Chuck-ra

I have just boned up on the Chakras.

These appear to me to be the medico-psychological equivalent of the horoscope, developed before we, the people of the planet, had any understanding of medical or psychological mechanisms.

For example, a blocked Root Chakra is described thus:

“When one feels that there is no support system in one’s life or there is a lack of nurturing (or just a perceived lack), low back pain is usually the first symptom (can include sciatica). There can be blockages in the body, including varicose veins, tumours or polyps in the rectal region, depression, immune-related disorders, mental or emotional problems, a lack of self- esteem, attachment to family background and beliefs and behaviours learned from them, superstitions, kidney problems, pain in the legs, feet, and everything that flows down from the lower back into the toes.”

And this is just the start of it … the list goes on for another few pages on conditions and causes.

The cure for a blocked Root Chakra?

Some prefer healing visualizations and meditations.

That is, if you believe that what you are doing will work then it has as much chance as any medical or psychological intervention, probably due to the impact of the mind on things like the effectiveness of the immune system (and the like).

Combined with any medical or psychological intervention you’d have to think things are improved, so long as you can suck it up and believe this stuff.

Others note that any physical activity can help unblock the Root Chakra, from walking to doing chores around the house, and even yoga and dancing. The key they say is to be present in the moment and aware of your movement.

My issue with the Chakras is that they are so few in number that the breadth of conditions associated with each is also very broad.

This results in proposed responses to issues in the Chakras that are also quite vague and generic (basically all issues in all Chakras are dealt with in the same manner).

I suppose this has the benefit of leaving open some wriggle room for the practitioners when the process doesn’t work.

And there is no use in going to see a practitioner for advice. Being poor hippies they are predisposed to sell you their specific therapy which happily can be applied to all Chakra problems. There’s no money back guarantee.

This reminds me of the issues related with going to see a GP about a condition. Based on a description of your symptoms the GP will prescribe a treatment based on their best guess, independent of whether that guess has, say, only a 20% probability of being correct.

My personal view is that an educated person would be well placed to rule out any specific medical conditions in the first instance.

If there are none, then any psychological or spiritual process that can be used to get one’s mind off the issue will help it go away.

If there are specific medical issues that can be identified then all the usual Chakra healing stuff can be used in conjunction with the proposed medical solution in order to help it’s effectiveness by harnessing the power of the mind over the body.