I would also like to say that even if it's being used as a placeholder for "certain things observed", and that there is a method to increase said Observed Things, that doesn't mean the placeholder is anything more than a convenient way of saying "I dunno".
After all, the Reactive Mind and Engrams are Observed Things in Scientology, yet I'm sure most of us would call bullshit if we discussed them as "real".*
*The fact that if you do excercise X you'll get a result Y is one of the strongest selling points of Scientology. The trick is that they don't have to PROVE that it happened because of Z, because you've already got result Y.
Something is happening. Its happening in the open, not in some closed in room with a phony machine. People are becoming healthier by standing in one place and cultivating and manipulating chi. Whatever chi is, I don't know, but something is going on. I don't just have to observe it in others either, I can do it myself (and unlike with Scientology, I can do it for free) and I can see the difference in myself. I don't use any fancy rituals or language for it, I just do it, stripped bare, and its doing something, and that something has observable benefits. It doesn't require buying into something, and it doesn't require belief beyond experience, no trickery involved, no lying, no SP's, etc. And I think most of you would agree that there isn't a level of disrespecting other people that goes into the process, it seems like the opposite happens.
I'm not going to argue any more than that.