Psychic energy

“ The whole significance of a nervous system consists in this, that it focusses energy in such a manner that its psychic concomitants acquire unity. The incarrying nerves furnish appropriate conductors for those modes of molecular energy which stimulate the several senses; so that light, sound, and impact are brought to consciousness at the centres where they are converged. Thus man becomes a microcosm in which the extended world mirrors itself within the limits which are set by his present constitution. ”

“ Psychic energy is indeed a fastidious thing, that insists upon having its own conditions fulfilled. There may be ever so much energy existing, but we cannot make it useful, so long as we do not succeed in finding a congenial channel for it. ”

“ The knowledge that I have gained about the fact that psychic energy can be displaced from one idea to another along certain association channels, and about the almost indestructible conservation of the traces of psychic processes, have actually made it possible for me to attempt such a representation of the unknown. ”

“ Here is, it seems to me, a rational explanation of the facts, and one which is in accord, not only with ordinary psychological phenomena, but with those more puzzling and obscure manifestations witnessed from time to time in psychic research.
13. It may be objected that such a conception of the facts supposes that will (and conscious thought) are physical energies—for however slight we make this energy, it is still energy none the less. The air which closed the door would not move it of itself—unless some pressure were exerted upon it from without. Could "life" act otherwise? ”

“ The consequence is that only an exceedingly small proportion of the mental energy that is developed within us is ever actually displayed. The rest is somehow and somewhere locked up behind the inhibitory threshold. ”

“ For these comparisons we substitute what would seem to correspond better with the real state of affairs by saying that an energy occupation is displaced to or withdrawn from a certain arrangement so that the psychic formation falls under the domination of a system or is withdrawn from the same. Here again we replace a topical mode of presentation by a dynamic; it is not the psychic formation that appears to us as the moving factor but the innervation of the same. ”

“ Impulses and Inhibitions
Every such bodily movement is an expression of energy. The recall to consciousness of the terrifying experience, the recall of the picture of the assembled audience, these things automatically produce bodily activities. So we must conclude that Every idea in memory has associated with it the potential energy necessary for the production of muscular movement.
It does not necessarily follow that the recall to consciousness of a given idea will be invariably followed by an outwardly visible muscular activity expressive of its energy. ”

“ Give more and more time to your business each day until there comes an impairment in the quality of your work. Stop short of this. You have found your norm of efficiency.
[83]
Chapter V THE SECRET OF MENTAL EFFICIENCY
Where Energy Is Stored
You are called upon to master and conserve the innate energies of your mind. This means that you must (1) find out where these energies are stored, and (2) learn the conditions that determine their activity.
All past experiences are conserved within us in the form of complexes. These complexes consist of ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular activity. ”

“ To overcome it the hypothesis has been suggested that there may be in every case of conscious action a conversion of energy that exactly compensates itself—a simultaneous conversion of psychical into physical energy and of physical into psychical energy, so that the amount of each remains always constant. ”

“ But how “mechanical happening” comes to have this marvellous inwardness, which we call sensation, feeling, perception, thought and will, which is neither mechanical nor derivable from anything mechanical; and, further, how physical and psychical can condition one another without doing violence to the law of the conservation of the sum of energy, is an absolute riddle. ”

“ From this vantage ground we can understand the fact of the extraordinary energy which the dissociated subconscious systems manifest, so much so that the unusual energy appears almost supernatural, and has on that account been ascribed by the superstitious to diabolical possession. ”

“ Do you not see that in order to eliminate these external conditions and enter into the inner realms of consciousness, we have to rise above the body consciousness? Therefore, if we identify ourselves with these vibrations, or any kind of physiological experiences, we are going against what we are trying to accomplish. We would be inconsistent. So put the chemicals together and let the crystallization take care of itself. Gradually the latent energy awakens, and the energy working in the life is concentrated. Gradually you will see a new vista of knowledge and wisdom opening before you. ”

“ If the soul is an actor in deep sleep, seeing, hearing and moving in a world of real energies, then we are justified in assuming a psychic body within the physical, for to see, to hear, to move are functions of an organism however ethereal. Is it the shining of the Psyche we perceive within ourselves when through aspiration the body becomes filled with interior light and consciousness is steeped in a brilliancy of many colours while the eyes are closed? ”

“ The end-stream of thought stocked with energy is under certain conditions able to draw to itself the attention of consciousness, through which means it then receives a "surplus of energy." We shall be obliged somewhat later to elucidate our assumption concerning the nature and activity of consciousness. ”

“ These dozen mysterious forms of Matter the Mysterious have become man; and all their prodigious powers of expansion, cohesion, magnetic and electric energies, intense and hungry chemical affinities, miraculous transformations, radiations, isomerisms, allotropisms, and the continuous, passionate, omnipresent pulses of molecular attraction and interatomic motion are converted into vitality, generative power, muscular energy, nervous energy, into cerebration, emotion, passion, imagination, material forces all. ”

“ The physical interaction between the elements of which the nervous system is composed, is an outward form of the inner ideal unity of consciousness. What we immediately experience as thoughts, feelings, volitions, has its physical representation in certain brain-processes, which as such are under the law of the conservation of energy, though this law has no application to the relation between brain-processes and consciousness. ”

“ He thinks that the brain and nervous system, like all matter, must come under this principle, and that the ordinary assumption of a real interaction of spirit and matter cannot therefore be correct, because in that case physical energy would begin and cease. ”

“ It is also generally admitted that consciousness is something distinct from, nay, belonging to a wholly different phenomenal order from, energy. And it is further generally admitted that consciousness is nevertheless in some way closely, if not indissolubly, associated with special manifestations of energy in the nerve-centres of the brain. Now, we call manifestations of energy 'kinetic' manifestations, and we use the term 'kinesis' for physical manifestations of this order. ”

“ Now, it does not seem probable that our brain is the residence of a separable demon, no matter whether we attribute to him the power of changing at will the total amount of energy contained in our body, or conceive his activity, as some psychologists do, as a new form of energy added to the mechanical, thermal, electric, chemical, and so on,—requiring only an additional transformation of energy and not breaking down the principle of its conservation. ”

“ If this is so, then consciousness itself is a reaction to environment, and its intensity must vary with the state of the brain and with the environmental stimuli. If the brain-cells are in the state of highest efficiency, if their energy has not been drawn upon, then consciousness is at its height; if the brain is fatigued, that is, if the energy stored in the cells has been exhausted to any degree, then the intensity of consciousness is diminished. ”

“ Feeling accordingly must have originated, and the question how feeling originates is a problem that suggests itself naturally to the psychologist as well as the philosopher.
#Vital energy a unique form of energy.#
The kinetic energy liberated in our actions, in brain-activity as well as muscular motions, is produced from the potential energy stored up in our tissues. This energy, qua energy, is the same energy which we meet everywhere in nature. All kinds of energy are interconvertible. ”

“ Every form of consciousness being built of that form we call the ego feeling, or feeling of individual identity, that feeling may be expected to persist wherever consciousness persists. As the connections of matter and energy, so far as form is concerned, are perfectly continuous and complete in every form that each assumes, so the connections of mind and body from beginning to end will be found just as perfect and thorough-going throughout. Given the form of matter, and the form of energy can be at once inferred. ”

“ I am just pointing out that all experience is born out of thought and is in all the essentials identical. If you call these yogic or drug-induced states blissful, more profound or in any way more pleasurable than ordinary experiences, you are strengthening the ego and fortifying the separative structure by wasting your thoughts, translating sensations into higher or lower and pleasurable or painful. Anything you experience as energy is thought-induced energy. It is not the energy of life. ”

“ Consciousness, thought, even the commonest sensation of pleasure and pain, or the simplest sense-perception, cannot be compared with “matter and energy,” with the movements of masses. They represent a foreign and altogether inexplicable guest in this world of matter, molecules, and elements. ”

“ If there are such infra-conscious states in the cerebral hemispheres, why should there not be associated with every molecular thrill of the living body yet lower states of infra-consciousness? We go a step further and say that all modes of energy, whether organic or inorganic, have their conscious or infra-conscious aspect. This doctrine is necessarily implied in the phrase "mental evolution" for all thinkers who have grasped the distinction between consciousness and energy. ”

“ And does not all this teach thinkers that just as Energy creates from itself, that which is called Matter, and then uses it as a vehicle of expression and action—so does this "Something like Mind" create from itself that which we call Energy, and proceeds to use it, with its accompanying phase of Matter, for its expression? Does not all advanced research show us that in all Matter and Energy there are evidences of the operation of this "Something like Mind"? ”

“ Energy in psychology cannot be used if the same sense as the physicist uses the term in the case of kinetic or potential energy. One cannot take the mass of the idea and multiply it on the square of its length. Such a procedure is meaningless, it is therefore idle to talk of consciousness as potential energy. Energy is used in mental life as a figure of speech, as an illustration or substitute taken from physical life, but energy and consciousness can not be identified. ”

“ In the transformations of matter accompanying mental activity, just as much matter of one form appears as matter of some other form is consumed, and the mental activity is no part of either—that is, neither energy nor matter has been transformed into mental activity, nor has energy or matter been produced by mental activity. ”

“ In my own case, by that union of consciousness with physical energy which accompanies the manifestation of life, I am immediately related with that portion of the energetic system which is the real substratum of my organism, and am made conscious of the series of transmutations occurring at that particular point in it which is represented by my sensory system. In the case of others, from certain of the transmutations occurring in my Presentment, I am led to infer the existence of other similar microcosmic systems in the energetic macrocosm of the physical universe. ”

“ As the one kind of divine energy does not display its presence by convulsive or capricious irregularities, but by the unnoticed vigor and promptitude of the functions of life; so the other energy cannot, without irreverence, be thought of as making itself felt by præter-natural impulses, or sensible shocks upon the intellectual system; but must rather be imagined as an equable pulse of life, throbbing from within, and diffusing softness, sensibility and force through the soul. ”

“ And when that energy reaches the brain—the highest center, the pineal gland—there the illumination becomes absolute; that is, we reach that pure state of consciousness of which I have spoken.
You will find as you progress that there are physiological experiences and mental experiences. As we have physiological experiences we shall see that the whole nervous system is changing. Our bodies are full of vibrating currents. Our whole life is full of vibrating currents, and we must know how to direct them, how to adjust them. ”

“ Finally, we must remark that, if every external or internal sensation, whatever its nature, is a transmission of movements coming from without, a new acquisition for the nervous system and the brain, every sensation ought at first to produce at least a momentary increase of energy. ”

“ Potential Energy is defined as work. The C.G.S. unit of energy is, therefore, the erg." If mental states or consciousness be potential energy of the physicist, the neo-realist should define it in terms of physical work. ”

“ If such a world exists, if the intelligences which reside therein can at times produce physical phenomena, then it is certainly conceivable that some energy may be set into operation which may produce the desired results—some energy which we, too, can utilize and which the spiritual entity [Pg 28] can also manipulate; in other words, an energy common to the two worlds. Were such a common medium or mediator found, communication would certainly be established, and it only remains for us to discover the common energy. ”