The “fluid dynamics” of energetic experience and the pitfalls of reifying this into an ectoplasmic medium reminds me of how electricity is often explained and understood as a current. This can make the less intuitive dynamics of electricity harder to understand, if we actually begin to believe (usually in an unexamined way) that electricity is a fluid medium.
Personally, I find the metaphor of electricity as water as very confusing, because I know its a metaphor. Similarly, using imagery can be useful, but only if there is a way that I can genuinely believe. Saying things like focus on the heat in your hand makes sense. Bring the fire element from your body into your hand does not, and I can't do it, unless I can implicitly make sense of the instruction in literal terms.
There is something quite important that is not so much about the "shape" of the subtle-body, but about the way it "flows"---the viscosity, turbulence, circulation, and density matter of the flow matter.
The “fluid dynamics” of energetic experience and the pitfalls of reifying this into an ectoplasmic medium reminds me of how electricity is often explained and understood as a current. This can make the less intuitive dynamics of electricity harder to understand, if we actually begin to believe (usually in an unexamined way) that electricity is a fluid medium.
Splendid! This is important to say. A decade ago I planned to write something quite similar (but never got to finish the draft).
Personally, I find the metaphor of electricity as water as very confusing, because I know its a metaphor. Similarly, using imagery can be useful, but only if there is a way that I can genuinely believe. Saying things like focus on the heat in your hand makes sense. Bring the fire element from your body into your hand does not, and I can't do it, unless I can implicitly make sense of the instruction in literal terms.
There is something quite important that is not so much about the "shape" of the subtle-body, but about the way it "flows"---the viscosity, turbulence, circulation, and density matter of the flow matter.
Will use this comment as a platform to promote the best text I have ever encountered on these matters:
The Lover Within: Opening to Energy in Sexual Practice Paperback – by Julie Henderson
Nominally about sex, but really about density, viscosity, and circulation.
From someone with both a Vajrayana and Reichian background.
A selection of ten exercise names from that text:
Guessing Field Extension
Guessing Field Density
Guessing Field Movement
Choosing a Boundary
Expanding and Contracting Your Field (and Boundary)
Field Distribution
Condensation and Diffusion
Ballooning
Compression
Practising Pulsation
Has seventy-eight explorations/exercises.
Ha! I actually have the book, but haven't read it yet. Will bump it up the stack