Examination of contemporary quantum chemistry literature and texts strongly indicates the need for new interpretative measures and indices that have heuristic chemical appeal, but are rigorously defined by physics. A closer look at the Periodic Table in search of such measures leads to configurationenergy (CE), the average energy of a valence electron, which adds a third intrinsic dimension to the Table itself, and is also strongly correlated with atomic energy level spacings. CE can be translated into a quantum mechanical operator whose expectation value in molecules and solids is the Energy Index, EIA. Many chemical effects: rotation and inversion barriers, the anomeric and α-effects, hyperconjugation, etc., appear capable of being quantified, unified, and simplified by EIA, but because it is a one-electron entity, it does not correlate with binding energies or heats of formation. EIA is insitu electronegativity, and systematic release of basis set contraction constraints permits a controlled analysis of bond polarity in terms of radial and angular hybridization changes.