Which of Your Body Parts Needs More Amour?

Nick Herbert contemplates his 108 chakras

 Quantum Tantra represents an as yet unrealized new kind of physics that hopes to connect with Nature in a direct and more intimate way than merely "physicists making measurements". Quantum tantrikas seek a new way of knowing the "inanimate world" analogous to the mysterious way we presently experience our own bodies. Systematically experiencing our own bodies could be good practice for some day experiencing the physical world in a brand new (quantum) way.

To that end, Nick Herbert has been developing an original system of body chakras to aid in exploring this great corporal gift we've been given, both for its own sake and in preparation for a new (possibly quantum) way of enjoying our own body and the physical world.

This chakra project began when Nick was studying for his physics degree in the '60s while at the same time working at a psychic book shop (East-West Books) in Menlo Park, California. At that time so many new particles were being added to the physicist's worldview, Nick wondered why the number of bodily chakras had remained the same for centuries despite advances in meditation techniques and yes, the advent of new and more efficient psychedelic drugs.

Nick's immediate goal was to expand the number of classical chakras using two rules: 1. As in particle physics where each (fermionic) particle has an antiparticle, each chakra should possess an antichakra; 2. Each chakra should be represented by its own symbol (preferably some simple geometric form) with its "antichakra" represented by a black-white reversal of that form.

Progress in this program has been reported in three previous blog posts: Sixty-four Chakras, Eighty-four Chakras and Ninety-nine Chakras along with more background and justification for this unusual project. After working and playing with this notion for more than fifty years, Nick has finally decided on a total of 108 chakras -- 108 different places to situate your awareness and your willed action. 108 different playgrounds in which to exercise your imagination.

One Hundred and Eight Nick Chakras

 The lighter symbols are chakras, and the darker versions are antichakras. This convention is maintained for the first 72 chakras but is slightly modified for the rest of the group.

Seven classic Hindu Chakras plus one

The seven classic Hindu Chakras plus a "Ground chakra" added as antichakra to the classic Hindu "Crown chakra" makes Eight Hindu Chakras.

 Eight Spinal Chakras

The Eight Spinal Chakras: "Will" and "Auto" represent the voluntary and involuntary nervous systems as objects of conscious attention. Note the nice chakra and antichakra organization.

Eight Sensory Chakras

 The Eight Sensory Chakras. Note that the Lungs and the Bowels are highlighted as two important ways our bodies interact with the outside world.

Twenty-four Hand & Foot Chakras

Twenty-four Hand & Foot Chakras. Six chakras each: whole hand plus five fingers; whole foot plus five toes. Note that the antichakra of each hand is the corresponding foot chakra.

Twenty-four Arm and Leg Chakras

 Twenty-four Arm and Leg Chakras. Six chakras each: whole arm plus shoulder joint, upper arm, elbow, forearm and wrist; whole leg plus hip joint, thigh, knee, calf and ankle. Note that the leg parts are the anti-chakras of the corresponding arm parts.

Thirty-six Special Chakras

Thirty-six Special Chakras plus the foregoing Seventy-two chakras round out the total to one hundred and eight. The Special Chakras include the two Girdle Groups: Eight Pelvic Girdle chakras and Eight Shoulder Girdle chakras; the Eighteen Cranial chakras; the single Full-Body chakra plus the final No-Body chakra.

Sixteen Girdle Chakras

 

The Eight Pelvic Girdle chakras are antichakras to the Eight Shoulder Girdle chakras. Note that in this system, the sternum is homologous to the sacrum and the two clavicles are homologous to the two pubic bones.

Eighteen Cranial Chakras

 

Eighteen Cranial Chakras. In this special case, the chakra/anti-chakra convention does not apply. Here the light circles/ dark circles correspond to paired and unpaired anatomical forms. For instance there is only one inion and two temporal lobes. The former is symbolized by a dark circle; the latter by a light circle. The cranium itself is single (should be a dark circle) preserving the symmetry: six paired and six unpaired Cranial Chakras.

The final two chakras represent 1. The Whole-body Chakra, experiencing your entire body without breaking it into parts, and 2. Its antichakra the No-body Chakra symbolizing the contemplation of the entire physical universe with a small you-shaped piece cut out of it. 

Purely by accident these 108 Nick chakras correspond to the 108 beads in a traditional Indian japamala. 

Baby Steps Towards a Brand New Physics

99 Nick Chakras

BABY STEPS TOWARDS A BRAND NEW PHYSICS

Quantum theory is mankind's most successful mathematical connection with Nature. But after more than one hundred years of immense conceptual and technological success, it seems to possess at least one fundamental flaw. Despite the fact that we know that the world works by purely quantum rules, our only access to this world (so far) is via completely classical measurements. The goal of quantum tantra is to open up new doorways into Nature, new connections that are intrinsically quantum not classical, that are deep, direct and intimate and that probably have more to do with consciousness than with unconscious measuring instruments.

FASTIDIOUS PHYSICISTS

Nature's hinting there's new ways to meet Her

More intense, more engaging -- and sweeter

But like shy maiden aunts

We say "O dear me, no!" to Her Dance

"We'd rather be reading our meters."

 One possible realization of quantum tantra is that I learn to experience the physical world in a manner analogous to the way that I experience my own body. A new kind of mind-merge with matter made possible by our radical understanding of how things really work. I envision this new learning to be augmented by some sort of quantum-inspired technology which I have called a Convivium. Or sometimes an Octoscope.

Since physics is a more fundamental science then chemistry for exploring deep reality, with all honor and respect, I consider psychedelic drugs as mere training wheels compared to quantum tantra. But as a pragmatic explorer I realize you gotta use what you got.

While waiting for my Physics Muse to deliver me a Convivium or Octoscope, my most immediate way to prepare for direct entry into the quantum world appears to be expanding my awareness of this physical body that daily carries me about in the world.

So for many years, I have been carrying out a Chakra Project to expand the number of body centers into which I could place my awareness -- the main hypothesis being that a body part to which I direct my attention is in some way essentially different (in a quantum way?) from a body part that I leave unattended. I began with the Seven Classical Hindu Chakras, extended this number to Twenty-Four, then Sixty-Four, then Eighty-Four. Then finally to the Ninety-Nine Nick Chakras illustrated above. I have used this new chakra system in various ways, from systematically expanding my bodily awareness, to reciting a kind of bodily Rosary, to preparing my body for massage, to falling asleep at night by counting chakras instead of sheep.

For exploring a new territory, it's useful to have a good map. But once you're there you can toss the maps away. Follow your own interests and curiosity.

Besides the chakras, I've found many other good maps for exploring the body's wonders based on your particular training and interest.

Being mainly a bookish person, I'm not much interested in sports, but loved ocean swimming and had been a fairly good tennis player at the City Park level. For more than twenty years I have been working with weights under the direction of a world-class power lifter, ex-Marine and ex-police officer. So far, all without books.

But then I discovered Frederic Delavier's Strength Training Anatomy. 
 

Delavier's muscle maps for power lifters

Delavier is both a trained artist (five years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris) and a champion power lifter (best in France 1988). His book spends a few pages on every classic lift, and illustrates with simple color-coded drawings exactly which muscles you are utilizing for that lift. (You can confirm Delavier's insights by what parts hurt the next day.) He also includes sections on stretches for relaxing parts of the body that have been tightened by serious exercise and illustrates which muscles are involved in each stretch. Here is a video review of Delavier's wonderful book by an admiring body builder.

For the last couple of years I have been enjoying monthly massages from a lovely Buddhist masseuse who lives at Vajrapani Institute, our local Tibetan Buddhist retreat center. Her body work combines sensitive attention plus exercises in visualizing each moment as Empty, Impermanent, yet paradoxically infused with Compassion. These massage sessions got me interested in yet another book (another set of body maps).

Andrew Biel's body maps for extremely informed palpation

Andrew Biel's Trail Guide to the Body is the premier source for intelligent palpation. Both the author and the illustrator Robin Dorn are licensed massage practitioners. The trail guide metaphor is useful and witty: for example, the trip round the elbow is called "exploring Knob Hill". Dorn's skillful drawings have just enough detail to be useful yet uncluttered. You could spend a lifetime exploring your body or someone else's using this nearly 500-page book as a map. I'm currently involved in trying to confidently palpate the eight carpal bones at the base of my hand. Here's a video interview with the author who among other things describes his favorite muscle. Hint: it's a muscle you've never heard of.

Although I play jigs and reels in an Irish session band, I'm not really much of a dancer. The nearest I got to serious dancing was studying Aikido with Linda Holiday in Santa Cruz. Throwing and being thrown in many different ways by many different kinds of bodies brought me very much in touch with what being embodied actually felt like both in and out of Linda's dojo.

I was also married for more than thirty years to Betsy Rasumny, a talented improv dancer who taught and performed in New York, Montreal, San Francisco and Santa Cruz. For me, one of Betsy's finest teachings was that, for someone who is fully present, every movement can become a dance. My wife was an expert at being fully present. Among the many gifts Betsy left me after her death in 2002 was this book on body maps for dancers.

Andrea Olsen's Guide to Experiential Anatomy

Andrea Olsen's BodyStories: A Guide to Experiential Anatomy is exactly what it claims to be -- a guide to actually feeling what it's like to be present in your own particular body. There are pictures of bones and muscles but accompanied with children's drawings and other art work designed to invoke the strange unspeakable mood of this particular kind of embodiment. In her dedication, Andrea Olsen states that the function of this book is not to demystify the body -- but to help embody the mystery. Designed for dancers, this book contains movement and palpation exercises both alone and with a partner and is peppered with short anecdotes (body stories) from Olsen's long career as a teacher and performer. Here is a video of Andrea Olsen giving a TED talk/performance in Monterey, CA. Is this woman embodied or what?

One version of quantum tantra would be experiential anatomy on quantum steroids. The octoscope (or convivium) would open up our universe to non-classical modes of inquiry, to brand new experiences of the physical body not to mention new experiences of the physical world, providing strange new openings into reality entirely unavailable to our species before the discovery of quantum theory.

TANTRIC TECH

When we coat our nipples with europium oxide

When we touch our tongues to crystalline tin

When we hold in our hands these obsidian palm stones

 Will She unlock Her darkness and welcome us in?

Nick discovers a convivium

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

Nick's Chakras 2017

The seven classical chakras (after Sir John Woodroffe)

NICK'S CHAKRAS 2017

When I was in graduate school in the '60s studying for my PhD, I worked in an odd little book shop in Menlo Park called EastWest which eventually turned into the largest occult bookstore on the West Coast. I knew the owners well (the late Virginia and Bill Scharfman) and had unlimited access to books one could never find in a physics library, as well as daily commerce with the kinds of people who read and write such books. It was at EastWest (now under new ownership in Mountain View), along with Aleister Crowley, I Ching, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Yogananda, Carlos Castañada and Seth; Manly P. Hall, Madame Blavatsky, soma, peyote, vril, od, blarney, ki, crystal balls and Tarot, that I first found out about the human body's alleged "chakra centers".

Sir John Woodroffe was a British High Court Judge in India who became fascinated with native religious culture and, under the romantic pen name of "Arthur Avalon", wrote several scholarly works about Hindu mysticism, chief of which is The Serpent Power which describes seven psychic centers in the human body ("chakras" or "wheels"). The "serpent power" starts its movement at the lowest root chakra located at the base of the spine, winds its way through each chakra in turn, then exits through the crown chakra at the top of the head, resulting in a powerful experience called "kundalini".

Or so I've read in books.

Fifty years later, one still runs across books picturing the same seven chakras exactly as illustrated in Arthur Avalon's classic tome.

Why, I wondered, has this curious field not evolved? There used to be only four elements; now there are more than one hundred. How about a twenty-first century update to Arthur Avalon's Serpent Power?

For several years I have been working on possible new additions to the conventional seven chakras -- one scheme featured as many as 68 chakras -- and have recently completed a new collection of chakras that mostly meets my criteria for a new system of body centers.

First: the new chakras must contain the old chakras as a subset. Second: the symbols must be graphically simple as well as suggestive of the body centers they represent. Third: each chakra should possess an "anti-chakra" (similar to an antiparticle in physics) whose symbol is the inverse (colorwise) of its partner chakra. Four: the number of chakras should be small enough to comprehend yet large enough to encompass the whole body in both its physical and (tentatively) its metaphysical aspects.

Since I know almost nothing about tantra except what I have read in books and gathered from a few private lessons passed on to me (sometimes inadvertently) by lovely tantrikas (Many thanks, sweet teachers of the way.), this project is bound to appear amateurish and crude. A more sophisticated version awaits someone more knowledgeable than me.

Nick's Chakras 2017

Here's the latest version (May 2017) of Nick's Chakras -- consisting of 24 chakras, each with its own anti-chakra or partner chakra arranged in four columns. From left to right, these columns represent: 1, Twenty-four Right Limb chakras; 2. Eight Classical chakras; 3. Eight Spinal chakras and 4. Twenty-four Left Limb chakras.

To get a sense of how this works, let's ignore the Limb chakras and begin at the bottom of the Classical chakra column that starts: "Moon, Root, Sex ..."

Skip the Moon chakra for the moment; it is a new addition. And start with the Root. This chakra represents what keeps us stable and secure: its symbol "X" could represent a surveyor's mark (or the anal sphincter, the body location most associated with the Root.) The Root's partner is the Brow which represents the power of cognition: its symbol, the plus sign, could represent mathematics.

The Sex chakra is represented by a vertical line, standing for phallus or yoni -- your choice. And Sex's partner is the Throat chakra whose vertical line could stand for vocal cords or lips.

Similarly the Belly chakra is viewed in martial arts as the physical center of gravity; while Belly's partner is the Heart, the center and origin of our emotional stability.

Next we come to the Crown chakra at the top of the head which represents our connection to the divine and to high inspiration. The Crown's partner is the Moon (my innovation) which connects us to the lower sources of life -- to the soil, to the sea and to our ancestors. I'm not sure where in the body to locate the Moon chakra -- whether under the soles of the feet, or at the nape of the neck where the spinal cord enters the bottom of the brain.

Now I hope you are beginning to see how this system works: a few simple symbols each paired with its "opposite" partner.

Let's progress to the top of the Spinal chakra column. And skip for the moment the chakra named Whole Body.

The second Spinal chakra is the Neck, an upward-pointing bar representing the cervical vertebrae. The Neck's partner is the Tail, a downward-pointing bar representing the tail bones (my cat has one of these that he can articulate but my Tail is vestigial and merely reminiscent of my animal origin).

The Thorax is partnered with the Sacrum, each a triangle whose base is connected to powerful limbs, and whose points meet in the small of the back at the Lumbar chakra.

The Lumbar symbol is saddle-shaped to indicate where a saddle would be placed if you were being ridden. Lumbar's partner is the Perineum which is where the saddle would fit if you were doing the riding. In Chinese esoteric systems of body points, the Perineum plays an inordinately important role.

To finish up the Spinal chakras, let's return to the Whole Body chakra at the top of the column. Whole Body means just what it says: being aware of my whole body, symbolized by a little five-limbed cartoon figure. The Whole Body's partner is Body Hole chakra which means being aware of everything that is NOT my body, that is, the whole Universe. I imagine this chakra as representing the entire Cosmos with a small Nick-shaped chunk taken out of it.

So what is this system good for? First of all, notice the cross shape. This arrangement forms a Tantric Crucifix on which to hang your own body, not for torture as in the classic Christian Crucifix, but for whatever bodies can be used for -- for sport, for science, for pleasure, for religion or for play. Nick's Tantric Crucifix visualizes the body in a new way for whatever ends you might want to imagine.

One of the nice things about the mind is its ability to pay attention to anything we choose. In particular we can pay attention to different parts of the body. Many parts of the body barely get any notice at all -- and then only when they're in pain -- while others get the lion's share of the Mind.

Nick's Chakras offers you a simple way to change all that.

When I'm trying to fall asleep or waiting at the dentist's office, I sometimes silently say a Tantric Rosary.

I usually begin with the Right Limb chakras. Even though there are only four of these chakras, each of them can be unpacked to produce a great deal more.

I begin the Tantric Rosary by paying attention to my Right Thumb, then Index Finger, etc and last of all my whole Right Hand. That's 6 hand chakras in one Hand symbol, to which you can pay successive attention.

Then move to the Arm chakra and do Wrist, Forearm, Elbow, Upper Arm and Shoulder Joint chakras, plus the Whole arm,  giving each of these locations some focused attention. That's 6 arm chakras packed in one Arm symbol.

Next move your mind to the Leg chakra, starting with the Hip Joint and give successive attention to each of the 6 chakras packed into this Leg symbol, ending with the Whole Leg and progressing to the Foot chakra with its 6 sub-chakras, including each of your toes which for most of us have been starving for the slightest taste of your Mind.

After doing my Right Limb (24 chakras to pay attention to, but what else had you planned to do with this time?) I move on to my Left Limb and attend to its needy 24 chakras.

The awareness path you take through the remaining 8 Classical and 8 Spinal chakras is up to you (as is all of this, of course) but a favorite of mine is to take these remaining chakras in pairs, starting with Moon and Crown chakras and divide my attention between them, just to see how it feels. Then I move pair-by-pair through both columns ending on Whole Body-Body Hole, feeling myself at last both as a complete body and as a part of the entire Universe.

The Body of the Universe: nice place to end up after innocently paying attention just to my Right Thumb. And, because consciousness is invisible, nobody even knows I'm doing this!

Much of the time I fall asleep before finishing the Rosary, or I get distracted. Or the dentist calls me in to give some professional attention to a Nick-neglected body part not yet symbolized by a chakra.

Happy May Day, my friends. Mind your body. It's the only one you got.

May Day 2017

Minding Your Body: Baby Steps Towards Quantum Tantra

Nick's 2012 Chakras: a partial list

For my birthday this year my Muses gave me the best gift in the world--inspiration for a new work, which I've tentative called Minding Your Body: Baby Steps Towards Quantum Tantra.

Quantum Tantra is my long term project to discover a more intimate physics-based way of connecting with nature. I envision it as direct mind-to-mind linkage between my mind and the various currently invisible minds that dwell inside matter. One of the finest speculations about what quantum tantra might feel like is Rudy Rucker's amusing short fiction piece Panpsychism Proved where the necessary mind-mind link is achieved via quantum-entangled carbon atoms. Rudy also coined the term "teeping" for the kind of generalized telepathy that quantum tantrikas might enjoy.

I have supposed that alien races--and perhaps even some mind-forms here on Earth--already practice quantum tantra and use it to teep atoms and molecules, use it to teep plants and animals and to telepathically communicate between themselves and with minds too simple or too complex for humans to imagine.

Our ordinary awareness is a form of quantum tantra--a direct unmediated connection with the insides of the classical machinery of the brain. Most of our mental acts and all of our physical acts are strictly classical but our core experience of pure awareness is a basic quantum process--a direct experience of matter's insides.

One of the most unusual properties of the quantum world is quantum entanglement but this is not the feature of quantum mechanics that has inspired my quest for a more intimate way of connecting with nature. My inspiration for quantum tantra is the so-called "quantum measurement problem". It is a curious fact that altho this world is certainly fully "quantum", our only window into the quantum world is thru classical measuring devices. Despite radical advances in quantum theory--from Schrödinger's wave equation, thru Dirac's relativistic equations to quantum field theory--every quantum experiment is, without exception, still completely classical--as old-fashioned and Victorian as brass tubes, spark gaps and hoop skirts. Quantum tantra seeks to modernize quantum physics by discovering an intrinsically quantum way to court nature, a way that will almost certainly involve physics-based modifications of consciousness.

I want to woo Her not view Her

Pet Reality until She purrs

Yearning to merge with Dame Nature bodily

Longing to mingle my substance with Hers.

And them content with merely observing

are nothing but Nature's voyeurs.

One of the possible uses of quantum tantra might be a new kind of "internal medicine" in which you directly connect with the "minds" of organs of your body, teep "how they are feeling" and thank/criticize them for their work/play. Also one can envision ameliorating certain diseases by direct negotiation with the disease rather than via warfare. Since my mind is already classically connected to my body parts, "quantum internal medicine", rather than mind-to-mind telepathy, might be the site of the first quantum tantric breakthroughs. We each have a mind; we each have a body. What we lack is the means to quantum-connect the two. Or more precisely, we lack a mind-matter tool that extends our natural quantum mind-matter access to other parts of the body besides (some of) the brain. I jokingly call this future quantum mind-matter tool the "octoscope"-- a machine you can only operate stoned.

While waiting for the octoscope to be discovered, there is plenty we can do to prepare the ground for the upcoming era of quantum internal medicine.

An important feature of classical tantra is the system of chakras, a Hindu way of thinking about the body introduced to the West by Sir John Woodroffe and other Orientalists. The traditional chakras serve many functions--psychophysical, mystical and even theological but I will construe these bodily centers as merely a way "to get the mind out of the brain" and into the rest of the body.

One of the prime powers of the mind is the ability to MOVE--the power to "pay attention" to whatever it chooses. My use of the chakras is primarily as a system of symbols to aid the mind to move to (and inhabit) a particular body part. Like a map of places to visit in your imagination before actually going there in person (via the octoscope).

I began with the classical seven chakras and expanded them to eight, imposing a light/dark symmetry. Now there are 4 light and 4 dark classical chakras. All of the others (of Nick's 48 2012 chakras) possess this same symmetry. Every light chakra possesses a dark partner--portrayed by the same symbol with white replaced with black. In place of the elaborate classical tantric symbology, I sought simpler geometric forms constructed of lines, circles and triangles plus a certain intangible aesthetics.

The seven classical chakras are Root, Sex, Belly, Heart, Throat, Brow and Crown. The Crown chakra, for instance, traditionally represents human contact with the Divine--with the Universe's higher powers. I represent this Crown chakra with a simple open white circle. For symmetry's sake I add a corresponding "dark chakra" to the classic seven--the "moon chakra" represented by a simple black disk, that represents human contact with the Universe's lower powers.

I have worked for many years developing this new chakra system and finally (in 2012) have reached a point where I am satisfied with the symbology. Nick's 2012 48-chakra system is now complete.

My next project (thank you, Muses) is to write this up in a book or long essay. I have already been using my new chakras as a kind of "body rosary" for focusing my attention on various body parts especially while falling asleep. The classical Catholic rosary has 50 beads; my 2012 tantric rosary has 48. This book, Minding Your Body, will employ the new chakras as a kind of guided meditation for exploring the body with the mind--in a simple classical fashion preparatory to the octoscope giving us more intimate quantum connection. This project will also be an opportunity to develop my quantum tantric speculations in more detail.

My Minding Your Body project owes a lot to Bernie Gunther, the author of What to Do Till the Messiah Comes. Bernie was my first instructor, in the 60s at Esalen, in sensory awareness exercises. Thanks, Bernie. Borrowing from my old teacher, my new book project might also be entitled What to Do Till the Octoscope Arrives.