explanations, which is why it is found so common in popular literature on physics (Leane 2007, 104). What Edward Slingerland observed for adherents of naturalistic physicalism applies even more so to proponents of occult physicalism: âIt is clear that human beings, no matter how professionally or intellectually committed they are to physicalism, feel a constant compulsion to project agency onto the inanimateâ (Slingerland 2008, 283). Subtle energies are a striking example for how the language of physics is used to convey an inherently anthropocentric worldview that particularly stresses the power of the mind.52
Sixth, divine qualities. While insinuating the claim of physical materiality, the deeper semantics of occult powers may invoke divine qualities. Léviâs âastral light,â Blavatskyâs âFohat,â Evansâ âprimal force,â and Baileyâs âEnergyâ explicitly featured the property of an all-pervading and life-giving entity. As Albanese observed for the New Age movement, â[l]ike all of American metaphysical religion [â¦], it discovered that the no-longer-secret name of God was Energyâ (2007, 495). The latent âverticalâ dimension is additionally underscored in the modern yogic discourse on subtle energies and energy healing modalities such as Reiki or Pranic Healing (Stein 2019; Zoehrer 2020; 2021; cf. next chapter). However, divinity remains only an optional semantic layer that cannot be generalized for all concepts of subtle energy.
Seventh, subtle technologies. Metaphors of energy, when embodied and enacted, have manifested in rituals, aesthetics, stories, and machines. Conceptions of occult powers have resulted in a plethora of applications that aim to channel their transformative effect. The means for accessing, expressing, and/ or utilizing what has been perceived as a superfine agency encompass inter alia (1) mind-body practices as âtechnologies of the selfâ (Foucault); (2) auto- suggestion and positive thinking; (3) entheogenic rituals (cf. Hanegraaff in this volume); (4) energy healing; (5) fÄngshuÇ and comparable forms of living space arrangement; (6) aesthetical forms, i.e., music, visual arts, and dance; (7) science-fiction and anime; and (7) device-based activities including radiesthesia, biofeedback, and bioresonance treatment. Whereas the notion of subtle energy remains contested, epistemic congruence with mainline science has been much less relevant to practitioners than the experiential and practical dimension.
Eighth, the ambivalent role of scientific authority. Scientific theories have continuously served as an authoritative reference point for notions of hidden powers, presenting them in a widely accepted language and thus endowing them with an aura of credibility. Notably, Mesmer argued for his iatrophysical treatment in accordance with the state of physics of his time. Influential proponents of spiritualism who argued for an ethereal agency looked back on outstanding scientific careers (e.g., Reichenbach, Crookes, and Lodge). The inversion of scientific naturalism seemed a feasible way to rationalize the belief in the world of spirits, occult forces, and the power of the mind. However, whereas some mesmerists, spiritualists, occultists, and New Thoughters sought confirmation for their worldview in science, others still regarded ancient wisdom teachings as superior sources of knowledge (e.g., Du Potet, Lévi, Blavatsky, and Evans).
Against the backdrop of the rise of physics as the paragon of exact science and objectivity, the retreat of Naturphilosophie from academic discourse, and academic psychology still in its formation stage, the central function of subtle agencies was to bridge the physical and subjective realms of reality via one unifying substrate. âNaturphilosophie has lost its reputationâ (die Naturphilosophie hat ihr Ansehen verloren), as Fechner pointedly formulated it (1851, iii). How a credible outlook could be preserved that approached the ensouled side of nature at the same level of methodological rigor as science was a lingering question. Mesmer presented the iatrophysics of fluidum as an enlightened explanation to refute the belief in spiritual entities underlying exorcist healings. However, already latent in Mesmerâs physicalist system was the role of will power in the mesmerist, which was magnified in Puységurâs school. Among early nineteenth-century mesmerists in France, énergie meant mental energy and constituted a key component in effectively magnetizing subjects. The French psychological turn set the stage for hypnotherapy and thus the complete psychologization of mesmerism under Braid. In contrast to this development, some apologists of mesmerism attempted to preserve its physicalist framework. Newnham reinterpreted the fluidum as the transformative, vital principle of nature and christened it âenergia.â In a similar vein but with the authority of an experimental scientist, Reichenbach postulated that his Od would constitute a cosmic force that is the root of all physical, chemical, biological, and mesmeric phenomena. The popular reception of Reichenbachâs extensive series of experiments with âsensitivesâ and his natural explanation for spirit manifestations fueled public interest in spiritualism. Building on nineteenth-century enthusiasm for mesmerism, Od, and séances, the Theosophical Society was founded with the purpose to investigate occult forces yet to be recognized by science as well as their effects in nature and the human psyche. The Theosophical endeavor inspired a host of other occult authors and groups to spread the belief in some form of ethereal or energetic substrate in making the case for the power of the mind over material reality. Well into the twentieth century, physical science still set the standard of proof required for the public acknowledgment of hypothetical agents. Thus, Tiller, the aforementioned physicist and figurehead of âNew Age science,â claimed to investigate subtle energies in a manner that would âlay the foundations for âSubjective Scienceâ on an equal footing with our present âObjective Scienceââ (1977, front matter).
Although proven untenable by the scientific community, speculations around fluidum, Od, ether, mind vibrations, and subtle energy inspired the imagination of magnetic healers, spiritualists, psychics, occultists, and contemporary holistic practitioners alike. They recycled refuted theories as misjudged discoveries that held out the promise to usher in a new era of scientific and spiritual progress once their truth had been widely recognized. Occult anticipations of the imminent scientific proof of natureâs finer forces sparked off a topos that could be called âfuturistic retro-science.â It underscored the dilemma of a âdiscoveryâ that supposedly stood on the verge of a paradigm shift, whereas its ultimate scientific breakthrough was constantly delayed due to its subtlety. Hence the ambivalent role of science in the discourse of occult physicalism: whereas the social prestige of science and the technology it produced were undisputed, science was not âadvancedâ enough to recognize the significance of a cosmic, subtle agent.
Interest in hidden powers of nature was immensely driven by ideological motives. The rise of empirical science from the eighteenth century onward went hand in hand with efforts to prove the limitations of a materialist vision of the world. The quest for a single, all-encompassing force-substrate could be viewed as part of the reaction against the perceived disintegration of modern society, the differentiation between nature and mind (or spirit), science and religion, and the divergence of academic disciplines. Evidence of a divine or universal agency would preserve the one ultimate reality at the root of all physical, biological, psychological, and alleged occult phenomena (cf. Hanegraaff 2006, 885â86). The postulation of such a vitalistic and intelligent cosmic power formed the basis for occult âtheories of everything,â that is, claims of a unified realm behind the phenomenal world of matter and mind (unus mundus) that is accessible to the adept (see Zoehrer 2025; cf. Tiller 1979). This pursuit of scientific and metaphysical knowledge as an integrated undertaking reinforces the affinity of occultism to Naturphilosophie, although most occult authors were far from developing a rigorous philosophical system.
9 Concluding Remarks
What distinguishes subtle energies as âsubtleâ is that they are neither measurable nor verifiable through the established means of physics. However, the clear-cut demarcation between physics and non-physics is already the distilled and sanitized result from a centuries long process of boundary work. As the above sketch has attempted to show, the discourse on imponderable forces, powers, and energy was complex and involved physicians, physiologists, physicists, as well as scientific laypersons. Ideas of hidden, subtle powers (and corresponding substrates) were much less an afterthought to physics or its deficient imitation; rather, they developed in close contact with scientific discourse and often as an integral part thereof. Nonetheless, the framework of the reductionist, quantitative approach of physics was ultimately unsuitable for facilitating concepts of quasi-material agencies that were deemed outside the scope of systematic and exact experimental research.
From a religious studies perspective, the conception of occult powers must be viewed with regard to their experiential and performative implications. Their semantic vagueness was a feature, not a bug. The termâs lack of precision increased its degree of suggestive potential. What subtle energies and their preceding models insinuate is both an ontological and an applicative universality: there is some kind of agency perfusing the cosmos that operates on material, vital, mental, and/or divine levels; and this all-encompassing agency is in principle accessible to humans (that is, the initiate). Its accessibility is underscored by emphasizing analogies that are closer to embodied and lived experience (e.g., self-healing potential or the mind-body relationship) rather than formulaic physical theories. Imaginations of a universal force-substrate thus may be understood to represent the extension of the human mind and body. The ontological premise of a psycho-physical continuum expands and potentiates the human self. Such an extended self-image suggests a path of empowerment that grants the adept or practitioner methods of harnessing a powerful cosmic medium. The one who knows how to tap into this medium is assured to attain self-transformation, healing, and direct control over physical reality.
In the cultural context of late modernity, scientistic discourses on hidden powers inherent in nature have functioned as a counter-narrative to positivistic naturalism. After the loss of an inherently teleological universe, humans can only be described as biological machines. The quest for a single, unifying cosmic principle could be interpreted as a reaction to the differentiation of the sciences, reflected in the fragmented conceptions of the modern self and hence his sense of estrangement. Paradoxically, the paradigm for late modern occult forces is Mesmerâs fluidum, the linchpin of a decidedly physicalist, mechanistic worldview. Mesmerâsâavant la lettreââholisticâ narrative deemed two principles sufficient to lay the basis for science, medicine, religion, and a utopian vision of a harmonious society: matter and its fluidal motion (Wolfart 1814). Although the psychological dimension in animal magnetism was already made explicit in Puységurâs school, occultists repeatedly fell back to physicalist formulations of a hidden, cosmic power.
âEnergyâ has become such a persistent notion in twentieth-century holistic contexts because its implicit semantic range has always pointed beyond the physical level. Trending ideas in physicsâbe it string theory, dark matter, or the Higgs-Boson (the âGod particleâ that supposedly keeps the universe together)âhave met with a much less enthusiastic reception. A likely reason is that their meanings are too far from the human experience of feeling energetic.53 They simply lack the anthropomorphic character of âenergy,â which would render them valuable for non-scientific applications. Another possible reason for the cultural inertia of âenergyâ is that the term has come to be conjoined with Asian theories of subtle physiology. This opened the way for interpretations of subtle energy to transcended Western physicalist paradigms and reinforced a transcultural discursive stream that continues to mesmerize a global audience.54
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Bailey 1953, 5.
It should be noted that although Tiller was an influential disseminator, he was by no means the first author to use the term, which can be traced to nineteenth-century occultists who explicitly mention âsubtle energyâ in passing (see section 6).
Energy healing involves methods that are applied within the dyadic relationship of healer and healee, for example, mesmeric strokes, laying-on-of-hands, the clearing and charging of cakras, healing at distance, etc.
Subtle Energies was a follow-up project to the volume Energy Medicine Around the World (1988) edited by the Indian biomedical engineer and âyogi scientistâ T. M. Srinivasan. The journal was co-founded by Srinivasan, the American biofeedback and kuá¹á¸alinÄ« researcher Elmer E. Green (1917â2017), and the American psychologist Carol J. Schneider (b. 1938). In 1996, the journal was renamed Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine, emphasizing a therapy-oriented shift and a lesser focus on theoretical speculation. Before the launch of Subtle Energies, the book Subtle Energy (1987) by the British author John Davidson had already underscored the broad range of fields to which concepts of subtle energies are applied, including holistic anthropologies, energy healing, the work with crystals, practices based on Earth energies including FÄng ShuÇ, and dowsing.
For a discussion of terrestrial subtle physiology in the context of eco-spirituality see Marleen Thalerâs contribution in this volume.
To give a recent example for an emic explanation of âsubtle energyâ that captures the vast range of the termâs potential meanings: âSubtle Energy is not an easy subject to pin down. The name itself reflects the difficulties in the detection of this type of energy. No standardized vocabulary for it exists: many different names for it are used around the world. East Indians call it Prana, and the Chinese call it Chi. In Europe, it is called Bio-Energy and the Field of Information, in North America, Subtle Energy. Physicists variously refer to it as Unified Energy, Universal Energy Field, the Field of Quantum Potential, the Zero Point Field. Other people call it Supreme Consciousness, Divine Power, or God. But we are all talking about the same thingâ (Strashun 2023, 18). Remarkably, this description embraces the range of physical, vital, mental, and transcendent semantics associated with âsubtle energyâ but omits older physicalist notionsâe.g., fluidum, Od, ether, or Orgoneâthat typically make it into the list.
The title literally translates as Compendium of Human Physiology. Müllerâs work was translated into English by the British physician William Baly (1814â1861) as Elements of Physiology.
âEs gibt allerdings Kräfte der Natur, oder imponderable Substanzen, welche, wenn auch nicht von der Materie unabhängig, doch ohne eine Veränderung in dem materiellen Zustande des Körpers sie verlassen und auf andere übergehen können, wie Licht, Elektricität, Magnetismus. Die Existenz dieser Principien, ihr Erscheinen an den Körpern, und ihr Ueberströmen von einem auf den andern Körper zeigt uns deutlich, dass jener Materialismus, welcher ausser den Kräften der Atome nichts anerkennt, grundlos ist; und ohne entfernter Weise das Lebensprincip und psychische Princip mit jenen imponderablen Substanzen oder Kräften vergleichen zu wollen, sehen wir wenigstens, dass in den Thatsachen der Physik nichts ist, welches die Möglichkeit eines von der Materie unabhängigen, wenngleich in den organischen Körpern in der Materie wirkenden immateriellen Princips aufhöbe.â
In his introduction to Force and Matter (1864), the English edition of Kraft und Stoff (1855), Büchner argued for materialism as the âideal conceptionâ to overcome the focus on specialized details and âperceive the connection of the wholeâ (xiv). His project aimed to grasp nothing less than the âunity of all physical and mental existence in the same fundamental laws and causesâ (ibid.; emphasis in the original). Like Büchner, Haeckel belonged to the foremost popularizers of Darwinâs theory of evolution in the German-speaking world. From his synopsis of the sciences in his book Die Welträthsel (1899), he inferred a monistic philosophy that supposedly crowned the âcentury of scienceâ (Jahrhundert der Naturwissenschaft) (Haeckel 1899, iiiâiv).
The German philosopher Aloys Wenzl (1887â1967) argued that fundamental definitions of physics were derived from the bodily, human sphere of experience in the first place (see Mutschler 2002, 188).
To be clear, scientism is here used as a neutral, descriptive term and must not be conflated with the pejorative notion of pseudoscience. What counts as science, scientism, or imitations of science remains problematic as the question involves normative standards that are defined according to particular rules in a given scientific community. However, this analysis is concerned with the cultural history of an idea, not its scientific validity.
Similarly, the philosopher of science Otto Neurath (1882â1945), a co-founder of the Vienna Circle, argued that the language and methods of physics are the paragon for meaningful and precise scientific propositions.
For a philosophical discussion of physicalism and its relation to materialism, see Stoljar 2023. For an enchanting account of the Vienna Circleâs membersâ avid interest in magic, neopaganism, occultism, and the paranormal, see Josephson-Storm 2017.
For comprehensive reception histories of mesmerism, see Ellenberger 1970; Crabtree 1993; Winter 1998; Baier 2009; 2015; 2020; Brand 2014.
Already the late Mesmerâprobably under the influence of Romantic thoughtâ considered the sun to be the central source of movement, i.e., the cosmic fluidum, that âensouls and enlivensâ (beseelt und belebt) the solar system (Wolfart 1814, 291). Identifying the animating force of the sun with the work of God, he suggested the introduction of a solar cult at the center of a future folk religion (ibid., 290â295; cf. Barkhoff 1995, 203).
The scientific critique of Reichenbach presented here in staccato is more elaborately discussed in Erdbeer 2008.
In his article âThe Power of the Mind over the Bodyâ (1846) published for The Medical Times (in print between 1839 and 1851), Braid wrote: âI had not proceeded far [with perusing the Abstract of Researches on Magnetism (1846) by the Scottish chemist William Gregory (1803â1858)âan abridged version of von Reichenbach 1850, Gregoryâs translation of von Reichenbach 1849], when my experience with hypnotic patients enabled me to perceive a source of fallacy, of which the Baron must either have been ignorant, or which he had entirely overlooked. From whatever cause this oversight had arisen, I felt confident that, however carefully and perseveringly he had prosecuted his experiments, and however well-calculated they had been for determining mere physical facts, still no reliance could be placed upon the accuracy of conclusions drawn from premises assumed as true, where especial care had not been taken to guard against the source of fallacy to which I referâviz., the important influence of the mental part of the process, which is in active operation with patients during such experimentsâ (214).
âwarum die neue Odwissenschaft keinen Eingang in das Gebiet der Naturforschung gefunden.â
âKein Verständiger kann glauben, daà durch Gesichts- und Gefühlserscheinungen, welche in nervenschwachen Personen hervorgerufen werden, die Existenz einer neuen Naturkraft begründet werden könne.â
âIch konnte mir nicht denken, daà jemand ein solches Lügengebäude erfinden könne.â
âvon dem ich in der Tat gestehe, daà ich es für eine Art subjectiver Phantasmagorie halte.â
While Fechner stood on the firm ground of experimental research and mathematical theory-building, he was a leading advocate of a panpsychist worldview. A central aspect of his thought was the idea that the whole universe was permeated by soul and that the highest purpose and essence of nature was life itself. This motive clearly bears the influence of the Naturphilosophie of Friedrich Schelling (1775â1854) and Lorenz Oken (1779â1851), who by the mid-nineteenth century had largely fallen into disrepute among the scientific establishment (Windelband 1910). Thus, like Reichenbach, Fechner was on the defensive against the materialistic attack on the belief in the soul, and pursued a realignment of Naturphilosophie while recognizing the advancements of exact science (Erdbeer 2008, 159). With his book Zend-Avesta (1851), Fechner envisaged his own meta-scientific form of a devotional text that aimed to defend the idea that âall of nature is living and divinely ensouledâ (die ganze Natur lebendig und göttlich beseelt sei; Fechner 1851, iii). His approach was to combine ârefined religious viewsâ (geläuterten religiösen Ansichten) with the ârequirements of an exact scienceâ (Forderungen einer exacten Naturwissenschaft), while keeping the two distinct (ibid.).
Due to the Hodgson Report, which had investigated fraud allegations against Blavatsky, Du Prel left the Theosophical Society in February 1886 after only one and a half years. In the Fall of the same year, he founded the Psychologische Gesellschaft with the Theosophist and publisher Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden (1846â1916) in Munich, following the model of British Society for Psychical Research (est. 1882).
Literal translation: The Magic as Science. The work was published in two volumes titled Die magische Physik (The Magical Physics) and Die magische Psychologie (The Magical Psychology).
For du Prelâs influence on prÄá¹a-based therapeutic concepts see Zoehrer 2020; 2021.
Du Prelâs work was demonstrably noted inter alia by the avant-garde author and psychiatrist Oskar Panizza (1853â1921), the poet Hanns von Gumppenberg (1866â1928), the poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875â1926), and the novelist and essayist Thomas Mann (1875â1955) (Pytlik 2005, 143â145). Sigmund Freud (1856â1939) regarded du Prel as a âspirited mysticâ (geistreicher Mystiker) and cited him approvingly on several issues, for example, the difference between the waking consciousness and the soul, the role of dreams in opening the âgate to metaphysicsâ (Pforte zur Metaphysik), and the vital importance of the unconscious for creative activity (Freud 1914, 48, 384, 474; cf. Pytlik 2005, 146â149; Josephson-Storm 2017, 191).
For a conspicuously similar case of a âYogiâ inventor selling a subtle agent-based apparatus for therapeutic purposes, see Léo Bernardâs chapter in this volume.
I thank Karl Baier for providing this helpful reference on Hartmannâs biography.
Descartesâ interpretation of the ether had demonstrably influenced Mesmerâs conception of fluidum (Feldt 1985, 34). In contrast, Reichenbach only made scant references to ether (also spelled âaetherâ). He left open the question whether the emanations of the Od were of substantial or non-substantial quality (von Reichenbach 1854, 228, 340; 1849, 19), reflecting the already contested status of ether theories during his time.
For a comprehensive study of the entanglements between French occultism, Catholicism, and socialism in Léviâs work and network, see Strube 2016b.
For example: âIn the case of the clairvoyant, [the astral light] is subordinate to the intelligence, subject to the imagination and dependent on the willâ (Lévi 1856, 185; my translation).
Lévi suggested that astral light turns into human light at the moment of conception, thus forming the seed for the astral body. The latter reflects the character of a person and mediates between the soul and the material body. Despite this intermediary function, the agency of astral light is not restricted to subtle bodies but is also transmitted through the nerves and concentrated in bodily centres (Baier 2009, 269). For the relationship between occult conceptions of ether and Léviâs highly influential theory of subtle bodies, see Asprem 2011, 150â53.
A likely influence on Blavatskyâs notion of âone lifeâ was Swedenborgâs identical term that appeared in Arcana Coelestia (2009 [1752]) (e.g., n. 3001, n. 3484). The notion was taken up by other authors at the intersection of New Thought and occultism. For instance, see Evans 1884, 24; Ramacharaka 1906, 206.
Lodge acted as the president of the Society for Psychical Research from 1901 to 1903 and again in 1932, which underscores his commitment to the field of paranormal research (Tymn 2015).
For Theosophical references to Lodge, see, e.g., the revised edition of Occult Chemistry (1919; first published in 1908) by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater; Rational Mysticism (1924) by William Kingsland (1855â1936); and Primer of Occult Physics (1927) by William Coode-Adams (1895â1961).
The other three being (1) the preoccupation with the mindâs powers, (2) the correspondence principle, and (3) salvation-as-healing.
Mitch Horowitz concisely described how scientism perfused New Thought: âAmong New-Thoughters, the language for this project [i.e., a modern, rational program for psychological health] had long been in place. âWe must deal scientifically with our faults,â Emma Curtis Hopkins [1849â1925] had written. Phineas Quimby had foretold a âscience of health and happiness.â Poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox [1850â1919] wrote of âThe Science of Right Thinkingâ and Wallace D. Wattles [1860â1911] of âThe Science of Being Greatââ (Horowitz 2014, 115).
The introduction of Thought Forms offers a perfect example of how occult physicalism uses vague references to both proven and disproven notions of a physical agency in order to brand clairvoyance, telepathy, and telekinesis as âphysical phenomenaâ (Besant and Leadbeater 1905, 12): âEther is now comfortably settled in the scientific kingdom, becoming almost more than a hypothesis. Mesmerism, under its new name of hypnotism, is no longer an outcast. Reichenbachâs experiments are still looked at askance, but are not wholly condemned. Rontgenâs [sic] rays have rearranged some of the older ideas of matter, while radium has revolutionised them, and is leading science beyond the borderland of ether into the astral world. The boundaries between animate and inanimate matter are broken downâ (ibid., 11).
The German original reads âstream of the nerve-principleâ (Strom des Nervenprincips) (Müller 1840, 568) instead of ânervous energy.â
In Evansâ further discussion of the âoccult propertiesâ of the âuniversal life-principleâ the overlap with Blavatskyâs cocktail of references is obvious: it ranges from Du Potetâs occult adaptations of mesmerism, Edward Bulwer-Lyttonâs (1803â1873) fictional force of Vril to the âShekinahâ in Hebrew Scriptures, the âHoly Spiritâ of the New Testament, and the âastral light of the Kabalaâ and the Rosicrucians (Evans 1885, 136ff.).
For an in-depth discussion on Atkinsonâs decisive role in early modern yoga, see Kraler 2022.
Atkinsonâs book is essentially another elaborate commentary on Mulfordâs motto that âthoughts are things.â Mitch Horowitz argues that a likely source for Mulfordâs phrase was a Swedenborgian description of the spiritual world, the dwelling place of the âinner man,â laid out in Evansâ book Soul and Body (1876, 83): âIn that world thoughts are things, and ideas are the most real entities of the universe.â Mulford reinterpreted âthoughts are thingsâ as a formula for attracting prosperity, thus turning around Swedenborgâs introspective view (Horowitz 2014, 83).
The identity of God and energy was not a New Thought invention. For example, the forerunner of American spiritualism Andrew Jackson Davis (1826â1910) had described the universe in his channeled tome titled The Principles of Nature (1847) as the manifestation of the âactive energies of the Positive, Divine Mindâ that influence all creation toward spiritual perfection (Davis 1847, 148â49). The notion of divine influence (Latin: influx) undoubtedly bears the mark of Emanuel Swedenborgâs (1688â1772) teachings (see, e.g., Swedenborg 2009 [1752], 1962, 2333â34).
See, for instance, Capra 2000 (1975), 140â41; McTaggert 2008 (2001); Horowitz 2014, 268â72; Laszlo et al. 2016; cf. Hammer 2001, 270â303.
That even traditional entheogenic healing ceremonies could be interpreted in terms of âsubtle energiesâ and their hidden, unspeakable qualities rather than âspiritsâ is discussed by Wouter Hanegraaff in this volume. In contrast to physicalist models, Hanegraaffâs argument rests on the psychological study of altered states of consciousness.
For a comparative analysis of the term âenergyâ in Reiki and Therapeutic Touch, see Justin Steinâs contribution in this volume.
Esoteric Healing features the most elaborate exposition of Baileyâs highly influential cakra-system (Leland 2016, 222).
The German term feinstoffliche Energie (literally: fine-material energy) more obviously underscores the imagination of subtle energy as ethereal âstuffâ (cf. Koch and Binder 2013, 21).
Despite claims of objectivity and the construction of scientistic frameworks, many practitioners would still concede that the concept âhas eluded science in respect to its detection, measurement and theoretical understandingâ (Alegretti 2020, 124).
The problem of postulating âflowsâ of subtle energies, which suggests a dynamic involving etheric substances, was already highlighted by Fritjof Capra (b. 1939), the Austrian- American physicist, author, and reluctant figurehead of the New Age wave of the 1980s. In The Turning Point (1982), Capra regarded quasi-physical terms that are typically used in the context of energy healingâsuch as fluctuation, rhythm, vibration, or resonanceâas âmetaphors describing the dynamic patterns of self-organizationâ (Capra 1988 [1982], 340). He argued that these metaphors would describe the principal features of complex dynamic systemsâin this case living organismsâwithout necessarily referring to measurable physical parameters. Similarly, Capra rationalizes the notion of qì, which he understands to denote not a subtle substance but the principle of vital flow itself, that is, the circulation of fluids within the body or the continual exchanges between an organism and its environment (ibid., 314). However, Capraâs rational position remains a minority view within the holistic milieu.
Even within the framework of physics, associating energy with fluidal metaphors are not too far-fetched. So-called conserved quantitiesâincluding energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, and electric chargeâcan be conceptualized as immaterial substances to some degree. In this sense, energy transformations are often metaphorically described in terms of âflowââthat is, transferâof the properties from one form (or physical system) to another, without denoting the literal movement of a material substance (cf. de Bianchi 2020b, 239).
Although metaphors are a typical element in the genre of occult physicalism, it must not be overlooked that progress in science itself is often driven by the use of metaphors and similes that only retrospectively were identified as such. A prime example is the now redundant hypothesis of ether that has led to the discovery of the laws of electromagnetism.
Echoes of Esalenâs discourse of energy and human potential reverberate in contemporary fringe research on consciousness. Nanci Trivellato, for example, defines âEnergetic fluidityâ as âan intrinsic aspect of each individual, varying according to oneâs evolutionary levelâ and malleable âat the command of the consciousnessâ (2020, 62). In the same vein, energy work amounts to a form of self-therapy that is aimed at âunblockingâ stagnant energies and increasing âenergetic fluidityâ in order to optimize individual performance. As in mesmeric and New Thought texts, fluidal metaphors are used to connect consciousness and energy (ibid., 85â86; cf. de Bianchi 2020a, 6).
Even where such contemporary theories are employed for religious-therapeutic purposes, they are often still subsumed under âsubtle energyâ as the overarching category (e.g., Kronn and Kamp 2022; Strashun 2023). Among holistic practitioners, a serious rival to the concept of âsubtle energiesâ is that of the âfield.â Field is a shorthand for a conglomerate of various terms borrowed from physics, for example, âenergy field,â âzero point field,â or âfield of quantum fluctuationâ (McTaggert 2008 [2001]). The term has moreover been applied to describe holistic anthropologies, e.g., the âhuman biofieldâ (Brennan 1988), as well as parapsychological phenomena via the âmorphic fieldââa hypothetical medium discussed by the English biologist Rupert Sheldrake (b. 1942) (cf. Hanegraaff 1998, 73â74; Asprem 2014, 65). Sheldrake derived his notion from theories of morphogenetic fields that were first introduced in embryological research during the 1910s, while additional influences from Henri Bergsonâs (1859â1941) élan vital, C. G. Jungâs (1875â1961) âcollective unconscious,â and the Theosophical âAkashic recordsâ are likely. Holistic fields share with comparable ideas of subtle energy the semantics of a vivid psycho-physical continuum but draw from the conceptual metaphor of âorderâ rather than âflow.â
I would like to thank Karl Baier and Julian Strube for reviewing and offering helpful comments on the first drafts of this chapter.