Talk:Chakra

Cleanup page text

I moved this from the cleanup request:

• Chakra - the introduction sounds a little bit strange, may be biased in favour of the existence of chakras, and doesn't seem to adequately represent the diversity of the traditions mentioned later in the article. The section on modern New Age notions is also strange with its many slashes, and may even be nonsense (I haven't put up any mental effort to determine this). arj 14:16, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Did restruc turing, may need some expansion on acupuncture within the article and some points from non-believers. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 11:49, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

The article seems OK to me no w, but non-believer contributions would be better. Simply saying that "chakras have not been proven to exist" is not enough. Have there been actual experiments? --Pablo D. Flores 15:53, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree, a bit more from the "chakras don't exist" people would be good here. --203.167.184.85 11:15, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Question RE: Wikipedia Article on Chakras

Dear Fellow Wikipedians, I'm currently writing a paper for a comparative religions class I am taking. In the course of my research, I consulted the Wikipedia article on Chakras. The article stated that there is some evidence that the ancient Greeks as well as the Early Christians had systems of chakras. One external link attached to the article provided some good, but brief information on the subject. I'm looking for a list of books, magazines, websites or organizations that can shed some more light on the topic.

Regards, John Haun Email: Jhaun@nycap.rr.com

Mistakes

Chakras do not have, as some authors claim, an internal lotus-like structure; this is a fantasy. Although an exercise involving creation of temporary images of flowers inside chakras and even feeling their delicate aroma in them is a very good exercise.

Chakras also do no t have a specific color inherent to them and they are not supposed to have it. This is also a popular fantasy. And attempts of coloring chakras in accordance with colors of the rainbow are downright and serious self-injuring or injuring of one’s dis c iples.

Skywalker

I agree uterly with both of these points.

For those who have contemplated Light, rather then simply copy for books written by people who have not contemplated Light, it will be obvious that a Chakra, an energy center, in its perfect original condition, would be best described as a White Gold Star.

Within the White Light, all rays/spectrums are present. --Aksis 23:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Petals and colour represent vibration, and petals may represent nerve branches. In these nerve areas, then are there no branches from spinal cord to organs (or in brain nerves: note people say Ajna has 92 or 96 petals), and no visually symbolizable electromagnetic vibration? '7 spirits in lamps before the throne' (subtle bodies/auras) compared with stages to/past '3 granthis' relates vibrations to chakras, but if that makes sense then colours depending on energy circulation make sense (like ShriDenhi disagreeing below about rainbow may imply), first of all white/gold/clear.

DNC 02:31, 03 Jan 2007 (PST)

Some editing

I added a load of information about co-relations between the Chakras and the Endocrine System, which is very interesting, and is taught by at least one major indian guru.

I then added a bit about the history and d ev elopment of the idea from Shakta Tantra, by the theosophists and others in the west, into what is the present day conception of Chakras.

The problem I had with this second part is that the computer I'm on can't do square brackets, so I'd appreciate s ome one adding the hyperlinks...or I'll do it later.

I hope the changes are appreciated.

Valerie Hunt

I've just reverted the additions about Valerie Hunt. They break the flow of the text by jumping into an opposing view, they are unencyclopedic, and the claims in them are not referenced. Hunt's research has not been published in any peer-reviewed scientific media, and she appears to be well-recognized only in the pseudoscientific community. Her "scientific" website c laim s to contain results of her research, but nothing like that is apparent; the only content seems to be some self-referencing mumbo-jumbo about "bio-energy", "scalar waves", etc., and promotion of "healing" products (the AuraMeter, the Teslar watch) an d boo ks.

If anyone wants to re-insert material about Valerie Hunt, it would be nice of him/her to bear the above in mind. --Pablo D. Flores 11:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

well can i insert the any information on this website then?? this is sc ientific research with a us grant https://www.cihs.edu/whatsnew/research.asp

https://www.cihs.edu/whatsnew/ami_info.asp

A reference to Dr. Motoyama's site! The California Institute of Human Science is an unaccredited graduate school that promotes preci sely this kind of "research", yet these marvelous findings have not been published by any respected peer-reviewed scientific magazine. I have a lot of reference about that myself; please bear with me for a few more hours and I'll provide them. --Pablo D. Flores 10:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

well im waiting, i think they were not published by peer reviews probably because thats what they are PEER reviews so if the general idea is not liked, the research isnt even looked at. see the e xperiences of william crookes for an example of this. This just seems to back up my assumption that this site will only allow the side of the argument they beleive in to be published. nowhere is a mention of the TOBISCOPE the russians developed for acupup uncture reserarch that shows the chakras, and was shown back in 67 alongside the voltok spaceship. that would be acceptable peer reviewed science, yet not a whisper of it here.

You'll have the references in a few hours. Peer review, FYI, doesn't mea n you don't publish what you don't like. The research not only is looked at; it's inspected carefully in order to find flaws. I don't know about W. Crookes, what happened to him?

"This site", as you call it, is an encyclopedia, not a forum. It intends t o give facts and opinions, and to show which is which. When you write something, either you back your claims up (with proper evidence) or specifically state they are opinions, giving your arguments in a kind way and in the proper place (as we ll as the opp onents' arguments). See the Neutral point of view official policy. Also check out the pages about controversial issues, like evolution and creationism. They should give you an idea of how to properly phrase your critiques and ba lance them with other people's content.

I'd like to see a tobiscope working, plus a diagram of the machine itself, a chart or picture showing results, and an interpretation of those results, correlated with findings from other (accepted, conventional) methods. I'd be happy to write about the tobiscope given that material. And if not, I'd be happy to write about it too, with the warning that it's only a machine that some people claim to be useful for whatever purpose. That's if there's something to write about. --Pablo D. Flores 15:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

PD Also check the official policy on original research (where Motoyama and Hunt's results fall squarely). --Pablo D. Flores 16:01, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

References

As promised...

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/home.htm

"Welcome to the Home Page of Skeptical Investigations. Skepsis Gr meaning enquiry, consideration or doubt. This is the root of the w ord skeptical. Skepticism is about enquiry and doubt, not about denial." From what I've found, one of the sites that exemplify the attitude of most supporters of Dr. Valerie Hunt and Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama.

http://skepdic.com/plants.html

A report o n a "scientist" with a title given by the California Institute for Human Science Graduate School and Research Center, and I quote: an unaccredited institution founded by Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama for the study of "the human being as tridimen sional." Dr. Moto yama is said to be a scientist and Shinto priest who "has awakened to states of consciousness that enable him to see beyond the limits of space and time."

http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/wilber.asp

A book about Ke n Wilber (the inte resting part is about Motoyama -- who believes in ghosts, natural spirits of various kinds, chakras, the efficacy of ritual offerings, etc. -- probably because he's not a mean cold-hearted skeptic).

http://www.psychboard.ca.gov/licens ing/unaccredited.ht m

Unaccredited California Approved Schools: A History and Current Status Report (look for the California Institute of Human Science).

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=74779

Again, look for the California Instit ute of Human Science. California seems to be brimming with diploma mills and questionable schools.

http://www.cihs.edu/

The home of the Institute... with an advertisement for the AMI ("Apparatus for Meridian Identification") Device.

http://ami.cihs.e du/modules/wordpress/

Some publications by Dr. Motoyama (in Scientific American? Nature? -- no, they are close-minded skeptics -- so the good doctor always publishes in the Journal of Holistic Medicine, the Psychophysiology magazine and the Subtle Energy & Energy Medicine m agazine).

http://www.cihs.edu/whatsnew/research.asp

Research using the AMI. Try to find exact figures. The doctor says he tried a study (with a very long name) during six years, with "about 2500 patients", trying to show a differen ce between male and female "meridian function". The results are equally vague. Why this study took so long and needed so many patients, I really don't know.

http://www.quackwatch.org/

A nice site to know.

If you still want to re-insert the material in the article, please do so in a neutral point of view style, since by sensible standards Dr. Hunt and Dr. Motoyama bear most of the identifying marks of quackery. I'm not a censor, so I'd like to hear more opinions on this. Everybody who visits this talk page is invited to contribute.

A nice way to put it would be (in a special section): Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, founder of the CIHS (an unaccredited institution devoted to the study of yadda yadda yadda), has invented a device that he claims performs such and such measures and produces such and such results, which Motoyama interprets as * * * because * * *. The apparatus works as follows (a technical explanation, if you can find it). Independent tests using this device have not been performed.... etc.

-- Pablo D. Flores 17:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Although I find Mr. Flores' omniscient attitude inappropriate, his dismissive links unhelpful, and his interpretation of the neutral point of view policy perverse, he has correctly describ ed the proper way to f rame descriptions of research on wikipedia. --goethean ॐ 21:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Fine then, motoyama might be questionable[not neccasarily wrong] but the life-energy field has been detected and proved by a scientist called Harold burr at Yale university that used the life-field to power a dynamo. And proven that the field are linked to states of mind and health. would the poeople here like details of the experiments or links to the sites such as this one h ttp://www.wrf.org/news/news0003.htm And using your own arguments i have read your pages and they seem to be highly biased and unscientific themselves. oh dear slightly hypocritical

And here is the info on tobiscopes you asked for "equipment called "tob iscope" had been develo ped by Dr Nikhail Kuzmich Caikin ( a Leningrad/ St Petersburg Surgeon) and Engineer Vladislav MIkhalevsy of the university of Leningrad. It locates hese points to the accuracy of one-tength of a mm using Kirlian photography,invented around 1965." for mo re info read "supernature" by lyall watson who gets a sound review even on this site check him out. he is scientificly sound, and the acupuncture chart shows the chakras doesnt it??

OK. Harold Burr has exactly the same problems as Motoyama (except at le ast he did attend to a recognized institution). The places that mention his work and ideas on the life fields are of the same kind -- no serious medical sites, no serious scientific journals, just "alternative medicine" sites. As for the tobiscope, I'm st ill waiting for someone to show one to the readers of Wikipedia, and to explain how it works.

Kirlian photography has a sound scientific explanation -- which has nothing to do with "life fields".

I'm not as insensitive as to ignore that continuing this discussion would only cause problems, maybe an edit war (which would impact negatively on the article), and additionally make me look as a bigot. I've placed a "factual check" tag on the problematic section, and I hope it's not removed before the co nflict is solved. I say this because I hereby promise not to watch the article until, at least, June 1. Have a nice day. --Pablo D. Flores 03:08, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually the the scandal around kirlian photography was cleare d up using the tobiscope. Electrical chorona discharge would not show up the 108 acupuncture points at all. let alone that precisely. And harrold burrs work was regognised in scientific journals. just take the time to look.

I know I promised but... Besi des the above, check Wikipedia:Verifiability. Anything you write should be verified elsewhere. And you should do the verification. It's simply not good manners to slap a paragraph of obscure data with no verifiable source s (and pretty badly written, t oo) into an article. Same as for Harold Burr -- it is you, not me or anyone else, who should take the time to look, since you're making the claim and you have the burden of proof. That's it. I'm through with this article (until June 1). --Pablo D. Flores 12:23, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Sources and verification

When one suggests a hypothesis the task then becomes sorting things out on the basis of objective evidence. When one gets to the point that a logically coherent account of some phenomenon can be provided, then people start dignifying the account with the name "theory." The strange thing about scientific theories is that, sort of by definition of what science is, they can never be proven correct, only proven incorrect. The classical example is the assertion, "All swans are white." People had been observing swans and writing descriptions of them for hundreds of years and everybody agreed -- until somebody went off to Australia and the firs t swan s/he saw was black. The p oint is that you only know what you know, and the next turn around a corner may give you a shock.

Finding some authority who claims such-and-such to be true does not necessarily give you knowledge. Even if the authority i s legitimate (not a con man or something like that) s/he may be reliable and responsible and yet not have the crucial piece of information that would change everything.

One of the problems about logically coherent theories is that they are very convinci ng for that very reason. Usually they've gotten acceptance because they explain a very great deal. Newton's physics is a good example of a very reliable and useful theory that ultimately proved wrong. It turns out to be a special case (where you avoid the very small, the immensely large, and the very, very fast) that is so close to right in most cases that you couldn't measure the difference between what theory predicts and what nature provides.

People get dedicated to theories. They have attachments t o certain ways of looking at thin gs that appeal to them. Einstein couldn't accept quantum mechanics. He saw the evidence, but he struggled against the conclusions that the evidence pointed to. -- And he was a great thinker.

In writing an encyclopedia ar ticle it is important not to bring one's own preferences to bear. It wouldn't even be appropriate for somebody like Brian Greene (The Fabric of the Cosmos) to say something like, "Dr. Boondoggle's string theory is, finally, the revelation of the secre t of the cosmos." He can't even s ay something seemingly neutral like, "It's been proven true." What he could say is that in all the experiments done to try to figure out whether it is making good predictions it has never been shown to be wrong, so peop le regard it as providing extremely reliable predictions. In the real world there are usually people who think another explanation is better, who bring up evidence that seems to indicate the theory is wrong, etc. In an encyclopedia article, the responsibl e thing to do is to lay out the big picture.

The big picture does not weigh in with one's personal feelings, nor does it disrespect the integrity of a field of research. If physicists have been responsibly doing their experiments and reporting on their experiments and getting other people to replicate and verify their experiments, then their conclusions should be trustworthy in two ways: (1) If anybody claimed, e.g., cold fusion, and nobody else could get the same results, probably the people who couldn't confirm the original claims would not be quiet about it. The outside observer would see that there was a big controversy. (2) The experiments are all matters of public record. Ultimately, if you don't believe something like the wave characteristics of l ight you can buy a penlight laser, make two slits in a sheet of aluminum foil, and see for yourself. If you need expensive equipment you study physics in college and get yourself associated with a major physics lab that has the equipment.

If somebody w ith no credentials (from "credo", "I believe," i.e., demonstrating good reason for us to accept what the person says as well grounded) says something that contradicts "the wisdom of the field," that person might be right. But the responsible student of th e field will ask for that person's evidence and then reproduce the experiments and see where the evidence leads.

I'll leave it at that for the moment. If we can't agree on some ground rules it will be difficult to straighten things out. P0M 18:23, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Recently there has been a great deal of concern about prions, the kind of twisted protein that is believed to be the cause of mad cow disease and similar afflictions that humans suffer. (The common factor among humans was that they ate the brains of dead relatives as part of their funeral ritual.) The person who eventually got the Nobel Prize for this research was villified in the scientific press. People could not get from what they knew about the nature of di seases (which, up to that time had been caused by vitamin deficiencies, microbes, and viruses) to what the researcher was claiming. They concluded, evidently without really looking at the evidence, that he could not be right.

One problem with discussions about acupuncture is that the "uni verse of discourse" in which acupuncture has traditionally been studied has only one solid connection with Western science, and that is the natural world that the two schools of thought attempt to understand. The reason for that is that our science starte d, in a hazy way, with people like Plato, and took much of its eventual form and fundamental ideas from Aristotle (who, I gather, was a first-rate biologist), but Chinese thinkers had no effective contact with those ideas until Western missionaries (early day Catholic missionaries) brought ideas to China -- and even then the Chinese were mostly interested in astronomy. Since Aristotle wasn't there to get things started in his way, the Chinese started things their own way. In the long run, some of their early ideas require less melting and repouring to fit in with things like quantum mechanics than do our ideas that such as "matter" that derive from Aristotle, but in the short run a relatively simple, unnuanced theore tical stance (God did it so there hav e to be absolute laws for everything and we can eventually figure them out.) produced much more rapid scientific growth, the Scientific Revolution.

So now accupuncture comes to the West and people question whethe r it is anything more than a vacuum cl eaner for money -- they would like to see whether they can make empirical investigations that can give a degree of confirmation to the accupuncture theories. So, accupuncture points being a central feature of Chinese medical practice, people would like to find objective indications of their existence apart from the purported medical benefits of stimulating them in certain ways. One idea was that the accupuncture points might be electrically different from other parts of the human body. Enter the tobiscope.

From one of the references given above (https://www.cihs.edu/whatsnew/research.asp) you can see that even the non-sceptics have taken cognizance of one of the early problems with finding electrical differences, s kin resistance differences. That's a ve ry good sign. It indicates that, whether you agree with their results or not, people who are trying to research these questions are being responsive to what Mother Nature is telling them. Google the word "tobiscope" and you will find that at least the early meaning of this word was simply an electrical device for measuring resistance. You can get a very adequate device for measuring skin resistance at any place that sells gear for electricians and electronics peopl e. It's generally called a "multimeter" because it uses the same basic needle on an electromagnet balanced against a spring to measure voltage and also to measure resistance. When you use it you want to set it for resistance, and you want to set it to the high Ohm range -- because skin resistan ce is pretty darned high (fortunately for those of us who carelessly cut through hot wires with a jack knife).

Early researchers who used this kind of equipment were rightly criticized by people familiar with the equipment because they noticed that people who were "proving" the existence of accupuncture points would rove the probe of the resistance meter (ohm meter) over the subject's skin and then, when the needle arrived at a point the experimenter knew to be the location of an accupuncture point, s/he would press firmly on the probe, the needle would jump from something like 30 megohms to something like 3 megohms (or the little light would go on). But you can elicit the same change at any point on the body i f you press harder. And if you try to be objective about it, it turns out that you can't unambiguously find an obvious drop in resistance at an accupuncture point. What was an early apparent success (Look! A point of lower resistance right where the accu puncture points indicate something specia l is going on!) turned out to be the result of experimental error. So the experiments have had to be changed. One way might be to create a probe that would put a flat plate on the subject's body, let's say something the size of a quarter, and then put a p robe on the end of a spring through a hole in the middle of the plate. That way you could control the amount of pressure the probe contacted the skin with in a pretty accurate way, and there at least would be no likelihood that accupuncture points were sy stematically subjected to more probe pressure than other points. I've tried it, in a fairly sloppy way, and couldn't find the points that way. But maybe these guys will succeed. If they can do it in a double-bl ind way, that will be very interesting. (It should be easy to have the whole things controlled by a robot arm on the end of a computer making a complete record of resistances on a 10 mm. grid over the entire body. Do it on a few volunteers with no open w ounds or sores and see what turns up.)

What does all that prove about accupuncture? Not a damned thing. Accupuncture theory, i.e., traditional accupuncture theory, has nothing to say about electrical resistance. If you don't find differences in electrica l resistance around accupuncture points it may be because you're not looking for the changes the right way (hence the URL above), or it may be that there is nothing like that to find. The traditional accupuncture theorist says, "So what? I never claimed t here were electrical differences. What does electricity have to do with it anyway?"

Is that much clear and agreeable to everybody so far? P0M 20:26, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

can someone check this site out before i post stuff about it on this topic. supposed to be backed up scient ificly and show chakras. http://www.item-bioenergy.com the science bit checks out. also thinking about posting the fact that bio-photons are emittted from the human body in a pattern , not just randomly, which could suggest meridians. thanks for your time robin

Looking at this article can prove that you've looked at this article. The article can be used to indicate that the authors of the website claim what they claim. Beyond that there is no proof that you co uld adduce without finding some kind of subst antiating evidence, e.g., a recognized laboratory that is competent to check their claims has made their investigation and certifies some result.

Suppose that somebody put up a website that claimed that tama rind icecream cures stomach cancer. If you had stomach cancer you might believe the website, but you would be better off to go to an objective doctor who specializes in evaluating various treatments. If there is any evidence that indicates tamarind icecre am is worth a try, he can evaluate it.

An article on chakras ought to get clear on the development of the concept before it does anything else. Whatever the article says ought to be substantiated by reputable resources. A book by Guru Mahanaga (who d oesn't even exist) would not be very reliable e vidence. A citation to Chatterji and Dutta's book on Indian philosophy would be very reliable evidence because it is a standard book that has been very well received by generations of teachers and authoriti es and people who are knowledgeable in the field would have torn it apart by now if it were wrong.

Right now the article is hollow in the center. It doesn't even have a traditional diagram of the chakras. Instead, it has an acupuncture diagram that does n't even support the idea that there is some similarity between the Chinese system and the Indian system. P0M 01:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I added some citations, but there is a problem with how links show up. I could not find all the Upanishad (or any Tibetan) sources, but hopefully someone will. I looked at the bioenergy site above; I knew scientists now say life has/alters energy-fields/auras (besides cosmic objects, etc. having them), and I have seen such a machine, but I do not know if it shows chakras: how would you know where to draw the line between each centre nerve aura and whatever appears around its body area? At least there are not vacuums in the nadis (nerves) where one or more cells exist at the centre of nerve branches.

DNC 02:08, 03 Jan 2006 (PST)

Bibliography

Here is a URL for what appears to be a reliable site. It isn't perfectly docum ented, a failing of lots of writers who haven't been bludgeoned into writing good footnotes by some Western highschool or college teacher. It's just not part of the tradition, I guess. But it at least gives us the names of several books starting with the earliest to say anything about Chakras. So if y ou're interested you can get the books and dig in. [[1]] P0M 03:22, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

A similar source: [y.net/HeartMind/pungaliya.htm]

See also: [[2]] I don't know for sure how accurate this characterization is, but at least the author gives us some informal citations to check out. P0M 04:14, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Here is a long article, more than 100 screens, that give some historical background on the idea of Chakras: [[3]] P0M 05:06, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Old Questions of fact

The text currently says:

The g eneral consensus of the scientific and medical communities is that chakras do not exist.

Is this true? How would we know if it is a true statement? Has anybody ever done a statistically valid survey? What kinds of scientists have any professional expertis e that would qualify them to judge? What kind of medical doctors? Or would that even be the right question to ask? P0M 06:48, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

If the following is a response to wh at I wrote above, it is totally off the point. In f act, you should be asking the same question yourself, no? P0M 19:42, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I dont know where to start. firstly if you read the site i was talking about properly[as i d id] it gives a number of cases with verified scienti fic studies and evidence submitted to scientific research boards at universities in moscow. secondly the tobiscope is not an electrical resistance machine. maybe there is a machine with the same name wi t that purpose but the russian tobiscope created by gaiken in russia, was kirlian photgraphy gave a number of flares shown on the pictures that did not correspond to nerve endings etc but when the acupuncture chart was placed on the picture all 700 points correspnded to these flares completly. this was the tobiscope shown at russian science expo 67 alongside the voltok spaceshipe. Anything else is either another machine or misinformed. plus doesnt the aura have a connection to the life force and chakras and i quate "In 1908, Dr. Walter J. Kilner invented a method for viewing the human aura using colored screens made of thin, flat glass cells containing dicyanin dyes in alcohol solution. Dr. Kilner worked with his medical patients at London's St. Thomas' Hospital's X-ray department, and made a breakthrough discovery that most of us can see auras when we change the focus of our eyes. Kilner's reasoning for using dicyanin coal-tar dye was that it made observers short-sighted in order to improve their ability to see the ultra-violet spectrum radiation of the human energy field. Kilner's book, "The Human Aura," received a very positive review in Scientific American magazine in March 1922." that is a scientificly reliable source for auras and maybe chakras. Robin p.s put my tobiscope bit back in please or i w ill

There are sorts of different things that get called "voltmeters" because they all measure electric potential one way or the other. If there is a physical apparatus such as you describe, and it doe s indeed "flare" at the accupuncture points, that woul d be an interesting result worthy of further research. The word "research" is especially important here. As Dr. Karl Pribram, a neurophysiologist with very wide-reaching interests, once said, "research" literally means to "re-search," i.e., to go back and do the old experiments over and over again, to refine them, to see whether they can reliably be reproduced, etc. The case with kirlian aura flares might turn out to be a contentious matter like cold fusion -- some people get good results and some people don't get the same results, and even though the general furor over the matter has gone down there are still people out there trying to get it to work reliably, scale it up to something that might sup ply power to an entire office building, etc.

Does th e kirlian apparatus used by Kilner conform to the general technic used by other people except for replacing photograpnic film with a different kind of viewer? If so, it involves applying an electric al potential to the object being examined. Just curious. P0M 19:42, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

so any papers in peer reviewed journals? Preferbly not that much older than I am.Geni 11:26, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

About the aura sp ecs of kilner or about the resonant field imaging. or about the russian univeristy in alma ata Kirov state university where they proved by using an electron microscope that all humans have an ORGANISED biological plasma body which was reviewed in the pee r reviewed scientific journals of the time and got good reviews back in the early 1970s. i can get you the details on that as well if you like. And it doesnt matter how old the reviews are unless you can give me a review that has proof that its wrong it s till stands. Robin

Just give me the reference.Geni 12:14, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Well the kilner reference is here http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Aura . and i think its from your own site lol. Also i keep quating it but you keep ignoring i t. Every one of the statements i have made are from "sup ernature" by lyall watson. not only a biologist and ecologist. And before you say anything the book got the thumbs up from the "new scientist magazine" "the spectator" "the daily telegraph and the t imes to name but a few. And while one of his theorys[100t h monkeys] was proved false. he was only adopted by the new age people because he gave credit to aura , psychokinesis etc . but he never affiliated himself with them. he just investigated so called paranormal things and found scientific explanations for a lot of them. so read it or search for quates concerning the topics from it at least. Robin

So no peer reviewed journals?

And also no actual citations. If the New Scientist Magazine had an article on it, what was the date? "Thumbs up" is not a c lear indication either. I give Dune a thumbs up, and so too might Analog Science Fiction and Fact, but without actually reading the article I wouldn't know whether the judgment was from an ecological biologists saying that the lessons of ecology taught in the novel were scientifically dead on, or from the fiction editor saying that it's a great story, better than Heinlein and Asimov put together. P0M 19:42, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Scientific basis

I'm back, and I've rewo rded some of the changes at the beginning of this section that were made by P0M. While the section was left in a much better state, I think that rhetorical questions do not belong in an encyclopedia; they can be restated more plainly as statements. The language used also made it sound (a bit) as if the scientists were "leaving chakras out of the picture". I hope the new formulation is balanced and satisfies both believers and nonbelievers. --Pablo D. Flores 16:38, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Question about the facticity of something already in the article

(I'm copying this from above as the lines of discussion will get tangled other. Unless somebody can justify this claim, I'm going to cut it.)P0M 19:17, 22 May 2005 (UTC) The text currently says:

The general consensus of the scientific and medical communities is that chakras do not exist.

Is this true? How would we know if it is a true statement? Has anybody ever done a statistically valid survey? What kinds of scientists have any professional expertise that would qualify them to judge? What kind of medical doctors? Or would that even be the right question to ask? P0M 06:48, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a dis ticint lack of physical and medical models that include them. I think therefor it is safe to say they are not accepted.Geni 23:07, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

What you say is probably tr ue. In 1940 nobody in Western medical schools accepted the idea of prions, but that was simply because nobody (including their eventual discoverer) had ever heard of them. Not mentioning something because it hasn't entered your awareness is not the same as not mentioning something because you think it is nonsense.

Science never denies the existence of something. The reason is that you never know what you will find around the next corner. What science can do is say, Dr. X has claimed that if you do abc you will get xyz. We've done abc a whole lot of times and we never get xyz, so we'd like him to either tell us what we're not doing the same as he is, or go over his own experiments more closely.

If there were a "general consensus...that chakras do not exist", it would either mean that lots of people were being unscientific (as they were in the case of prions, where they not only said that there were no such things but implied that their discoverer was an idiot or a cheat -- probably in nicer la nguage than that, however), or else it would mean that the cha kra people said, "Do this, this, and this, and you'll see such-and-such a result," and so many scientists in the mainstream had tried the experiment and gotten no results that nobody was bothe ring to try it again. (A neighbor boy told me that Coca-Cola co uld be made by making a tea of the weeds we call plantain where I grew up. I didn't try it very many times before I decided that it was a groundless idea.) P0M 00:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Supernature

You still have not adressed the fact that supernature is an accepted source of some scientific fact and i am quateing it as a reference. i think there is a site where it can be read online would that be of any help in this situation. Robin

I'm looking for refernces from real peer reviewed journals. Also do you have any source for tyour claim that "Supernature is an accepted source of some scientific fact"?Geni

I'm not sure whether Robin's statement above was addressed to me personally, but I'll try to answer it. You will need to define what you mean by "supernature." That is not a word that I know, and it is not in my 2 volume Webster's Dictionary.P0M 00:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Supernature is the title of a book written by lyall watson [wh o has a bio on your site] Ans as for the source the reviews of it by groups such as "the times" "the telegraph" "the spectator" "the observer" and "the new scientist"[who im sure are pretty sure about excepted science]. Also Lyall watson has a degrees in biology. As for peer reviewed journals is there a site where they are all kept?? if so i can look for their review. it has something to do with science so it should get a mention somewhere Robin

The new Scientist is a magzine for popular consumption. It is not a reliable source. Most journals do not have their loder stuff online. However the medline index in online.Geni 10:17, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Peer review is more like a jury trial than like a newspaper's restaurant critic writing about how much s/he enjoyed the food at restaurant R. Working in any field can be tricky. That's one of the reasons that grad school is so hard. The good profs will try to make sure that you are well enough grounded in the field that you won't make the mistake s that almost got them laughed out of the profession. Another way to look at it is that by the time you get through you have a pretty accurate idea of what ideas in your field are well grou nded, what ideas are interesting but shaky... Peer review isn't al ways a pretty process because the peer reviewer's job is to be like the "Devil's advocate" in the Catholic Church -- he's got to raise all of the questions about things that look fishy, th ings that are inconsistent or appear to be inconsistent with what other people have spent their lives figuring out about the world. Then he's got to be able to make suggestions about how the work needs to be tightened up. It's pretty much like a court ca se that is tried by a panel of judges. One of the things that got the guys who claim to have discovered cold fusion into trouble was that they released their discovery without having any independent people tear into it first. So instead of having a priva te uncomfortable conversation they ended up with a public uncomfort able conversation, and they've had a lot of trouble in life because of it. Nobody's out to get them, as far as I can tell. We'd all (or almost all, I guess) like to have clean and safe f usion energy, and anybody who could carry the original studies to the degree of refinement that we could power buildings, block, or cities with it would be a very rich man. But I haven't seen any backyard fusion generators for sale anywhere, unfortunately. What I'm trying to say is that peer review is a very serious look at somebody else's work so that it meets stringent requirements. (Or, to put it in more homely terms, so the BS quotient is not high.)

To me it makes some sense to see where the Chakra theory can be brought into line with Western theory. That doesn't n ecessarily mean that they are the same thing, or talking about exactly the same thing. But people in different cultures have observed many of the same things. They have their individual insights, and then they use the store of concepts that their own cult ure provides to try to express that insight in some kind of language that other people in their culture can understand. Some people have noticed a correspondence between glandular syste ms and the Chakras. Some other people have noticed a correspondence su ch that each Chakra is supposed to be assigned to a place in the human body where there happens to be a nerve plexus. It sort of makes sense to me that if you have a major gland opera ting somewhere it is going to have a fairly large supply of nerves running to and from it, and it also makes sense to me that people would have noticed that there are mental/psychic effects associated with them. The solar plexus is the site of, or near to the site of, one of the chakras, and everybody learns sooner or later that that area is something to be protected in a fight. There is another chakra at about the level of the nipples, and one thing that several schools of martial arts know is that ther e are lots of sensitive nerves in the armpit area. If you get hit there you are likely to get knocked out. But what is the connection between the spiritual and the physical organs of the body? Are these chakras nothing else than physical parts of the body? Or are they something else that is associated with different pa rts of the body in some way? If anybody says that the chakras are identical with one or another part of the body, I suspect that s/he will be misinterpreting the Indian philosophers. P0M 01:52, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

good additions by the way. also has anyone ever heard of polycontrast interface photography or PIP made by a biologist in london called harry oldfield. Its a method for mapping the emmision of bio-photons from the body. http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Energy %20Medicine/solomn41.htm Apperently it got good peer reviews, though i have no idea where they are housed. The chakras are shown on this technology. Any thoughts Robin

Nice

Hi, in general I really like the additions, it looks really good, but th e whole section discussing whether or not Chakras actually exist or not is a complete nightmare.

It's far too long, and it's not really the point of the article. Personally, I'd significantly shorten it, but I'm not going to do it myself, because I think it is the result of a minor dispute between two editors here, and I don't want to piss anyone off. Can you come to some kind of agreement on how to make both sides of the argument in a more concise way?

I really like the other additions.

POV section request

Somebody put up a notice, and apparently considered an interlinear note the right way to handle discussion:

Does, then, Western science disprove the existence of cha kras? Does it even have anything to say about the question of whether there is some reality that corresponds to the word?

It seems to me that this editor has misunderstood science and has also misunderstood what the criticized passage has maintained. Science (not "Western" science) cannot "disprove" the existence of chakras. That would be to assert the non-existence of something because it has not been observed yet, e.g., asserting the non-existence of a tenth planet because one has not been found yet. (Of course one has recently been found, which is just the problem with affirming that nowhere in the Universe is there a such and so.) So anybody maintaining his/her qualifications to speak as a scientist could not say, "There is no real entity correspond ing to the word chakra." If somebody claimed that a chakra has a physical presence at such and such a location, that it can be found by dissection, microscopic examination, etc., then a scientist could say, "I looked hard and couldn't find one there." Tha t kind of dispute arises fairly frequently. Consider the history of the d iscovery of prions and the abuse that was heaped on the discoverer before he eventually satisfied scoffers. But as far as I know, nobody has claimed that there is an objectively identifiable thing waiting to be discovered.

Unless somebody can make a better argument than the one quoted above, I'm going to revert. P0M 04:44, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The in-text commented-out passage you quote above was part of the old text. I myself commented it out while quickly editing the beginning of that section because, besides the content, an encyclopedic article cannot pose rhetoric questions like that. Since this page was highly problematic, I left it for a whi le, and apparently nobody bothered to delete this inappropriate comment in the meantime. Be my guest.

Just a comment for the record... A number of pseudoscientists I've heard about have a double standard when it comes to entities such as chakras. For th e believers they speak as if these things were already true, real entities, and they even write books or give conferences on their properties and so on, going into great detail; for the non-believers and questioners, they become vague and elusive, they st ate general non-falsifiable truths, they don't clearly define anything, etc., precisely to avoid scientific (or common sense!) scrutiny. It seems to me that, under the provisions you stated above, science will always be on the losing side. But NPOV goes b oth ways — Wikipedia does not necessarily have to respect the scientific method to discuss a controversial issue, though it of course must state where it's coming from. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think science has a losing hand, at least not if people understand what science promises -- that there are no claims that have to be taken on faith. The opposite of that is people who think they have the power and right to tell other what they must believe. They don't require any proof, as far as they are concerned. In the middle somewhere are the systems that do not claim to deal with things in the same universe of discourse as the sciences, and yet do not insist that other people accept their claims on faith. I don't know much about chakra theory or how it is grounded. A better example for me is acupuncture, because I have had enough experience with it to be persuaded that there i s something to it. Acupuncturists, as an academic group, as authors of medical texts, etc., do not claim that they are dealing with subdivisions of the body that correspond exactly to the organs and tissues described in Western medicine. So they never c laim, for instance, that there is a physical organ that corresponds to the "organ" that they call the "triple burner." If they did claim that there is such a thing to be found, and it is not found during the dissection of a human body, then scientists who tell them that their claim has about zero empirical confirmation. But they don't make that claim, which leaves science in about the same position it is in with regard to claims to the existence of God. "We never said God 'exists' in this Universe the way an ordinary created entity exists."

What I think the acupuncturists do is to say, "This is the way that we have, over the centuries, learned to conceptualize things. We make ourselves something that we can easily admit to be a useful fiction. The 'Tri ple Burner' is definitely a fiction if you think we ought to be able to point you at an objectively observable entity. But we use this convenient system to organize the observations, to systematize the pragmatic steps to disease treatment that we have lea rned by trial and error over countless experiments. We have been forced to treat the body as a black box. We cannot get into the black box, but we can observe what happens when we do different things to it. We cannot always figure out its internal states by taking external measurements, so sometimes our predictions of what treatments will work happen not to be reliable. But on the whole we know how to start with a patient, make a diagnosis, predict what treatment most likely will work, try that treatment and then go on from there depending on what kind of result we obtain.

The scientists cannot very well attack them on scientific grounds because of the nature of the claims they have made. About the best that can be done is to examine the cure rate for each of several kinds of treatments and see whether the acupuncturists do better than other approaches. And there is a further wrinkle here because some acupuncturists may be good diagnostitians and may plan effective therapies, and others may do less well at one or both of those tasks.

If there is indeed something to acupuncture treatments then it seems to me that eventually we will be able to wire patients up with all kinds of monitoring hardware, measure a baseline, and then see whether there are measurable changes that accompany the insertion and manipulation of needles. I suppose something similar might be done to assess claims that chakras can be manipulated somehow.

But back to what I think may be your primary objection, which I think is correct. It is detrimental to the well being of people and to the advance of knowledge if we accept claims that are advanced without empirical evidence being offered. P0M 02:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC) l

I've tried to resolve the issue about 'the scientific evidence' for chakras, by inserting a part stressing the primarily metaphysical nature of chakras in Indian thought. This topic shouldn't really be any more controversial than any other religious belief system. I think the problem arises when people say 'western science has proved' chakras, or 'proved chakras don't exist'. I find the whole correspondance with the endocrine system very interesting, and it could be that it is what the Indian mystics were talking about, through many hours spent in self observation of their body and it's processes, but we don't know that yet, so I've been careful to say 'many believers in chakras see this correspondance', while at the same time pointing out that ultimately, western medical science has its base in the physical, and eastern mystical thought in the metaphysical, so at the most we could only ever hope to have a partial convergence. I hope the change is good, I thought the whole section read like an argument between two people with different points of view, which it was, and I deleted a lot of stuff I thought was moving away from the point of the article, but you can always revert or try and put some of the stuff I deleted back in if you don't like it. (preceding unsigned comment by 201.248.141.132 (talk • contribs) )

And I made some further refinements, and removed the NPOV template tag, as I think that particular issue is resolved, or as resolved as it's likely to get without simply introducing another POV. Naturally, those who disagree can always put the tag back. --Kgf0 06:36, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved "Scientifc Basis" down in article

As pointed out above, whether or not there is a scientific basis for the existence of the chakras is relatively superflous to the meaning of the term which is largely metaphysical in context. I feel that a lot of the debate about this may have be exacerbated by the placement of mention of a "Scientific Basis" so early in the article. I have accordingly moved the section toward the end of the article, which I feel improves the character and flow of the article as the chakras are explained fully before any attempt at scientific reconciliation is made.

I also moved the chakra system image into the introduction, from the scientific basis section (where it certainly has no place as many scientific explanations deviate from classical Vedic positioning of the chakras). It would perhaps be even more at home in the "seven main chakras" section, but the table is already rather cramped on an 800x600 monitor, so I left it in the Introduction. --AndyKali 06:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I got myself a user name finally, and I've made some modifications. I've tried to talk about exactly what the chakras are supposed to be in tantric cosmology, in the introduction, although it may need refining. I felt this Danish author being cited almost as a primary source for the chakras was kind of unsuitable, so I listed a few other sources. I put in a couple of pictures to show how the endocrine system look s similar to the chakra system, but it looks like the other picture of the chakras is going to get deleted, because I don't know the license...sorry!!! I'm not sure yet how to find that. Although I've been editing some of these pages for a while, this is the first time I've actually gone to the effort of getting a user name, and tried to do things with pictures. This article is starting to look a lot more polished, in my opinion, maybe the pictures I put in should be shrunk and put in a more aesthietically pleasing location. --Krsnajinana 23:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I checked the original site. Unfortunately it is a firm that does on-line business, so they will have a de facto copyright on whatever they do. You might e-mail them and ask for permission to use their chart on Wikipedia. It would be too bad if it gets chopped since it complements the other one so nicely. P0M 03:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Krsnajinana; are you responsible for the anonymous edit from 200.90.73.194? (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chakra&diff=next&oldid=28210566) That was a great addition to the artice as it properly represents the origin and major use of the Chakra system over time. The diagrams too are great, shame about the copyright though. --AndyKali 18:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I might have a solution to the image problem soon: check out the images on Muladhara, Swadhisthana and Manipura - I've just drawn these up myself and put then on Wikimedia Commons. Hopefully I should be able to complete the set and replace the copyrighted image. --AndyKali 04:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks AndyKali!!! I'm glad to see the image back there. I've been anonymously editing this article for a while now, since I encountered it in a sorry state the first time, and I found the topic interesting. I-ve been learning about it myself while I¨ve been doing it. Ive enjoyed this collaboration, between us all weve made a fairly informative article, and now Im a wikipedia convert. I want to edit more articles!!!!!! MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Krsnajinana 14:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've gone on a edit blitz of all the different chakras. I really liked the pictures you drew of Muladhara and Svadhisthana, the red colour of Muladhara is really striking. It would be great to have ones like that for all of the articles --Krsnajinana 20:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Rare technical term or what?

The text uses the word "crudifies". Is that a real word with some arcane significance? Or is it what it looks like? P0M 06:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

look up serpent symbolism

Hey look up serpent symbolism. The serpents that coil around the staff with wings cross seven times. Perhaps this is a modern medical nod to the chakras. It is undoubtedly an archaic symbol, of which its meaning is no longer known to contemporary practitioners, but hey.01:23, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Clarification needed in Introduction

It is claimed to be very important to know the right color tone for a specific area because the wrong hue of color can allegedly do different things to the energetic system. — Who claims this, specifically? Can anyone provide a source? I'd be interested to know what the 'different things' are. Also 'hue of color' sounds tautological to me.

The seven chakras are often associated with the notes of the musical scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B). This mapping is just one of convenience, for if one actually scales the note frequencies up to their visible range one finds a somewhat different relationship. — This does not appear to make any sense. How can the frequency of a note become visible? Also, you cannot scale up the frequency of a note name; note names (C, D, E etc.) represent a range of frequencies, for example A= 110Hz, 220Hz, 440Hz and so on (and this has only been fixed since 1955 - see the section on musical pitch for further information). If this claim is pointing to an analysis of the relative differences between the pitches of the seven notes in a C major scale as not being concurrent with an analysis of the relative physical distances between the seven chakras, I think this needs to be made more explicit. Benglow 02:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

any of the texts that i have read on chakras (admitadly these were all about the craft) suggest that the chakra colours are from the base up red orange yellow green blue violet and white, could there plese be a clarification.

Color confusion

Can someone explain to me why the colors of the illustration are incoherent to those of the table shown in the article? — Pladask 21:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

     I fixed the color confusion. It doesnt make sence to have a picture that contradicts the color chart. Jihiro 09:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Could we just remove the colours on the table? it's very uncomfortable to some ppl eyes. Each symbol on the table comes with its own colour and I think that should be enough Rdht 12:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Chakra stones?

What about chakra stones / planets?

"According to Hindu thinkers, one of the seven magic stones thrown by Lord Shiva landed in Krakow (Wawel Castle, specifically under the Cathedral). So Krakow is a center of supernatural energy, so called "chakra." These "chakra" centers are related to celestial bodies. Krakow is Jupiter. Other "chakras" in the world are: Delphi (Venus), Delhi (Moon), Jerusalem (Sun), Mecca (Mercury), Rome (Mars) and Velehrad (Saturn)."

(http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/20b47/77aeb/)

Is this a totally separate topic?

Traditional Yogic/Tantric VS New-Age Theory

I also agree with the above mentionned post about the Lotus-like structure, however, I do believe what we find written in the Yoga Shastras (Yogic Scriptures) is primordially an exoteric expression of what these Chakras are and not necessarily a "fantasy" in the sense that it was dreamed up nonsense.

On colour, I am extremely reluctant to use the rainbow idea. There is no yogic scripture, and here I am talking about Vedic litterature, that describes the Chakras as having a rainbow pattern. And if a Guru tells you that they are rainbow, he is a New Age charlatan who knows close to nothing on Yoga Shastras.

It is however true, that most scriptures and texts written by the Yogis of yore do not necessarily all point to ONE colour for each. The only fail-proof method you can have of "seeing" the Chakras is to develop the "Yogachakshu" or Yogic Vision.

One modern and easily accessible book that exists in print is "Kundalini Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda, published by the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh. Which I greatly prescribe to anyone who is truly interested in learning REAL Kundalini Yoga, and not the New Age version of the latter.

I would like to forward the suggestion made by a friend of mine on your article: It would be perhaps better if we had two versions of this article. One which is concerned with the traditional, scriptural, Yogic/Tantric version of the Chakras and the other concerned with the New Age Chakra theories.

Thank you.

--ShriDenhi 00:07, 27 July 2006 (Atlantic Time)

I read the petal amount represents vibration magnitude. A rainbow is arranged that way: low to high frequency. Surely it is a good analogy, but when you consider 7 head chakras (including main 2) and 7 coming down the front (including head, coccyx), etc., colours are unimportant. I agree one has to develop clairvoyance, but whose colour scheme would you recommend?

DNC 02:19, 03 Jan 2007 (PST))

Images in table

The seven images in the table (Image:Chakra01.gif, Image:Chakra02.gif, Image:Chakra03.gif,Image:Chakra04.gif, Image:Chakra05.gif, Image:Chakra06.gif, and Image:Chakra07.gif) are up for deletion on 2006-09-02 if a source cannot be found and a proper license given (they were originally tagged as {{free screenshot}}, which seems...unlikely). I've contacted th author too, but since this is the only place they are used, I figure the editors here should know as well, in case you can a) determine their state or b) devise replacements before they are gone. Thanks. -- nae'blis 16:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Alternative spelling?

Is chakhra an alternate way of spelling this word? If so, can we make that page redirect here? I am not doing it because I'm unsure whether the two words carry the same meaning.
-- Robin Chen 04:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Ajna

See Ajna and it has a "some argue". That's WP:WEASEL. DyslexicEditor 10:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientific basis section is messed up

The scientific basis section looks like it came from a "true believer" of this stuff trying to justify their belief on pseudoscientific grounds. Not that I know anything about this stuff myself, but look at it and tell me it doesn't seem awfully suspicious. I think we need input from a real skeptic on this subject.

Mbarbier 05:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)