The Mystery of Life Energy

I’ve heard former President Donald Trump called many things over the years, but never a vampire. However, a recent comment by journalist E. Jean Carroll after winning her defamation suit against Trump brought out an interesting life-energy angle to the legal proceedings. This subtle energy component was overshadowed by the headlines, but was highlighted by some post-trial comments from the plaintiff. She described how terrified she was of having to speak in court, to the point that she actually lost her voice several days before the trial. But once the proceedings began, something shifted dramatically for her. Here’s her description of what happened:

“But oddly, we went into court, [lawyer] Robbie [Kaplan] took the lectern, I sat in the witness chair like this. And she said, ‘Miss Carroll, good morning. Would you please state your name for the court?’” Carroll recounted. “And amazingly, I looked out, and he [Mr. Trump] was nothing. He was nothing. He was a phantom…it was the people around him who were giving him power, he himself was nothing.”

This was a concise description of energy vampirism, the term for people seem highly animated and vital during your interactions with them, but leave you feeling strangely depleted and drained afterwards: that’s  because they’ve sucked you dry. This process has been the subject of such recent books as Energy Vampires: How to Protect Yourself from Toxic People (Kevin Adams, 2023).

These books all highlight how sensitive or empathic people are especially prone to this type of manipulation. The phenomenon of charisma is the flip side of vampirism, because some people can build such an overflow of energy or star power that people are drawn into their orbit, like moths to the flame.

Many people can generate their own charismatic energy through their enthusiasm, love, and alignment with purpose. But others need to feed off an external source, which is usually the attention and admiration of their fans and devotees. Narcissistic people are defined by their need for this attention, this energy, from other people. Performers on stage literally get addicted to fan adulation, and so do certain politicians (regardless of party), with media attention being another key way to generate the energy of attention. And in the case of Mr. Trump, this process was even apparent to Ms. Carroll, who, as far as I know, is not trained in energy medicine or biofield science: “it was the people around him who were giving him power”.

To put Ms. Carroll’s observations in biofield terms, Mr. Trump’s aura was inflated through the attentions of the people around him – that is his primary method to generate personal power or vitality. He’s not exactly an energetic black hole – he has his own chakras and meridians – but his biofield is sustained and enlarged by the adulation of his followers. His frequencies aren’t set for behaviors like caring or compassion, so his relationships are always transactional – he only recognizes people who can do something for him by sending him energy (or money).

To be clear, his rallies (and most large gatherings, whether political, musical, sporting or the like) are energizing for the participants. As opposed to one-on-one sessions with a narcissist that can be draining, large crowds can get very “amped up” by their leader. The difference is in the frequency, the “vibe” – the group’s energetic tuning forks can be set to lower, shadow emotions like anger and resentment, or higher aspirations like hope and love. Either way, the same mechanism of biofield amplification is used by some of the greatest mobilizers on the world stage, for better or worse.

Ms. Carroll also hinted at another of my favorite metaphors for energy resilience: “It was an astonishing discovery for me,” she added. “He’s nothing, we don’t need to be afraid of him. He can be knocked down.”  He’s just like the gyroscope in Chapter 4, which can bounce right back from any knock or trauma if it’s spinning rapidly enough. But as the spinning slows down,  it can no longer recover from being knocked down. So, to put words in Ms. Carroll’s mouth, Mr. Trump had so little of his own personal power that his personal gyroscope “can be knocked down” if it’s not being spun by legions of his MAGA followers.

In other words, the emperor has no clothes.

Book link: Group Energies: Charisma/personal space. pp188-191.