Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-1512913-20150116120105/@comment-25708482-20150118092654

I'd like to think that energy in general similar to chakra from shinju was always present in some form or that chakra made from the shinju was the byproduct of gathering this. For example Natural energy is stated to be found in the atmousphere and terrain, nature if you will. The shinju is made of mostly natural energy and plants feed on the neutrients of the ground to grow which makes complete sense. I could conclude with inferenses made from these canon facts that natural energy most likely existed before otsutsuki clan members every arrived, people simply had no means to harness it or at least not weaponize it like ninjutsu. Also a theory based on bloodline characteristics like the Uzamaki and even the fact that we can speculate the otsutsuki clan members had abilities like the byakugan before they wielded chakra; point being I think spiritual energy was present.

It is a huge part of other asian manga and anime, favorite being yuyu hakusho which hindered on three energies spirit, demonic, and sacred. We have no canon evidence to conclude demonic entities outside of non canon anime and games but I always liked to think it was a possible seperate source of power, like the non cannon satori or moryo. But there is the in fact canon gift of the hermit usable only by monks that train daily to use it. I like to think of this something akin to spiritual energy more than just a special chakra. Non canon but other power sources like gelel mineral and tree from takikagure that produces hero water. My theory holds before chakra people used spirit or demonic energies. Plus there is the major skills and physical energies samarai probably had, I always like to think even though they are unrelated that the samarai in the naruto verse before shinobi took over were something similar to the ones from rurouni kenshin.