Before I end our survey of occultism, I would like to discuss one last major topic of relevance. This is the fact that, not only have occultists been involved in rationalizing modern occultism, but some scientists have as well. I would like to discuss some examples of how scientists have utilized occult concepts and techniques as a basis for their research.
Before we get into how scientists have utilized occult ideas as a basis for their research, we need to first digress on the science of parapsychology, since one normally thinks of parapsychology in connection with occult and paranormal occurrences. Since we are nearing the end of our survey of occultism, I feel it is necessary to present a discussion of parapsychology and its relevance towards occultism, and towards a synthesis of science and occultism as I am presenting it here. Traditionally, parapsychology has done its best to ignore occult thought.
Parapsychology has its roots in the Western approach to
"psychical research" that has accumulated over the past
150-200 years. The birth of modern parapsychology can be seen in
the work of J.B. Rhine conducted in the 1930s at Duke University.
Parapsychology is supposedly the science that studies psychic
phenomena. Yet it has always been a troubled science, having no
real legitimacy in the scientific world. And even though the
subject matter of parapsychology is the subject matter of
occultism, parapsychologists have always maintained a distancing
attitude towards occultism. The following quote by a
parapsychologist shows the common distaste in this field towards
occultism:
"No self-respecting student or professor would care to
be seen browsing among `Occult Books'."1
Obviously this author has never read a valid occult book. So what is the situation with parapsychology? I spent some time studying the literature of parapsychology and this is my feeling on the matter. Reviewing the parapsychological literature, what I saw were reports of attempts to measure and quantify something called "psi-powers". Nowhere have I ever seen a definition of psi, and it appears to be a catch-all term meant to imply any type of unusual psychological circumstance or event. There is no overall classification scheme apparent in parapsychology, nor are there any standard definitions of what are "usual" verses "unusual" psychological events.
If we look closely at the Western approach to "psychical research" as it is embodied in the parapsychology, what we find is primarily a preoccupation with trying to prove the reality of "psychic phenomena". Parapsychology is mostly the documentation of seemingly unusual "psychic events" such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, cases of precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis, and other such phenomena, or it is the application of mostly inappropriate statistical methods aimed at trying to statistically demonstrate the occurrence of so-called "psi phenomena".
Modern parapsychology is a kind of tragedy-comedy within the context of modern science. The preoccupation of parapsychology with trying to prove that psychic phenomena are real is an almost absurd gesture in the face of a modern technological world that does not legitimately accept the existence of psychic phenomena to begin with. Parapsychology is indeed the struggle for social acceptance and recognition in the face of the doubt and hostility of the rest of modern science2.
Whereas occultism unquestionably accepts the existence of psychic phenomena and takes these as an axiom of its logic and paradigms, parapsychology does not. Parapsychology is too busy trying to prove that psychic events are real to build on the implications of their existence as occultism has done. Now what is interesting is that, even though parapsychologists are generally hostile to the occult, most likely an occultist would be very sympathetic to the plight of the parapsychologist. The occultist understands not only the validity of the phenomena that parapsychology seeks to understand, but also understands the nature and mechanisms of this phenomena.
I have already dealt at some length with occult explanations
of psychic abilities in the section on Besant and Leadbeater, and
below (and in section two of the book) we will go even deeper
into these occult theories (or paradigms) of the operation of
psychic abilities. The point is that occultists know intimately
that psychic events involve nonphysical realities and they have
constructed many (equivalent) paradigms of the nonphysical
realities (these are the planes as we have already discussed).
Parapsychologists have never seen this relation between
"paranormal" events and nonphysical realities clearly.
Only recently has there been a groping towards occult levels of
understanding in parapsychology as illustrated by the following
quote by Lawrence LeShan, a prominent parapsychologist:
"The great error of parapsychology has been to try to
solve its problems as if they were physical problems from the
sensory realm"3.
A large part of the problem in parapsychology is related to the present condition of the "soft" sciences. As I have explained, there are no unified (or mature) paradigms in normal psychology or sociology. Therefore, parapsychology has no firm foundation on which to build. Thus, not only are there today a tremendous variety of competing paradigms in psychology, but in parapsychology as well, and all of these paradigms are basically unrelated to each other. This situation is further complicated by the fact that, as I have stated, the "soft" sciences in general are unrelated to the "hard" science. Thus, parapsychologists will attempt often to turn to modern physical theories, such as quantum mechanics, for explanations of "psi" phenomena. Such gestures only further muddle the situation because, as it is rare to find "hard" scientists doing parapsychology, most parapsychologists have their training in the "soft" sciences. Thus, the parapsychologist's understanding of modern physical theory is mostly second hand, and often grounded in rather scientifically unimportant philosophical generalizations. This point is discussed further ahead both in the chapters "What's In A Name?" and "The Psychological Value Of Quantum Theory", but I will give an example here as well.
It has become fashionable recently for parapsychologists to turn to the non-locality debates in modern physics as explanations of the seeming space independence of "psi" phenomena such as telepathy or psychometry, for example. The nonlocality debates in modern physics have to do with the "communication" of quantum particles, and this is the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) argument4. The basic gist of this argument involves what seem to be contradictory predictions made by Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory. Relativity predicts that all physical (note that I have emphasized this word) communication is limited by the speed of light. However, due to the presence of certain conservation laws used in quantum theory, for example, the conservation of a quantum property known as "spin" (which is a measure of a particle's rotation about its own axis in an applied magnetic field), certain cases arise in quantum theory in which it appears that particles will "communicate" faster than what is limited by the speed of light. That is, if two particles, for example, a proton and anti-proton, are created de novo, then they will move away from each other in opposite directions and with opposite spins. Now, if we reorient the spin of one of the particles (which means we flip the direction in which it is spinning), then the second particle will flip its spin as well, and it will appear to do so instantaneously. Experiments have been performed that, though not conclusive, highly suggest that the quantum predictions are correct5. This means that in some cases, physical particles will behave in a fashion in which it appears that they have "communicated" in a space and time independent fashion.
Thus, some parapsychologists have taken this for the modus operandi of "psi" phenomena6. That is, since some particles seem to "communicate" outside the bounds of space-time as defined by Einstein, then events like telepathy must occur in a similar fashion. But such an interpretation is grounded in philosophical interpretations many steps removed from the actual and literal experimental context of the EPR debate. Philosophers and philosophically inclined scientist have jumped on the non-locality experiments to create a new metaphysics of how the world operates, and it is this philosophical level of thinking to which parapsychologists have turned.
Yet from a scientific point of view, these philosophical
positions are tenuous at best, and have little credence in an
experimental context. Here is what one experimental physicist
says about the present status of the EPR debate:
"...there is a peaceful coexistence between quantum
mechanics and relativity theory, in spite of quantum-mechanical
nonlocality. For this reason it would be misleading (and wrong)
to say that nonlocality in the quantum mechanical sense is a
reversion to action at a distance, as in the prerelativistic
gravitational theory of Newton. It is tempting to characterize
quantum-mechanical nonlocality as "passion at a
distance," not with any pretense to provide an explanation
for the strange correlations, but only to emphasize that the
correlations cannot be exploited to exert a controlled influence
more rapidly than a light signal can be sent."7
From a technical point of view, and in spite of any philosophizing, the present consensus in the physics community with regard to the EPR situation is that, even though the non-locality experiments are valid, there appears to be no fundamental contradiction between relativity and quantum mechanics. This is because one cannot use non-local quantum phenomena as the basis for a faster-than-light code8. Thus, the non-locality of quantum phenomena cannot be used as a basis for meaningful faster than light communication.
Thus, from the point of view of modern physics, "psi" phenomena, if explained as some type of quantum nonlocality effect, is just as impossible as it has ever been. There is no question that "psi" events such as telepathy or precognition are meaningful transfers of "information", at least in some context. And if these phenomena are taken to be some type of meaningful communication occurring faster than the speed of light, then they cannot be grounded in physical processes, because physical processes cannot "communicate" meaningfully at velocities faster than light.
Again, it is important to point out that such terms as "communication" are purely philosophical. They have little meaning in the context of the physics experiments we are discussing. In terms of the physics, the issue is conservation of quantum properties having no literal counterpart in our psychological experience (such as spin or angular momentum, for example), and the interpretation of statistical results that are only meaningful within the literal mathematical framework of the quantum theories and their relationship to the experimental devices used by physicists. To attempt to relate these particular issues to processes of human psychology is simply wrong.
I will argue in later discussions that we can interpret occult claims in a metaphorical fashion using different ideas from quantum theory (not the ideas particular to the non-locality debates, but more general concepts used in quantum theory) as a means to explain not only "psi" phenomena, but "normal" psychological and sociological processes as well. But we shall see that this is an entirely different approach than that used by contemporary parapsychologists. Thus, the bottom line to this example is that it illustrates modern parapsychology's inability to successfully explain "psi" phenomena in terms of modern physics.
The type of thinking found in parapsychology, as illustrated above, leads me to believe that parapsychology is not a science, not in the sense physics is or in the sense that occultism is (as was discussed in chapter 4). Parapsychology is only an imitator of the real sciences, having all of the forms thereof, but none of the substance. There is an American Parapsychological Association, A Journal of Parapsychology; all of the dressings that one finds in modern science. But there are no paradigms, there are no testable (i.e. falsifyable) hypothesis (and how can there be if parapsychologists are too busy trying to demonstrate the existence of that which they would use to build hypotheses?), there is no definite subject matter, nor any relation to the other sciences; parapsychology exists in a scientific vacuum. Thus there is no Doctorate of Philosophy in parapsychology, and there are no Departments of Theoretical And Applied Parapsychology in the universities. So it seems that the scientific world itself recognizes that parapsychology is not really a science.
The reader will remember that I began this survey of occultism with a discussion of the social misconceptions that abound as to what the occult is. And the reader will also recall that I have spoken of the myth making power of modern science, and the incredible social legitimacy given to scientific pronouncements. I feel that parapsychology is the product of these two factors. Parapsychology is not a science, it is an attitude. It is an attitude that is caught up in the social myth of science, but has no real understanding of either the philosophy or methods behind science. And it is an attitude that rejects occultism, not because it understands occultism and offers a superior vantage point, but because it is caught up in the social misconceptions of occultism. The result is an activity that resembles science on the surface, but has no substance in any real scientific terms. As such there is simply no way that the parapsychological program will ever get anywhere.
This is truly an unfortunate situation. It is apparent that parapsychologists are very sincere in their desires to understand "psi" phenomena. What they don't understand is that "psi" phenomena is occult phenomena, and by rejecting occultism, they have cut themselves off from the true science of the phenomena they purport to study. And as well, they have only further served to alienate occultism from science by being such a poor example of science themselves.
Thus, to summarize this discussion, in a sense, parapsychologists are trying to "re-invent the wheel" with their orientation towards "psi" phenomena. From the occult point of view, such phenomena have been known and recorded for thousands of years, and very logical and useful explanations of these phenomena exist in the occult literature. There is simply no need for parapsychology in light of occult teachings.
For now, this is all I want to say about parapsychology, but the problems they have created in giving legitimacy to occultism will be mentioned in the chapter "What's In A Name?".
Now, the type of literature I am going to discuss below distinguishes itself sharply from parapsychology in that these are scientists who accept occult concepts and are using them as a basis for their research. This literature forms an interesting borderland between science and occultism in that each bleeds imperceptibly into the other, and it becomes very difficult to distinguish occultism from science. Though today this is a small body of literature, it is fascinating to explore, for here both scientific and occult concepts are used and interchanged freely. Now some of the authors I discuss below refer to themselves as "parapsychologists" yet I prefer to reserve this word for the meaning I have given to it above, as scientists who are generally antithetical to occult teachings. I do not want to get into semantic arguments in this book.
Yet, in the examples discussed below, what we will see are scientists applying scientific tools and concepts towards the vindication and analysis of occult phenomena. That is, this literature has an uneven quality about it. It reflects not so much the equal mixing of science and occultism but more the engulfing of science by occultism, the recognition that science is beginning to catch up to occultism.
This is not surprising in light of the material we have discussed so far about occultism. We have already seen how the occult world-views are much broader, and more inclusive than scientific views. As well, occult views, as we have seen, are much more complex and subtle than much of modern science, dealing as they do with the subtle and complex processes of human perception, emotions, and thought, as well as the subtle workings of the many levels of Nature. These are the factors drawing scientists to the occult; for the occult offers a comprehensive and unified view of Humankind, Nature and the relationship thereof. These are things that simply cannot be found in the fractured world of modern academic science. This is why parapsychology has been doomed from the beginning, because science will not explain occultism, as parapsychologists seem to have supposed. Instead, occultism will engulf science, and each will trasnform the other, resulting in a hybrid knowledge more powerful than either alone.
What science offers occultism is primarily a cloak of social legitimacy. Utilizing scientific terms makes occultism a more socially accepted activity because, as we have also seen, science is the accepted, though generally unacknowledged, myth maker of our culture. However, we cannot get lost in the delusion that we have "improved" occult ideas by integrating them with science. It is a process of building bridges that we are discussing here. But probably most important from the purely intellectual view, redefining occultism in scientific terms offers occultism the precision that is characteristic of the scientific method (which Leadbeater recognized, see the quote on page 87), and would allow the application of the great reservoir of scientific knowledge and experience to help further characterize and clarify the nature of occult realities. Again, the end of such a fusion would be a hybrid knowledge superior to either a nonprecise occultism or a secular and materialistic science. The examples below are a foreshadowing of this development.
What we are faced with here is a very interesting
transformation in the overall paradigms of our Western culture, a
continuation of the transformations I mentioned in the first
chapter; science will redefine occultism, and occultism will
redefine science, and in doing so produce a hybrid that is
superior to either. This process is only beginning slowly today
against the weight of hundreds of years of prejudice and
misconception. As this process continues it promises to produce
transformations in the nature and quality of human life that will
dwarf even the vast changes that have been experienced throughout
the twentieth century. As we review the following authors, and
subsequently throughout this book, we will get a feel for the
directions in which these transformations are going.
As our first example of scientists utilizing occult concepts as the basis of their research, we are going to discuss examples of those who are utilizing the occult notion of the chakras. What I shall do first is define the notion of the chakras in the context of occult anatomy, then, with this basis, we will survey two examples of the researches being performed in order to rationalize the concept of the chakras in more scientific terms.
So then, what are chakras? The idea of the chakras is a very ancient concept deriving from ancient India. The word "chakra" itself is Sanskrit and means "wheel". There are frequent references to the chakras in Sanskrit literature, including some of the minor Upanishads, the Puranas, and especially in Tantric literature (circa 900-1300 A.D.)9. The introduction of the chakras into modern Western occultism is attributed to Leadbeater, though other Western authors discussed them as well. Like always though, it was Leadbeater who very concisely and literally described the chakras, without resorting to unnecessary mystique or symbolism. He taught that the chakras are one of the fundamental components of our occult anatomy and that their function involves the absorption, circulation and distribution of the various types of nonphysical energies throughout the nonphysical bodies.
I have already spoken of the nonphysical bodies that are perceivable by the clairvoyant. According to clairvoyant reports, some of the obvious features present in the nonphysical bodies are spinning, saucer-like depressions. These are the chakras. There are normally seven of these seen running along a line that corresponds to the spine of the physical body. The placement of the chakras along this line is seen to correspond to the major nerve plexuses found in the physical body. Figure 1 shows a picture of the chakras and their location relative to the central nervous system. They are described as having a vortex-like structure and a petal-like appearance. Each has a different appearance from the others in terms of color, rate of motion, and the number of "petals". It is commonly taught that there are seven major chakras and a few minor ones. Figure 2 illustrates the petal-like appearance of the chakras.
I must stress that this is the common view of the chakra system. There are other views of the chakras as well which debate their location, number, relation to the physical body and other factors. Such details are beyond the scope of the present discussion but the interested reader is referred to the writings of Manly Hall for further information10. In spite of these different schemes, there is unquestioned agreement in the occult that chakras are real.
The names and associated physical locations of the seven most
commonly described chakras are:
| Hindu name | Common name | Location |
| 1. Muladhara | Root chakra | Base of spine |
| 2. Svadhishthana | Spleen chakra | Spleen |
| 3. Manipura | Navel chakra | Solar Plexus |
| 4. Anahata | Heart chakra | Heart |
| 5. Vishuddi | Throat chakra | Larynx |
| 6. Ajña | Third-eye chakra | Between Eyebrows |
| 7. Sahasrara | Crown chakra | Top of Head |
According to occult theory, each of these chakras plays vital functional roles in our physical body and in our normal subjective consciousness. The chakras are the means by which the functions of the all of the vehicles, including our physical body, are carried out. The actual functions and attributes of the chakras with regard to our physical body comprise an involved topic. Many complex claims are put forth by occultists in this regard. There is generally an overlapping and sharing of functions amongst chakras. Also, the occult description of the functions of the chakras is not simply physiological, but psychological as well. Thus, when discussing the chakras' functions we are relating physiological functions with psychological behaviors.
Generally speaking however, it is my understanding that the three lower chakras (lower starting at the root chakra and going up the spine) have a larger physiological component to their function, and the four higher chakras are more obviously related to our psychological makeup. Strictly this is not true, but roughly speaking this is a fair simplification.
The physiological roles of the chakras are roughly as follows. The root and spleen chakras are related to generative and sexual functions. The navel chakra is related to digestion. The heart chakra is related to the heart and circulation, and the throat chakra is related to the lungs and the voice, including the ears, nose, and throat. The third eye chakra is related to vision, the eyes, and the pituitary gland. The crown chakra is related to the brain, and especially the pituitary and pineal glands.
In terms of psychological functions, the three lower chakras are related to our raw emotions and biological instincts ranging from sexual desire and hunger, into passion, anger, pleasure and joy and other relatively simple emotional states. The four higher chakras are related to higher cognitive states. Thus the heart chakra is related to empathy and understanding. The throat is related to vocal expression, hearing, and the ability to communicate. The third eye chakra is related to discriminative cognition and the ability to understand. And the crown chakra is also related to understanding and comprehension, but as well serves as an integrative factor, and is thus related to the gestalt nature of the mind.
We can see, even from such a brief description, that the notion of the chakras actually defines a sophisticated means of classifying human physiological and psychological functions into one integrated framework. This is a highly integrated approach and has no counterpart in modern science. In modern science the study of physiology, emotions and cognition are all relatively separate disciplines. In terms we have already discussed, physiology, for example, is generally thought of as a "hard" science, but the study of mind and emotions in modern psychology are generally thought of as "soft" sciences. Modern science recognizes that physiological factors affect psychological behavior and vice versa (as with the effects of drugs on behavior, for example), but it has no clear framework within which to conceptualize this mutual interaction. In other words, modern science has no clear means of understanding the relationship between mind and body, but occultism does and this is embodied in the concepts of occult anatomy and especially in the notion of the chakras. Recognizing this difference between science and occultism will prove critical in later chapters.
Above and beyond the ability of occult theory to view our normal physiological and psychological behavior in a unified fashion, this theory also provides the rationale for psychic abilities. It is by enhancing the activity of one's chakras that one develops psychic abilities or siddhis. The changes in occult anatomy by which this is accomplished is as follows. Again, this will only be a rough sketch of occult teachings because the actual range of psychic abilities (siddhis) is very broad and complicated, and the processes involved are also complicated.
The lowest chakra reserves a special function housing an energy occultists call "Kundalini". It is through the use of the Kundalini energy that the chakras get enhanced in their activity. The enhanced activity of a chakra is called the "awakening" of that chakra by occultists and is supposedly accompanied by a flaring up of the color of the chakra and a large increase in its speed and energy processing capabilities. And as well, awakening a chakra confers psychic abilities or siddhis. How the awakening of the chakras is effected in actual practice is through certain yoga exercises, though spontaneous occurrences are known. It is also known that certain drugs will stimulate the chakras. This latter point will play a critical role later in the book as we go deeper into a scientific understanding of occultism.
Now, the psychic abilities that are associated with the chakras are roughly as follows. The awakening of the lower three chakras is associated by occultists with what they call "psychism", which is considered to be a relatively crude exercise of psychic abilities. This includes mediumship, the ability to dream (dreaming being considered by occultists as a crude form of out-of-body travel), and the occurrence of sporadic psychic abilities such as the type studied by parapsychologists (isolated cases of telepathy or precognition, for example). The awakening of the four higher chakras produces what occultists consider legitimate psychic abilities, and what is implied by this is the conscious use and control of these abilities. These are the siddhis described in occult literature, and these are often possessed by those who have studied and practiced yoga to a great extent. The awakening of the heart chakra produces enhanced empathic abilities and the ability to heal. The throat chakra leads to clairaudience, which is the ability to hear on the nonphysical planes. The awakening of the third-eye chakra leads to clairvoyance or the ability to see on the nonphysical planes. And the awakening of the crown center is associated both with the ability to consciously travel on the nonphysical planes and with the process of enlightenment. Incidentally, the connection of the crown chakra to the process of enlightenment is one of the points of connection between occultism and mysticism.
So there in a nutshell is a rough outline of the notion of the chakras and how these are related to occult anatomy. Again, in spite of the overly simple description I have given, we can see that we are dealing with a highly sophisticated framework here, one that encompasses physiological, psychological and parapsychological concerns. These are very important notions and will be used heavily throughout the rest of the book.
And with this background information in mind let us now see
how scientists are utilizing these concepts in their work. I
should also point out that what I am doing in this book follows
along the lines of the following authors in that I too will turn
to these notions in a scientific context to attempt to clarify
and make sense out of the occult world-view. This is effectively
what I mean when I speak of a synthesis of science and occultism.
In 1989, a book was published by Quest (a division of the Theosophical Publishing House) entitled The Chakras and Human Energy Fields11, written by a physician Shafica Karagulla, and a long time member and ex-president of the Theosophical society, Dora van Gelder Kunz. This book was essentially a research report, but a very unusual one. This research consisted of using a clairvoyant individual (Mrs. Kunz) to observe diseased individuals and to describe these diseased states in terms of altercations in the patient's nonphysical bodies and chakras. This research is significant because here there is an attempt to understand disease states in terms of occult physiology and to show that correspondences exist between occult and traditional medical views of human physiology. This research also illustrates the scientific utilization of clairvoyance, or what are commonly called in the occult "clairvoyant investigations".
As regards the matter of clairvoyant investigations, Karagulla and Kunz's book presents a very useful summary of individuals who have performed clairvoyant research (in Chapter VIII), starting with Paracelsus, through Swedenborg, Blavatsky, Leadbeater and Besant, Geoffrey Hodson, as well as more current authors. The issue of utilizing clairvoyance as a research and diagnostic tool is also thoroughly discussed in the context of occult anatomy. All in all Karagulla and Kunz's book is an outstanding example of the scientific attitude applied to occult phenomena. When we discuss Occult Chemistry below we will also see another example of scientifically relevant clairvoyant investigations.
The actual research of these authors consisted of Mrs. Kunz clairvoyantly perceiving the chakras and nonphysical bodies (which they call "energy fields" in this work) of over 200 patients, mostly at the etheric level but occasionally at the astral and mental levels. Then, Dr. Karagulla would correlate these observations with standard medical diagnosis. What they found was that diseased states do indeed lead to changes in the behavior of the chakras and nonphysical bodies. They classified the behavior of the etheric body and the chakras according to the following clairvoyantly observable characteristics: color, luminosity, rhythm, rate, size, form, elasticity, and texture.
Their first step was to establish a base line for these characteristics in normal individuals, and a year was spent on preliminary observations of this nature. Having then established such a basis, diseased patients were observed and alterations in these chakra characteristics were noted. Some disease processes they observed were: dyslexia, autism, Down's syndrome, manic depression, schizophrenia, as well as the effects of drugs such as Thorazine, alcohol and narcotics, and the effects of surgical excision. All in all, these authors present a very detailed correlation between the behavior of the chakras/nonphysical bodies and the physiology of the patients they observed. These details are quite beyond the scope of our discussion and the interested reader is referred to this work.
One of the most significant conclusions to have come from this work is a detailed correlation between the chakras and the endocrine glands of the physical body. The endocrine glands are the "ductless" glands which produce and secrete hormones, and these hormones are known to have very great effects on the physical body's physiology, and as well on psychological behavior. If there is one avenue in modern science to which the connection between the mind and body has been elucidated to some extent, it is in the study of the endocrine systemand its behaviors. Thus, that there should be a strong correlation between these glands and the behavior of the chakras is no surprise in light of the functions attributed to the chakras by occultists. Indeed, these researchers found that the behavior of a given endocrine gland was reflected in the behavior of the corresponding chakra. For example, if the physiological function of the pineal gland was diagnosed to be dysfunctional, it was also observed that the crown chakra was dysfunctional.
That these researchers have elucidated detailed correlations between these glands and the chakras is highly significant in the following respects. First, it lends credence to the entire concept of the chakras and occult anatomy, thus giving scientific legitimacy to occult claims. Secondly, this is a very strong step in tying together scientific and occult notions, probably one of the most pivotal steps that can be taken. This is because, as we have seen, the concepts of occult anatomy are the central rationalizing concepts of occultism, and any synthesis of science with occultism must address these issues. The work of these authors is at the heart of this matter.
The correlation they present between the chakras and the
endocrine glands is:
| Chakra | Endocrine Gland |
| Crown | Pineal |
| Third-eye | Pituitary |
| Throat | Thyroid/Parathyroid |
| Heart | Thymus |
| Solar Plexus | Adrenals/pancreas |
| Root | Spine/Glandular system |
| Spleen | Spleen/liver |
| Sacral | Ovaries/testicles |
Minor chakras were also noted on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. It will also be noticed that eight chakras are described here, illustrating the differences in observations made by occultists regarding the number of chakras. The eighth chakra here listed that was not listed in the previous table is the sacral chakra, which they describe as being associated with the genital region and the root chakra.
Thus, this work is an ideal example of the mixing and blending
of occult and scientific concepts. Again, the specific details
and conclusions of these authors is beyond my scope here, but
these details are highly relevant to elucidating further the
actual connection between the physical mind and the physical
body. This research is also a prime example of the scientific
utilization of clairvoyance. The correlation of Mrs. Kunz's
observations with modern medicine and physiology serve not only
to strengthen occult claims, but serve also to expand scientific
concepts.
Our second author involved in chakra research takes a different slant on the situation. Hiroshi Motoyama is a well known and internationally recognized authority and researcher on the connection between the chakras and physiology. He possesses PhD.s in both philosophy and clinical psychology. He is a scientist familiar with the empirical methodology of science, but as well, he is a psychic and yogi, well-versed in the practices of yoga. Thus he approaches the issue of the chakras from both the scientific and occult views, and his work reflects a combination of these backgrounds. An important feature of Motoyama's work, which sets him apart from the above researchers, is his development of a device designed to electronically measure the physical effects of the activity of chakras. Although he utilizes clairvoyance as a research tool as well, it is his "chakra machine" that I would like to focus on here.
Motoyama's theoretical point of departure involves the occult teachings of Tantra. This system of thought provides the theoretical basis for the Chinese science of acupuncture. The techniques of acupuncture, and the system of Tantra have an expanded approach to the human occult anatomy beyond what has been discussed to this point. Tantra describes the nonphysical bodies and chakras, and as well defines a system of channels and interconnections through which flow nonphysical energies. These channels are called "nadis" in yoga, and "meridians" in Chinese medicine. In acupuncture theory, this nonphysical energy is referred to as "chi" energy, and is also discussed as such in the martial arts. Theosophy and Hindu sources refer to "chi" energy as "prana", and this energy is associated with the etheric plane and the vital life-force of physical organisms. Meridians are the specific pathways of chi energy that connect the chakras, and form a kind of structured net of chi energy flow in the nonphysical bodies. In Figure 2, three of the major nadi pathways and how they interconnect the chakras are illustrated. The number of meridians and the actual paths they form is very complex. According to Motoyama, some sources claim there are 72,000 meridians, other sources claim 340,000, and different diagrams abound as to the structure of the meridians. But, like all other things we have seen so far in our survey of occultism, though there are differences in opinion as to details, all sources agree as the existence of the meridian system. Now, this information is relevant in regard to Motoyama's work because, of the two machines he has devised, one of them is designed to measure effects related to the system of meridians.
These are Motoyama's own words about the design of these two
machines, the AMI and the Chakra Instrument:
"The AMI--Apparatus for Measuring the Functional Conditions of the Meridians and their Corresponding Internal Organs--is an instrument designed to measure the initial skin current, as well as the steady state current, in response to DC voltage externally applied at special acupuncture points located alongside of the base of finger and toe nails. According to acupuncture theory, these special points--called "sei (well) points are ostensibly the terminal points of meridians where chi energy either enters or exits the body...
The Chakra Instrument was designed to detect the energy
generated in the body and then emitted from it in terms of
various physical variables. Unlike the electroencephalograph and
other instruments of physiology, it is designed to detect minute
energy changes (electrical, magnetic, optical) in the immediate
environment of the subject...level with the supposed location of
a given chakra."12
I have left out Motoyama's actual design of the Chakra Instrument which he discusses in some detail and the interested reader may find in the reference to note 12. Now it is Motoyama's supposition that the nonphysical energy (chi) associated with the chakras and meridians will have a corresponding effect on the physical body. His instruments are not designed to measure these energies directly, because they are not physical energies and cannot be measured by physical means. Motoyama is operating under the assumption that these energies will make observable and measurable physical effects, either in the forms of electrical, magnetic or optical effects. He has thus devised a hypothesis based on occult doctrines and found a scientific and physical means for testing this hypothesis.
He has tested this hypothesis on a population of individuals divided into three groups as follows: Group A were those who showed evidence of advanced chakra activity--these are people who had practiced yoga for many years and had evidenced the use of psychic abilities; Group B were those whose chakras showed beginning activity--these were beginning students in yoga; and Group C were those with dormant chakras--these were ordinary people who displayed no particular psychic skills. It is obvious why he would choose such sample groups, for if psychic skills are indeed related to enhanced chakra activity, and this activity in turn creates physically measurable effects, then he should be able to measure these differences between groups of people who do and do not display psychic abilities.
Now what have been the results of Motoyama's measurements with these machines? Again, the technical details are very complicated, not only in terms of the medical and occult terminology involved, but also in terms of interpreting the measurements made by his instruments.
In terms of the validity of the instrumentation he utilizes, given what is known about the electrical and magnetic activity of the physical body, and given the present state of medical technology used to make these types of measurements on the body, it seems his device is reasonable. Electrical measurements are routinely made on the body and are the basis for lie-detector (polygraph) tests, measuring the activity of the heart (electrocardiography), measuring the electrical activity of the brain (electroencepathy). As well, devices such as this are used often in the biological sciences for the study of physiology, as for example the study of muscle or nerve behavior with specialized electrode devices. Magnetic measurements are also routinely made on the body as with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Thus, within the context of currently accepted technology, there is a definite precedence for Motoyama's approach and the devices he is using. As a matter of fact, his approach is quite standard and traditional in a medical and biological context. All that is really unusual about what he is doing is that he is measuring areas of the body that have significance in an occult context.
Now, what are the results of his measurements? With respect to measuring the electrical response of the surface of the body in areas associated with the chakras and the sei points, he has shown a wider degree of electrical response in individuals with active chakras.
He has also found interesting physiological differences between known psychic yogis and non-psychic individuals. One example of these differences is quite interesting and dramatic. Motoyama presents an ECG (electrocardiograph) measurement of a yogi who claimed to be able to control his heartbeat. The ECG reading taken while the yogi was slowing down his heart rate indeed shows a decrease in heart rate.
These two pieces of data, with other data not discussed here, are interpreted by Dr. Motoyama as indicating that psychic individuals show generally a wider dynamic response range of autonomic nervous system activity than normal individuals. That is to say, the activities of the body that our consciousness usually has no control over, such as digestion, heart rate, and other autonomic activities show a wider degree of behaviors in psychic individuals than are seen in non-psychic individuals. Psychic yogis show definite evidence of having some degree of conscious control over bodily activities that normally are not controllable by our consciousness.
Another set of observations he presents is quite interesting. Dr. Motoyama claims to have measured the emission of energy from regions of the body that correspond to the locations of the chakras. These energies were optical (the giving off of light) and electrical. He concludes, on the basis of his experimental design, that these energies were created in the body, and suggests the possibility that the body, via activated chakras, may be able to create physical energy. He further suggests that this may be a direct violation of the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred from one form to another.
Now, that the body itself can give off energy is not an unfamiliar situation. Our bodies are constantly emitting electrical and magnetic energies, such as can be observed by Kirlian photography, and also there are the more standard electrical emissions of the heart and brain. We can also emit energy in the form of heat when, for example, we have worked out intensely in exercise. So the emission of energy by the body is a well known situation. It is interesting that Dr. Motoyama was able to demonstrate the emission of electrical and optical energies in the regions of the body that correspond to the location of the chakras. This would indeed seem to support the contention that the chakras produce measurable effects in the physical body.
In terms of the issue of the creation of energy and the violation of the first law of thermodynamics, this seems highly unlikely. I say this, first, because the laws of thermodynamics are probably the most reliable scientific generalizations known. If science loses these, we might as well throw science away. These laws are so fundamental in modern science that scientists will go to any length to protect the validity of these laws. For example, neutrinos were postulated by physicists purely as theoretical constructs, to save what was an apparent violation of the first law of thermodynamics. Later, when the existence of neutrinos was confirmed, this in turn only confirmed the intuition of scientists regarding the validity of the laws of conservation of energy.
Yet, Dr. Motoyama's questioning in the direction of the laws of thermodynamics borders on some very profound questions about the compatibility of science and occultism. These questions involve the relationship between the properties of physical energy, and the known forces of modern science and how these are related to the nonphysical energies of the occultist, such as chi (prana), or etheric, astral and mental energies.
In the case of Motoyama's results, it is extremely interesting that he would measure the emission of energy out of regions of the body associated with the locations of the chakras. However, I do not feel that it is reasonable to say this energy was created de novo and is a violation of the first law of thermodynamics. It is known, and Leadbeater even taught, that the chakras are energy transducers. This means that one of the main functional roles of the chakras is to transform or convert energy from one form into another. Thus, as a light bulb converts electrical energy into light energy, then likewise, the chakras convert nonphysical energies into different nonphysical energy types, and probably convert nonphysical energy into physical energy. This is an alternative, and I feel more reasonable, explanation of Dr. Motoyama's results; the physical energies he measured in his experiments were the transduction products of the chakras. In this case, we are still converting energy from one form to another, though now we are converting nonphysical energy into physical energy. In spite of this dichotomy of nonphysical and physical energies, we are still only converting energy, not creating or destroying it. Thus, there is no violation whatsoever of the laws of thermodynamics.
From this point of view, the interesting and relevant question becomes: what are the means, that is, what are the specific mechanisms by which chakras convert nonphysical energies into physical energies? This is an extremely important question in the scope of a unification of scientific and occult concepts and must be fully and clearly addressed. Unfortunately, I will not pursue this topic in any detail in this book. However, it is a highly important question that is wide-open at this point.
Thus, we have reviewed two profound scientific researches into the nature of the chakras. First, these studies serve as examples of scientific approaches to occult phenomena, utilizing occult theory as the basis for these researches. This is in contrast to traditional parapsychology, which rejects occult claims and attempts to measure "psi phenomena" without any theoretical basis. The success of these studies in showing meaningful demonstrations of psychic phenomena rests primarily in the scientific interpretation of mostly very ancient occult teachings. Occult theories show these scientists where to look, so to speak, and when scientists look there with their instruments, measurable effects are indeed observed.
The second point illustrated by these examples is that the utilization of scientific methodologies helps to clarify and make sense of occult teachings in a more organized and coherent fashion. And as such, occult teachings get translated into modern scientific terms, which then imparts legitimacy to occult teachings.
The third point illustrated by these examples is that, the
opening up to occult theories, and the attempt to measure and
confirm them in a scientific fashion expands the horizon of
science. In the case of chakra research, the result is new ways
to conceptualize the link between mind and body. Also, if these
scientific researches into occult anatomy are pursued far enough
and convincingly enough, they hold the promise of new means of
conceptualizing disease processes and thus open up new
possibilities for treating these diseases.
At this point let us now turn to a few more examples of
scientist who are operating from an occult viewpoint. We will now
leave the field of health, medicine and chakras and turn to
examples in which other fields of science are involved and other
facets of occult teachings are involved. Again, in the three
examples to follow we will see the three main effects of science
embracing occultism in operation: 1. the legitimizing of
occultism, 2. The translation of occultism into more modern and
scientific terms, and, 3. the expansions of the horizons of
science.
Having obtained his doctorate in the natural sciences and philosophy, as well as law, Theodore Landscheidt has since 1974 been involved with the study of cycles of solar activity. Grounded in the holistic and cyclic philosophical concepts of astrology, this author presents new theoretical approaches to understanding the relationship between solar and terrestrial events13. Utilizing concepts from fractal geometry and chaos theory, he develops mathematical systems to predict the effect of solar activity on such phenomena as weather patterns, fluctuations of animal populations, fluctuations in human economic activities, and spurts of creative activity in human history. These are already situations that we have seen are describable in terms of Chaos theory. The significance of Landscheidt's work is that it exhibits the same spirit as Rudhyar's approach to astrology.
Landscheidt's basic assumption in this work is the self-similarity of Nature (see the discussion about Dane Rudhyar for details). He is postulating that changes at one level of organization will create changes at lower and nested levels. That is, the Hermetic Axiom is the explicit basis for this scientific work. Thus he correlates the effects of sunspot activity with a variety of terrestrial phenomena, illustrating this self-similarity effect.
His approach is imminently a historical approach and, from a philosophical level, addresses the same scientific issues that Rudhyar's work does. That is, Landscheidt's work addresses the issues of how we scientifically conceptualize real events that occur in the real world and have definite and irreversible histories. Yet Landscheidt goes one step further than Rudhyar by actually utilizing scientific tools and observations. He does not turn to astrological symbolism as Rudhyar did. By utilizing scientific tools as he does, Landscheidt illustrates that there is a correspondence between real life events that can be understood in terms of the self-similarity of Nature principle, that can be captured theoretically and predicted. His approach leaves open the prospect of direct confirmation by scientific observation.
This whole issue of the self-similarity of Nature, and how it
is related to the notions of time and irreversibility is
extremely important in the context of a synthesis of science and
occultism. These issues will be fully explored in the chapter
"A New Concept of Motion", and will not be discussed
any further here.
Monroe, the wellknown author and astral projector (though he uses the term "outofbody experience"), has been performing research on the outofbody experience at the Monroe Institute, in Faber, Virginia for close to twenty years now. Though Robert Monroe is not formally a scientist, I am including him here because his research on the out-of-body experience is both highly scientific, and an excellent example of the rationalization of occultism into more modern terms.
The results of some of his researches are compiled in his two books Journeys Out Of Body and Far Journeys14. Monroe's work is significant in that he has rediscovered many facts that occultists have claimed, though he may use different words to describe the phenomena. These phenomena include: the nature and inhabitants of the nonphysical planes, telepathic communication (i.e. "rote"), and the channeling of nonphysical entities.
There are however, some very unique features of Monroe's work. First is the nonoccult presentation of his results. That is, the dogmatic assertions that tend to accompany occult investigations are notably lacking in Monroe's work. Monroe comes across as a very down-to-earth and normal guy, in spite of the fact that he has had many contacts with "dead people", and that he has personally communicated with beings from other systems of reality. Monroe's primary stance seems to be that of a relatively sophisticated parapsychological approach. Secondly, the scope of the nonphysical reality in which our physical universe is embedded, as described by Monroe, is much vaster than usually described by occultists (excepting Seth's view, of course). Monroe describes the "rings" about the Earth, and these correspond closely to the septenary arrangement of planes described by occultists and yet, from Monroe's perspective, these "rings" are the "backwoods" of an even vaster interdimensional civilization. An implication of this interdimensional civilization will be discussed below.
In terms of scientific methodology, Monroe's real contribution has been the development of a technique by which to stimulate the out-of-body experience, and as well record these experiences. The means he uses to stimulate OOBEs he calls "Hemi-Sync". This is shorthand for the term "hemispheric synchronization". What this process entails, as the name implies, is the synchronization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain using sound waves. Using headphones and tape recorders, he inputs different sound waves into each ear, and thus into each hemisphere of the brain. According to Monroe, these sound waves will constructively interfere with each other, a process by which two wave patterns interact resulting in the production of one wave that is a combination, or sum, of the two original waves. This constructive interference produces in the brain one single wave pattern present in both hemispheres. And somehow, according to Monroe, this process stimulates one's ability to have an out-of-body experience.
Now, I personally have had many OOBEs, having learned to do this some years ago. I will not be discussing these experiences to any extent in this book, except to a minor extent in chapter 13. The point of mentioning this here is that the methodology of achieving this experience has a lot to do with concentration. One does not need any type of mechanical aid whatsoever to achieve this experience. So I question the validity of Monroe's theory of the "Hemi-sync" process. But I have tested one of his Hemi-sync tapes, and I ended up having an OOBE. Thus whether his theory is right or not, his technique seems to work, at least I have verified it for myself. And the fact that his technique works is what is important, because it seems that Monroe has developed a relatively simple and reproducible means of stimulating the out-of-body experience.
If there is a theory behind Monroe's Hemi-sync process, it may actually entail the physical stimulation of the crown and third eye chakras by creating an electrical resonance in the brain with his Hemi-sync tapes. It is activating these chakras that endows one with the siddhis he describes in his book (these being mainly out-of-body experiences and clairvoyance). If this is indeed the case, then Monroe's technique is, in a sense, the opposite of Motoyama's approach. If we recall, Motoyama is interested in measuring physical effects of the chakras. Monroe, it seems, has found a physical way to affect the chakras. This would then be mutually confirming evidence of the existence of the chakras, and thus, very nice confirmation of occult theories.
As well as being able to stimulate the OOBE state, Monroe has as well designed a special chamber with which to record the experiences of those in this state. First, he has taught others to retain the ability to speak when in the out-of-body state. This is itself an accomplishment of some merit. Then, these subjects are placed in a special environment in which their verbal reports can be tape recorded during the actual experience. So Monroe has created an effective means by which to record the out-of-body experience in an "eye-witness" type fashion. This eliminates the need of recording the experience after it is over, thus producing more accurate first hand accounts of the OOBE environment. This is a problem I have personally encountered, and it is very easy to forget what occurred during the OOBE, in the brief moments between "waking up" and recording the experience.
With such tools in hand, Monroe has researched in great detail the world of the out-of-body experience. And basically, he has confirmed the teachings of occultism. He describes the after-death state, the nature and inhabitants of the nonphysical planes, the use of common siddhis and other phenomena of an occult nature. He gives different terms to these phenomena though. Thus, the "planes" become "rings", a "spirit" becomes a "curl", a "thought-form" becomes a "rote-ball", "telepathy" becomes "rote transfer", and so on. I think there is a high degree of validity to these terms because they are a better indicator of the nature of the phenomena as these subjectively appeared to Monroe and his group. It is clear that Monroe is describing occult phenomena that has been described by others, but he is not making the mistake of trying to fit his observations in other people's terms, which at times is simply not possible given the subjective nature of occult experiences of altered states of perception, and the tremendous variety of experiences that are possible in the nonphysical worlds.
So again we have before us an example of a scientific attitude
and approach to occult phenomena. Like most examples I have
surveyed here, I cannot even begin to stress that only the most
salient features have been described. Monroe's scope and
conclusions are vast in terms of the nature of the human
experience and the directions towards which humankind is moving.
Again, all I can do is refer the interested reader to the source.
At this point I will discuss one of the more obvious and dramatic
implications of Monroe's views.
The occult ideas presented above have an incredible bearing on the contemporary interest to find intelligent life among the stars. The main point here is that we currently are looking in the wrong direction, so to speak. Monroe, for example, is quite clear about meeting alien consciousnesses in his travels in nonphysical reality. The popular images of other planets in other galaxies that we will reach via some type of advanced space technology are highly unrealistic in light of occult notions of space, time and the structure of the universe. In all likelihood, "space travel" is probably a relatively commonplace event among intelligent life forms, but it is probably achieved by traveling through nonphysical dimensions and by communicating in nonphysical dimensions. Our species is probably quite primitive, if not naive, by attempting to communicate with intelligent life by traveling through the vast empty reaches of physical space. In light of this perspective on "space travel", many popular scientific notions concerning the limits of physical space travel, such as the constancy of the speed of light, the EPR paradox, etc., are no longer relevant.
Also, the notion of "time travel" takes on new meanings when viewed from an occult perspective. The paradoxes from relativity theory, again, simply would not hold water in this context. Time travel is possible in the nonphysical plains and has been reported by occult authors such as Robert Monroe. The problem with the concept of time travel in general though is that, as popular conceptions stand, it assumes a very distinct and very linear form to time. From the occult viewpoint, time does not have such a form. Probably the expert on this issue is Seth, and he explains that our "time" is but one of a myriad of levels of time, all of which interblend and interconnect with each other. Furthermore, we literally create time as a part of what Seth calls our "camouflage", and by this he is referring to normal space and time. He further explains that there are different types of time totally unlike the time we inhabit now. From the standpoint of science fiction books and Newtonian conceptions of the universe, this is a very messy situation. Yet occult reports generally support this view of time.
The question of how physical time and space are related to the
nonphysical planes is wide open at this point. Some ideas will be
put forth in the chapter "A New Concept Of Motion". It
is likely that through a synthetic view, we may be able to come
upon new conceptions of space and time that will allow us to
bridge vast distances and times in completely unexpected ways.
We are going to end our survey of occultism, and this first section of the book, with what is probably the most dramatic example of a scientific analysis of occult phenomena available today. Here I will summarize Stephen Phillips' interpretation of Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater's Occult Chemistry in terms of modern particle physics. Above I referred only briefly to Besant and Leadbeater's Occult Chemistry, but here I will explain this in more detail. It should be emphasized that, because of their occult worldview, Besant and Leadbeater described subatomic realities that the science of their day was only on the verge of describing.
Today particle physics is one of the most publicized and dramatic branches of modern physics. It was somewhat of a shock to the scientific world when, at the turn of the century, it was realized that the atom was not the indivisible and fundamental unit of matter that it had been envisioned to be. The discovery of the electron in 1897 by J.J. Thompson opened up to mankind the world within the atom. By the early 1930s, based on Rutheford's model of the atom, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron (in 1932), it was believed that all matter was composed of four basic quantum particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons (the quantum of electromagnetic radiation). Thus, these particles were dubbed "elementary particles". However, further advances soon showed other elementary particles besides these four. By 1947 there were 14 known elementary particles, by 1957 there were 32, by 1965 there were over 60, and today there are over 100 elementary particles, and it is now apparent that most of these particles are not elementary at all.
Today there is a great flurry of activity in particle physics to ascertain the meaning of this situation. Many theories have been proposed to account for this diversity of particles. Yet available technology limits the physicist's ability to determine which of this plethora of theories is correct. Thus, new and larger accelerators, the machines used to "detect" these particles, are being constructed to explore deeper into the jungle of variety that appears to be in the heart of matter. It is questionable if physicists actually discover these particles in their accelerators, as opposed to creating them. But it is not my intention here to go into the subtleties of modern subatomic physics. This background information is a necessary introduction to Occult Chemistry.
Meanwhile, as all of this activity has occurred in 20th century physics, there has been since 1895, on dusty back shelves, a most curious set of observations by Besant and Leadbeater. In November, 1895, in a Theosophical magazine called Lucifer, an article by Besant and Leadbeater was published in which it was claimed that these two had, by the use of their clairvoyant faculties, observed directly the structure of the elements hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Here were published diagrams and detailed descriptions of the exact structures of these elements as they had "seen" them clairvoyantly. This was the beginning of Besant and Leadbeater's clairvoyant investigation into the world of the atom that was to continue until 1933 and involve the observation of every known element, some seemingly unknown elements, and was to include molecules as well as the description of isotopes15 at a time before isotopes were widely accepted in science. The initial investigations were collected and published in the first edition of Occult Chemistry in 1908. A reprint of the 1908 material was issued in 1919 as the second edition of Occult Chemistry. And finally, the sum total of Besant and Leadbeater's clairvoyant observations of the chemical elements were collected and published posthumously in a third edition of Occult Chemistry in 1951.
Now it is imminently reasonable to ask: How did Besant and Leadbeater actually see atoms? This ability, they explained, was one of the many siddhis or psychic powers that one can develop by practicing yoga. Besant and Leadbeater referred to this ability as "magnifying clairvoyance", Hindus refer to it as "anima", but it has since been dubbed "micro-psi"; the ability to directly perceive minute or gigantic structures that the eye cannot see. According to Leadbeater, there is a tube-like structure which protrudes from the Ajña, or third-eye chakra of the etheric body and it is by means of utilizing this tube as an organ of vision that one can exercise micro-psi. The interested reader will find the details in note 16. Much more will be said about this ability in the section "Biological Perceptions".
Here I will give only one example of what Besant and
Leadbeater observed, and the most simple example at that, this
being their observation of what they thought was hydrogen. In
their own words:
"The first chemical atom selected for this examination
was an atom of hydrogen (H). On looking carefully at it, it was
seen to consist of six small bodies, contained in an egg-like
form. It rotated with great rapidity on its own axis, vibrating
at the same time, and the internal bodies performed similar
gyrations. The whole atom spins and quivers and had to be
steadied before exact observation is possible. The six little
bodies are arranged in two sets of three, forming two triangles
that are not interchangeable, but are related to each other as
object and image (mirror images). Further, the six bodies are not
all alike; they each contain three smaller bodies--each of these
being an ultimate physical atom--but in two of them the three
atoms are arranged in a line, while in the remaining four they
are arranged in a triangle."17 (parenthetical remark mine)
Figure 3 shows a picture of the structure of hydrogen as it was clairvoyantly perceived by Besant and Leadbeater. The designations on this picture need not concern us here. Now, one must remember, these words were written in 1895, almost 35 years before the picture of the atom as we see it today was developed. The spinning and vibrating motions they describe here are very common notions today, but were utterly unthinkable given the state of scientific knowledge in 1895. However, if this is indeed hydrogen, then it is nothing like the current view of the structure of the hydrogen atom in which one lone electron orbits about a nucleus of one proton. This most obvious discrepancy will be discussed below.
Again, this is only the simplest example of atomic structure observed by Besant and Leadbeater. The heavier elements they describe as having shapes like funnels, octahedrons, tetrahedrons and other regular polygon shapes. Figure 5 shows drawings provided by Besant and Leadbeater which illustrate some of the atomic structures that they saw. The reader will note how complex these structures are. The identities of the atoms in this diagram are: (a) lithium, (b) sodium, (c) beryllium, (d) boron, (e) carbon, (f) iron, (g) neon. It was not until many years later that physicists discovered these same shapes in the equations of quantum theory. Today it is standard to attribute regular polygonal shapes to atoms (or more precisely to the orbitals of atoms) but again, in 1895, this was unthinkable from a scientific perspective.
As well, Besant and Leadbeater consistently observed that every element was made up of large numbers of only two particles which were identical to one another except that they were mirror images of one another. They called these particles the "ultimate physical atom", or U.P.A.. Figure 4 shows the two mirror images of the U.P.A. as it was seen by Besant and Leadbeater. Here these are depicted as "positive" and "negative". Also, the U.P.A. is depicted in Figure 3 as the small circles with either a plus or a minus inside of them. Again, the reader can see from Figure 4 that even the U.P.A. which, according to Besant and Leadbeater, was the ultimate constituent of physical matter, possesses a highly complex structure. These U.P.A.s were seen to form combinations amongst themselves, and these combinations would then interact to form the geometrical shapes of regular polygons. From the description above, and looking at Figure 3, it can be seen that the clairvoyantly observed hydrogen consisted of 18 U.P.A.s. Three U.P.A.s would interact to form a circular unit. Three of these circular units would then form a triangle. And the hydrogen they observed consisted of two of these overlapping triangles. A most complicated arrangement indeed!
In their investigations they discovered a curious rule, if they counted all of the U.P.A.s in an atom and divided this number by 18, then they roughly obtained the atomic weight of that element as ascertained by science. For example, in oxygen they counted 290 U.P.A.s, which divided by 18 gives 16.11, which is very close to the value of 16.00 (to two significant figures), this later being the accepted value of the lightest isotope of oxygen. As well, in nitrogen they counted 261 U.P.A.s, which gives 14.44 when divided by 18, and the accepted weight of the light nitrogen isotope is 14.00 (again, at two significant figures). This rule of dividing by 18 to give the accepted molecular weight worked consistently for Besant and Leadbeater in their investigation, and they could even deduce the identity of an unknown element by this rule. As a matter of fact, this ability to deduce the accepted atomic weights of the elements from the number of U.P.A.s they observed was the only thing Occult Chemistry had in common with the chemistry of 1895.
So as the 20th century passed, Occult Chemistry sat mostly ignored on Theosophical bookshelves, much to the disappointment of scientifically oriented Theosophists18. It seemed to have had little to do with the discoveries and concepts in modern physics and became almost a blemish to Leadbeater and Besant and their claims about clairvoyance.
And this was the situation until one day in the late 1970s
when a physics graduate student at the University of California
happened across some of the diagrams from Occult Chemistry. This
was Stephen Phillips, and in his own words:
"While studying several years ago in the United States of
America as a physics graduate student, I came across one day a
copy of the book The Physics of the Secret Doctrine
written by William Kingsland (London: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1910). One page in particular captured my attention, for
it displayed diagrams of the "atoms" of hydrogen,
nitrogen, and oxygen, supposedly highly magnified through the use
of a form of extra-sensory perception. The diagram of the
"hydrogen atom" was especially curious and interesting,
because I immediately recognized in it the physicist's model of a
proton as a triangular cluster of three particles that he calls
"quarks." On returning to England a few years later, I
made inquiries about the source of these drawings and soon
discovered more curious things."19
Indeed, the most curious, if not utterly profound thing that Dr. Phillips discovered is that Besant and Leadbeater's clairvoyant descriptions of the chemical elements are completely consistent with the Quark, Quantum Chromodynamic and Super-String theories of modern subatomic physics. This he details in great depth in his 1980 book, The Extra-Sensory Perception of Quarks. In this book, Dr. Phillips literally reconciles Occult Chemistry with modern physics. Dr. Phillips has vindicated, probably as strongly as is possible (next to clairvoyantly seeing the elements for himself), Besant and Leadbeater's Occult Chemistry. Instead of being an embarrassing blemish to Theosophy, because of Dr. Phillips' work, Occult Chemistry now stands as a glittering testimony to the validity of Besant and Leadbeater's claims. This is a highly important point and we will return to it below.
Dr. Phillips' analysis of Occult Chemistry is highly complex and technical, and is given in the mathematical terms of modern physics (group theory to be precise). I have no intention here of going into the technical details of Dr. Phillips' analysis, for my background in modern mathematical physics is not even good enough to do so. But with my chemist's knowledge of mathematical physics, it is apparent to me that what Dr. Phillips has done is indeed correct from a scientific standpoint. What I will do here is simply present a simple and qualitative description of Dr. Phillips' analysis of Occult Chemistry. The reader interested in further detail is referred to the bibliography.
Dr. Phillips, as stated in his quote above, has reinterpreted Besant and Leadbeater's observation to be not those of atoms, but of quarks. The notion of quarks was introduced into modern physics in 1964 by M. Gell-Mann and G. Zweig to explain the nature of the many elementary particles that had been observed in the physicist's accelerators up to that point in time. Quarks are even more fundamental than elementary particles, and serve as the building blocks of the elementary particles. In other words, quarks are sub-elementary particles. They have never been directly observed, but as a theoretical construct they have proven very useful to physicists, and there is indirect evidence that quarks indeed do exist. Thus, the notion that quarks exist is generally accepted in the scientific community. However, the original notion of quarks as presented by Gell-Mann and Zweig has undergone considerable modification, and today there are many equally plausible mathematical models of quarks in physics. This is too technical of a topic to go into here, but suffice it to say, one of these current models of quarks was expounded by Dr. Phillips20. It is with this quark model that Dr, Phillips explains the observations of Besant and Leadbeater.
However, Dr. Phillips model is actually a sub-quark (or composite quark) model. That is, in his mathematical model, he defines a set of particles that serve as a building block for quarks. For the informed reader, Dr. Phillips' model is a: "unified hadron-lepton theory, based on the symmetry group SU(10)flavour X SU(10)colour. It predicts that quarks are composite and there exist five generations of singly flavoured quarks mirrored by a finite heavy lepton sequence"21. What this means in simpler terms is that Dr. Phillips has made up a mathematical model of quarks by defining them in terms of more fundamental particles (i.e. sub-quarks). The physical situation implied by Dr. Phillips' model is that we have the following conditions with regard to how matter is constructed or structured: sub-quarks make up quarks, quarks make up elementary particles, elementary particles make up atoms, atoms make up molecules, and combinations of molecules make up the cells of our bodies, as well as the rest of Nature.
How Dr. Phillips has reconciled Besant and Leadbeater's clairvoyant observations of the elements with modern science is by identifying the sub-quarks in his model with the U.P.A. observed by Besant and Leadbeater. That is, the U.P.A.s are sub-quarks, and he calls his sub-quarks "omegons" to indicate that they are the final and smallest form of physical matter (omega is the Greek letter for "z"). Making this identification, Dr. Phillips can then deduce mathematically the possible combinations of the sub-quarks in his model. What he has shown is that the sub-quark combinations predicted by his model are almost in exact agreement with the detailed structures presented by Besant and Leadbeater. Again, I cannot stress enough the technical and mathematical nature of Dr. Phillips' analysis. His analysis is not some simple analogy or qualitative identification, it is a rigorous mathematical deduction of the structures observed by Besant and Leadbeater. As such, it is not something one can dismiss lightly.
Even the errors and discrepancies between Dr. Phillips mathematical deductions, and Besant and Leadbeater's observations can be explained in terms of simple counting errors on the part of Besant and Leadbeater. For example, there is a large discrepancy between the number of sub-quarks that Dr. Phillips predicts would make up the element europium, and the number of U.P.A.s that were actually observed by Besant and Leadbeater. We must remember that hydrogen itself had 18 U.P.A.s in its structure and europium (atomic weight = 150.92 grams/mole) had 5,843 U.P.A.s as counted by Besant and Leadbeater! Dr. Phillips predicts that this element should contain 5,754 sub-quarks, thus there is a discrepancy of +89 on the part of Besant and Leadbeater.
In regard to these types of errors, what must be realized is that Besant and Leadbeater did not actually count all of the U.P.A.s in the heavy elements because there were so many of them. Instead, they would find some type of repeating structure in the element they were observing (such as a "spike" or "funnel", as were the names given to some of the structures observed), count the number of U.P.A.s inside that structure, and multiply the number of U.P.A.s they counted in the structure times the number of times the structure occurred in an element.
As an example of how counting errors may have occurred during micro-psi observation, let's look at the case of sodium as portrayed in Figure 5b. There are twelve funnel projections at either end of the sodium atom (though you can't see all of these in the picture, this is what Besant and Leadbeater describe in the text of Occult Chemistry). Each of these funnels contains 16 U.P.A.s. Thus there are 24 funnels with 16 U.P.A.s in each giving a total of (16x24=) 384 U.P.A.s. The connecting rod has 14 U.P.A.s in it, and the concentric spheres at either end of the rod have in them 10 U.P.A.s each. In all, the sodium atom as observed by Besant and Leadbeater has a total of 418 U.P.A.s in it. Dr. Phillips predicted, based on his sub-quark theory as applied to the known structure of sodium, that the structure observed by Besant and Leadbeater should have had 414 omegons in it. Thus, this discrepancy of 4 U.P.A.s is accounted for by Dr. Phillips in assuming that Besant and Leadbeater overcounted two U.P.A.s in the two concentric spheres at either end of the sodium atom. It is in such a fashion that Dr. Phillips accounts for the majority of errors present between his predicted number of sub-quarks, and the number of U.P.A.s that Besant and Leadbeater counted. What is more, the total error of counting is less than 5% of predicted values to begin with! Scientists are lucky to get such small errors with normal science, let alone in this case!
Now, I have gone off on these details to give the reader some idea of how complicated both the Occult Chemistry observations and Dr. Phillips' analysis of them really are. It took me quite some time to understand the situation myself. And, like much in this survey of occultism, I have only given the smallest hint of the complexity of the matter. Not only were the atoms themselves, as clairvoyantly observed, made up of many complicated structures as Figure 5 indicates, but the U.P.A. itself has the very complicated structure shown in Figure 4. I do not want to go into the technicalities any further here, and the interested reader is referred to Dr. Phillips' book.
Yet even Dr. Phillips' book does not begin to capture the massive complexity of Besant and Leadbeater's observations. I had read Dr. Phillips' book before I had read an actual copy of Occult Chemistry (the 2nd edition). In the latter book are found a wealth of details of scientific worth that Dr. Phillips does not even address in his book, most notably the detailed structure of the U.P.A.22. I wrote to him personally in 1987 asking his opinion about the details of Occult Chemistry not mentioned in his book. He very kindly responded with a letter in which he explained to me his technical analysis of the details left out of ESP of Quarks, and I can assure the reader that, if one is not familiar to a relatively high degree with the mathematics of modern subatomic theories, then one will likely not understand what Dr. Phillips is talking about, because I barely did. But, as one example, Dr. Phillips has successfully correlated the structure of the U.P.A. as shown in Figure 4 with current models known as "Superstring" models. That is, Dr. Phillips is claiming that the U.P.A. itself is indeed the "superstring" spoken of in modern subatomic physics. Again, the technicality of this matter is far beyond the scope of this book, but the interested reader is referred to note 22 for further information on this topic.
Now, having given the reader some idea of what Occult Chemistry is, I would like to critically analyze this situation. For though I have painted a picture above in which it seems that Dr. Phillips has vindicated Occult Chemistry beyond question, this is actually not the case. There is one major technicality that cannot be ignored in Dr. Phillips' analysis. This involves the fact that the only way in which he could get the numbers generated by his theory to match the actual observations of Besant and Leadbeater, was to have assumed that, when they were observing the sub-quark structure of an atom, they were not observing one atom, but two atoms that had somehow fused together.
The reason for this discrepancy can best be understood if we consider the structure of hydrogen as it was observed by Besant and Leadbeater and how this relates to the current scientific picture of hydrogen. Again, referring to Figure 3, the clairvoyantly observed structure consisted of two overlapping triangles, with each triangle containing 9 U.P.A.s. In contrast, the contemporary scientific picture of hydrogen is of a lone electron orbiting a nucleus of one proton. Yet, from the viewpoint of modern quark theory, that lone proton is actually an arrangement consisting of three quarks. Dr. Phillips, using his sub-quark model, further claims that each quark is in turn made up of three sub-quarks. Thus, according to Dr. Phillips' sub-quark model, the hydrogen atom consists of 9 sub-quarks. But in Besant and Leadbeater's hydrogen, there were two triangles each of 9 U.P.A.s, thus Dr. Phillips' conclusion is that each triangle must correspond to an atom of hydrogen as understood by modern science. Or in other words, the hydrogen structure observed by Besant and Leadbeater was actually made up of two atoms of hydrogen.
Dr. Phillips explains this discrepancy in a most interesting fashion by postulating that the psychic ability (anima or micro-psi) used by Besant and Leadbeater in some manner caused the fusion of two atoms into one unit before they observed it. He explains this process as follows: Prior to the act of micro-psi observation, somehow the initial effect of micro-psi is to perturb two atomic nuclei and cause them to break apart. These two nuclei then coalesce and reform as one object, this object being what was actually observed by Besant and Leadbeater. Again, I am oversimplifying here considerably. Dr. Phillips' explanation of this phenomena has to do with the Higgs vacuum and the various phases this vacuum can contain. I want to stress that I am leaving much physics out.
This is not an implausible possibility, suggesting as it does that micro-psi involves some type of psychokinesis, as well as specific mechanisms of psychokinesis (that of perturbing the states of the Higgs vacuum--which is extremely significant from a parapsychological perspective). Furthermore, this situation is in line with the essence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which states that, in any attempt to observe a microscopic system, the observer will always exert some type of effect on the system and thus affect the measuring process. What Dr. Phillips is saying is that clairvoyant observations are also subject to this limitation, and that Besant and Leadbeater affected the systems they were observing without realizing this fact. Again, I must stress to the reader that I am only explaining this situation in the most simplified of fashions so as to avoid technical jargon.
The point of mentioning this strange discrepancy in the Occult Chemistry observations is to make it clear to the reader that the vindication of Besant and Leadbeater's observations is not cut and dry. Had Dr. Phillips' theory not had this major discrepancy, then the vindication would have been close to absolute. However, since this discrepancy is present the situation is made more ambiguous. This discrepancy raises as many new questions as Dr. Phillips' analysis has resolved. For example, why did only two atoms get affected by this processes of micro-psi observation? What is it about micro-psi that causes such a perturbation?
Also, it should be stated that Dr. Phillips' model stands
among many competing models in subatomic physics, none of which
can be completely verified with the present technology. That is
to say, it is not known if Dr. Phillips' hadron-lepton
unification is true or not, for like many other mathematical
models in contemporary physics, it has not been experimentally
verified. In Dr. Phillips' own words:
"If the data happens to be too imprecise to be able to
distinguish between rival theories, scientific understanding can
become ambiguous and uncertain for a while. If a crucial
experiment or measurement is unavailable or unfeasible in terms
of available technology, scientific understanding may also become
polarized, with different schools of thought emerging in the
scientific community. This is an endemic tendency of high-energy
physics, where new ideas and models frequently outstrip
technological capabilities to verify their predictions."23
What is certain though is that Besant and Leadbeater's observations are no longer an unusual curiosity of no scientific relevance. For even in spite of the need to postulate this perturbative effect of micro-psi, there are still simply too many correspondences between what Besant and Leadbeater observed and what is now known about subatomic behavior. The shapes they described, the fact that they observed isotopes of elements before isotopes were widely recognized in science, the fact that they observed spinning and vibrating motions of these particles, and a host of other relevant observations; all of these are ideas that were completely unknown to the science of their day.
It seems to me very reasonable to ask how would they have known and identified these types of behaviors if they did not actually observe something valid regarding the microscopic world of matter? Both Besant and Leadbeater were relatively well-informed about the science of their day, as is apparent when you read their writings. That does not mean, however, that they were in a position to know, better than the prominent chemists and physicists of their day, the true nature of matter. There are simply too many correspondences between their observations and modern physical theory to think that it is all a coincidence, or a lucky guess on Besant and Leadbeater's part.
What this means is, whether or not specific details turn out to be correct or incorrect in the future, we must take Occult Chemistry seriously. Whether Dr. Phillips' model is correct or not, he has already vindicated Occult Chemistry by showing the overwhelming correspondence between Occult Chemistry and modern particle physics. Dr. Phillips has raised the status and dialogue associated with Occult Chemistry from that of doubt and suspicion into one requiring a thorough understanding of modern physics. The evidence had been sitting on Theosophical bookshelves for all of these years, all it took was particle physics to advance far enough and someone well enough informed on these matters to come and point out the correspondences, and this is what Dr. Phillips has done. In spite of details, Dr. Phillips' interpretation has shown that Occult Chemistry and modern physics are identical in spirit. Besant and Leadbeater described the quantum nature of physical matter in 1895, exactly as science would 30 years later24. How did Besant and Leadbeater know that matter was quantized? And when we do consider the massive mountain of specific details (which I have barely touched upon here), that is when it becomes crystal clear that Occult Chemistry and quantum theory are saying the same thing. They are practically identical descriptions of the nature of physical matter. There is only one conclusion available to us and that is; somehow or another, Besant and Leadbeater were capable of perceiving the fundamental nature of matter using occult means.
This is not trivial. As a matter of fact, Occult Chemistry as interpreted from Dr. Phillips' point of view is probably the most important scientific event to have ever occurred in the history of modern science; the actual scientific vindication of the existence of psychic abilities and therefore, of the occult world-view. In our present culture with its complete skepticism of the reality of psychic abilities, who would have ever thought that their existence would have been displayed in such a fashion? It is an extremely surprising and unexpected situation.
In these regards, Dr. Phillips himself addresses the parapsychological ramifications of Besant and Leadbeater's Occult Chemistry, in particular, and of the use of micro-psi in general. Micro-psi is an unknown ability to parapsychology, though well known for thousands of years to the practitioners of yoga. However, we shall see that other sectors of modern science have as well rediscovered this ability known as micro-psi, or anima, these being the more esoteric fields of psychology that study altered states of consciousness, notably hypnogogic states and drug-induced states. What we will see is that this ability, and in general, all psychic abilities, are much more common place than normally thought, though their significance has not been widely recognized. In chapters 12 and 13 I will present my own personal firsthand account, and those of other investigators as well, of the utilization of micro-psi. One of the main themes to be discussed in the next section is that the supposed "psychic abilities" of the occultist are in actuality much more common place than what is thought, and that the significance of these occurrences is generally overlooked and misconstrued in the present intellectual climate. The implications that such an attitude has on our present conceptions of both science and occultism will be made obvious as we proceed.
Notes: Chapter 6
1McConnell, (1987), page 28.
2A discussion by a parapsychologist concerning parapsychology's struggle for scientific legitimacy can be found in Rogo (1987), pages 208-231.
3LeShan (1987), page 79.
4See Zukav, (1979) for a layman's account of the EPR debate. A slightly more technical account from a pure physics perspective can be found in Shimony, (1988).
5Shimony, (1988).
6See for example, Dossey (1989).
7Shimony, (1988), pages 50-51.
8Ibid.
9Leadbeater, (1985), page 18.
10Hall, (1972), Chapter XIV.
11Karagulla and Kunz, (1989).
12Motoyama, (1984), page 257.
13Landscheidt, (1989).
14Monroe, (1971) and Monroe, (1985).
15An element is defined by the number of protons it has. The weight of an element is approximately the sum of its constituent protons and neutrons. When two atoms have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, then these atoms are called isotopes of that element. For example 12C has 6 protons and 6 neutrons, but 14C has 6 protons and 8 neutrons; these two versions of carbon are isotopes.
16Leadbeater, (1987), page 203.
17Besant and Leadbeater, (1919), page 9.
18For a look at theosophical attitudes towards occult chemistry throughout this century see Smith, (1982).
19Phillips, (1980), page ix.
20Dr. Phillips' mathematical model of quark behavior is presented in Phillips, (1979).
21Phillips, (1980), page 23.
22Stephen Phillips has published his mathematical description of the ultimate physical atom (U.P.A) in Phillips, (1983)
23Phillips, (1980), page 2.
24It is very interesting to note the following statement found
in the first chapter of the 2nd edition of Occult Chemistry:
"Many physicists, though not all, will resent the idea of
treating the ether of space as atomic."
This book was written at a time when physicists generally
thought that matter, space and time formed a continuum,
this being the ether of nineteenth century physics. It was
the quantum revolution that occurred after 1925 which overthrew
this notion in science. Today, matter is thought of as discreet
(or "atomic" as used in the quote above). The quote
above clearly shows that Theosophical occultists held that matter
was fundamentally discreet, and they claimed to know this via
direct clairvoyant observation. Science has vindicated this
occult claim beyond any doubt. And now one must ask how
occultists knew such a thing before scientists did? The only
conclusion is that occultists are not lying, nor telling
over-exaggerated stories about what can be observed by
clairvoyant means.
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