Why doesn't everyone know about Chakras?

[ribblle]

For those who don't know: from what i understand, chakras are nerve bundles throughout the body, some of which are located on tops of organs. Interpreted many ways, often bull****, but that's the fact. I highly doubt any spirits are involved, whether or not you see strange ****. I view talk of that as just your brain talking to itself.

I found this graphic (https://mindbodygreen-res.cloudinary.com/images/w_767,q_auto:eco,f_auto,fl_lossy/org/7k4hg8myek98lm006/the-7-chakras-for-beginners.jpg), focused on the areas and found something actually happened. I'm talking less then a minute. Scary and a little painful (from the solar plexus on down, in my case), and i definitely didn't do whatever it is i'm supposed to do with it, but yeah, certainly a response. You're supposed to start from the root up; and judging by my experience, yeah, you're going to want to.

Please spend literally one minute closing your eyes and focusing on those areas before you write me off. It doesn't work for everyone (or maybe the nerve bundles are in different locations), but i'll be interested to see how many it does work for.

Some additional points: you will not necessarily experience pain. It depends on the health of that region, but fairly reliably the higher up the body you go the more difficult it will be to work with. Which brings me to my next point; this is a well-known tradition in Buddhism and Hinduism, and generally recognized in Asia. There is a lot of information and advice on developing it and how it should be used; and you should stick to it. This is not without it's risks; you are after all using a "muscle" (really a instinct) you've never used before, so don't push it. First tip, it's important to develop the lower chakras before you move to the higher ones. I recommend the r/chakras subreddit, to avoid the woo which is all around this stuff. If it doesn't work for you, your chakras may be blocked. This can be a consequence of age, or ill health, or just dumb luck; in general with enough time and practice you can activate them, but you may need to learn specific meditation techniques and so on to do it.

So why in the everloving **** doesn't everyone know about this?

What i have found is that some groups who knew about it were persecuted, like the Gnostics; other's hoarded the information in secretive groups, and to some extent this applies in Asia as well. The fact that it doesn't immediately work for everyone may have slowed things as well; but nevertheless. It's a basic human instinct. If you take the view that it's a "recent" discovery, a unexpected side effect of our big brains, it still originated some 2500 years ago. How something that can be felt in a minute doesn't run around the world i don't know. Unless that's rarer then i think \_(._.)_/

[Eldan]

I've never seen the remotest shred of scientific evidence that it does anything beyond vague woo that doesn't really tell us anything new.

For example, you can focus on that area and feel something. Okay.

Can you also focus on other areas and feel something? How about a true double-blind test? If someone has never heard about the chakra locations, are they more likely to feel something if you tell them to focus on a chakra spot, or some other spot? Because "Think of this spot in your body and focus on it and you'll feel better" could mean anything. I can focus on my knees or hands, too, and will eventually feel all kinds of weird stuff. That doesn't mean anything.

What exactly does "blocked" mean? If we call these clusters of nerves, well, nerves can't be "blocked". They can be severed, but that can be physically seen and measured, and they aren't.

If they exist, what do they actually do? Anything measureable? Do they do anything beyond general meditation and mindedness?

[Brother Oni]

I've never seen the remotest shred of scientific evidence that it does anything beyond vague woo that doesn't really tell us anything new.

I agree - the plural of 'personal anecdote' isn't 'data'.

That said, some of the locations listed in the diagram are well known pressure points/vulnerabilities in martial arts:

Root is the groin; Obvious one
Solar plexus; nerve cluster behind the stomach - almost everybody knows about this one
Heart; the diagram is a bit high, but there's a pressure point right in the middle of the sternum - it's why sternal rubs hurt so much. Getting hit in that area can potentially cause commotio cordis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cordis) as well.
Throat; another obvious one.

In Chinese martial arts, these all lie on what's known as the centre line.

[ribblle]

For example, you can focus on that area and feel something. Okay.

This in the first place is news to me. It's a much more intense feeling then just paying attention to your blood pumping, for example.

If you've tried it and you're willing to throw out all
the accumulated knowledge from inevitably antiquated cultures who knows about it, that's on you.

As for scientific evidence:

https://medium.com/@lloydsparks/the-neurophysiology-of-chakras-3f20a0f5b3b5

https://blog.glo.com/2012/04/the-science-of-chakras/

The first is written by this guy (https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Medicine-Dr-Lloyd-Sparks/dp/1725899744) , who has a pretty good resume if you take that at face value.

[Eldan]

This in the first place is news to me. It's a much more intense feeling then just paying attention to your blood pumping, for example.

If you've tried it and you're willing to throw out all
the accumulated knowledge from inevitably antiquated cultures who knows about it, that's on you.

As for scientific evidence:

https://medium.com/@lloydsparks/the-neurophysiology-of-chakras-3f20a0f5b3b5

https://blog.glo.com/2012/04/the-science-of-chakras/

The first is written by this guy (https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Medicine-Dr-Lloyd-Sparks/dp/1725899744) , who has a pretty good resume if you take that at face value.


THose are not scientific sources, they are pop science articles that make a few vague statements and don´t cite anything.

For example, pointing out that there are major nerves vaguely near the points of the chakras doesn´t mean that the chakras themselves mean anything. There are major nerve clusters everywhere along the central line of the body. And just because you can identify seven of these nerve clusters with the seven chakras doesn´t mean those seven are special or that you can reduce their number down to seven. There are many more throughout the body that are equally important. Especially reducing the entire brain to two small regions just because there´s only two chakras in the head is extremely reductive.

I´m not saying this is entirely meaningless. I´m sure there´s some actual study there. I´m questioning what the use of it is in the face of modern physiological knowledge that identifies many, many more important regions of the body.

It´s also very post-hoc. We have modern knowledge about the brain. Ancient peoples identified two chakras to be in the head. Clearly, they meant the brain. Did they, though?

[Anonymouswizard]

I agree - the plural of 'personal anecdote' isn't 'data'.

That said, some of the locations listed in the diagram are well known pressure points/vulnerabilities in martial arts:

While I don't want to be prescriptive here, yeah this has a good chance of being 'people knew about something real, like pressure points, and attached a lot of extra stuff to it'. By which I mean that I'm personally 100% certain that there's nothing about these areas that makes them special, although a proper peer-reviewed study could convince me otherwise.

[Eldan]

While I don't want to be prescriptive here, yeah this has a good chance of being 'people knew about something real, like pressure points, and attached a lot of extra stuff to it'. By which I mean that I'm personally 100% certain that there's nothing about these areas that makes them special, although a proper peer-reviewed study could convince me otherwise.

That´s the thing about ancient sources that have thousands of years of writing on them. By being selective and applying it post-hoc to modern knowledge, you can make all kinds of claims. Like saying "See, there´s major nerves near every chakra, clearly, the ancients knew about all these nerves and how they function." It´s highly questionable.

[ribblle]

At the end of the day guys, please just try focusing on the areas for one minute and see what happens.

[Eldan]

I did. Did that in the first post. I felt it. Then I focused on my hand and felt my hand. The chakras
are not, in comparison, special. So my question is: is there anything genuinely meaningful about
the chakras, in an anatomical way, or is this a psychological effect of belief, at which point, it is
not meaningfully different from any other kind of religious belief, which can all cause various
effects.
I've done different kinds of meditation before and I’ve known about the chakras for decades. It's
nice, but...
But my point in the end is "so what". Take Dr. Sparks' article up there. It’s remarkably
restrained for an article on an esoteric subject and I don’t want to doubt his credentials. But his
article seems to come down to a few simple points:
“There are major nerve centers along the axis of the body. These do important things. Ancient
scholars roughly identified some, but not all, of these nerve centers and knew they were
important.”
Which is a nice historical fact. It shows that ancient peoples knew things about medicine. I like
historical anecdotes. But… so what? Does knowing about the chakras and the associated lore
tell you anything that knowing about the nervous system and the general effects of meditation
doesn’t tell you? Is this knowledge useful for anything?
And here, all the available science seems to pretty strongly point at “no, it doesn’t actually do
anything.”

[ribblle]

Right. So the chakras are emphasized because, according to the traditions, they're primary clusters. They're bundles of nerves all throughout your body; the Meridians, according to chinese practice, but there not as important. I'm sure you yourself observed that the feeling in your hand as opposed to the solar plexus is markedly different. If we take the Root chakra, this is supposed to be linked to your whole lower body to some extent.

The other thing to observe here is that your body will now adjust. I barely felt my heart chakra the first time i did it, but in the following days it started, ah, buzzing, and when i tuned into it i felt oddly emotional. Funny coincidence, that.

And the head chakras? They're their own whole can of worms. Look up the pineal gland (third eye) and dmt regulation. And a long long way from all it does. I can speak for the enhanced pattern recognition, as best as i can describe it, and i'm a novice. I opened it by accident however; my first one, and i had headaches for days. You should steer clear of the head chakras, because doing this out of order has real risks.

Long story short man, do your research. This didn't all come out of thin air.

[Rater202]

Speaking only in terms of scientific reasoning: There is clinical evidence that positive contact with nature, adequate self-care such as a long bath, healthy sexual activity, careful breathing exercises, taking the time to center yourself in the moment, and so on can all create a significant decrease in stress, particularly when done in concert and balanced with proper diet and exercise, which creates a noticeable improvement in both physical and mental health.

There is no clinical evidence that these activities are in any way tied to specific nerve clusters, organs, or pressure points and benefit those parts more than others.

[ribblle]

As i said man, i barely know anything about this. I just want to see if everyone has the same feeling. Time will tell for the rest.

[Anonymouswizard]

Right. So the chakras are emphasized because, according to the traditions, they're primary clusters. They're bundles of nerves all throughout your body; the Meridians, according to chinese practice, but there not as important. I'm sure you yourself observed that the feeling in your hand as opposed to the solar plexus is markedly different. If we take the Root chakra, this is supposed to be linked to your whole lower body to some extent.

The other thing to observe here is that your body will now adjust. I barely felt my heart chakra the first time i did it, but in the following days it started, ah, buzzing, and when i tuned into it i felt oddly emotional. Funny coincidence, that.

And the head chakras? They're their own whole can of worms. Look up the pineal gland (third eye) and dmt regulation. And a long long way from all it does. I can speak for the enhanced pattern recognition, as best as i can describe it, and i'm a novice. I opened it by accident however; my first one, and i had headaches for days. You should steer clear of the head chakras, because doing this out of order has real risks.

Long story short man, do your research. This didn't all come out of thin air.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, or in English 'after, and therefore caused by' is a well known logical fallacy. In your 'heart chakra' example we have three events, you started concentrating on part of your body, part of your body started buzzing, and then you felt oddly emotional. It is entirely possible that these three events might be entirely unrelated, linked in a different waty, or all caused by the same thing (a belief in pseudoscience related to mysticism from countries located in East Asia and South Asia, to pull an example out of thin air).

Okay, giving you the benefit of the doubt, this could also be '*** hoc ergo propter hoc, or 'with thiss, therefore caused by it'. But that's also a well known logical fallacy.

If I put my book on top of a cup of tea and ten minutes later my house was on fire would you conclude that books placed on top on cups of tea cause houses to catch fire? It's exactly the same relationship you're claiming, I'm just using an obviously absurd set of events.


On the plus side you have accepted that the burden of proof is on you, You have provided potentially interesting reading material, but I bet if I searched for peer reviewed scientific papers on chakras I'd find either nothing or multiple papers disproving their existence.

So yeah, while I'm not going to say it's certain that chakras are ******** pseudoscience, I am going to say that I believe in them as much as I believe in homeopathy.

Now if you'll excuse me I concentrated on my wrist and now my arm is itching for totally unrelated reasons.


EDIT: yeah, guessed that would have got picked up by the filters. Just go to the Post hoc ergo propter hoc Wikipedia article and you'll find the name of the second fallacy.

[Eldan]

On the plus side you have accepted that the burden of proof is on you, You have provided potentially interesting reading material, but I bet if I searched for peer reviewed scientific papers on chakras I'd find either nothing or multiple papers disproving their existence.



I just tried it over a few science nets... seems I need better search terms. I'm getting drowned out by authors named "Chakra", which seems to be a semi-common Indian name.

I'll try a proper search engine when I'm back at work where I have access.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Everyone's behaved so far, but I'm going to close this pre-emptively. It's not, in itself, religion, but it's very religion-adjacent (a couple of posts have already walked right up to that line).