Socially a persons energy is tied to other peoples energy and to obligations towards society. Physically a persons energy may be connected to places or things. Psychologically, energy is tied up into habits, ideas, traumas and things which we like and dislike, and also things which we have experienced in the past. All this makes psychological, physical and social ties between people and other people and society and the physical world.

At certain times in history certain ideas and thruths are 'absolute' and right. At other times other muses rule. Today we all think the ideas of the 1990's are right, at least to some extent, but in twenty years maybe we may well think of the nineties as we think and remember the seventies today. Horrible colours, weird ideas!! Not only ideas and colours change with time, but also the world views. A very obvious case is the 'western worlds' development of the place in universe of the ground we walk upon. Once the earth was flat, and when it became round all stars and planets revolved around it. Then the sun became centre of universe (as a male symbol of justice and light), and today the 'centre of the known universe' (which actually is rather a basis of existence than a physical place) is thought to be the final possible 'centre'...

The psychological motives for this development is interesting, and it is also interesting to notice that it is the psychological factors that control the world view more than the intellectual ones. Psychologically we have two main driving forces: First the need to be in centre (reflecting the ego), second the childish intellectual need to measure things (we are greater, taller, stronger, bigger than you, and thus better, our God/ fotballteam/ school/ whatever is better than yours, etc). Our earth is centre of the universe, the ego is centre of the personal universe.

An individual is mortally threaten by the following situations:
- Physical threat to the body
- Threat to social position
- Threat to world view
- Psychological threat
- Threat to the Ego

Physical threat need no further explanation. It may be the shock one feels after cutting a finger to the bone or the feeling when someone tells about when they stepped on a rusty nail with their heel in the attic (ouch). I bet you can come up with more examples...

Threat to social position makes people lie about things and behave superficial. Social position is important for the safety of the individual. Loss of social position makes others think you are bad in some way, and you become 'not accepted' where you were once a member. In any society there are actions which are not socially tolerated. Such matters are often of sexual nature, and when possible, they are kept secret. Very complicated social structures may arise from this (and thus energetic ties). Also more personal matters and feelings may be the result of a threat to social position: "Jealousy" is in reality such a threat.

Lots of things influence an individuals social status. Money and clothing, the area where one lives, country, what one does for an occupation, hair colour, what company one keeps, personality, etc. The individual will have an urge to climb on the social ladder, and so tries to adjust any of the above variables. [See Adler for more on this subject].

A person is also threaten when his/her/its world view is threaten. An individual will fight for their world view with anything they have. Philosophers will, as a last resort, try to discredit you. They will for instance say that you are not educated, or that you need to read a certain book/study a certain philosopher. Religious people may feel that you are evil, or that you are 'lost' and may ban or curse you. Scientists will count you as common people, that is; not as highly educated as they.

Psychological threat is connected to neuroses and to earlier experiences and to habits. When a person is used to sit in a certain place, he/she/it may be very disturbed if someone else is taking their place. When someone from a war hears new years poppers and become afraid, we have painful psychological traumas which come into action. Phobias are an interesting and rather simple case: Spider phobia can in most cases be treated with the common methods of gradually accustom the person to spiders. In some cases normal methods does not work, and in such cases psychoanalysis may help: The spider is subconsciously connected with the mother, and by 'analysing' the individuals relationship with the mother, the spider phobia often goes away!

Threat to world view is when someone or something threatens to change the way you look at, and understand the world. A scientifically minded person seldom looks for 'signs' or omens, which cannot be scientifically explained. [The closest this have come to science, to my knowledge, is with C.G Jung and the technical term 'synchronism']. Someone who is convinced that the earth is hollow may not accept seismological proofs of the opposite. If we where told that there exists people who can fly, we simply don't believe it. Perhaps we want to believe it, and leave the possibility of flying humans open, but that is another matter.

Threat to Ego is really the basic of all the above four. The Ego is the centre of the world, both metaphorically and in reality. The ego keeps an inventory of all things it knows about, and when the eyes register something it is immediately checked against the inventory, and we say 'ah, a chair' or 'ah, an aeroplane', or 'oh, a web page', or 'Funny object, never saw that one before, but looks a bit like a....' or ' ..its of that and that colour/complexity/shape...' etc. Thus everything we see is really an object on the inventory list, and this list is a part of the Ego, and thus everything we see is the Ego. Should we see something which cannot be directly matched against this list, a close match is made. This can be scientifically proven. The inventory upholds the world! The inventory creates the world! It is not surprising to find that these threats to the Ego are mortal threats. This is more or less what the Castanedian term Tonal is about. (The astute reader will notice that I have been a little sloppy with the terminology here...)

Threat to the Ego could really be called Threat to Tonal.

Tonal is threaten when others Tonals does not match. In a closed society there must be tonals which match on at least a certain number of points. When we have a mismatch, the individual may conform (or hide), or else the individual may be outcast. The alternative, if the individual is strong enough, is that he/she may manage to change everyone else's Tonals!

This is also the driving force behind war and religious mission, or political mission for that matter, or education. It is a matter of making as many people as possible take on your particular world view, and thus you will have less threat, and you will have a more 'stable ground' to stand on, and you will feel justified in your actions. If someone does not like what you like, your ego will feel threaten. If people does not see things the way you see it, you will feel threaten.

All of these points go into one another, and is simply a little (big) scheme of where an individual spends and locks up alot of energy. Every normal person has some configuration of these, everyone have a social position to defend, everyone wants to be recognized, everyone have a world view who he/she/it also wants others to agree with, and of course no one wants physical/psychological injury or uncomfortability.

Psychological patterns and oddities may have their origin in early childhood. A woman may be attracted to a certain kind of man, some men may feel intimidated by a strong woman. Some may have trouble with facing conflicts. Others may be of excessive violent nature, some may think that they are very 'good' individuals, some may lie to make others like them, some may have a very low self esteem, some may have a problem with eating too much/too little. In severe cases we have psychoses, which are a serious disruption of 'normal' behaviour and 'normal' world view, to the degree that the individual can no longer function properly (and may even die).

Saving Energy

An important assumption about energy is that it can be saved. The basic idea is that energy should be liberated from the above and put into effective use. Techniques include 'Erasing Personal History', 'To Be Unavailable' and 'Using Death as an Advisor'. The technique used for releasing energy from past interactions is called 'Recapitulation'. The practitioner should try to be focused on the 'here' and 'now'. (Remember the slogan from the sixties 'Be Here, Now' :-) Worries consumes a great deal of energy. [See W. Dyer for much more on the subject]. Habitual behaviour locks up alot of energy, and the technique to deal with this is called 'Not-Doing'. Then there is the issue of energy flows within the body, which is managed with 'Magical Passes' or, as it is also called, 'Tensegrity'. Outside of the castanedian system we find the use of breathing techniques to control energy flow within the body. This flow is called 'prana' in the Yoga systems and 'Chi' in Taoistic systems.

See ['Celestine Prophesy'] for info on energy looked up in social behaviours. Look here for my commentary in the insights.