Perpetual Motion Exists: The "Energy Idol"

In some Asian traditions, the ultimate divine is an energy, like electricity.

It's treated as a person only briefly, when someone calls on it.
You make your wish, you bow, and when the request is over it returns to being energy.

Afraid the divine will slip back into mere energy, people keep holding on.
They keep praying, keep bowing, keep paying.
They try to keep it switched on, like a perpetual motion machine.

But there's a problem.

You know that when you flip a switch, the light comes on.
But with an idol, there's no way to know whether your request reached it or whether it's asleep.
Devotion and money keep flowing, but nothing can be confirmed.

So people interpret by results.
If things go well: "It answered."
If things go badly: "My devotion wasn't enough."
If it's unclear: "It answered in a different way."

It's a structure that can never conclude "this is wrong."

So there's no reason to stop.
Is this a system that really works,
or a structure designed from the start so it can never be checked?

Today, too, people keep this perpetual motion machine running without rest.
And a whole life goes by that way.
Is the idol the perpetual motion machine, or is their devotion?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?