In Daf Yomi, one relevant sugya just came up this week, in Avoda Zorah 27b.
There we learn of an issur (prohibition) of עבודה-זרה
that does NOT require ANY ACT of Avoda (worship).
This prohibition applies to merely benefiting from a mystical/ non-understood therapy – when it’s effectiveness (real or not) is merely being attributed to some Avoda Zorah notion/ entity/ force.
That attribution is itself kefirah, a heretical belief. That’s because it implies that Avoda Zorah has some INHERENT power to help or harm, on IT’S OWN IMAGINED WILL.
The general principle is: As Jews, we are required to give up our lives to avoid benefiting or using any mystical therapy attributed to Avoda- Zorah.
This is cited as actual Halacha lema’aseh in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Daiyoh 155:1, at the end.
See Minchas Yitzchak 6:80, end, re that Halacha. On p.112 (col.2), he applies this prohibition to a case of Kishuf. Even though one could reasonably attribute the reported effects to Kishuf, the attribution to Avoda Zorah prohibits it even in a case of danger to life.
Energy therapies are all definitely mystical. There is no sane natural /scientific explanation for any of them. (The New Age pseudoscientific nonsense used to market this to dupey clients is not only filled with lunacy, it’s fulled with New Age missionary propaganda).
Nor do these “energy” therapies and techniques even operate consistently enough to be considered natural – albeit non-understood – phenomenon.
Ok, so they’re mystical. But do they involve attribution to Avoda Zorah?
Well, Reik-i certainly does. It’s considered a loving, benevolent force, ie. maitiv on its own imagined “will.”
But what about all those other Universal Energy methods and systems making money for New-Age practitioners?
Is any crazy therapy attributed to Ch-i automatically presumed to reach the level of severity of Avoda Zorah?
Well, yes. And I’m sorry so many people need to lose money here, but this bubble is overdue a big pop.
Ch-i therapies claim that they work with a “koach baGuf,” a force subject to gashmiyus limitations. Eg. they imagine they can channel Ch-i, that it occupies physical locations in bodies, that it flows, gets clogged up and unclogged.
At the same time, they describe this force as THE force that animates the entire Creation.
We know ONLY G-d animates the Universe.
Thus, this is a denial of G-d, or attribution of physical aspects to Him. Both are kefirah.
So either way, Ch-i, K-I, Pran-a, Universal Energy, ad nauseum, all are some form of High Heresy.
So any attribution to them would render your NON-Reik-i, non-volitional, “sanitized” “energy therapy prohibited across the board, “yaihoraig ve’Al yaavor,” be’pshutoh.
There are other arguments that reach this same basic conclusion, but this one should suffice for those seeking the truth. And for all the others, sorry we can’t help you.