Have you ever heard of the term cultural misappropriation? Well the modern occult culture is a guilty of it as Madonna. Cultural Misappropriation is where you take something from one culture and use it in a totally different culture. In fact it’s worse than that because it is often done by an empowered culture with privilege taking from an minority. In the process of re-appropriating a spiritual tradition, more often than not, something is lost. The spiritual practice is taken out of its context and presented to people who wouldn’t even understand the context if it were explained to them. It is often very broken by the time it gets to the next generation.
The problem is that often with magic and paganism we are often trying to search for something authentic and old. In fact a lot of effort goes into searching for the old, as if it is somehow better. It’s worth noting that just because something is old does not mean it was necessarily better. Remember that our ancient civilisations did not have access to technology that we have now and it’s entirely possible that our spiritual “technology” evolves in the same way. Also something which is based rigidly on an old scripture is often rigid and doesn’t allow for organic growth where as things which are the result of human being are often very natural and healthy. Although the sorcerer is rarely seeking for results that are “natural”.
Let’s imagine a white man goes to a Native American reservation and learns about Native American shamanism. He’s only been there for 3 years and learned what he could, but naturally he was not considered one of the tribe so they did not teach him everything and a lot of things related to basic stories that the Native Americans taught their children so there was a level of assumed knowledge that he did not have which led to him missing the point a lot, not being taught everything and then he left the reservation and went to New York. In New York he began to teach what he had learned. A few years later what passes for “Native American shamanism” is taught by white guys who missed the point, didn’t have the cultural context for what they were learning and had minimal exposure to the tradition in the first place. To make things worse they ran into gaps in their learning which they filled with New Age techniques which had nothing to do with “Native American Shamanism”, but which are now package a long side with in New York’s night classes which are quickly spreading across the world. In the mean 3 shamans living on the reservation are struggling to survive and keep getting letters from people asking them to teach them New Age techniques which are not part of their Shamanic tradition. When they say “no we do not teach these techniques” they are told “we will go find some real shamans then”.
This pattern happens over and over and over ad infinitum. What passes today for tradition is usually 75% misunderstanding and 25% traditional. For people like me who try to be well read and know our history, this is incredibly frustrating when you know the difference and you run into people (particularly online) who spout absolute rubbish.
One of the worst traditions for this is the Chakra tradition used by the modern new age community. There is so much wrong with the modern chakra tradition and it seems to give birth to more misinformation every year.
Okay so your chakra meditation works for you. That’s great! It really is. But please, please, please when you’re passing information on, please present UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) separate from historically verified information. This is surprisingly easy to do, for example, “traditionally this next exercise was not done because the chakras were not seen this way, but this practice works for me so I’d like to pass it on. I hope you have the same benefit I have”. This prevents so much misinformation.
I found myself asking, “what happened that it ended up this bad?” Let’s take a look, shall we?
The Journey of Chakras to the West
It’s often believed that many practices originated from certain ascetics known as Capalika or skull men, but little is really known about them, only that sometime in the early 1st century, some practices attributed with spiritual power became popular and there is some evidence connecting them to the Capalika. These practices were called Tantras. Many different gurus had wildly different practices and there was no single practice. At this point there was any number of chakras ranging from 4 to 21.
By the 11th century a scripture was written called the Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad which outlined 6 chakras. This text mentioned both meditation on chakras and clearing nadis in the subtle body, but these two practices were separate. They were in different verses. There was little evidence connecting the two, except a comment about one chakra, Anahata, which is said that if it is installed it will “link the vital fluid of the body to the sun and moon”.
I am told there is evidence of a 7 chakra system practised as part of Siva Samhita dated in the 1300s, but it is not something I have researched.
A recognised Swami known today as Purananda Swami, compiled all of his knowledge of chakra meditation into a 1557 volume called Sat Chakra Nirupana (or investigation into the 6 chakras). This was not meant to be a religious text. It was research.
In 1918 John Woodroffe under the pseudonym of Arthur Avalon published a translation of Sat Chakra Nirupana with 7 chakras and sadly made many errors a long the way. As I am no Sanskrit reader (yet) I cannot list them, however I can tell you having spoken to Sanskrit Experts I can confirm that there are many errors. This text featured 7 chakras.
In the late 19th century around 1877 and 1888 Madam Blavatsky published two very popular works on religion and esoteric practice. She attempted to try and create a unified tradition which covers all spiritual practices in the world. She rushed from country to country without leaving time to get to know the context of spiritual traditions, where traditions were different from elsewhere in the world she omitted the differences and in some instance it looks like she may have added some falsehoods to make it seem like there were is a more consistent esoteric tradition around the world. The result were two VERY misleading text called Isis Unveiled and the Secret Doctrine which did very little justice to the original meanings of many Indian words and philosophical ideas.
Around 1927 C. W. Leadbeater wrote his own treatise on the chakras, but unfortunately used many of Blavatsky’s falsely attributed words. He then seems to have gone through the same process she did of barely scraping the meaning of a word before using it and then misusing it as well so it just got worse.
Inappropriate Chakras
This section is to focus on common erroneous beliefs that are now held about the chakra system. Please understand that I’m just looking here at authenticity and congruence with the original chakra system. The current chakra system as is practised by most of the New Age community is the result of many years of evolution and so you could view it as more evolved. It is a natural phenomena that resulted from people so you could view it as natural. So just because it doesn’t match the chakra system in its originality, that does not entirely invalidate it.
Chakras are not part of the subtle body
Shock!!! Horror!!! Often today the only part of the subtle body that is taught in many Pagan and New Age groups is the chakra system. In early diagrams the subtle body with all its channels called nadis was mapped out in great details and it did not include the chakras. There were nadis which sometimes intersected where the chakras are nowadays visualised, but the chakras were not there. The chakra system is a visualisation that is laid over the subtle body. The ritual of working with the chakra is a type of ritual called by the Hindu term Nyasa which means to lay down, install or deposit. The chakra is almost like a subtle construct made with divine symbols on it and those divine symbols are put into the subtle body. This is to connect the subtle body to the divine. It is unlikely to have an effect specifically on the flow of that area. The Anahata chakra however is special it helps us connect our microcosm (or small replica of the world which is our energy body and its reflection of Shiva’s body) with the macrocosm (the entirety of the universe. At this point it is believed that when we begin to make changes to ourselves we then change the world.
The are some representations of chakras on the subtle body however these arise much later and do not represent the original or authentic beliefs / practices of yogis / Tantrists. The lack of drawings of this nature has resulted in many books showing the same “ancient” Indian diagram and I would like to postulate that even if a truly ancient diagram of the chakras on the subtle were to show up it is entirely possible this is simple an instruction on where to visualise the chakras.
My friends often use the phrase the chakras are prescriptive not description. This means that the scripts are not describing what already exists, but it is an instruction as to what to visualise… what you’re aiming for.
Chakras cannot be open, closed, blocked or unbalanced
A chakra is a divine symbol that represents the gods. It has infinite power like the supreme deities involved. A chakra cannot be blocked/closed or prevent the flowing energy around the subtle body. Like I said before it isn’t really part of the subtle body. However the nadis around where you think the chakra could be could potentially be blocked.
The subtle body does need development in order for it to be able to move vast amounts of energy around on the intense level used for ritual work or Kundalini awakening. One of the huge problems we are seeing in the West is that people are developing their subtle bodies exclusively around where they think the chakras are. The subtle body runs through the entirety of the body and in very rare cases the subtle body has a shape quite different to the physical body. It is important that you develop the entirety of the subtle body not just the chakra try channelling more and more intense energy around all parts of the body.
A chakra does not need to be balanced. The symbol is a pure manifestation of deity, but it is common for people who do not understand the symbols or know them very well to not visualise them correctly and therefore not connect to the divine correctly. It is also possible that the divine is so different to their usual state that it feels alien to them and therefore they perceive it as “out of balance” until it is more comfortable.
It is also possible that some nadis are more blocked on one side of the subtle body in comparison to the other side. Imagine a river with few obstacles flowing downstream. It would get faster and faster. Then imagine after building up speed the river hits a blockage or dam. All kinds of problems could occur like the river flowing over the sides of its bank, the river carving an unnatural path and all sorts. It is similar with the energy body, If one part is more developed than another part then you might get fast flows of energy which then get trapped suddenly and great pressure made with subtle energy, where it reaches the blockage or underdeveloped areas. This pressure can lead to all sorts of problems.
Again the problems above can mostly be corrected by developing the subtle body in its entirety not just the areas where the chakras are installed. Also familiarity with the feeling of the chakras can be attained by maintaining the practice.
There’s probably not 7 chakras
Early practices seem to have anything from ranges of 4 chakras to 21 chakras and there’s probably more I haven’t seen. They were not consistent which makes a lot of sense when you realise they were never meant to be part of the subtle body. You’re not necessarily talking about something that is meant to objectively exist. Instead you’re talking about Nyasa (installation) practices.
But why are they so inconsistent? Madamme Blavtsky who I mentioned earlier is a little bit to blame in our understanding. She often implied in her writing that all esoteric teachings were trying to achieve the same thing. This is a wonderful idea. It makes it sound like we are all in the same boat and although someone is far away and in a culture very different to my own they are pretty much the same as me and therefore not scary. It also means I can be confident having only learned one system of magic / mysticism to not learn any others because they all do the same thing right???
Sorry to say this, but “no”. Many gurus had different ideas of what was enlightenment and Buddha experienced the lifestyle of many ascetics and felt that what they were achieving was not the suffering relieving enlightenment that he sought. So he worked on a developed a different system. Many Tibetan Lamas do not entirely agree about what categorises the state of Buddha mind so there isn’t exactly consistency there even in one tradition. The aim of the Christian redemption theology are to contract with a divine figure and become reborn as a servant in the divine figures heaven rather than experience an afterlife without him. There is no attempt to achieve an enlightenment. The shamanic tradition involves trying to participate in a dream world, but many forms magic seek to transcend beyond all existence including dreaming. It would be lovely if all these paths are the same, but frankly quite boring. Variety is the spice melange of spiritual development.
So it needs to be clear not all the gurus have the same goal in mind. Also many of the gurus have a certain level of spiritual development through their recitation of hymns and Vedantic practices, so some might start their journey a step or two ahead of others who need to incorporate them into their system. One interesting teaching suggests that animals must go through 6 stages to reach human consciousness an humans go through 6 stages of consciousness to reach gods and then posits that gods need to go through 6 more stages … that or he was trying to impress people with a very thorough and complete spiritual system of which he had very little experience. It is also entirely possible he grew fed up of trying to explain to people that they hadn’t attained a certain chakra installment so just said now you need to do the god version since it caused less arguments. It’s also entirely possible he did not want to lose his students when they had completed the tantrika so he made up further rigs of ladder to keep students who had nothing more to learn from him. Trust me not all gurus were good people.
The modern practice of 7 chakras actually derives from a practice of six chakras the seventh “chakra” or sahasrara not actually being a chakra at all, but represents a state of being. This is not a chakra to install, but there is nothing wrong with developing the subtle body’s nadis around this point.
Chakras are not rainbow coloured
So in the 1977 a gentleman by the name of Christopher Hills wrote rainbow body chakras. It would seem that he found visualising the traditional Indian symbolism difficult. Also the evolution caused by the chakras was complicated and hard to understand or remember, especially for someone who hadn’t experienced them so to make a system that was easier to remember a colour of the rainbow was attributed to each chakra and the spiritual progression was replaced with something simplified… greater and greater frequencies.
Yeah this is easier to remember, but it lacks respect for the entire philosophy behind the chakras. Their point was to establish the presence of deity in the subtle body. Why do the practice if you are omitting the deity? Also the frequencies is a great way to make a tradition that never ends… you can keep telling your students to go for greater and greater frequencies as they try to achieve something unnatural and possibly unhealthy with no guide to tell them they have actually reached anything.
The chakra system in its early diagrams:
- Sahasrara – colour which transcends other colours
- Agni – light grey of rain, clear or white
- Visuddhi – Dark grey or purple
- Anahata – Shining Crimson or orange
- Manipura – colour of heavy clouds or dark blue
- Swadisthana – vermillion or yellow
- Muladhara – crimson
Leadbeater’s colours:
- Crown – Violet or Prismatic
- Frontal – Rose and Indigo
- Throat – Blue and Green
- Heart – Golden
- Navel – Red and Green
- Spleen – Full Spectrum
- Coccygeal – Red and Orange
The colours as they appear in Christopher Hill’s Rainbow body chakras and Anodea Judith’s Wheels of Light
- Crown – Violet
- Third eye – Indigo
- Throat – Blue
- Heart – Green
- Solar Plexus – Yellow
- Navel – Orange
- Root – Red
The inconsistent of the colours even in authentic Tantric art would tend to suggest that the colour is one of the least significant things about the chakra. You can visualise it as rainbow colours if you want. If you were to imagine the original colours I would suggest that more research should be done to determine the likely meaning behind the colours to the authentic practitioners. In my opinion however this indicates that we should be visualising all the deities and petals. A chakra needs to be more than just a colour. Also we need to recognise that just higher and higher frequencies is a massive over simplification of this spiritual progression. These colours are a short cut to no where.
Chakras don’t have Bija mantras
Often we chant a specific mantra for each chakra. This is called a seed mantra or bija mantra. However the main mantra used for each chakra is Om. The mantras “lam”, “vam”, “ram”, “yam” and “ham” are nothing to do with the chakras they are associated with the elements earth, water, fire, air and space/void. The next mantra is om which is associated with all the chakras and not just Agni.
There are some teachers who believe that the elements are wrongly associated with those chakras. Hareesh who runs a course on chakras speculates whether continually invoking air on the heart is perhaps why so many yoga teachers have difficulty maintaining their relationships. Also since in the 5 chakra models the void is the last chakra there is some suggestion that this should be associated with the last chakra to be opened, Agni, but where do we put the other elements? Often fire is associated with the burning nature of the emotions in many eastern practices so should that be at the heart? Or should the cool peaceful nature of water be invoked?
Conclusion
If you’re working with chakra from a way that involves just swirling colours then you might want to try learning a bit more symbolism. More symbolism could have a huge affect on your spiritual development. What you refer to as “spiritual development”, might not be the same thing the yogi’s intended when they refer to “spiritual development”. Also when passing on your learning please be careful to pass on what works for you, but represent it as such. Please, please, please stop destroying the knowledge we have of this very old and authentic tradition by passing along simplified versions represented as the authentic tradition.
Sources
In order to compile this article I worked from information in:
Sir Woodroff’s / Arthur Avalon’s Serpent Power
Michelle Belanger’s Psychic Energy Codex
Kundalini Yoga – Swami Satyananda Saraswatti
Tantra Illuminated – Christopher Wallis
Hareesh.org