How Mediums and Psychics Misuse the Word ‘Energy’

Oct 9

Recently, I was turned on to a Lifetime show called "The Haunting of…" with Kim Russo, dubbed 'The Happy Medium.' In one particular episode, she interviews American country music singer, Travis Tritt, who is disturbed by unexplained phenomena in his hideaway log cabin. Travis tells us that he is a hunter and keeps several "handmade artifacts" and gifts from Native American tribes, to which Kim traces "energies" that she believes are attached to the items and articles. Based on her alleged clairvoyance, she expresses the belief that someone used one of those artifacts to kill someone else and used the other to crush herbs, thereby leaving behind residual bad "energies" [1].

Misunderstandings and misuses of the word 'energy' abound among psychics, mediums, clairvoyants, and many others believing in the supernatural.

To put it simply, as defined by science, energy is the capacity to do work or provide heat, which accompanies any chemical reaction [10]. Fahrenheit and Celsius are the units of measurement for the amount of heat energy in an object.

I have never witnessed supernaturalists express this understanding.

Let's consider the words of the Aetherius Society that likens energy to electricity and calls it "prana" that is said to be a "universal life force" or "qi," moved by "pure love." A "humanitarian motive, higher aspirations, genuine service to others, prayer, and yogic principles" are the vehicles for the movement of this energy. The energy is based on nature and metaphysics, and not supernatural stuff, so they claim, which seems like a semantic ploy to me [2].

Su Mason, spiritual healer and Chair of Leeds Healing Centre, believes energy gets transferred through healing:

"A treatment that involves the transfer of energy through the healer to the recipient. It promotes self-healing by relaxing the body, releasing tensions and strengthening the body's own immune system. Healing is natural and non-invasive with the intention of bringing the recipient into a state of balance and wellbeing on all levels." [3]

As science reveals it, there is a transference of energy from one body to another via heat and work. Although, when mediums and psychics talk about energy transference, I never hear them explain what kind of energy it is.

Is it potential energy? This type of energy is stored in an object due to its position, such as a wrecking ball on a demolition machine held at an elevated position [10].
Is it kinetic energy? This is the energy given to an object in motion. Half of its mass (m) is calculated, times the square of its velocity (v): E = 1/2mv2. [10] [11]
Is it thermal energy? Thermal energy gives the object its temperature. If the objects in Travis Tritt's house were being haunted by spiritual thermal energy, how could they have been given their thermal energy without transference of energy via friction force accomplished by solid objects making prior contact? Nothing stationary or unmoved by other solid objects suddenly gains thermal energy out of nowhere. Since the friction force is non-conservative, it leaves no potential force behind [10].
Is it electrical energy? That must include a type of force with electrical attraction or repulsion between charged particles. This is relevant to the electromagnetism that exists within us as our atoms unite in such a way to prevent being pulled apart. Electrons and metal ions concentrate in membranes to set up electrical potentials to transmit nerve impulses for muscle movements [12]. How could that stuff really assemble and function after death while remaining undetectable by our technology? This definition of electrical energy seems to not scientifically cohere with supernaturalists' definitions of the afterlife's energies and electricities.
Is it chemical energy? This is stored in chemical compounds and is unleashed during reactions that give off heat, called exothermic reactions [13].

The next time you see Casper the Friendly Ghost, stop him and ask him about his energy makeup and if he will come into the laboratory for testing.

When talking about the transference of spiritual energies and healing, it is quite common for the word "vibrations" to be used. Still, their use is quite different from the scientific understanding of particle motions in an elastic body. When talking about the causes and treatments of depression, anxiety, bipolar conditions, joint pain, arthritis, and cancer, I am not surprised to see supernaturalists attribute these conditions to "low energy." It is quite relatable, colloquially. You do not feel energetic, vigorous, jaunty, or alert when you are anxious, depressed, and physically pained. A vision of a dark cloud hovering above you is a great metaphor. Throw in the word "inertia" to describe your low energy state, and you might be able to make your esotericism sound authentically scientific. In fact, this is why I think many innocents struggle to distinguish between real science and fake science when scientific terms are esoterically distorted [3].

Energy is a term that gets ambiguously mixed up with other terms such as 'aura' and the reported observation that we emit weak electromagnetism due to nerves and sonic waves with bodily actions. Surprisingly, Healthline .com published an article whose author is seemingly not skeptical enough about this.

Kimberly Holland writes:

"'As human beings, we radiate a very low level of electricity that's otherwise known as an electromagnetic field,' says Christina Lonsdale, a Portland-based artist behind a popular aura photography practice called Radiant Human. Ancient medical systems believe that this energy is expressed in seven layers. Each layer is said to correlate to a different element of your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health. It's thought that these layers can interact with one another to influence your overall health. Your aura is 'seen' as a luminous body that surrounds your physical one. Each layer — and any problems in them — surround your body in a net of energy." [4]

It is funny that this would come from an aura photography source, which professionals have rightly spurned. Since the 1890s, with French physician Hippolyte Baraduc, people have tried seizing evidence for an energy field around the human body. One French army officer in the 1890s acquired inadequate results from trying to record "psychic force fields on photographic plates." Many have failed to appreciate the simplicity of explaining that body temperature captured on infrared photography can cause these illusions of spirit. This goes back to the days of 1911 when Dr. Walter J. Kilner believed in "nonexistent N-Rays" while incorporating auras into his medical diagnoses. The latter parts of the 20th Century saw the dubiety of psychics when putting them to the test in dark rooms and asking them to report on the auras they saw, wherein "only chance results were obtained (Loftin 1990)." Even after being offered a $100,000 incentive, one psychic during a James Randi study was correct only 4 out of 10 times about the direction of people's auras that she selected as very visible to her [5].

The energies that psychics, mediums, and other supernaturalists claim to see are based on an apparent lack of measurability. Photographs are not sufficient evidence for these energies and auras, especially in this era of photoshopping, when we can easily fabricate images to prey on people's credulity and callowness to get their money. These spiritual energies and auras are not measurable since we cannot depend on photographs and people's anecdotes to understand them in megameters, kilograms, hectograms, dekaliters, deciliters, centimeters, milligrams, micrometers, nanograms, picograms, and femtograms. They are not capturable and isolatable in a laboratory, much like a biologist measures the diameter of a red blood cell (0.000006 m) in a laboratory.

We cannot observe physical changes in these spiritual energies and apparitions, much like what we observe when sugar dissolves in water. But maybe they are not physical, as supernaturalists claim? Yes? For what substantial reasons should we assume that, though? We cannot observe any chemical changes in them, much like what we observe when heating sugar in a saucepan to melt, darken, and thicken it into caramel. So, if they are not physical nor chemical, we cannot categorize them in the three states of matter: solid, liquid, or gas. So as a gas does not have a definite shape or volume, the spirit or energy transcending the three states of matter should not resemble anything of this world with shape and volume. Yet, plenty of people are claiming to see white stuff from humans and animals' shape and volume. Clearly, there is a contradiction here.

All terrestrial things are known to change states of matter at some point or another. So, when the body dies and decomposes to transition to its otherworldly energetic state, how does it transcend from one of the three states of matter to an immaterial form? Have we ever watched someone do this in an environment or event where it could be controlled and recorded in a way we know that all monkey business was absent?

Why do ghosts and energies not possess a melting point, much like the acetic acid with a melting point of 16.7 degrees Celsius?

Can we think like chemists and ask if the specters and energies are a pure substance or mixture like water is a pure substance and sugar is a pure substance, which becomes a mixture when stirred together? Pure substances have properties that are uniformly composed, both microscopically and non-microscopically. But mixtures can have different compositions and properties, contingent upon how they are brought together. Are ghostly energies a mixture of different compositions and properties? If so, are they homogenous with two or more pure substances united with microscopically unvarying composition? Maybe they are heterogeneous with two or more pure substances varying in composition like a vegetable stew wherein the contents are different with every scooping of the spoon. If ghosts and energies were authentic and provable, their identity as a heterogeneous mixture or pure substance would be unequivocal.

If they were made of an element(s), meaning they could not be reducible to simpler substances, they should have been isolatable by now. But what element(s) would contain? Would they contain hydrogen, oxygen, aluminum, gold, or sulfur? Scientists have searched the globe quite extensively and have only found 118 elements, 91 of which are naturally occurring in the body. Nothing among them has been found consistent with the eldritch accounts in books or television.

Perhaps they could be constituted by chemical compounds, which are two or more elements constituting a new substance?

Just as water is a chemical compound comprising hydrogen and oxygen, which can be chemically changed by shooting an electric current to generate oxygen and hydrogen, can we also change transmundane stuff by some material method? How would we know as they waywardly walk through walls, walk through humans, vanish into thin air, and vanish into objects? And if these phantoms could be chemically and physically identified, what chemical formulas, with their appropriate symbols and subscripts about atoms, would be used for predicting their functions and behaviors? Compare them to water, which is H2O with two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, or CH4 that symbolizes methane, or the formula C12H22O11 that symbolizes sucrose (table sugar).

Based on people's anecdotes about ghosts and energies, these things respond to environmental stimuli, which is a characteristic of being alive. But if that is the case, where are their cells?

Where is our evidence that they contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which are the fundamental elements in all living organisms?

Where are the calcium and fluorine required for teeth and bone growth? Well, I suppose spirits do not have teeth.

Where is the chlorine required for salt and body fluid maintenance? Well, I guess they do not need salt for body fluid maintenance if they do not have bodies.

Where is the chromium for carbohydrate metabolism? I suppose they do not need to metabolize carbohydrates since they do not have bodies for worrying about obesity and fashion in the spirit world.

Where is cobalt that is helpful for Vitamin B12 and red blood cell production? I guess spirits do not need that blood and vitamin B12 since they do not have bodies.

Where is the copper required for blood chemistry maintenance and the iron for carrying the blood's oxygen? Again. No bodies? No blood nor oxygen is needed.

Where is the iodine required for thyroid function? Ghosts do not have throats and, therefore, do not need thyroids.

How could the energies and apparitions move around without magnesium, sodium, and potassium necessary for nerve action to occur when nerve action is necessary for a movement to occur in the first place? I suppose that believers would argue that these things cannot apply to ghosts since they are not of this world but are in the next life and are therefore made of different stuff.

I suppose it would be commonsensical to say that they do not possess these trace elements that support life since they are dead. But if they are dead, they should not possess any of living organisms' traits while being absent from the other vital elements. It makes no sense.

There will always be an unproven assumption for superficially dismissing every question useful for classifying and pinning down this supernatural stuff.

How can ghosts and spiritual energies pass through walls, vanish into thin air, and reside in objects without possessing physical and chemical states and undergoing the respective changes? I suppose that someone out there would argue that if subatomic particles and stuff made by human hands can accomplish the task via quantum tunneling, then ghosts and spiritual energies must do the same. Perhaps it seems plausible if we say that scientists have used semiconductors while passing electrons through non-conducting materials. But have scientists been able to force something macroscopic through another insurmountable solid? The answer was "no," as reported by Sciencemag .org in 2011 [6].

Has anything changed since then? Well, more scientists since then, most recently reported in August 2020, have done more observations of subatomic particles appearing on the opposite side of a solid barrier, making it appear that penetration took place. They admit that this is still rare in the quantum world [7] [8].

This has involved quantum tunneling, which is the foundation of electronic chips, called tunnel diodes, allowing for unidirectional electric movements through a circuit. It is also the foundation for Scanning tunneling microscopes (STM) and superconducting qubits for quantum computing [7] [8].

If electric currents and subatomic particles are limited in getting to the other side, what are the chances that something like a ghost will get there in ways consistent with what is portrayed in movies and fantasies? It appears to me that subatomic particles, and the 8,000 rubidium atoms that were cooled to a billionth degree above absolute zero in an Augustana University study, are limited by their precessions (amount of rotations) and magnetic properties while getting through the barrier. The barrier was only 1.3 micrometers thick, which is equivalent to 2,500 rubidium atoms [7] [8].

How thick is the average wall depicted in films and fantasy? Certainly, they are thicker than micrometers. And lastly, only 3% of the atoms made it to the other side in 0.6 milliseconds. Perhaps more atoms could make it through in more milliseconds. But could it equate enough to the few seconds that a ghost needs to pass through a wall in your favorite horror flick? Well, no one has been able to stop and ask a ghost if he/she will consent to a controlled experiment.

I am inclined to think that there is hardly a chance for something macroscopic such as a ghost or spiritual energy to move through walls, but we are left with much incertitude as we have no experiments to confirm this.

As a final question inspired by the Scientific American: If a wave function's spread is altered and exponentially decayed inside a barrier after the energy barrier has impeded the particle, how could something such as a ghost or spiritual energy remain intact after penetrating insurmountable solids such as walls [9]?

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