Sounds like a strange question!?   Why ask it, and what has it got to do with Personal Development?
The reason for asking this question is because it demonstrates a misconception with regard to ‘chi’, other ‘energy’ phenomena scientific minded people object to, as well as psychic phenomena and healing, etc. It is important to Personal Development because you will have to deal with ‘debunkers’ (people who want to debunk your experience or open-minded exploration of the power of your mind, but wrongly use the ‘sceptic scientist’ persona as their justification and presumed credibility).

Of course electricity exists, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see this post using an ‘electrical’ appliance such as a computer!!?

However, if I were a sceptical scientist who had never heard of electricity, then I’d say this is just ‘anecdotal’ evidence, and maybe something ‘else’ is powering the computer.  If you have experienced any kind of psychic phenomena or Spiritual Healing, then tried to explain your experience to a sceptic (read, debunker, as few are true sceptics), you may hear exactly this kind of statement. The true sceptic would be willing to help you research exactly what you experienced while the debunker will usually have NO explanation; or at best try to explain it away by suggesting 'fraud', 'tricks', or 'delusion' mixed possibly with something about a psychological experiment which 'proves people are susceptible to suggestion' (or some other idea that makes huge presumptions about people's motives or the circumstances so as to make your experience fit their belief system).

Before we can establish the existence of something we should define what it is we want to prove exists. Then we can create an experiment to see if phenomena described actually exists.

So, for ‘electricity’ we could use a common sense definition: Electricity = the electrons that power my electrical appliances at home, and will give me an electric shock if I touch the wire.

Now we can create a simple experiments to see if there really is ‘power’ coming out of the socket in the wall, and if that 'power' is electrons?

DO NOT TRY THIS ANYWHERE!

We know that sticking our fingers in the sockets at the wall-plug will cause an electric shock! Proof there is ‘power’ coming out of the socket. Further investigation will establish it to be 240 Volts (in the UK) of electromagnetic current, and 13 Amps of electron charge flowing in the metal wire. But, when we investigate the 'shock' within the human body, we find that the current in the electrolytes are flows of electrified atoms. These are flows of 'ion atoms', NOT electrons! No electrons come out of the wire!

There are a whole bunch of misconceptions and wrong assumptions about electricity, not least the definition itself. When you really get down to researching it, the only conclusion you can reasonably come to is 'electricity' IS a name given to a category of phenomena (like 'physics' is a name of a category of science, but you will never be able to 'prove' there is a phenomena called a ''physics').

There is NO phenomena that exists which is ‘electricity’; but there are many phenomena that are assigned to this category of phenomena. Have a look at the website, http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html for tons of information on electricity so as to correct the misinformation in the national curriculum at school & college.

To say something ‘exists’, is to suggest there is a discreet phenomena, a specific thing, we can point to and test it’s authenticity as existing. Therefore 'electricity' does NOT exist (other than a name given to a group of phenomena and whole bunch of misconceptions perpetuated by dictionaries, teachers and science books).

Does Chi exist?

So, is the energy known as Chi, or Qui, a discreet phenomena upon which we can do an experiment to establish its existence?  Or is it a word used for a collection of phenomena (like the word electricity)?  Since the acupuncture points and meridians have been proven to have electrical properties, could the word Chi, include electrical (energy) phenomena?

Do ghosts exist, or is it an hallucination caused by electromagnetic anomalies?

When a sceptic tries to explain away the appearance of a ghostly figure by showing there are electromagnetic anomalies in the area 'that cause hallucinations' (of course, they're assuming it causes hallucinations otherwise how else could more than one person see an apparition that couldn't possibly exist!); are they really explaining, or just exclaiming their ignorance of what the ‘anomaly’ is or their limited knowledge of electrical phenomena?  It amuses me there are currently scientists researching and finding new phenomena within the realm of electrics, yet there is an assumption among debunkers that they know everything there is to know about electrical and other phenomena.

I not objecting to someone having a 'different theory' based upon current scientific ignorance/understanding, but I do object to the way a debunker will:

• never try to 'scientifically prove' their theory, while dismissing alternative theories.
• state their theory as FACT, while ignoring any factual information that doesn't fit into their belief system.
• presume the high ground in any debate and call your experimentation pseudo-science, while making unscientific claims (claims that go beyond the 'evidence') based upon zero experimentation; or based upon experiments (like James Randi's unscientific experiments on stage) done on something different but will suffice to put doubt, by association, upon our explanation.
• miss-represent the thing they object to, or make incorrect statements about what the founders believe, etc.

If you want to see this in action, go to the site http://www.quackwatch.com where the Medical Drs do a great job of rubbishing every complementary therapy known.

My approach to questions about hard to prove phenomena.

When someone wants to discuss a particular subject (eg: collective unconscious - theorised by Carl Jung) I first of all want to make sure we are talking about the same thing: is it the Akashic Record, or the 100 monkey theory, or something else?  We can then look at what others have done to prove their theories on the specific phenomena, and maybe do an experiment ourselves to see if we can replicate the experience.  And if we get a different experience, does this mean the originators were telling lies or have we simply tapped into different phenomena that may be something within the category of phenomena called collective unconscious? I'd also look for any scientific evidence for and against. Is there a scientific theory that supports the experience of people who claim to have experienced the collective unconscious (such as Sheldrake's Morphic Fields)?

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Let us know what you think of this article – useful? And if you have any thoughts on any of the subjects mentioned here, please feel free to comment in the forums.  If you want to add your own article, get in touch with the SICIC Team via their profile.