Here is something I recently wrote about this subject:
My Grandmother, a woman wise beyond her years, was one of the most generous people I have ever known. Even though she lived in poverty by most standards, she always had a little bit of money, or a cool toy, to give to the grandchildren when we'd visit. As we grew up some of us came to rely on her for help from time to time. She couldn't afford a car and didn't have cable TV, yet if you were in a pinch you could always count on her to pull out a wad of money from a stash box, cubbyhole, or some other carefully considered hiding area (it was always different) and make everything okay again. Of course we tried not to take advantage of this, and invariably when someone attempted to pay her back she would refuse, saying she was sure we could use the money more than she. She was a completely selfless woman who derived more joy from seeing her children and grandchildren flourish than she would ever get from spending money on herself. This is why is was so disheartening when, during the last few years of her life, she had to resort to borrowing money.
My Grandma, like most older people, had health problems, though they were comparatively minor. During her efforts to exercise and stay social, she joined an activity center for elderly folks where she met a young woman who introduced her to the idea of aural and soul energy. My grandmother became convinced that her health problems were due to bad energy, and eventually started paying to have her energy cleansed, a service for which she was charged $100 per session. Eventually she found herself in a situation where she had to burden her family to cover the expense of these so-called treatments. Most of us simply saw this as an opportunity to pay her back money that we certainly owed to her, but I know it caused great distress for her to have to ask. She was however afraid that if she stopped having her energy cleansed she would die, and she wanted have as much time to spend with her family as she could. When she finally passed we discovered that she had sold her grave plot, something she was adamant about paying for herself, in order to continue these treatments. My grandma had dedicated the last years of her life to maintaining an energy that never existed.
We see a lot of talk about energy in pseudoscience. We are told Chi is a life energy, ghosts are spiritual energy, psychics can sense negative energy, and crystals can focus healing energy. The problem with these statements is they hold no meaning scientifically and reveal a lack of scientific understanding by those who speak them. Ironically, this sort of language is often used successfully by proponents of pseudoscience to gain a sense of legitimacy.
Energy is a technical term that means only one thing, the ability to do work, a measurable work potential. Energy can be used, it can be stored, but it can not be imprinted onto a house, or felt from negative thoughts. It is not some sort of ghostly cloud that moves around and does things. If ever you hear the word energy being used, replace it with the phrase "ability to do work" and see if it still makes sense. If not, then it's probably a meaningless statement.
Correct use:
These batteries have no energy.
These batteries have no ability to do work.
Incorrect use:
This old house is giving off a lot of demonic energy.
This old house is giving off a lot of demonic ability to do work.
Does this mean that people should always use the term energy in a technical context? Of course not. It's true that it is sometimes helpful to use a word like energy as a sort of placeholder term for a concept you are trying to describe. Someone may say that when they try to focus mental energy into their hands they feel their fingers tingle. This may be useful to help them convey their experience, but just remember, using the term energy in this way does nothing to lend the idea validity.
When making statements about how the world works, anyone who repurposes a word has an obligation to define that word. If they fail to do so, then they are probably trying to take advantage of the general public's understanding of energy to be a science term. They mean to use the word to create a technical sounding framework. Ghost hunters, for example, not only talk about ghost energy, they attempt to detect and measure this energy as if it were quantifiable. New-agers often claim that crystals can amplify energy. These people are obviously not using energy in a colloquial sense, but as a means to skip over the mechanics of their theory.
In pseudoscience energy becomes a catchall term to cover anything that can't be explained; however, in science energy is precisely defined, so it doesn't make much sense to hijack this word to describe something vague. It's a way of talking without giving you any real information. When someone says they can sense spiritual energy, they are really saying "I can sense something that I can't really describe or explain". When someone says god is energy, they are in essence saying "god is something I can't really define or explain". When someone says something like this, they really aren't saying much at all. We are left with begged questions. Is ghost energy subject to entropy? Does spiritual energy follow the laws of thermodynamics? What characteristics distinguish 'bad' energy from 'good' energy? These are just a few of the questions it would seem need to be answered before we could believe these ideas reflect reality.
Another claim we often hear to justify nonsense is that everything is energy. While there is scientific truth to this on some levels, it becomes a meaningless statement unless further context is offered. Without some elaboration, it makes as much sense as saying everything is volume. We hear this statement being made in defense of many different pseudoscientific ideas, including the law of attraction, morphic resonance, hive-mind thoery, pantheism, ESP, and many others. The majority of these ideas would require radically different sets of undiscovered fundamental laws, in other words, they conflict with each other. They can't all be true, yet they all use this same platform from which to launch their unsupported nonsense without bothering to distinguish themselves beyond the idea that everything is energy. It becomes a shorthand way of saying "my pet thoery is supported by science". Remember, in strict technical terms, energy is a measurement of work potential.
When someone is trying to explain a scientific concept, and misuses such a basic scientific word as energy, that person probably doesn't know what they are talking about. This is a huge red flag that should help you spot pseudoscience. I only wish I had been old enough and aware enough to explain this to my grandma, though I like to think she would be happy that it motivated me to learn a valuable lesson myself, and pass it on to others.
