Nick Chakras 2018

84 Nick Chakras 2018

In the year 1918, Sir John Woodroffe, Indian High Court Judge and Sanskrit scholar, published his highly influential Serpent Power (under the pen name of Arthur Avalon) which introduced the Indian tantric notion of  "chakras" to the English-speaking world. These classical chakras, seven in number, form the central organs of a "psychic anatomy" -- seven physical locations in the body that also serve psychic functions as well.

One hundred years later, books on the chakras publish pictures of the same seven chakras with or without the elaborate decorations illustrated in Woodroffe's Serpent Power. Why only seven? I wondered. Has the last century witnessed no progress whatsoever in psychic anatomy? A century ago, physicists recognized only three elementary particles --  proton, neutron and electron. Now today's Standard Model shows us more than a dozen of the Universe's fundamental parts. Why aren't there more chakras than seven?

For more than fifty years, since I was working at a psychic bookstore in Menlo Park while studying physics at Stanford,  I have been considering this problem, working to rationally expand the traditional Hindu system of elementary bodily physical/psychical centers and have now reached a satisfactory conclusion.

A preliminary account of this research can be found here. 

What is a chakra anyway? At the very least it is a part of the body to which one can direct one's attention and observe what happens. Most of the time we take our body parts for granted. And except when they are in pain we pay them no mind. How might our life change if from time to time we systematically brought our attention to each particular body part with as strong a mental intensity as we could muster?

When I was a kid in Ohio, the floor of our boy's room (Nick and his brothers Tom and Duke) was covered with a gigantic linoleum map of the United States which we boys traversed in our imaginations using toy cars, planes, trains, trucks and tanks. Similarly one might regard Nick's 84 Chakras as a map of 84 of your body's principle cities (not including suburbs) and let your imagination go exploring.

Nick Chakras contain the classic seven Hindu chakras plus many extras. For the sake of symmetry I require each chakra to possess a partner chakra which is in some sense its consort, its opposite, its dark side. This partner chakra is designated symbolically by a black/white reversal. In most cases the "dark chakras" are located in the lower part of the body. For example, the Thumb Chakra's opposite is the Big Toe. And the classic Heart Chakra's opposite is the Belly Chakra.

In place of Woodroofe's spectral-colored, multi-leaved lotus symbols, I have chosen simple black-and-white symbols based on geometric shapes each intended to be suggestive of the body parts they signify.

Nick Chakras are divided into 5 categories: the Hindu Chakras, Spinal Chakras and Sensual Chakras, each with eight members, the Cranial Chakras with twelve members, and the Limb Chakras which possess 48 members. (8 + 8 + 8 + 12+ 48 = 84.

To the seven classic Hindu Chakras, I have added a "Ground Chakra" (whose opposite is the Crown Chakra) which I later learned corresponds to the Yung Chuan or "Bubbling Spring Chakra" of Taoist esotericism.  As a partner to the Lumbar Chakra I have added a "Perineum Chakra" which corresponds to the Chinese "Hui Yin" Chakra or "Gateway of Life and Death."

This post introduces the new chakra system. The following three posts will connect names to each symbol and clarify some of my choices:

Part One: Hindu and Sensual Chakras

Part Two: Limb Chakras

Part Three: Spinal and Cranial Chakras.
(Unlike the rest, none of the 12 Cranial Chakras is paired with a partner.)

I have constructed this new chakra system for the fun of it. My main interest lies in the search for a brand new science I call quantum tantra based on an as yet to be discovered quantum-inspired way of connecting with Nature.

I want to woo Her, not view Her

Pet Reality until She purrs
Longing to merge with Dame Nature bodily
Yearning to mingle my substance with Hers

And them content with merely observing

Are nothing but Nature's voyeurs.

Nick Chakras might be considered a map of naked-eye objects of the body compared to what the deep-space quantum compassionscopes of the future will reveal about the nature of Mind and its hidden relations to this marvelously agile meat machine.

Artist's conception of quantum-tantric chakras

ZERO    ONE    TWO    THREE