I'm well-grounded in science and the the rationalist worldview. Imagine my wonder and curiosity when I went for a Reiki "initiation" and I could feel the "energy"!

I've worked with electricity, I understand that, if I feel something, a force is involved in the sense of Physics. I wasn't hallucinating, nor was there a Van de Graff generator concealed behind a screen. I'm more-or-less a Rational Materialist, so I immediately began to try to find the physics behind the "Chi" or "Ki" phenomenon. Fortunately, there was a well-stocked metaphysical library in my neighborhood at the time, (a physical library of books on all metaphysical subjects.) I began to spend hours a day there, poring over the books trying to find a rail on which to lodge my foot.

I discovered that "Chi" has been discovered and re-discovered several times in the West by many people, beginning with Mesmer[1], and including a Baron Carl von Reichenbach (who called it "the Odic force")[2], one William Walker Atkinson (who called it "Vril")[3], he was contemporaneous with the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui[4], and Wilhelm Reich (who called it "Orgone")[5].

That's not a complete list. Some investigators were more scientific than others, to put it mildly. But it's fair to say that this phenomenon has been known to and investigated by Westerners continuously for about three centuries, yet it has somehow never fully broken into consensus reality despite having been granted the benefit of the Scientific Method in at least a few cases.

I failed to find anyone who had developed any sort of mathematics or engineering around it. It's possible that it has something to do with EM. (I did find a lot of magic. There are more and stranger religions in our world than you can possibly imagine. I did discover that there is a sort of formula or algorithm in common to all prayer, magic, ritual, new age magical thinking wish-fulfillment, etc. Every single cult, religion, lodge, mystery school, etc. has the same basic structure to its magic regardless of the trappings or outer organization. But that's a tangent.)

My point is, "chi energy" is real, and it is the medium of emotions. Whatever emotions are they happen in this "chi field." You have experienced this yourself your whole life: the ineffable part of experiencing an emotion, the part that isn't proprioceptive feedback from your muscles and glands, is your subjective experience of a phenomenon that has a real physical existence. Your emotions extend out from your body for a meter or two. (The literature speaks of the "Emotional Body", and "aura".[6])

My meta-point is, we should do science to this. This is a body of knowledge clogged with nonsense and bullshit, and dogged by skepticism and apathy, "and yet it moves"[7]. I did experiments, other people felt it, it's real, whatever it is. (And in the case of Reiki it has the capacity to engender healing, which is pretty important and should also be scientifically investigated. But that's separate from the fact that we should investigate "Chi" in general.) If we want to understand emotions we have to study this "energy".

[1] 1734 – 1815 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer#Animal_magnetism

[2] 1788 – 1869 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force

[3] 1862 – 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_Atkinson

[4] 1865 – 1926 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikao_Usui

[5] 1897 – 1957 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(paranormal)

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_yet_it_moves