The Long, But Uncertain, History of the Chakras

What is a chakra?

A simple question. The answer often goes something like this:

Life is energy, and the chakras are about energy. The universal life force circulates through us and brings us the experience of life. The chakras are the storehouses and transmitters of the universal energy, and each of the chakras represent distinct frequencies within the universal. The chakras interact with the electromagnetic energy field and transform this into the energy that sustains our lives.

The chakras are the conduits through which the universal energy flows. Our personal sense of this is that it moves from the earth through the lower chakras to the upper chakras, but it is not linear – it is cyclic and runs both ways. (...) The chakras are spinning vortices of subtle energy located along the spine from the base to the crown.ⁱ

The passage above is representative of a popular view is that the chakras are seven centers of spiritual energy in the body. These words are problematic. Elements of the given definition are themselves undefined. Other parts are demonstrably wrong.

What is a “universal life force,” exactly? What is “spiritual energy”? The word “spiritual” is not defined in any useful or measurable way. What is “subtle energy”?

The word “energy” does have a very specific scientific meaning. Unfortunately, according to that definition, scientists have not found any measurable energy correlating to the chakras. This energy must be subtle indeed.

It is demonstrably false (within a reasonable doubt) to say chakras “interact with the electromagnetic energy field” and or that they provide “energy that sustains our lives.”

What is meant by “frequencies”? What is “universal energy,” relative to the common definition of energy in physics? Is there such a thing as non-universal energy? How do chakras “store” and “transmit” this energy, and why can't we measure either process?

The answer fails. It is no answer at all.

More elaborate answers abound, but many fall apart for the same reason as the simple answer. They contain words which are themselves poorly defined, or they contain claims which are demonstrably wrong.

The chakras have inspired thousands of books over hundreds of years containing probably millions of words. Many of these books are extremely detailed, and many directly contradict one another. It is impossible to distill a coherent, consistent description of a chakra from all these texts.

It's tempting to throw up your hands, declare chakras a faith-based remnant of a religious tradition, and move on to some more pressing problem. But the incredible popularity and endurance of the concept begs for a deeper look. Despite all the ambiguity, there is something in this concept that resonates deeply with human beings of nearly every race, nationality and creed. By its very nature, that resonance invites closer examination.

History can tell us the first definitions of the chakras, the origin of the concept in the Hinduism's sacred writings. We can trace how that seminal idea evolved and mutated. We can look at why it changed, and whether those changes obscured the original meaning.

By the end of this process, we can ask again “What is a chakra?” and hope to construct a better answer than “storehouses and transmitters of the universal energy.”

Armed with this improved definition, we can then ask the question that burns through this concept's long history: “Do chakras really exist?”

From the Yoga Tradition

Hinduism is not a single, unified set of beliefs. There are thousands of sects, uncounted variations in belief. There is no single context in which the chakras developed. Rather, they arose from a primordial chaos of texts as far back as 3,000 years.

The origin of the chakras and the practice of yoga are inextricably linked. Some version of yoga stretching and bodily postures was practiced by itinerant ascetics wandering India, Tibet and Southern Asia. The practice was shaped against the backdrop of India and the Hindu religion.

Whether the practice sprang from or developed independently of Hinduism, the two became closely integrated over time. The word “yoga” is Sanskrit for “yoke” or “union” – in reference to the forces which Hindus believe unite our physical bodies with our spiritual selves. Yoga postures are meant to harmonize body and consciousness (meaning either mind or soul, depending on the surrounding context).

Although many secular Westerners today practice yoga primarily for its beneficial physical stretching and movement, the underlying mechanics and meaning of the system are metaphysical and religious.

The exact date of yoga's origin is unknown. Proponents claim the tradition dates back as far as 6,000 B.C. While this may be true, the written traditions of yoga can be found somewhat more recently.

The core yoga concepts appear for the first time in the Rig-Veda, a Hindu scripture dating back about 3,000 years,ⁱⁱ and here we encounter an early esoteric use of the Sanskrit word “cakra,” which translates literally as “wheel.” (The word in context can also refer to any round object, or to a round, bladed, throwing weapon in use at the time.)

The cakra/chakra references in the Rig-Veda tend toward obscurity. The chakras are most prominently cited as the seven wheels of a cosmic chariot, which is represented in the sky by the seven stars of the Big Dipper, according to Vedic scholar David Frawley, who believes the reference to these stars was intended to correspond with the bodily chakras.ⁱⁱⁱ

Soma and Pusan, urge your chariot hither,
the seven-wheeled car that measures out the region.^iv

Frawley's link of this reference with the modern concept of chakras might be defensible, but the surrounding text offers little direct support for his theory. The chakra system was also notably absent from the seminal yoga text, the Yoga Sutras, written around the sixth century B.C.E.^v

The Khândogya-Upanishad, dated to about the eighth century B.C.E., contains what may be the first clearly identifiable reference to the modern notion of the chakra,^vi a passage that identifies the heart as the seat of consciousness in the body. According to the passage, this consciousness takes on the metaphysical form of a lotus – a sacred flower in both Hindu and Buddhist belief.

There is this city of Brahman (the body), and in it the palace, the small lotus (of the heart), and in it that small ether. Now what exists within that small ether, that is to be sought for, that is to be understood.

And if they should say to him: 'Now with regard to that city of Brahman, and the palace in it, i. e. the small lotus of the heart, and the small ether within the heart, what is there within it that deserves to be sought for, or that is to be understood?'

Then he should say: 'As large as this ether (all space) is, so large is that ether within the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained within it, both fire and air, both sun and moon, both lightning and stars; and whatever there is of him (the Self) here in the world, and whatever is not (i. e. whatever has been or will be), all that is contained within it 1.'^vii

Some later accounts use the Sanskrit word for lotus (padma) as a synonym for chakra, so the reference here is very probably a related or antecedent concept. However, the word “cakra” (absent from this description) also denotes structural characteristics today closely associated with the chakra concept – round and spinning like a wheel. These early iterations are notably lacking in references to such qualities.

Written over the course of centuries by numerous authors, the Upanishads also discuss at some length the significant biological organs of the body, often in terms of the connected overall physiological process – such as sensory perception, reproduction or digestion. The number of organs cited varies depending on the text, but the numbers five and seven recur frequently, likely for their numerological appeal.

The organs described in the Upanishads often resemble later accounts of the chakras, and some of them (like the heart) share the same physical location on the body. The Maitrâyana Brâhmana Upanishad describes the organs as a conduit through which the elemental self, or consciousness, acts on the world.^viii Other passages describe the organs as receptacles or conduits for divine energy (prana).

While all these references are suggestive and intriguing, they are ultimately only precursors to what we currently understand as the chakra system. Despite the extravagant claims made by some chakra enthusiasts, there is little evidence that the seven-chakra system as we know it today is part of an unbroken tradition dating to antiquity.

In fact, texts like those cited above show an idea very much in the process of evolving. Although it's possible the modern seven-chakra system was known through oral tradition or kept secret from the uninitiated, it appears far more likely that the idea simply wasn't fully imagined at this stage in history. It was clearly part of early Hindu theological thinking, but the more sophisticated conception emerged at a glacial pace.

If we take these early, ambiguous passages as part of the chakras' textual evolution, we can clearly see a succession of authors struggling over the course of centuries to define experiences or ideas that they understood only intuitively – if at all.

The Subtle Body

Throughout the various iterations of the concept, most sources agree the chakras are located on something called the “subtle body.” Even today, it's extraordinarily difficult to pin down exactly what “subtle body” is supposed to mean.

The concept appears early in the annals of Hindu mysticism. The subtle body is featured in the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, which likely predates 500 B.C.E. by a wide margin, and the Taittirīya Upanishad, of a similarly venerable vintage. It is discussed in the Vedanta Sutras (100 B.C.E.). Later texts such as the Devî Bhâgawatam (1000 C.E.) present extremely elaborate extensions of the basic idea.

Translation presents immediate difficulties in explaining the subtle body to a Western audience. The Sanskrit phrase is sūkshma-sharīra.^ix Sūkshma is usually translated as “subtle,” but it can also mean “minute,” “unmanifested,” “dark” or “empty.” The word is sometimes used as a modifier to denote dreaming, sleep, mental activity or qualities of the mind.

Sharīra is no less problematic. The word is translated as “body” when paired with sūkshma, but it can also means “sheath,” “husk” or “frame”^x – translations which convey a sense of shaped organization.

In its most developed form, the sūkshma-sharīra concept is defined as a collection of channels (nadīs) through which prana moves. These channels have very specific shapes, but it isn't clear they have any meaningful substance of their own^xi – as opposed to channels holding water in a canal, for instance, which are made from stone.

The spiritual material or energy shaped by the sūkshma-sharīra is prana, the “life force” in Hindu belief. Prana literally means “breath,” which is considered the most material manifestation of life, but the word in context usually refers to a metaphysical vital force beyond the gross physical manifestation of respiration.^xii The subtle body is an intermediary link, a mechanism that connects the material body to some form of immaterial consciousness (ātman), and allows these planes of reality to interact.

The sūkshma-sharīra has no direct analogue in Western religious thought, a fact which will come to plague this discussion later. In the Judeo-Christian model, body and soul are connected, but no major movement has made a significant effort to explain how they are connected.^xiii The connection simply exists, an a priori postulate.

Although Western religion is mostly silent about how body and soul are connected, Western science has more to say on the topic. The issue is considered one of the most difficult questions in philosophy, biology and physics: Can the contents of a non-physical consciousness (mind or soul) control the actions of the body? If so, how? It's called the mind-body problem, and we'll examine this in some detail in Chapter Four.

Early Chakra Concepts

The discussion of the subtle body in the Upanishads laid the groundwork for the formal system of chakras as we currently understand it, but the explicit language and final parameters of the chakras were not developed until much closer to modern times.

Around the second century C.E., the Yogatattva-Upanishad^xiv describes five centers in the body where concentration should be directed, but it does not define these centers using the word “chakra.” The text describes broad regions of the body, each of which has a specific color, geometric shape and a “seed” in the center which takes the form of a Sanskrit letter. The passage outlines breathing exercises related to the centers and describes supernatural powers that can be obtained by concentrating on each region.

Other early texts also describe the bodily centers as lotus-shaped. The lotuses were often said to be inscribed with Sanskrit letters or very specific images. The number of petals associated with each chakra lotus was often presented as a trait of paramount importance, but exact numbers varied with each retelling of the tradition. The petals, letters and images together were believed to encode information about living a moral life.

Around the 10^th century, the descriptions of the centers became more varied, including the now familiar description of a spinning wheel of energy or color. The centers first became “chakras” in the context of Tantric Yoga.

Tantric Yoga

Tantra is a systematic approach to yoga and life that sits somewhere between and within both Buddhism and Hinduism. It incorporates elaborate doctrines about how the body stores and moves prana and a complementary form of spiritual “energy” called kundalini, which can be described very loosely as a form of prana that has been refined and shaped into specific patterns.

The word kundalini, derived from Sanskrit, means “coiled” (like a snake) and represents the latent pattern of this sculpted prana, which is said to be wrapped around the spinal cord. Different schools of Tantric tradition teach adherents to cultivate (or in some cases, eradicate) this pattern in order to unite individual consciousness with the divine.

In the most widespread form of Tantric practice, practitioners uses meditative techniques and yoga postures to coax kundalini to rise through the body, passing through the chakras and “activating” them – a significant change from the static contemplation techniques laid out for the centers in the Yogatattva-Upanishad.

Kundalini activation of the chakras in sequence (from bottom to top) forms a sort of initiation hierarchy, with each center representing a higher level of cosmic consciousness. The activation of each chakra is also sometimes associated with the development of a specific psychic or supernatural power. An activated chakra is described as having the form of a rapidly spinning wheel, vortex or spiral. The wheels are frequently described as featuring spokes – lines of force emanating from the center.

One of the earliest forms of Tantric practice was Vajrayana Buddhism, a secretive sect predating the fourth century C.E. The 10^th century Kālacakratantra text claims to based on an earlier Vajrayana manuscript, which is likely true, although the exact content of its precursor is unknown.^xv

Kālacakratantra outlines a secret tradition of the chakras clearly related to contemporary and later texts. Apparently built on earlier traditions, the Vajrayana text presents what may be the first description of the chakras as we understand them today – describing the circular “wheel” shape from which the chakras derive their name.

The wheels of the Kālacakratantra were not limited to centers in the body, however. The text presents an extremely esoteric view of time and space, with all reality built around cycles, circles, mandalas and spirals in two and three dimensions.

The chakras laid out in the Kālacakratantra possessed an intimate structural link with the nature of reality.^xvi The word kālacakra itself means “wheel of time” and refers to universal cycles of existence rather than the bodily chakras. The bodily chakras are reflections of the greater reality of the universe, and their structure is related to the macro-environment.

Around the same time, other texts began to lay out similar parameters for the chakra system and related meditation techniques, including the Gorakshashtakam and the Yogaşikhā Upanishad. Updated versions of the chakras were presented in some of the later Upanishads as well.

The details of the chakras themselves continued to vary from text to text, including color, shape and number. Some writers described four chakras, some described eight. Some texts are even internally inconsistent, such as an obscure, undated text known as the Vajra Miracle in a citation preserved by a 14th century commentator:

The chakras are counted as three or four or five.
As for two times two, its one is perfect.^xvii

There is no agreement on what the second line means, or even how it should be translated. The numerical inconsistencies were addressed, to an extent, in some later texts which described alternating systems of several major and numerous lesser chakras. In these accounts, there are minor chakras scattered throughout the body, in addition to a system of major chakras usually numbering three, five, six or seven.

The question of shape is no clearer than that of number. Some sources described lotus structures, but others described the more recent concept of chakras as “wheels.” Eventually, even the more traditional descriptions began to be associated with the wheel structure, either directly in the text or in interpretive commentaries. Some later texts mix wheels and lotuses, assigning specific attributes to one or another chakra.

The Six Centers (Plus One)

Over the course of time, some accounts took on greater importance than others. The Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa (Description of the Six Centres) is arguably the most important text on the chakras, because of its impact on Western audiences. Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa is a Tantric scripture written in Sanskrit during the 16^th century and studied in India for centuries thereafter.

Today, many consider Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa the most authoritative source text on the chakras.^xviii Although the text is heavily flavored with Hindu iconography, the basic concepts are usually considered nondenominational.

Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa described six major chakras which correspond to locations in the human body. A seventh was said to exist outside the body. Today, the seven-chakra system has been widely adopted as the most legitimate view. According to the Ṣat ̣Cakra, the chakras and their corresponding locations are:

The Root Chakra (Mūlādhāra) – The base of the spine, tailbone.

The Sacral Chakra (Svādhishthāna) – Lower abdomen/genitals.

The Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipūra) – Upper abdomen, in the vicinity of the navel.

The Heart Chakra (Anāhata) – Center of the chest.

The Throat Chakra (Vishuddhi) – Just below the larynx.

The Third Eye Chakra (Ājnā) – Between the eyes at the bridge of the nose.

The Crown Chakra (Sahasrāra) – located at the top of the skull, or outside the body directly above the head.

Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa describes each chakra as possessing specific qualities, including color and shape, each with its own spiritual and physical significance. Each chakra is a combination of geometric shapes, Hindu iconography and Sanskrit letters.

Although Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa uses the word “cakra” to describe the centers, the descriptions hearken back to the pre-chakra symbolism of the centers as lotus-like structures (padmas). While the images have a generally circular layout, the “wheels” of Kālacakratantra are nowhere to be found. Indeed, the Ṣat ̣Cakra descriptions primarily consist of opaque deity-based imagery with virtually no explicit mention of underlying philosophy or metaphysical rumination. The following excerpt is representative:

In this (Lotus) is the square region (Cakra) of Prthivi, surrounded by eight shining spears. It is of a shining yellow colour and beautiful like lightning, as is also the Bïja of Dhāra which is within.

Ornamented with four arms and mounted on the King of Elephants, He carries on His lap the child Creator, resplendent like the young Sun, who has four lustrous arms, and the wealth of whose lotus-face is fourfold.^xix

The Western Scholar

Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa was a prominent “public” text in Indian Tantric circles, while Kālacakratantra represented the esoteric knowledge of a secret Buddhist cult. Traditionally, such public texts are heavily veiled in metaphor and symbolic language in order to obscure a religious cult's true teachings from the uninitiated.

However, there is not a broad consensus on the allegorical or symbolic meaning behind Ṣat ̣Cakra. Although religious texts are always subject to interpretation and debate, attempts to understand the context of Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa are additionally complicated by the manuscript's dramatic impact in the West.

Ṣat ̣Cakra was already well-known in India by the dawn of the 20^th century, but its translation into English cemented its status as an authoritative exposition.

Hindu and Buddhist religious ideas first gained wide circulation in the West toward the end of the 19^th century when Max Mūller, a German-born Oxford scholar, edited the first major translations of the Rig-Veda, along with dozens of other Eastern spiritual texts, in a series published by the Oxford University Press starting in 1879 and continuing for the next 30 years.

In 1919, Sir John Woodroffe, an Oxford-educated judge stationed in colonial India, independently wrote the first major English translation of the Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa – the Description of the Six Centres. Woodroffe included the translations in his groundbreaking work on tantric yoga, The Serpent Power^xx, a tremendously influential book that remains an authoritative English text on tantra and the chakras nearly 90 years later.

Although Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa was already prominent in Hindu circles, Woodroffe's translation established the text as a sort of canon authority on tantric and chakra beliefs, which were rapidly attracting adherents in Europe.

Woodroffe went out of his way to discuss the chakras in the context of hard science. In his commentary on Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa, Woodroffe describes the “Cakras” as “subtle centres of operation in the body.” His description of their location and function is closely tied to the most sophisticated Western anatomical knowledge of 1919.

Woodroffe noted that the Description of the Six Centres located the chakras and related channels of prana on the physical body in relation to the spinal cord. Based on the text and his own conversations with Hindu scholars, Woodroffe asserted a direct connection between the chakra locations and the functioning of the human nervous system.

The author outlined extensive correspondences between the chakra locations and nerve bundles in the body. His analysis was arguably brilliant for its day, seeking to unify “the Western anatomy and physiology of the central and sympathetic nervous systems” with “an account of the Tantrick nervous system and cakras.”

Despite the considerable ink Woodroffe spent on behalf of these correspondences, he also noted in no uncertain terms that the correlation between chakras and anatomical features was approximate. (In some cases, they were also based on faulty, but au courant, notions about the nervous system.)

Woodroffe was clearly fascinated by these parallels, but he was also keenly aware that his text could be misinterpreted and he warned against thinking too simplistically about the chakras – either by reducing them to mundane anatomical features or by elevating them to the status of occult totems.

“Some modern Indian writers^xxi have also helped to diffuse erroneous notions about the Cakras by describing them from what is merely a materialistic or physiological standpoint,” he wrote in the introduction to The Serpent Power. “To do so is not merely to misrepresent the case, but to give it away; for physiology does not know the Cakras as the exist in themselves – that is as centres of consciousness (...) though it does deal with the gross body which is related to them. Those who appeal to physiology only are likely to return non-suited.”

Despite this rather prescient warning, Woodroffe's speculation about the relationship between the chakras and the nervous system have dominated the attitudes of both “true believers” and curious scientists for nearly a century since he wrote those words. We'll take a detailed look at the consequences of this development in Chapter Two.

On the other end of the spectrum, Woodroffe also saw that the amorphous concepts underlying the chakras could be misconstrued on the metaphysical side. Of particular concern were two popular mystical movements very much in vogue when the first edition of The Serpent Power ran off the presses.

Sorcerers and Psychics

Several years before the publication of The Serpent Power, a group of Cambridge intellectuals formed the Golden Dawn, a “secret” society that integrated many Eastern practices into an eclectic body of practices that formed the basis of modern occultism. Several members of the Golden Dawn were mountaineers who had been exposed to Eastern ideas during treks to the Himalayas.

One of those mountaineers was Aleister Crowley, a Golden Dawn alumni. More famous for his alleged depravity than his academic accomplishments, Crowley nevertheless played a key role in translating the practice of yoga for Western audiences.

Crowley began practicing yoga around the dawn of the 20^th century, and he was one of its first vocal proponents in Europe. Crowley believed yoga could be used to focus the will for ritual magic purposes. As a magician, Crowley was concerned with focusing and directing will to accomplish change in the material world and beyond. It was therefore natural for him to describe the chakras in terms of physical energy manifest in the real world. Crowley's occult rituals frequently involved touching, invoking and otherwise manipulating the chakras and their supposed energies.

The idea that the chakras could be identified with physical energy on the gross material plane was also promulgated by another potent movement, which had started disseminating information about the chakras a few years before the publication of The Serpent Power.

The Theosophical movement formed in the later years of the 19^th century under the guidance of the infamous Madame H.P. Blavatsky, a self-proclaimed psychic and clairvoyant.

The occultists were influential among intellectuals and academics in Europe, but they faced significant social pressures due to their obsession with works of “black magic.” Crowley's frequent invocation of Satanic symbolism drawn from the Christian model and his reputation for “sexual deviance” (by contemporary standards) further marginalized the movement during this period.

By avoiding such pitfalls, at least in public, the Theosophists were able to disseminate some of the same concepts more openly and with less fear of the kind of legal and social repercussions that dogged Crowley throughout his life. The Theosophists also benefited from their founding principles, an ambitious attempted to recast spiritual beliefs in a new intellectual light.

The original Theosophical Society was based on a reasonable and attractive premise – that all world religions are concerned with basically the same major issues. Its stated purpose was to create a new philosophy from the “best” elements of the world's major mystical systems, including Gnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.

Theosophy looked good on paper, but in practice, members of the Society and its many splinter groups advanced an uneven and often self-aggrandizing agenda, plucked seemingly at random from a grab-bag of mystical and psychic beliefs. The leaders of the movement were mostly self-proclaimed clairvoyants, mediums, telepaths and psychokinetics. Some members were eventually exposed as deliberate frauds.

One member of the Theosophical Society, the Rev. Charles Leadbeater, played a particularly significant role in shaping the chakras for Western consumption.

By the time Woodroffe published The Serpent Power, Leadbeater had already established himself on the lecture circuit with a typically Theosophist view of the chakras – loosely based on Indian teachings, largely improvisational and significantly embellished with testimonial evidence derived from the author's self-professed psychic powers.

An alleged clairvoyant, Leadbeater offered a view significantly colored by his own “psychic” impressions of the chakras, which differed substantially from the highly symbolic presentation in Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa. Leadbeater beat Woodroffe into print with the publication of The Inner Life in 1908. He followed up with The Chakras in 1927, which fleshed out many of his earlier comments.

Leadbeater's descriptions of the chakras' structure as spinning vortices hearkened back to the spoked wheels described in the Tantric text Kālacakratantra, and he presented a picture markedly different from that presented in The Serpent Power.

The major elements of Leadbeater's view were drawn from later tantric yoga texts such as the Yoga Sastra^xxii and the 18^th century Shiva Samhita. Leadbeater also cited the previously mentioned five-center chakra-like system outlined in the 2^nd-century Yogatattva-Upanishad as part of the tradition supporting his view.

According to Leadbeater, the chakras could be seen by clairvoyants as “blazing, coruscating whirlpools, much increased in size, and resembling miniature suns.”^xxiii He claimed the activation of each chakra awakened supernatural powers, an argument he supported with citations from later period texts like the Shiva Samhita.

As with most chakra literature, Leadbeater attributed specific colors and structural elements to each chakra. The lotus imagery and Hindu iconography in Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa was markedly absent. Leadbeater claimed the Ṣat ̣Cakra and related descriptions were purely symbolic.

Leadbeater argued the chakras should not be identified with the nervous system features Woodroffe had lingered over, because the chakras are non-physical structures. He also recast the historical context relating the chakras to morality to allow for chakra activation in people of questionable moral character (which he claimed to have seen). In his view, the chakras were entirely metaphysical receptacles of “divine energy.”

A strong case can be made in favor of the contention that the chakra descriptions in Ṣat ̣Cakra Nirūpaṇa are meant symbolically, and Leadbeater's descriptions were similar to those outlined in the Kālacakratantra. But Leadbeater damaged his credibility by breaking out in pseudoscientific prose poems at regular intervals during his writings. A representative example illustrates Leadbeater's ambiguity of language and markedly improvisational style of “scientific” explanation:

This divine energy which pours into each centre from without sets up at right angles to itself (that is to say, in the surface of the etheric double) secondary forces in undulatory circular motion, just as bar-magnet thrust into an induction coil produces a current of electricity which flows round the coil at right angles to the axis or direction of the magnet.  The primary force itself, having entered the vortex, radiates from it again at right angles, but in straight lines, as though the centre of the vortex were the hub of a wheel, and the radiations of the primary force its spokes.

In keeping with Theosophy's goal of integrating the world's esoteric knowledge into a theoretically cohesive whole, Leadbeater borrowed words, concepts and images from a wide variety of sources. His attempts to reassemble those pieces into a meaningful argument won him many fans and not a few critics. In The Serpent Power, Woodroffe himself directly addressed Leadbeater's theories with barely concealed contempt:

We may here notice the account of a well-known 'Theosophical' author regarding what he calls the 'Force centres' and the 'Serpent Fire,' of which he writes that he has personal experience. (...) (Although) 'Theosophical' teaching is largely inspired by Indian ideas, the meaning which it attributes to the Indian terms is not always that given to these terms by the Indians themselves.”

Once again, Woodroffe's warning was prescient. The chakra system held a deep appeal for many people – resonating on an almost instinctive level.

But the conflicting traditions and ambiguous terminology surrounding these mysterious centers created pitfalls for both scientific examiners and spiritual believers. In the decades to come, Woodroffe's concerns would be realized in almost every respect.

To be continued...

Interested publishers may contact J.M. Berger for a detailed book proposal and additional sample chapters.



(C) 2005, J.M. Berger, All Rights Reserved

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