#metaphyics

There is a lack of measurable evidence because any person that has worked with energies have had different experiences but were able to understand and manipulate energies according to their own will.

Energy has been used in many ways within culture and religion and have set beliefs depending on the system being practiced.

Next, are some given definitions defining energies within diverse philosophies.

Hindu = Prana

Chinese = Qi /Chi

Japanese =Ki

Greek = Pneuma

Hawaiian = Mana

Tibetan Buddhism = Lung

Hindu Philosophy

A Sanskrit word for "life force" or "vital principle" is often referred to as Prana. It is described as first coming down from the Sun and connecting all elements of the Universe. It has been invoked within the Hindu scriptures of the Vedas and Upanishads.

Prana is the belief of vitality surrounding all living beings. This energy is responsible for all bodily functions. There are five types of pranas, collectively known as the five vāyus.

1. Prāṇa:              Beating of the heart and breathing. Prana enters the body through the breath and is sent to every cell through the circulatory system.

2. Apāna:             Elimination of waste products from the body through the lungs and excretory systems.

3.Uḍāna:              Sound production through the vocal apparatus. It represents the conscious energy required to produce the vocal sounds corresponding to the intent.

4. Samāna:          Food digestions, repair or manufacture of new cells and growth, and heat regulations throughout the body.

5. Vyāna:             The energy that is needed for the body to have proper circulation, and the functions for the voluntary muscular system in which there is expansion and contraction processes throughout the body.

Chinese Philosophy

The earliest texts in which Qi or Chi is described was in 'Analects of Confucius' where it could mean "breath" and was combined with the Chinese word for blood.

Xue-qi, "blood and breath."

Living beings are born because of an accumulation of qi, and as the beings live out their lives the qi declines eventually resulting in death. This indicates that xue-qi referred to all living things, but it is believed that qi or chi exists within all things tangible.

For example, the wind is the qi or chi to the Earth, and the cosmic concepts of yin and yang are "the greatest of qi"

Yin and Yang which means "bright-dark," and "positive-negative" are the opposing forces needed in order to complement the concept of balance. There are thoughts that this duality symbolizes contradicting energy forces which manifest as light and dark, fire and water, expansion, and contraction. With this said, Chinese medicine states that the balance of negative and positive forms in the body are believed to be essential for overall satisfactory health.

Japanese Mythology

During the sixth and seventh centuries the Chinese word qi (or chi) was written using the same kanji script for their interpretation for energy being "Ki"

However, the meanings are a tad different.

While the Chinese use chi or qi to describe that energy exists in all things, animate and inanimate objects, the Japanese believe it is the creative flow and expressions used within our daily lives, martial arts, and symbolizes aspects of nature, and thusly the spirits. It is the transfer from living, animate beings in to inanimate which can change and manifest into various forms. It is the necessary intentions one wields.

Greek Mythology

Pneuma, "The breath of life" or "vital spirit" is composed of kinetic energies within the vessel, while Ignis is composed of thermal energies. All human beings need both kinetic and thermal energies in order to properly function.

In Greek medicine, pneuma is the form of circulation throughout the body's vital organs. Due to this the role, pneuma plays within the body to sustain consciousness. Some physiological theories suggest that the pneuma mediates between the heart, and the heart is regarded as the seat of the mind, and the brain.

In similar, Stoic philosophy, pneuma is the active and generative principles that are organized between the individual and the cosmos. The highest forms are the Gods, and the human soul. The human soul is believed to be fragments of the gods given life force in order to be born and given a vessel upon the physical plane. This exists within all animate and inanimate objects as energy transfers and changes.

Hawaiian Mythology

Mana, the spiritual energy of power and strength. This energy exists within places and people; however, it is said that mana is both external and internal concepts.

The Hawaiian people believe that individuals can gain mana or lose it depending on one's actions in everything that they do.

In mythology there were two ways to gain mana, and this was either done sexually or through violence.

To sexually gain mana one must invoke the god, Lono, deity of peace and fertility.

To gain mana through violence one must invoke the god Ku, deity of war and politics.

Tibetan Buddhism

Lung means the wind or breath. Exists as a key concept in Vajrayana traditions. Generally, it's concept relates to the understanding of the subtle body, and Three Vajras. Those three are the body, speech, and mind. Lung relates to the subtle flow of energy and the five elements. (Fire, Water, Earth, Space, and Air) Lung is mostly closely connected to the Air Element.

Lung has also been used to describe the winds or prana being used in conjunction with the subtle body during a time of exercise, but also more importantly everyday functions of the body and its own senses. There are five psychic winds which manifest into mahabhuta. These five relate to the lifeforce that animate the body-mind (namarupa) of all sentient beings.

The Five Root or Major Winds

The root winds support an element and is responsible for a function of the human body.

    The 'life-supporting wind' (Tib. སྲོག་འཛིན་རླུང་, sok dzin lung; Wyl. srog 'dzin rlung). Located in the brain, this lung regulates functions such as swallowing, inhalation, and concentration.

    The 'upward-moving wind' (Tib. གྱེན་རྒྱུ་རླུང་, gyengyu lung; Wyl. gyen rgyu rlung). Located in the chest and thorax, this lung regulates, among other things, speech, the body's energy and vitality, memory, mental endeavour and diligence.

    The 'all-pervading wind' (Tib. ཁྱབ་བྱེད་རླུང་, khyap ché lung; Wyl. khyab byed rlung). Residing in the heart, this lung controls all the motor activities of the body.

    The 'fire-accompanying wind' (Tib. མེ་མཉམ་གནས་རླུང་, me nyam né lung; Wyl. me mnyam gnas rlung). Found in the stomach and abdomen area, the fire-accompanying wind regulates digestion and metabolism.

    The 'downward-clearing wind' (Tib. ཐུར་སེལ་རླུང་, thursel lung; Wyl. thur sel rlung). Located in the rectum, bowels and perineal region, this lung's function is to expel faeces, urine, semen, and menstrual blood. It also regulates uterine contractions during labour.

The Five Branch Winds

The five branch winds enable the senses to operate.

    The naga wind (Tib.ཀླུའི་རླུང་, lu'i lung; Wyl. klu'i rlung). This lung connects with the eyes and sight.

    The tortoise wind (Tib. རུ་སྦལ་གྱི་་རླུང་, rubal gyi lung; Wyl. ru sbal gyi rlung). This wind connects with the heart and the sense of hearing.

    The lizard wind (Tib.རྩངས་པའི་རླུང་, tsangpé lung; Wyl. rtsangs pa'i rlung) associated with the nose and the sense of smell.

    The devadatta wind (Tib.ལྷས་བྱིན་གྱི་རླུང་, lhéjin gyi lung; Wyl. lhas byin gyi rlung) related to the sense of taste.

I see a lot of posts on Tumblr about how to go about having casual relationships, or showing your devotion subtly but never have I seen ways in which those who wish to move on from that realm of being would actually start having a dedicated practice. People don’t need to be subtle to worship the Gods - in fact, most practices aren’t blatant and don’t need to be blatant. It is understandable and often necessary to be in a closet but you can still have a very deep relationship with the Gods while it still being meaningful.

Here’s a list of things you can do to strengthen your devotion with the Gods as well as build and deepen your relationship.

Build a shrine dedicated to an individual Deity and take time to know Them by using it.

The idea that you need to have multiple Deities all the time and worship all of Them together is a very strange way of doing polytheism and it is a more powerful usage of space to have one singular Deity at a time rather than a mix together. People may feel less of a need to be so bent out of shape if they can’t afford offerings for an entire pantheon of Gods if they only have one household Deity and the rest are specific to other tasks or needs. I’m not saying you need to pick one above the rest, but I am saying that when you work with the Gods, it’s not about quantity of your relationships, it’s about quality and how long you actually spend together in a similar fashion.

Design your shrine to be simple.

You don’t need a bunch of things on your shrine and in fact, that won’t make it any more detectable to the Gods or show how dedicated you are as a polytheist. It is not about how much work you put into the shrine to make it more about the Gods you worship but it’s more along the line of what needs to happen when you go to the shrine, what actions you take while you’re there.

Hypothetically, all you need is a candle to light to show that you wish for a Deity’s presence, but to make it more usable and detectable to a Deity, it is recommended you also have an image, statue, or likeness of the Deity. You can also have a bowl or a glass to fill for your offerings. Do not make huge offerings if you are going to forget to empty them out. Only make the offerings that won’t rot should that be the case, and only do that if you know you’re going to throw it out, eat it, or dispose of it shortly after.

Ideas Worth Remembering:

 1. Your subconscious mind controls all the vital processes of your body and knows the answer to all problems. 

 2. Prior to sleep, turn over a specific request to your subconscious mind and prove its miracle-working power to yourself. 

 3. Whatever you impress on your subconscious mind is expressed on the screen of space as conditions, experiences, and events. Therefore, you should carefully watch all ideas and thoughts entertained in your conscious mind. 

 4. The law of action and reaction is universal. Your thought is action, and the reaction is the automatic response of your subconscious mind to your thought. Watch your thoughts! 

 5. All frustration is due to unfulfilled desires. If you dwell on obstacles, delays, and difficulties, your subconscious mind responds accordingly, and you are blocking your own good. 

 6. The Life Principle will flow through you rhythmically and harmoniously if you consciously affirm: "I believe that the subconscious power which gave me this desire is now fulfilling it through me." This dissolves all conflicts. 

 7. You can interfere with the normal rhythm of your heart, lungs, and other organs by worry, anxiety, and fear. Feed your subconscious with thoughts of harmony, health, and peace, and all the functions of your body will become normal again. 

 8. Keep your conscious mind busy with the expectation of the best, and your subconscious will faithfully reproduce your habitual thinking. 

 9. Imagine the happy ending or solution to your problem, feel the thrill of accomplishment, and what you imagine and “feel will be accepted by your subconscious mind and bring it to pass.”

Excerpt From

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Murphy, Joseph

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As Christianity spread throughout Northern Europe, a crucial component to the culture and religion of the Germanic tribes was stomped out: sacrifice. Moreover, this practice became immensely demonized during the medieval period and continues to be so today. Sacrifice was no longer an act performed out of love and reverence for the divine, but rather an act demanded by a merciless, savage God who’s insatiable appetite could only be appeased with mortal flesh. In today’s post, I will be disputing some misconceptions and illustrating what sacrifice actually looked like among the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples of pre-Christian Europe.

Animal Sacrifice

Sacrifice was so prominent among the Anglo-Saxons that Pope Gregory specifically mentioned it (along with human sacrifice, but more on that later…) in a letter to Priest Mellitus who was sent to preach to them during the 6th century. In this letter, he detailed the slaughtering of oxen and the consumption of their meat in worship to the Gods. This description was actually not too far off, excluding Gregory referring to the Gods as the devil. Firstly, Bede explicitly stated that the Anglo-Saxons made sacrifices during Hrethmonath (March) and Blodmonath (December), however it is very likely that they sacrificed all throughout the year, such as during Eostremonath (April), Modranecht (Mother’s Night) and Yule. Snorri also noted that the Germanic peoples would make sacrifices during the beginning of winter, the middle of winter, and during the summer. Once more according to Bede, the Anglo-Saxons would slaughter cattle during Blodmonath. Cows were a particularly common animal to sacrifice. For instance, a number of cattle skulls have been uncovered in Iceland. Analysis of the remains indicate that they were beheaded with a type of axe, leaving some scholars to speculate that this method of killing was used due to it producing a large stream of blood in a theatrical fashion. Furthermore, the Germanic peoples were also known to collect the blood of sacrificed animals. Axes have been uncovered at several Anglo-Saxon settlements and it is very likely that they also used the axes for this purpose. An ox’s head has also been excavated in Cambridgeshire where it had been buried in a seemingly ritualistic fashion. Sacrifices could take place in a number of locations in dedication to a number of different beings. Among the Anglo-Saxons, they were most commonly performed in sacred groves, burial mounds, and in halls. In some cases, they took place at temples. They were also most often dedicated to the Gods, but one may also carry out a sacrifice for the different spirits such as the land wights or house wights. There was always a distinct reason behind these sacrifices. Haakon the Good’s Saga describes a sacrifice in which toasts were made to Odin for power and Njord and Freyja for peace. I highly recommend this saga for further readings on sacrifices as it truly describes it wonderfully and sagas are generally always an excellent source. Sacrifices were initiated by a variety of different prominent figures within the community in various parts of Northern Europe. It was customary for a king or jarl to host the sacrifice, though priests may have also led them. Upon slaughtering the animal, the priest would redden his golden arm ring with the blood of the sacrificed animal. As previously stated, this blood was collected and referred to as hlaut. Throughout various texts, you may encounter the word hlaut in conjunction with another word, such as hlaut-staves, or bundles of twigs that would be used for sprinkling this blood around the altar and on participants. The blood may have also been drank during the feast of the animal’s flesh. After the sacrifice and other festivities, the animal’s skull may have been displayed at whatever hall or location the sacrifice took place at. One of these such halls is Hofstadir in Iceland where over 20 skulls were excavated. The unique removal of certain parts of the skull as well as the location of erosion suggests the skulls could have been arranged outside of the hall for display purposes. An animal could have also been sacrificed and buried in its entirety such as in the case of accompanying the dead into the afterlife and there are many excavations similar to this.

Human Sacrifice

There is actually little to no evidence that the Anglo-Saxons ever practiced human sacrifice. The little evidence could perhaps be ritualistic human burials and the fact that human sacrifice is documented amongst the Germanic peoples. Most notably, Tacitus wrote of human sacrifice among the Semnones during the 1st century. He also noted that Mercury, or Woden, is whom they most often made their sacrifices to. Additionally, there is literary documentation of the Norse-Rus peoples sacrificing the most prized slave girl during the burial of her master. There are many, many other attestations of human sacrifices among the various Germanic tribes, but there are also some archaeological findings that may provide some insight into the subject. The bog bodies of Denmark are the first thing to come to mind with many scholars believing that the rather brutally injured bodies uncovered belong to individuals who were sacrificed. Despite no literary records confirming the existence of human sacrifice among the Anglo-Saxons, there are several rather peculiar burials which do appear similar to the human sacrifice recorded among other tribes. The first of which somewhat aligns with the documentation of the Norse-Rus burying a slave girl with her master. In Surrey, a grave containing the remains of two men and a woman were found. It is questioned whether or not this was a slave girl, or more broadly, if this woman was killed as a sacrifice to the men due to her body being positioned in an intentional downward facing direction. Sutton Hoo is one of the most important historical sites of Anglo-Saxon England, and it is even debated whether some of the bodies located there were hanged as a sacrifice. We cannot definitively say that the Anglo-Saxons practiced human sacrifice, though we have great evidence that many other tribes did. Finally, it’s important to note this: most often, these individuals who were sacrificed were not necessarily sacrificed against their will. It is well known that the Germanic peoples did sacrifice prisoners, but many viewed being sacrificed as a great honor and gave themselves up to the Gods. The idea that our ancestors sacrificed one another out of any reason besides love and reverence for the Gods is false.

Goals

There is a very clear answer as to why our ancestors performed sacrifices. When researching sacrifice, you begin to notice that the discussion or records of sacrifices can most often be placed into two camps: those out of necessity and those out of worship. Also, it isn’t necessarily black and white as these purposes will overlap in almost all cases. It is well known that the Germanic tribes would initiate a sacrifice for a good harvest, or as mentioned previously, victory granted by one of the Gods. However, a large problem in the contemporary study of paganism is too much of an emphasis on the Gods. Our ancestors venerated a plethora of other beings and likely viewed themselves as interacting more closely in day-to-day life with them. We had briefly discussed the sacrifices made to land and house wights, though they were also made to one’s ancestors and any topographical feature which may have been significant to the community. By reading up on these various entities, it becomes more understandable why sacrifices were made to them and you can learn more about these beings here. To put it simply, the Germanic peoples loved the Gods. In some instances, they wished to gain a favor for the Gods by doing a favor for them. In others, they simply wished to express that love.

Conclusion