With the title of this chapter, we encounter a mix of topics so massively complicated that even partially conceptualizing them will require reserves of patience. But these topics are entirely relevant to sexualizing energies, and so untangling them is necessary to achieve a larger framework for understanding much that is to follow.
For openers, it is not only important but necessary to state that although the modern sciences do distinguish the inanimate (the non-living) from the animate (the living), no such distinction is made regarding inanimate ENERGY and animate ENERGY.
But if such distinction was made, we would once more, as we so often do, encounter the modernist distinctions of the acceptable scientific and the unacceptable unscientific.
Inanimate energy would fall into the scientific category, and roughly speaking, animate energies would fall into the unscientific category.
This difficulty, peculiar to the modern scientific age, was not always the case.
THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF THE “LIFE FLUID”
Most pre-modern societies held vivid concepts regarding animating energies. But as the modern scientific period advanced, such concepts were devalued as primitive and naive, and hence as unscientific in principle.
As but one example of the primitive “naiveté,” as revealed in early anthropology studies, is that “the Life” was flatly identified with an energetic animating “fluid” akin to breath or blood, but invisible or ethereal and rather more fiery.
As it was later and often put by early modern critics of the “fluid,” the “etherealization of Life” naively culminated in the view that Life IS an energy-like fluid, but one that is assigned no properties other than its power of animating an organism.
This “primitive” idea more or less required the existence of another format of energy, a Life principle, in addition to the energies that could be derived from inanimate matter. This primitive concept ran counter to the modern sciences after they became infused with the philosophy of materialism.
Thus, without much in the way of deeper examination, the primitive concept of an energetic Life principle independent of matter was hastily relegated to the unscientific category—a little too hastily, perhaps, if certain scientific advances in the late twentieth century are any indication.
A slight confusion in all this has to do with the idea that the fluid had no properties other than its power of animating AN ORGANISM. But IF the fluid had the power of animating an organism, it FIRST also needed to have the power of seizing upon and organizing inanimate matter INTO the format of the organism.
However, when science became trenchantly based in materialism, it was assumed that if the Life principle existed it would be found to have a material origin, not an ethereal one.
In any event, by the turn of the century the modern sciences had jettisoned into the unscientific category the whole of this independent Life principle thing, especially the concept of the ethereal.
But if the sciences were successful in achieving this, an entire new set of problems and confusions emerged. It shortly became quite difficult to explain invisible energies whose existence could not be confirmed by direct material observation, but could be confirmed by deduction.
One example involved the historically accepted phenomenon of “thought transference” (later renamed as “telepathy”) across space and through intervening material barriers.
Indeed, the thought-transference phenomenon was an insult to the integrity of “scientific” materialism. But this was neatly handled by relegating it to the unscientific category, a category quickly to become much enlarged as time went on.
One of the results of dumping the fluid Life principle and accompanying ethereality, was that the entire scenario involving all animating energies was first marginalized, and then also dumped.
The only factor left was the general idea that life forms are animate life forms. But this was a residual descriptive contrivance only, having no scientific substance otherwise.
THE MODEL OF MECHANISTIC “WORK” ENERGIES
The concept of “mechanistic energies” generally filled in the vacuum left by the jettisoned animating energies, even in the so-called Life sciences.
The materialistic sciences indeed proved their worthiness by developing, via physics and chemistry, those energies into the stellar and vivid heights of technological wonders of the Modern Age.
Energies, as mechanistic, became the model for how energy of any kind was to be considered and conceptualized. A brief review of the history involved here is not only interesting in itself, but somewhat necessary with regard to many animating energetic aspects to be presented ahead.
The very great English mathematician and natural philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), summarized his discoveries in terrestrial and celestial mechanics in a lengthy tract published in 1687.
The tract was a compilation of mathematical principles of “natural philosophy”—later being dubbed as “physics.”
In Newtonian mechanics, energy was conceptualized as “a property of moving masses.”
But at some point in the later 1700s, the definition of energy underwent various changes, and, by the late 1800s, ended up being defined simply as “the ability or capacity to do work.”
Although this definition of energy is brief, it immediately calls for an explanation of WORK itself, and of another important factor, that of power.
As noted in many encyclopedias, “in the strict physical sense, work is performed only when a force is exerted on a body while the body moves at the same time in such a way that the force has a component in the direction of motion.” In turn, POWER is defined as “the rate at which work is performed.”
MAJOR SOURCES OF MECHANISTIC ENERGY
It is scientifically observed that energy can exist in a variety of forms, some more recognizable as being capable of performing work than others. The major known forms of energy are:
–Gravitation
–Energy of rotation
–Energy of orbital motion
–Nuclear reactions
–Electromagnetic energy
–Internal heat of stars
–Sunlight
–Sound
–Chemical reactions
–Terrestrial waste heat
–Cosmic microwave radiation
Scientists note that energy usually flows from higher levels to lower levels. Thus, “cosmic microwave background radiation is defined as the ultimate heat sink.” In other words., the SINK representing “the ultimate in energy degradation with no lower form in which to be converted.”
Forms of energy in which the energy is not dependent upon mechanical motion are generally referred to as forms of POTENTIAL ENERGY. KINETIC ENERGY is defined as energy associated with mechanical motion of bodies.
The availability of energy is found in many SOURCES of energy—for example, oxen, horses, coal, peat, geothermal, nuclear, electric, petroleum, gas, hydrogen, tidal, horses, wind, water, wage earners, etc.
The energy indwelling in these sources is potential energy, and which, via human genius, can be converted or transformed into kinetic energy that permits work energy to manifest and be utilized.
Some dictionaries ALSO define ENERGY as “power forcefully exerted,” and thus power is the single synonym for ENERGY.
ANIMATING ENERGETICS
Moving now to the term ENERGETIC, it is easy to see why most will understand it to mean “marked by energy, operating with vigor or effect”—with VIGOROUS being a good synonym.
ENERGIZE is defined as “to impart energy to, so as to make energetic or vigorous.”
It is to be noted that the term ENERGETICS is not found in a number of respectable sources. If it appears at all, its meaning is usually given as “a branch of mechanics that deals primarily with energy and its transformations?”
Now, to point up a necessary observation. As defined and described above, in the scientific sense ENERGY is fundamentally associated only with inanimate phenomena (although as sources of kinetic energy some animate resources can be transformed into work.)
Direct observation can easily establish that animate life forms are marked by potential work energy, often operating with vigor or effect, and sometimes can forcefully exert power.
Referring to the list given above regarding scientifically recognized forms of energy, it can be assumed that animate life forms can be affected by any one or all of the forms of energy given. But effected only AFTER they have become an animate life form.
It is true that the listed forms of energy-cum-sources can, so to speak, animate WORK. But what about the nature of the energies that animate the life-forms that utilize the work?
The essential difficulty here is that in the sense of the scientific, the modern West has only one major definition for energy—the capacity for doing work.
Additionally, that definition can be extended a little in that the capacity for doing work is seen as power forcefully exerted.
However, in the scientific sense these definitions for the most part apply to objective mechanistic factors external to the human.
Even though the terms ENERGY and POWER are applied to the human in a popular sense, the human is filled, so to speak, not so much with mechanistic energies, but with animating energies.
These animating energies are not served very well by the mechanistic definitions of energy/power. So difficulties arise that are ambiguous and not a little confusing.
SEXUALITY AS BEHAVIOR?
As but one example of such a confusion, the nature of sexual energies cannot convincingly be described in mechanistic terms as the capacity for doing work, because even the most intellectually challenged would giggle at this.
Between 1890 and 1925, give or take a little, this particularly ludicrous factor was neatly disposed of in modern scientific terms by shifting the emphasis away from the “hard” idea of sexual energies to the “soft” idea of sexual behavior.
In the context of sexual behavior, then, the ambiguous difficulties landed in the lap of the various modernist psychologies (i.e., the “soft” sciences) which were in process of evolving in order to examine the many remarkable phenomena and paradoxes of human behavior.
This resulted in the concept, still prevalent, that human sexuality was solely a matter of behavior, not energetics.
As it then transpired in psychological (and psychiatric) terms, it proved exceedingly difficult to arrive at specific definitions that could be relevant to all kinds of BEHAVIOR.
Of the literally hundreds of definitions, the one most relevant to most visible kinds of behavior was established as “The manner in which anything acts or operates. With regard to the human being, the term usually refers to the action of the individual as a unit.”
As will be reviewed in the next chapter, this definition suggested that the human being was composed of parts—which parts taken together composed the individual human unit. The dominant modern concept held that this unit was majorly composed of two basic parts—body and mind.
The concept was entirely convenient—in that the human could be segregated into two different major parts: the body, which could be studied in the hard biological sciences; and the mind, which could be studied in the soft psychological sciences.
More specifically put, the body could be considered, philosophically and scientifically, within the theories of reductive materialism, while the mind could be studied within the theories of reductive behaviorism.
Modern discussion of reductive behaviorism, however, began with the work of John Broadus Watson (1878-1958), the American psychologist generally credited with originating the modern school of psychology called behaviorism.
Watson aimed to establish psychology as a science. He held that because states of consciousness are private and thus directly inscrutable, there could not be a scientific psychology of consciousness. Only observation of behavior would provide the necessary data for a scientific psychology.
Because it is rare for any two behaviorists to generally agree on anything of importance, arriving at exact definitions for BEHAVIOR have proven to be somewhat illusive.
ORGANISM--ORGANISMIC
In any event, in its original context, BEHAVIOR is defined as “any movement of an organism.”
This definition received refinement via the most general definition of BEHAVIORISM, which consists of “the observable evidence of organismic activity to the exclusion of introspective data or references to consciousness of mind.”
One can cogitate on these and eventually come up with any number of interpretations. But the two definitions respectively refer to “an organism” and to “organismic activity” as the subject, while the behavior refers to what the subjects do when they can be seen as being in motion.
This is to attempt to point up that there are important distinctions between what an organism IS, and what an organism DOES when in movement.
Further, if “introspective data” refers to certain subjective and/or psychological factors that might serve as motivations for the activity, then the activity takes place in the absence of such motivations. Here is something of a complexity—since when we observe an organism exhibiting such and such a motion (behavior), we usually try to comprehend why it is doing so and to what ends.
To transliterate this mess into something that can more easily be understood, sexual behavior is either caused by or originates in “organismic activity,” while the processes of the behavior do not involve either subjective or consciousness of mind processes.
However confusing this may be, the central message is quite clear: The behavior, so-called, is the result of the organismic activity—or the organismic activity causes the resulting behavior.
One has to wonder why Western societies have focused almost entirely on sexual behavior rather than organismic activity, and whether this focus is simply voyeuristic thrill or on behalf of clinical aspects as alleged.
ORGANIC VITALITY—A FORM OF ANIMATING ENERGETICS
The word ORGANISMIC is a terminological extension of the term ORGANIC, and which in turn is extended from the Greek term ORGAN, which meant “instrument” that functions because of vibrations.
Thus, ORGAN came very early to refer to any number of musical instruments which, in the sonic sense, vibrated in that part of the electromagnetic spectrum for which human ear systems possessed sonic receptors.
In English, the term ORGAN, as referring to a vibrating thing, was not attached to plant or animal physiology until about 1420.
At that time, it was more or less seized upon to indicate an instrumental (vibrational) part or member of a plant or animal body that performs some particular vital function—such as digestion, respiration, excretion, reproduction, locomotion, and perception, etc.
But it needs to be pointed up with regard to this physiological meaning that the earlier comprehension of the term VITAL differed considerably from later modern concepts of it.
In the modern concept, it became associated with VITALITY, referring to physical or mental vigor, especially if highly developed.
The pre-modern meaning of VITAL referred specifically to “existing as a manifestation of Life.”
The pre-modern concept yielded the concept of VITALISM—defined as “a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital animating principle distinct from inanimate physico-chemical forces.”
The distinction between animate and inanimate forces will play a considerable role in the chapters ahead.
But here it should be pointed up that since ancient times ANIMATE specifically referred to a universally existing “something” that was likened to breath.
Breath is clearly a universal indicator that life is present, and so it could be considered a principle, whether completely understood or not.
The term VITAL referred to this principle, which itself was life.
Taking all of the above into consideration, an organism was an instrument of the life animating principle, an instrument of the life energetic principle. By associating the term ORGAN to life, organisms unquestionably also associated energetic vibrations to the life principle whether or not embodied in otherwise inorganic matter merely made up of physico-chemical forces.
And it is then possible to see that the concept of “orgasmic activity” refers only indirectly to behavior, but more directly to some kind of animating activity—as contrasted, for example, with “inorgasmic activity.”
In this sense, the term ORGASMIC is entirely redolent with vital, vitalizing, and animating functions.
Thus, what the definition of BEHAVIORISM is actually doing, is allocating behavioristic activity to primary vibrating, vitalizing, and animating functions, and which, on their own, manifest secondary results identifiable as behavior.
SELF-VIBRATING ENERGIES
Whether the whole of this small discussion makes sense to various readers, it is quite visible via sexual behavior.
This behavior, as most people realize, clearly manifests animating functions—and these functions are often in complete defiance of whatever serves as introspective data, consciousness and mind.
Indeed, it is frequently observed that sexual activity “has a mind of its own.”
More simply put, perhaps, sexual behavior is the result of some definitely self-animating, self-vibrating energies—and whatever vibrates certainly will resonate upon other organisms possessing the necessary receptor systems.
On definitional grounds alone, it is possible to theorize that sexual activity consists of resonating vibrations that can be sensed by other organisms—and that those organisms will demonstrate some kind of energetic reacting.
None of this can be allocated to, or explained by, body or mind alone, or by any mix of body-mind.
Any explanation of “organismic activity” requires the inclusion of an energetic principle between body and mind, a concept that links the two into an animate organism.