I thought I’d stray into the land of hippies and New Age today.
Everything around us—every last bit of existence—is comprised of energy. It sits at the center of religion and science alike. The atoms that make up every object you touch are themselves forms of energy. Without it, you wouldn’t be reading this article, and I wouldn’t be writing it.
All right, all right — none of that is new territory. We’ve had electricity in our homes for well over a century; nobody needs a lecture on light bulbs.
But that isn’t the kind of energy I’m talking about.
Our entire existence moves within a grand field of energy, and—whether we admit it or not—we can feel it. Some are more sensitive than others, but it’s always there. You’re working quietly and suddenly sense someone step into the room: the atmosphere shifts before you ever hear a footstep. You look at a person and know their mood long before they speak. And every so often someone senses a loved one from hundreds or thousands of miles away, without a phone call, without a message—just a sudden certainty.
We have a small vocabulary for this sort of thing. Everyone knows the word aura: an ancient term, later appropriated in the nineteenth century, describing the subtle field of energy that sits closely around an individual. Those who claim to see it speak of colors and the meanings attached to them. Then there’s the longer-range resonance of a person—the impression or “feel” that simply isn’t constrained by distance.
The Romans had a word for the sacred version of this: numen. It described the divine power that animates a place, object, or event—a kind of sacred charge, the spiritual gravitas of a deity making itself known without taking physical form. It appears all through Roman literature and anthropology, and scholars still use it as a conceptual tool.
Angels, in much of Jewish thought and early mystical tradition, are described in a similar fashion—not as independent, free-roaming beings, but as emanations of G-d Himself, expressions of His purpose sent to carry out a particular task. Early depictions of heavenly beings bear little resemblance to the soft, winged darlings of the Renaissance. Some appear as hybrids of humans and animals; others as creatures with multiple faces or wings upon wings.
And once you look beyond the romanticized art, things get far stranger. Ezekiel describes wheels within wheels, living orbs, and lightning-like motion. Later mystics speak of spheres of fire, burning rings, and luminous discs covered in eyes. The Dead Sea Scrolls, early Christian apocrypha, and even Persian and Babylonian writings describe much the same—winged discs, radiant orbs, spherical beings, and beings made of sound rather than flesh.
For all the strangeness of those early visions, they point toward something remarkably universal: human beings have always sensed that the reality of our very existence is interlaced with and held together by forces we cannot quite see but certainly feel. Different cultures, different peoples, developed their own ways to understand, channel, and apply these subtle currents.
Across continents and throughout the epochs of time, cultures have tried to map the unseen currents that move through and around us. Some take a scientific approach, others ritualistic, and still others through disciplined meditation. The vocabulary shifts—qi in China, prāṇa in India, ki in Japan—but the underlying intuition is consistent: life is sustained and shaped by subtle forces, dynamically and responsively.
Eastern Expressions
Let’s begin with Eastern thought—Qi, Ki, and Prāṇa—ideas developed over thousands of miles and thousands of years with little or no direct cultural contact, yet nearly identical in their essence.
Chinese & Daoist Conceptions of Qi
Qi is the vital flow animating the body. It circulates through invisible pathways or channels—a network of meridians—and is the fundamental life force sustaining all living things. This idea of energy circulating in an organized, sensible fashion takes us out of the realm of magic and into a more rational analysis. As you would expect, such a system is prone to blockages and imbalance. Harmony is essential to a healthy soul; acupuncture and qigong (including tai chi) are traditional means of easing blockages and redirecting flow.
The Hindu System of Chakras
Much like Qi, Prāṇa is the universal life-force that flows through energy channels (nadis) and converges at centers of subtle function known as chakras. The flow of prāṇa determines physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. When prāṇa is balanced, it moves freely, creating harmony; when it is blocked or disrupted, all kinds of unpleasantness become reality. Yoga and breathwork are used as tools for aligning inner flow.
Japanese Ki and Reiki
There is perhaps no culture in human history as expressive, disciplined, and devoted to beauty as the Japanese. Their concept of ki mirrors the Chinese and Indian ideas of qì and prāṇa almost exactly. It isn’t supernatural, nor is it treated as something exotic or dramatic. Instead, ki is approached with the quiet minimalism and refined grace that shape so much of Japanese art and philosophy. It is simply the subtle current of life, moving as naturally as breath itself.
Reiki practitioners perform healing sessions to restore the free flow of ki by acting as a conduit, channeling universal ki into the recipient’s body. This is thought to remove blockages, restore movement, and create the conditions that facilitate healing on all levels. Japanese traditions also employ therapeutic massage—Shiatsu, Anma, Jin Shin Jyutsu—to release blockages and stimulate circulation along the body’s meridians, as well as acupuncture and Kampo (a system of herbal medicine) operating more directly on the physical plane. As with their counterparts, meditation, breath, and movement are used to cultivate and harmonize ki.
Western Traditions
Turning our attention westward, we find something equally striking: the same intuition expressed with entirely different vocabulary. Western concepts are, of course, much younger than their Eastern counterparts. Begin with the Stoics, early Church mystics, Kabbalists, even Renaissance philosophers…the West has always understood the world as permeated with a subtle influence—an animating breath, a divine spark. Western systems look nothing like the meridians, chakras, or qi/ki/prāṇa of the East, yet they point to the same truth: we live within a greater field of presence, responding to it whether or not we acknowledge it.
The Stoics called it pneuma—the animating breath that binds the universe and gives structure to the soul. This wasn’t expressed as mysticism; it was a subtle, living structure permeating everything from the stars down to the smallest sparks of life. Neoplatonists refined the idea further into a cascade of emanations flowing from the One: intellect, soul, and finally the material world, all infused with the same underlying current.
Jewish mysticism speaks in different terms, but the pattern remains. Kabbalah describes the Divine expressing itself through the sefirot—channels or attributes through which G-d’s presence becomes perceptible. These emanations flow through the Tree of Life, a tiered representation of the sefirot. Each attribute is mirrored within us. Ancient writings teach how the Divine manifests in each person, the shefa flowing between and among us, forming the fabric and character of earthly community.
Medieval Christian mystics picked up the thread with their own vocabulary: virtue, grace, the motions and currents of the soul. They described interior shifts and movements as subtle influences—changes of the spirit felt but not always easily traced. Christian ritual and tradition extend these concepts. Jesus healing through Divine power, the Apostles acting as conduits of that same presence, even the sacrament of the Eucharist—where bread and wine become the vehicle of communion with Christ—all reflect the belief that spiritual influence can be transmitted, received, and transformative.
Later, the philosophers of Hermetic and Renaissance tradition added their doctrine of cosmic sympathy—“as above, so below.” To them, the universe was a single, interconnected being. What happens above and below is not simple puppetry or even strict cause and effect, but resonance and systemic balance. Astrology, in its original form, was merely a method of interpreting these resonances, reading the qualities and cycles present at any given moment in time.
The words are different, the concepts re-ordered, but beneath the distinctions lies the same intuition found in Eastern systems: life exists within currents of influence, and we are all shaped, guided, and moved by forces far more subtle than simple brawn or nature.
A Unified Current
When you step back from the minutiae—the meridians of China, the chakras of India, the pneuma of the Stoics, the sefirot of the Kabbalists—the similarities become impossible to ignore. None of these systems developed in conversation with one another. They arose in different eras, under different skies, with different languages and entirely different cultural concerns. Yet they all describe the same essential reality: that life is animated by a subtle current, and that human beings participate in a field of influence larger than themselves.
The East speaks of energy flowing through channels; the West speaks of breath, emanation, inspiration, and Divine motion. One uses diagrams of the body; the other uses diagrams of the cosmos. But both are articulating the same structure: a universe suffused with a living presence, and human beings who resonate within it. Where the East maps the interior landscape, the West maps the metaphysical one. Both are describing two halves of a single truth.
Whether we call it Qi, Prāṇa, Ki, pneuma, shefa, virtue, grace, or cosmic sympathy, the message is consistent: we are permeated by forces that move through us and around us, and our well-being depends on how well we remain aligned with that flow. The language differs, but the intuition is identical. Life is not inert. The world is not mechanical. Existence itself is dynamic, relational, and alive.
And when those currents become blocked, frayed, or disrupted, the consequences are felt across every level of our being.
Disruptions in the Flow
It is clear that life resides within a field of subtle influences. As such, it should come as no surprise that the flow can be disturbed. Every tradition—Eastern, Western, philosophical, religious, even psychological—makes way for the idea that we are not always aligned with the greater current. Modernity may look at us like machines, but ignoring the spiritual being does not hinder its influence.
Trauma, in any form, is one of the most profound disruptions we can experience.
Physical trauma can sever us from the sense of continuity both within and without. Major injury, illness, surgery (e.g., my heart transplant)…these things don’t merely affect the body but the energy systems associated with the physical form. Subtle energies flow within a circulatory network—nadis, meridians—channels that carry the current throughout the body. Physical trauma rearranges, breaks, and disrupts these pathways, and a system that once flowed beautifully feels foreign, fragmented, and out of rhythm. We don’t simply recover from such disruptions either; we must relearn our own presence.
Psychological trauma does much the same. Fear, shock, betrayal, grief…they pull us inward, and as we retract, we break connection with everything around us. This is effectively an implosion; the mind loops, the body tenses, and we experience a flattening disconnection from life and loved ones.
Even spiritual trauma—the quaking of the cosmic ground beneath us—disrupts the flow. When your worldview collapses or the ground under your soul gives way, the free-flowing current becomes hesitant, mistrustful, and directionless. It’s not that the universal flow has ceased (that is always there); it’s that we lose our capacity to receive it. The river may flow, but we’re standing on the shore, behind a rock, in a dry, soundproofed alcove.
Every spiritualist understands that these impacts affect us internally but they further express outward. Our energy changes, and we begin resonating a very different field. The aura, tight against us, changes colors; soft blends and pulsations become more defined and intense. We can directly affect those around us, transferring these energies and often bringing about suffering. As a sort of spiritual exhaustion takes over, our light begins to dim; we track further inward and flatten into a state of depression.
This is where the work of healing—in any tradition we may choose—becomes the imperative. Coaxing the spirit out of its protective shell, easing tension, widening the channels, and restoring flow are all essential steps. Every system has its own language for this work, but the tools are similar: stillness, breath, attention, and deliberate presence. Meditation quiets the inward collapse and gives the mind room to unclench. Breath control steadies the nervous system and reopens pathways tightened by fear and pain. Gentle movement—tai chi, yoga, even slow walking—encourages circulation not only of the physical body but of the subtle energies that accompany it. And above all, a return to stillness teaches us to receive again, to re-enter the current rather than hiding from it. Healing is never about forcing the flow back into place; it is about creating the conditions in which the flow can resume naturally—quieting the noise so we can once again hear what is important.
Continuity & Realignment
The current that is Divinity permeates every aspect of existence. We are — natively — part of the “something more.” At times we may step out of the river, but the river never ceases; the current flows whether or not we stand within it. Allowing ourselves to feel that movement in all its forms is how we experience Presence.
Our trauma does not define us, and our experiences do not set the limits of our potential. We try to understand life by sorting, categorizing, and dissecting, but understanding is not required. Observation is. To see, to feel, to receive without immediately defining — that is what realigns us with the flow.
When we permit ourselves that quiet openness, the inner wounds begin to mend. The channels widen. The subtle currents resume their work. And in that return — steady, gentle, unforced — we find ourselves once again in the river, moving with the greater order rather than apart from it.
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