Power and Energy

[ByAMountainOfBooks]

This thread (Occult power) made me thinking about Power and Energy. I decided not to post the following on this post in hope it might start an really interesting, insightful and fruitful discussion. Those are my first musings and they are far from complete.

Disclaimer
Usually if I look at words that kind of mean everything and nothing, I try to figure out what they actually mean - i.d. literally - to bring order into the chaos. I hope the terms get clearer this way. Otherwise those terms invite all kind of mixed views, feelings, and then someone talks about apples and the other one about pears. Also please be aware, English is not my mother tongue but I tried to be as accurate as I possibly can.

1. Power
Power actually comes from the latin root of posse, which bascially means "to be able to". "can" and I think you get the meaning. It refers to the potentiality of effecting movement and change - an ableness. Just think of political power. Someone who has it, has influence in the sphere of politics to actually make a difference.
If we look at the German word of power, which is "Macht" and comes from "machen" (to do), and sometimes "Kraft" (strength). Both relate to an ableness or possibility to do something.
Maybe for magical practitioners skillfulness might be a good right term, as it refers to the knowledge of the correct time, place, and means in order to effect change.

2. Energy
This word comes from the Greek energeia and means activity, movement. That is something that is observable and tangible. Look at vital energy. It is that energy that keeps the organs functioning, the blood flowing and breath going and makes you actually active (sport, thinking, sex etc.). Having a lot of vital energy means, that there is enough resources to keep the body working. Imagine what happens if there is too little activity. When we look at energetic practices, e.g. when we rotate the consciousness through the body, we create movement and this is felt like a flow. In Indo-Tibetan wording this is called prana/lung, which means "wind". In planetary magic when we talk about the energy of Saturn we might feel it as constricting and cold, it is because we feel its effect, activity, hence its energy is cold and constricting. I think this is the reason why certain plants are identified of this or that planet as the activity pertains to planetary principles.

In Chinese thought though, Qi has an ontological component (it is a substance), because everything that exist has Qi, if not it could not exist. This is why in Daoist thought the heaven has Qi. Otherwise this might not necessarily makes sense from a western point of view.

3. Conclusion
Power and Energy are often used interchangeably but there might a causal chain. Power as the agent and Energy as an observable means.
I think magic is exercising the knowledge of the right protocols, means and objects to affect the world in a previous determined way.

What is your thoughts on this? What do you think what distinguishes energy from power?

 

[HoldAll]

If we continued your (partly) linguistic approach to the difference between 'power' and 'energy', we might want to look beyond mere definitions and analyse connotations, usage and popular collocations. 'Power', for example, sounds fairly dramatic while 'energy' is relatively mild in comparison. 'Powerful' is a word - 'energyful' is not (ok, there is 'energetic' but it does not convey the same sense of raw strength). 'Negative power', on the other hand, is as good as unheard of while 'negative energy' gets bandied about fairly frequently in occult contexts. And is there an 'Will to Energy', for example?

We could spin this sort of analysis over whole forum pages but in actual practice, people use words instinctively, so a hard-and-fast differentiation between those two terms is merely artificial - or a matter of agreement as in the case of accepted terminologies. Sometimes there's an overlap, sometimes they get used differently according to personal style or taste, sometimes they are used interchangeably. Have I muddied the waters enough?

To return to etymology: A back-translation of the German 'Macht' would be 'might'. In Czech, 'moc' (power, strength, might, etc.) comes from 'moci' or 'to be able to', 'to be capable of', so one could say that 'power' is also about being strong, being able to do what other's can't, almost in a competitive way - Carlos Castaneda uses 'power' a lot in his books ("Tales of Power", "Second Ring of Power", "The Power of Silence"), and his ideal is the warrior (or later sorcerer), so 'power' for him is almost something Martian.

Or try to replace 'power' with 'energy' in famous quotes: "Energy tends to corrupt; absolute energy corrupts absolutely", which would be ludicrous. Again connotation, usage and collocations.

In occult contexts, however, authors tend to use 'energy' whenever things get technical, e.g. when some kind of force (hey! we have a new term to quibble over!) needs to be directed up channel X to point Y to have effect Z. We don't know yet what that energy precisely is, however, but until we find out, it's as good a word as any to describe certain phenomena or relationships.

 

[Jackson]

I wouldn't dispute that there is a casual chain, but your example of power is abstract, while your example of energy is not. Your definition of power can simply be removed.

 

[Wintruz]

This thread (Occult power) made me thinking about Power and Energy. I decided not to post the following on this post in hope it might start an really interesting, insightful and fruitful discussion. Those are my first musings and they are far from complete.

Disclaimer
Usually if I look at words that kind of mean everything and nothing, I try to figure out what they actually mean - i.d. literally - to bring order into the chaos. I hope the terms get clearer this way. Otherwise those terms invite all kind of mixed views, feelings, and then someone talks about apples and the other one about pears. Also please be aware, English is not my mother tongue but I tried to be as accurate as I possibly can.

1. Power
Power actually comes from the latin root of posse, which bascially means "to be able to". "can" and I think you get the meaning. It refers to the potentiality of effecting movement and change - an ableness. Just think of political power. Someone who has it, has influence in the sphere of politics to actually make a difference.
If we look at the German word of power, which is "Macht" and comes from "machen" (to do), and sometimes "Kraft" (strength). Both relate to an ableness or possibility to do something.
Maybe for magical practitioners skillfulness might be a good right term, as it refers to the knowledge of the correct time, place, and means in order to effect change.

2. Energy
This word comes from the Greek energeia and means activity, movement. That is something that is observable and tangible. Look at vital energy. It is that energy that keeps the organs functioning, the blood flowing and breath going and makes you actually active (sport, thinking, sex etc.). Having a lot of vital energy means, that there is enough resources to keep the body working. Imagine what happens if there is too little activity. When we look at energetic practices, e.g. when we rotate the consciousness through the body, we create movement and this is felt like a flow. In Indo-Tibetan wording this is called prana/lung, which means "wind". In planetary magic when we talk about the energy of Saturn we might feel it as constricting and cold, it is because we feel its effect, activity, hence its energy is cold and constricting. I think this is the reason why certain plants are identified of this or that planet as the activity pertains to planetary principles.

In Chinese thought though, Qi has an ontological component (it is a substance), because everything that exist has Qi, if not it could not exist. This is why in Daoist thought the heaven has Qi. Otherwise this might not necessarily makes sense from a western point of view.

3. Conclusion
Power and Energy are often used interchangeably but there might a causal chain. Power as the agent and Energy as an observable means.
I think magic is exercising the knowledge of the right protocols, means and objects to affect the world in a previous determined way.

What is your thoughts on this? What do you think what distinguishes energy from power?

These are essential observations. Confusion of language leads to confusion of ideas given that the intellect works with language. Some biologists argue that the evolution of the brain is intimately bound with the capacity for language. Even when alone, we explain concepts to ourselves linguistically.

A lot of occult students shy away from this work because it is work and it's less exciting than "I saw an angel/gremlin". Still, those who are careful to properly identify what they are doing, tend to make better initiates than those who eschew precision. They also tend to get clearer noetic experiences too. There is no point broaching the Unknown, until we're made an effort with the known.

Power actually comes from the latin root of posse, which bascially means "to be able to". "can" and I think you get the meaning. It refers to the potentiality of effecting movement and change - an ableness. Just think of political power. Someone who has it, has influence in the sphere of politics to actually make a difference.
If we look at the German word of power, which is "Macht" and comes from "machen" (to do), and sometimes "Kraft" (strength). Both relate to an ableness or possibility to do something.
Maybe for magical practitioners skillfulness might be a good right term, as it refers to the knowledge of the correct time, place, and means in order to effect change.

Yes. It is also identifiable with the root of "magic".

"Magic" comes from the Latin "magia" which came from the Greek "magos" which came from Old Persian “Maguš”. "Maguš" was postulated by the Austrian-Czech linguist Julius Pokorny to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European root word “*mägh” meaning “to be able”, signifying “power” and “strength”. This makes sense in the context of Persian Zoroastrianism (whose priests were called "Magi") as strength and power were considered signs of the presence of Ahura Mazda.

 

[Taudefindi]

What do you think what distinguishes energy from power?

Power is the action, energy is the means/resource.
I like to think of it in the way I think of power and strength.

Power is explosive strength, it's the act of using strength to achieve something physically.
While strength is the resource, so the stronger you are technically speaking the more power you can generate.
My view may be too simplistic, but it works for me.