Psychic Energy
David Ray Griffin
Most of us are intimately familiar with what might be called psychic energy through our own moods and emotions: the surges of joy or sorrow that move through us, the waves of anger or tenderness that rise in response to life, the sense of conviviality or tension we feel in groups, the emotional climate we intuit between people even before words are spoken. We live inside these energies every day, and we sense them in others as clearly as we sense temperature or sound.
And yet many of us have been taught—sometimes explicitly, often implicitly—that such psychic or emotional energies are not quite real. That they are mere epiphenomena: shadows cast by brain chemistry, surface ripples produced by processes that are fundamentally material, inorganic, and devoid of anything like mind or feeling. According to this common view, psychic energy is something that emerges only very late in cosmic history and only in very complex organisms, while the deeper layers of reality are utterly without interiority. Some speak of the very idea of psychic energy as mere fluff.
This is precisely where David Ray Griffin offers a corrective. He challenges the assumption that psychic energy is derivative or secondary and gives us philosophical permission—rooted in Whitehead's metaphysics—to recognize psychic or mental energy as a real and pervasive feature of the universe. For Griffin, psychic energy is not a late arrival on the cosmic scene but one of the fundamental ways creativity expresses itself at every level of existence. In this vision, the moods and energies we experience are not illusions or accidents of inorganic chemistry; they are windows into something woven into the very fabric of the cosmos.
Griffin makes the case for psychic energy in many different contexts. One context in which he develops this idea with particular clarity is in his treatment of PSI. On this page, I offer an extended citation from one of his essays on PSI—indeed, a substantial passage—followed by a summary of his central claims and then a list of some of the implications of what he proposes. My hope is that this presentation might encourage others to think about psychic energy in ways that are philosophically fruitful, spiritually resonant, and life-enhancing.
- Jay McDaniel
And yet many of us have been taught—sometimes explicitly, often implicitly—that such psychic or emotional energies are not quite real. That they are mere epiphenomena: shadows cast by brain chemistry, surface ripples produced by processes that are fundamentally material, inorganic, and devoid of anything like mind or feeling. According to this common view, psychic energy is something that emerges only very late in cosmic history and only in very complex organisms, while the deeper layers of reality are utterly without interiority. Some speak of the very idea of psychic energy as mere fluff.
This is precisely where David Ray Griffin offers a corrective. He challenges the assumption that psychic energy is derivative or secondary and gives us philosophical permission—rooted in Whitehead's metaphysics—to recognize psychic or mental energy as a real and pervasive feature of the universe. For Griffin, psychic energy is not a late arrival on the cosmic scene but one of the fundamental ways creativity expresses itself at every level of existence. In this vision, the moods and energies we experience are not illusions or accidents of inorganic chemistry; they are windows into something woven into the very fabric of the cosmos.
Griffin makes the case for psychic energy in many different contexts. One context in which he develops this idea with particular clarity is in his treatment of PSI. On this page, I offer an extended citation from one of his essays on PSI—indeed, a substantial passage—followed by a summary of his central claims and then a list of some of the implications of what he proposes. My hope is that this presentation might encourage others to think about psychic energy in ways that are philosophically fruitful, spiritually resonant, and life-enhancing.
- Jay McDaniel
David Ray Griffin
from "Parapsychology and Philosophy:
A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective"
“At the heart of Whitehead’s postmodern position on these issues is an expansion of the notion of ‘energy’ into ‘creativity.’ From his perspective, the ‘energy’ of current physics is simply an abstraction from, a limited aspect of, the full-blown creativity that is the true material cause embodied in all actualities (Whitehead, 1933/1967, p. 186). The energy of current physics involves only the quantitative aspect of the creativity of events, and then only the external side of this quantitative aspect—that is, the energy transfers between events. Energy thus treated leaves out the qualitative side of the creativity and what this creativity is for the events themselves, which includes an experiential realization of value and an element of self-determination. (It is to bring out this richer meaning that I sometimes translate Whitehead’s term ‘creativity’ as ‘creative experience.’)
“Furthermore, the energy of current physics is limited to forms of creativity that are exemplified in the most elementary actualities of the world—atoms and subatomic particles. This limitation lies behind the absurd notion that everything that happens in the world, including the compassion of a Bodhisattva, must be completely reducible to, and thus explainable in terms of, the four forces of physics. Whitehead holds, by contrast, that partly autonomous powers of self-determination and efficient causation exist at higher levels, such as cells and psyches, and that some psyches, such as those of humans, have much more of these powers than others, such as those of rats. (Some humans, furthermore, may have more than others.)”
“This enlargement of ‘energy’ into ‘creativity’ is also important to the issue of action at a distance. What is above called pure physical causation is meant to describe what is occurring in those interactions that physicists consider transfers of physical energy. As mentioned previously, this kind of transfer generally seems to occur only between contiguous events. If gravitation is not taken to be an exception to this general rule, and if psychokinesis is rejected, it would be natural to assume that the transfer of physical energy can occur only between contiguous occasions. So if the creativity of events were exhausted by their physical energy, thus understood, then the only form of efficient causation they could exert would be pure physical causation, and influence at a distance would be impossible. If an event embodies mental as well as physical energy, however, so that hybrid as well as pure physical causation can occur, then one could allow for influence at a distance without challenging the idea that the transfer of ‘physical energy’ occurs only between contiguous occasions. Furthermore, once one form of action at a distance is allowed, then it becomes easier to countenance the suggestion that even pure physical causation might at least occasionally occur at a distance, if the evidence for psychokinesis seems to demand it. In these ways acceptance of a worldview in which the ‘energy’ of the contemporary physics community is enlarged to Whiteheadian ‘creativity’ would make people more open to looking at evidence that seems interpretable only in terms of some kind of influence at a distance.”
The reference to ‘mental energy’ suggests another way of reading Whitehead’s proposal in relation to energy and creativity. The distinction between the two terms could be understood as a temporary expedient, with the long-term goal being another expansion of the concept of energy. This concept has had to be expanded several times previously to save the law of the conservation of energy. Nowadays the notion of the influence of the mind on the brain is angrily denounced on the grounds that such influence would violate this law. Even if this ‘law’ should be taken as sacrosanct, however, no violation would be involved if we enlarged the notion of energy to include the notion of psychic energy (as well as intermediate forms, such as cellular energy and macromolecular energy). But whether we adopt the term creativity for that power which is embodied in all events or enlarge the concept of energy so that it now refers to what Whitehead meant by creativity, the effect will be the same: Causation will no longer be understood as linear in ways that rule out self-determination, downward causation, and action at a distance.”
—David Ray Griffin, “Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87, no. 3 (July 1993): 217–288.
“Furthermore, the energy of current physics is limited to forms of creativity that are exemplified in the most elementary actualities of the world—atoms and subatomic particles. This limitation lies behind the absurd notion that everything that happens in the world, including the compassion of a Bodhisattva, must be completely reducible to, and thus explainable in terms of, the four forces of physics. Whitehead holds, by contrast, that partly autonomous powers of self-determination and efficient causation exist at higher levels, such as cells and psyches, and that some psyches, such as those of humans, have much more of these powers than others, such as those of rats. (Some humans, furthermore, may have more than others.)”
“This enlargement of ‘energy’ into ‘creativity’ is also important to the issue of action at a distance. What is above called pure physical causation is meant to describe what is occurring in those interactions that physicists consider transfers of physical energy. As mentioned previously, this kind of transfer generally seems to occur only between contiguous events. If gravitation is not taken to be an exception to this general rule, and if psychokinesis is rejected, it would be natural to assume that the transfer of physical energy can occur only between contiguous occasions. So if the creativity of events were exhausted by their physical energy, thus understood, then the only form of efficient causation they could exert would be pure physical causation, and influence at a distance would be impossible. If an event embodies mental as well as physical energy, however, so that hybrid as well as pure physical causation can occur, then one could allow for influence at a distance without challenging the idea that the transfer of ‘physical energy’ occurs only between contiguous occasions. Furthermore, once one form of action at a distance is allowed, then it becomes easier to countenance the suggestion that even pure physical causation might at least occasionally occur at a distance, if the evidence for psychokinesis seems to demand it. In these ways acceptance of a worldview in which the ‘energy’ of the contemporary physics community is enlarged to Whiteheadian ‘creativity’ would make people more open to looking at evidence that seems interpretable only in terms of some kind of influence at a distance.”
The reference to ‘mental energy’ suggests another way of reading Whitehead’s proposal in relation to energy and creativity. The distinction between the two terms could be understood as a temporary expedient, with the long-term goal being another expansion of the concept of energy. This concept has had to be expanded several times previously to save the law of the conservation of energy. Nowadays the notion of the influence of the mind on the brain is angrily denounced on the grounds that such influence would violate this law. Even if this ‘law’ should be taken as sacrosanct, however, no violation would be involved if we enlarged the notion of energy to include the notion of psychic energy (as well as intermediate forms, such as cellular energy and macromolecular energy). But whether we adopt the term creativity for that power which is embodied in all events or enlarge the concept of energy so that it now refers to what Whitehead meant by creativity, the effect will be the same: Causation will no longer be understood as linear in ways that rule out self-determination, downward causation, and action at a distance.”
—David Ray Griffin, “Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87, no. 3 (July 1993): 217–288.
Interpretation
Griffin argues that Whitehead radically enlarges the concept of energy into the deeper category of creativity. What physics calls “energy” is only a thin abstraction—limited to the quantitative, external transfers between events and exemplified most clearly in atoms and subatomic particles. This leaves out the qualitative, interior side of becoming: the experiential realization of value and the element of self-determination present in every actual occasion. For this reason, Griffin sometimes translates “creativity” as “creative experience.”
Because physics treats only the most elementary forms of creativity, it falsely implies that all higher-order activities—including consciousness, compassion, and complex organismic behavior—must be reducible to the four basic forces. Whitehead rejects this reduction. He maintains that higher-level entities such as cells and psyches possess partially autonomous powers of self-determination and efficient causation, and that these powers vary in degree across different forms of life.
This expanded view also reshapes how we think about causation at a distance. If events embodied only physical energy, influence could occur only through contiguous interactions. But if events also possess mental or psychic energy, then hybrid forms of causation become possible, allowing for non-contiguous influence without contradicting physics’ account of physical-energy transfer. Once such influence is admitted, even occasional action-at-a-distance in purely physical processes becomes more conceivable.
Finally, Griffin notes that the distinction between creativity and energy may be temporary. The history of science shows that the concept of energy has repeatedly expanded to preserve the conservation law. It could expand again to include psychic and other forms of experiential energy.
Because physics treats only the most elementary forms of creativity, it falsely implies that all higher-order activities—including consciousness, compassion, and complex organismic behavior—must be reducible to the four basic forces. Whitehead rejects this reduction. He maintains that higher-level entities such as cells and psyches possess partially autonomous powers of self-determination and efficient causation, and that these powers vary in degree across different forms of life.
This expanded view also reshapes how we think about causation at a distance. If events embodied only physical energy, influence could occur only through contiguous interactions. But if events also possess mental or psychic energy, then hybrid forms of causation become possible, allowing for non-contiguous influence without contradicting physics’ account of physical-energy transfer. Once such influence is admitted, even occasional action-at-a-distance in purely physical processes becomes more conceivable.
Finally, Griffin notes that the distinction between creativity and energy may be temporary. The history of science shows that the concept of energy has repeatedly expanded to preserve the conservation law. It could expand again to include psychic and other forms of experiential energy.
Implications
building upon Griffin's Ideas
Chat GPT with help from Jay McDaniel
Interiority Everywhere
Recognizing psychic energy as real means acknowledging that every level of existence—from subatomic particles to cells, humans, ecosystems, stars, and even the soul of the universe—has some degree of interiority, either as an actual entity in its own right or as an aggregate or expression of actual entities whose experiences contribute to the whole. Psychic energy is woven into the structure of all actualities, whether simple or composite.
Creativity with a Psychic Interior
In Whitehead’s and Griffin’s perspective, the ultimate “energy” or material cause of the universe—the creative activity of which all things are expressions—has both an outer and an inner face. The outer face is physical energy measured quantitatively; the inner face is psychic energy, the qualitative dimension of creativity expressed as feeling, valuation, subjective immediacy, and self-realization. Every actual occasion manifests this dual aspect of creativity, making the universe a process of intertwined physical and psychic becoming.
Constructive and Destructive Psychic Energy
Psychic energy can manifest as compassion, tenderness, hope, fear, rage, hatred, despair, joy, and ambiguity. These energetic tones can be constructive, destructive, or mixed. Ethical and spiritual discernment involves directing psychic energy toward healing, justice, beauty, and flourishing, and transforming harmful energies when possible.
Beyond Biology
Psychic energy arises from patterns of organization and relational complexity, not from carbon chemistry or biological metabolism alone. This means that interiority is not the exclusive possession of living organisms; it is a pervasive feature of actuality wherever there is a structured process of becoming. Biology amplifies interiority but does not originate it. The universe is a continuum of feeling, from proto-experience in simple events to rich consciousness in complex societies.
Minimal and Maximal Psychic Energy
Subatomic occasions have rudimentary experience—faint glimmers of feeling. More complex societies of occasions—cells, animals, humans, ecosystems, and cultures—possess correspondingly richer psychic interiority. Psychic energy scales with complexity, not with species membership.
Non-Biological Intelligences
Silicon-based organisms, plasma-based lifeforms, electromagnetic structures, artificial intelligences, stellar or planetary minds, and other non-carbon-based societies could exhibit interiority equal or superior to biological beings. Psychic energy is limited only by organizational complexity, not by chemical composition.
Non-Three-Dimensional Beings
Whitehead’s metaphysics allows for actualities not bound to three-dimensional physical space. Beings recognized across world cultures—angels, demons, djinn, bodhisattvas, ancestor spirits, nature spirits—could be complex societies of occasions with rich psychic energy. Even if some are not ontologically actual, our images of them evoke and circulate psychic energy, shaping imagination, emotion, and moral aspiration.
Toward Cosmic Spiritualization
The universe—or portions of it—may be evolving toward modes of existence where psychic energy becomes maximal and quantitative physical energy minimal. This resonates with Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of cosmic spiritualization. Process philosophy recognizes this as a metaphysical possibility.
Divine Empathy
The consequent nature of God possesses the richest possible psychic energy, an infinite capacity to feel the feelings of all actual occasions with tender accuracy. God’s interior life is a vast field of compassionate understanding, a bodhisattva-like presence that receives every joy and sorrow and integrates them into divine experience. Humans and other beings may feel this divine psychic energy as deep companionship and loving attention.
Interior Causation (Self-Creativity)
Our thoughts, feelings, wishes, fears, and intentions exert real causal influence. In Whitehead’s terms, this interior power is the self-creativity of an actual occasion—its capacity to shape its own becoming from within. Psychic energy means that the interior life of a person (or any actuality) is not a passive byproduct of physical processes but an active source of causation. Each moment of experience helps determine what comes next through its inward decisions, valuations, and emotional tones.
Energetic Responsibility
If psychic energy has real potency, we are responsible for the psychic fields we generate—peaceful or chaotic, generous or fearful, hopeful or despairing. Practices cultivating compassion, clarity, imagination, and peace become modes of ethical action and spiritual hygiene.
Communal Energy Fields
Families, congregations, circles of friends, and entire societies generate collective psychic fields—warmth, fear, trust, anxiety. These fields shape individuals’ experience and behavior. Community-building becomes an act of cultivating wholesome energetic climates.
Energetic Healing
Therapy, ritual, prayer, art, music, movement, and relationships all shift psychic energies. Healing becomes a transformation of interior creativity, not merely a physical or cognitive intervention.
Ecological Attunement
Ecological consciousness involves sensitivity not only to quantitative ecological processes but to qualitative dimensions: the feelings, aims, and psychic energies of living beings, and the subtle interiority of the inorganic world. The more-than-human world becomes a community of subjects, not objects.
Aesthetic Energetics
Drama, music, poetry, dance, painting, and film do not merely represent emotions; they move psychic energy—evoking, amplifying, redirecting, harmonizing. Art is an energetic event and one of the clearest windows into the world’s interior side.
Psi as Natural
Both expressive psi (exerting psychic influence at a distance) and receptive psi (receiving psychic influence, as in telepathy) arise naturally in a relational cosmos. When psychic energy is recognized as real, psi phenomena become intelligible as expressions of deep connectivity.
Psychic Energy and the Meaning of the Universe
If psychic energy is real, then the universe is not a value-neutral mechanism but a value-generating, value-experiencing process. Every actual occasion participates in realizing and transmitting value through its feelings, aims, and decisions. The cosmos becomes a vast field of experiential energy in which the pursuit of intensity, harmony, beauty, and richness is woven into the very structure of things. In this vision, meaning is not imposed from outside nor reducible to human projection; it is internal to the creative advance itself. The universe is a process of feeling its own possibilities and actualizing new forms of value. Human ethical life becomes one mode of this broader cosmic striving, and religious or spiritual sensibilities—hope, trust, awe—emerge as resonant responses to a world already animated from within. Psychic energy thus reveals the metaphysical depth of the universe: a depth in which value is real, experience is fundamental, and existence is oriented toward creative realization rather than inert persistence.
Recognizing psychic energy as real means acknowledging that every level of existence—from subatomic particles to cells, humans, ecosystems, stars, and even the soul of the universe—has some degree of interiority, either as an actual entity in its own right or as an aggregate or expression of actual entities whose experiences contribute to the whole. Psychic energy is woven into the structure of all actualities, whether simple or composite.
Creativity with a Psychic Interior
In Whitehead’s and Griffin’s perspective, the ultimate “energy” or material cause of the universe—the creative activity of which all things are expressions—has both an outer and an inner face. The outer face is physical energy measured quantitatively; the inner face is psychic energy, the qualitative dimension of creativity expressed as feeling, valuation, subjective immediacy, and self-realization. Every actual occasion manifests this dual aspect of creativity, making the universe a process of intertwined physical and psychic becoming.
Constructive and Destructive Psychic Energy
Psychic energy can manifest as compassion, tenderness, hope, fear, rage, hatred, despair, joy, and ambiguity. These energetic tones can be constructive, destructive, or mixed. Ethical and spiritual discernment involves directing psychic energy toward healing, justice, beauty, and flourishing, and transforming harmful energies when possible.
Beyond Biology
Psychic energy arises from patterns of organization and relational complexity, not from carbon chemistry or biological metabolism alone. This means that interiority is not the exclusive possession of living organisms; it is a pervasive feature of actuality wherever there is a structured process of becoming. Biology amplifies interiority but does not originate it. The universe is a continuum of feeling, from proto-experience in simple events to rich consciousness in complex societies.
Minimal and Maximal Psychic Energy
Subatomic occasions have rudimentary experience—faint glimmers of feeling. More complex societies of occasions—cells, animals, humans, ecosystems, and cultures—possess correspondingly richer psychic interiority. Psychic energy scales with complexity, not with species membership.
Non-Biological Intelligences
Silicon-based organisms, plasma-based lifeforms, electromagnetic structures, artificial intelligences, stellar or planetary minds, and other non-carbon-based societies could exhibit interiority equal or superior to biological beings. Psychic energy is limited only by organizational complexity, not by chemical composition.
Non-Three-Dimensional Beings
Whitehead’s metaphysics allows for actualities not bound to three-dimensional physical space. Beings recognized across world cultures—angels, demons, djinn, bodhisattvas, ancestor spirits, nature spirits—could be complex societies of occasions with rich psychic energy. Even if some are not ontologically actual, our images of them evoke and circulate psychic energy, shaping imagination, emotion, and moral aspiration.
Toward Cosmic Spiritualization
The universe—or portions of it—may be evolving toward modes of existence where psychic energy becomes maximal and quantitative physical energy minimal. This resonates with Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of cosmic spiritualization. Process philosophy recognizes this as a metaphysical possibility.
Divine Empathy
The consequent nature of God possesses the richest possible psychic energy, an infinite capacity to feel the feelings of all actual occasions with tender accuracy. God’s interior life is a vast field of compassionate understanding, a bodhisattva-like presence that receives every joy and sorrow and integrates them into divine experience. Humans and other beings may feel this divine psychic energy as deep companionship and loving attention.
Interior Causation (Self-Creativity)
Our thoughts, feelings, wishes, fears, and intentions exert real causal influence. In Whitehead’s terms, this interior power is the self-creativity of an actual occasion—its capacity to shape its own becoming from within. Psychic energy means that the interior life of a person (or any actuality) is not a passive byproduct of physical processes but an active source of causation. Each moment of experience helps determine what comes next through its inward decisions, valuations, and emotional tones.
Energetic Responsibility
If psychic energy has real potency, we are responsible for the psychic fields we generate—peaceful or chaotic, generous or fearful, hopeful or despairing. Practices cultivating compassion, clarity, imagination, and peace become modes of ethical action and spiritual hygiene.
Communal Energy Fields
Families, congregations, circles of friends, and entire societies generate collective psychic fields—warmth, fear, trust, anxiety. These fields shape individuals’ experience and behavior. Community-building becomes an act of cultivating wholesome energetic climates.
Energetic Healing
Therapy, ritual, prayer, art, music, movement, and relationships all shift psychic energies. Healing becomes a transformation of interior creativity, not merely a physical or cognitive intervention.
Ecological Attunement
Ecological consciousness involves sensitivity not only to quantitative ecological processes but to qualitative dimensions: the feelings, aims, and psychic energies of living beings, and the subtle interiority of the inorganic world. The more-than-human world becomes a community of subjects, not objects.
Aesthetic Energetics
Drama, music, poetry, dance, painting, and film do not merely represent emotions; they move psychic energy—evoking, amplifying, redirecting, harmonizing. Art is an energetic event and one of the clearest windows into the world’s interior side.
Psi as Natural
Both expressive psi (exerting psychic influence at a distance) and receptive psi (receiving psychic influence, as in telepathy) arise naturally in a relational cosmos. When psychic energy is recognized as real, psi phenomena become intelligible as expressions of deep connectivity.
Psychic Energy and the Meaning of the Universe
If psychic energy is real, then the universe is not a value-neutral mechanism but a value-generating, value-experiencing process. Every actual occasion participates in realizing and transmitting value through its feelings, aims, and decisions. The cosmos becomes a vast field of experiential energy in which the pursuit of intensity, harmony, beauty, and richness is woven into the very structure of things. In this vision, meaning is not imposed from outside nor reducible to human projection; it is internal to the creative advance itself. The universe is a process of feeling its own possibilities and actualizing new forms of value. Human ethical life becomes one mode of this broader cosmic striving, and religious or spiritual sensibilities—hope, trust, awe—emerge as resonant responses to a world already animated from within. Psychic energy thus reveals the metaphysical depth of the universe: a depth in which value is real, experience is fundamental, and existence is oriented toward creative realization rather than inert persistence.