No one doubts that we constantly compete with each other for attention, respect, prestige, etc., or that the desire to obtain these psychological goods at the expense of others is the source of much of the social friction in the world. The only unorthodox aspect of this insight is the claim that these goods are actually different forms of a visible energy. Again, the Theosophists would have recognized all these ideas, and energy vampirism has been a well-discussed topic in occult circles for many decades. See, for example, Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense.