from "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das p. 366-367 (emphasis added):

Visualization is a powerful and profound way to use the mind and its brilliant beacon light of awareness ... Through visualization practice we see how we continuously project - every single day - the current visualization or self-concepts we maintain of ourselves and our experiences. ... we are not necessarily stuck with who or what we think we are; we could be almost anyone or anything. Therefore, why not exercise our power of choice and the intrinsic wisdom of awareness by manifesting oneself as a radiant, empowering, and protective female Buddha Tara, or as a gentle forgiving Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of love and compassion? Wouldn't this prove far more satisfying than any negative self-images we may currently hold?

These meditations are primarily meditations on identity and its transformation - how we create ourselves and our self-image; how we create and recreate our karma and our world. ...

Tantric practices involving visualizated meditation deities and primordial archetypes remain one of the least-understood aspects of the rich world of Himalayan spiritual practice. They also represent one of the most recondite facets of the Buddhist culture of awakening. Many Westerners have found it difficult, if not impossible to understand and master these complex techniques that involve constructing and holding an image in one's mind with one-pointed attention. Sometimes practitioners spend long hours studying these techniques only to find that the inner principles and deeper meaning elude them; then they return to simpler, more basic, and fundamentally comprehensible practices such as breathing, mindfulness meditation, and various forms of self-inquiry.

Actually, it is less important to be able to visualize or graphically imagine the forms and attributes of the deity than it is to viscerally "feel" the presence of the invoked meditational deity. There are no deities per se in Buddhism. Instead these numinous forms are archetypes embodying the most noble and sublime qualities we can aspire to achieve - mere personifications of spiritual principles like wisdom, compassion, healing power, and so on. People often ask me if these deities exist outside and independent of our own minds. One might just as well wonder whether we too exist in such a way. As I often reply, they are as real, or unreal, as we are.
He didn't go into it as much as I thought I remembered him doing, but I do remember reading this and thinking, "ahh, so it works with the belief-system," (which alters flows of energy in the energy body) and also wondering what kind of blocks I could work through by sitting with the "feel" of the presence of the meditational deity, and letting it chip away at the "edges" of the dark spots / blocks in my energy.

Anyhow, that's what came to mind for me when you posted your question. Based on this and on personal experience, I definitely think folks with good ability to "get into" a story visually and viscerally can produce the energy flows you talk about