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it is not literal magic mana. Nobody here means it that
Actually
The origin of "mana" as a term to refer to monarch points very much has its roots in magical mana, and I'm surprised nobody else has brought it up yet.
As far as I know, the entire community took it from here:
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I think the term might've had some very limited use before(simply because Monarch Powers' acronym -> MP is the same as mana points in other games), but if you chart the frequency of its usage on, say, this forum, you can clearly see that this is what sparked it.
For years - especially before Steam reworked its review system - this review would come out on top whenever you'd open EU4's steam page.

So yeah... Playing the semantics game doesn't make much sense here I think. Mana isn't actual "mana" obviously, it's simply the funi term that we decided to use for monarch powers in EU4(and other PDX games..?).
We don't argue about whether someone has massive body and greenskin if they are called a "troll" on the internet, so I feel like we can agree that EU4's "mana" is simply its own thing.
In the game itself? The only instance is the description to the custom idea for all power costs I believe, tho it's pretty clear there that it's meant to be an easter egg directly referencing the community culture.

In the game files? Plenty cases, especially since starting from 1.31 onwards the CDs have been people deeply engrained within the EU4 community and its folklore. Like here:

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Open the console in game, type "bird_mana 500" and receive 500 dip points. Same with paper_mana for adm, and sword_mana for mil.
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Open up Notepad++ and find in files (whole word only) the word "mana"
You will get 121 hits. Not all of these refer to monarch points (mana is a name in one of the cultures name files), but some absolutely do, and you can go read them for yourself.
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In EU4, ADM, DIP and MIL are monarch power points, not mana.
Is it wilful ignorance to not accept the term that became so pervasive in the community that it bled over into the game's code itself? The game director calls it mana, it is understood as mana, and you having a bit of a whinge about the term will never change that.

Why is mana a fitting description?
You're basically asking here for my own personal definition... and I will give it if you insist but I really don't see the relevance.
And why does it not fit for money?
tangibility, imo, is the benchmark for what is and is not considered mana. There is nothing tangible about monarch points. It's generation and its uses do not have enough relation with one another for it to be discounted as just magic points. The idea that you are incapable of researching better boats because you spent your magic points on instantly "developing" a province is not remotely realistic. Money, on the other hand, is tangible. We have a real world counterpart. Is it exactly the same? No. Ducats in EU4 both in value and use are not 1:1 with the real world, and having the entire world use the same ducat currency is also unrealistic. It is a gamified resource... but it is a gamified resource with a real world counterpart that everyone understands. It has tangibility. Monarch points do not have that.
The closest thing it can be described to is political capital, but the expenditure of this political capital does not fit the generation method, which is why I call monarch points mana, but do not consider Political Influence in Imperator to be mana.
Why isn't piety and prestige in ck2 mana?
I don't play enough CK2 to have any kind of informed answer so, unlike most, I will refrain from giving an uninformed opinion on something I know little about :)
Would replacing ruler point costs with money costs solve most of the current problems with "mana"?
Nope. Money is not a good substitute for all the various ways in which mana is used. It is too baked in at this point to possibly remove it, but we can hope that EU5 is developed without a mana system.
 
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Interesting for the use of "Mana" in game
I remember a long time ago on this forum where devs did not use the term as it was seen as too simple, or derogatery (paper mana, bird mana, sword mana) for Monarch points and one (who?) even wrote he won't use it.
But it's true that it became part of the folklore and it's widely accepted/used. I did not know it was in game files though

EDIT I found a post by Meneth in 2014 where he states "Mana" so.. maybe I'm wrong (or the search by "dev post" does not go that far in time

EDIT2 maybe some clue, from Wiz in june 2015
and September 2015
 
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