Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018
Anatomy of the Energy Body
An energized world is a reality. We live in a world driven, consumed, and managed by energy. From the Sun’s rays to wind to batteries to medical technologies, virtually nothing in our lives escapes the domain of energy.
It is also clear that this reality is being continually revealed and applied. In simple terms, engineers are learning how to better harness Sun and wind power, physicists now deal with scalar and vector energies and measurements (a vector is linear and finite, whereas scalar energies emanate instantaneously everywhere), and medical scientists have demonstrated that pulsed magnetic therapy has value for healing bone fractures.1 All of these applications fit into a bioenergetic view of our world. It is less of a stretch, then, to view human anatomy as being comprised of energy.
We typically view the world as made up of material, solid objects. Perceiving the world as external objects hinges on the agreements we collectively make about the world, agreements that have been handed down unchallenged for centuries. We have a world based on a collection of assumptions about reality. We have inherited a description of reality so powerful that we have validated it time and time again without ever understanding what it truly is, let alone stepping beyond it.
Bioenergetics offers a fresh option: a universe comprised of energy. As with any paradigm, it’s possible to make an extensive categorization of various types of energy and their effects. If we hold that the world is energy, then each person, place, and thing in the world is energy. And each group of items, such as humans, trees, and clouds, has its own energetics. Then there is another set of processes for how they interact. The more you recognize these dynamics, the more you will become aware of yourself, your circumstances, and your growth.
To enhance this exploration, you need to know the mechanical structure and capabilities of your conveyance, just as it is important to know that if you want to travel three thousand miles in one day, an automobile isn’t the best vehicle. In like manner, flying a small propeller-driven plane requires different skills than flying a jet airliner. And not knowing how to use the rigging of a sailboat during a storm leads to major trouble. In each case, knowing the nature of the craft—its capacities, its structure and layout, and how it functions in part and in whole—provides for a better journey.
Here, the craft is the energy body, which is sometimes referred to as the “light” or “luminous” body, reflecting metaphysical teachings that humans are comprised of a more rarified energy than just material form. This is in part referenced by science in that cells both emit and absorb photons. A photon is the basic unit of light and an elementary particle, and therefore governed by quantum mechanics. It can be gauged as a wave or a particle, and acts “. . . as a ’messenger’ particle, conveying the electromagnetic information between particles of matter.”2 It thereby transmits information that may cause any number of things to occur. A biophoton is light emitted from a biological system. It is not bioluminescence, which occurs in species such as fireflies, glow-worms, and some marine life due to chemical reactions.
The physical body is considered by Toltecs to be an effect of the energy body and only one option of human awareness. Human anatomy is thus far more extensive than what is usually understood. The following exploration of various aspects of energetic anatomy, such as the nervous system and chakras, provide a better sense of this extended perspective. This prepares us to more fully enter into a Toltec-based worldview and examine the major anatomical components of uniformity, cohesion, assemblage point, and core.
The Toltec model didn’t pop into consciousness out of the blue; from the contributions of other cultures you can see an energetic anatomy is not the idea of one group of people. It is valuable to understand that we are also reviewing the structure of the environment—the universe of energy—to help us connect with and perceive it, just as knowing the physical models of planets, solar systems, and galaxies enable us to better perceive the physical cosmos.