n every part of the world, already thousands of years ago, humans have speculated about some kind of life force. In China it is called qi (also spelled chi), in India prana, in ancient Greece pneuma, in Latin Spiritus, and in Hebrew ruach. There are hundreds of life energy beliefs, ancient and con­temporary, which have many similarities.
     This encyclopedia presents and explains them all.
     In the introduction, distant origins of human thought are traced, examining how spiritual beliefs and life force ideas emerged, and how they were developed through time.

Stefan Stenudd is an author and historian of ideas, who researches the thought patterns of myth in general and creation myths in particular. He is also a high-grade instructor of the peaceful and spiritual martial art aikido, since more than 30 years. Aikido, too, evolved from ideas of a life energy.


The contents
Here is the book's table of contents:

Foreword 7
Introduction 9
Homo rudis 9
Life and death 10
The mover 11
Prime mover 11
Air 13
Bodily fluids 15
Survival 16
The dead 18
Spirits 19
Hell 21
Change 24
Agricultual order 27
A demanding spirit 29
Magic 30
The Scientific Revolution 33
Mechanical man 34
Subversive spirits 35
Alien forces 38
Future speculations 40
Encyclopedia 43


Samples
Here are two extracts from the book, as Acrobat PDF files in computer screen resolution (72 DPI):
     From the introduction
     From the encyclopedia


How to get the book
If you want to buy the book, you can do so at most international web based bookstores, such as Amazon and the like. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

Buy the book at Amazon:

Life Energy Encyclopedia
Qi, Prana, Spirit, and Other Life Forces around the World
by Stefan Stenudd
BookSurge, 2008
Paperback, 142 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4392-0068-1