Kundalini syndrome

Kundalini syndrome is a set of sensory, motor, mental and affective experiences described in the literature of transpersonal psychology, near-death studies and other sources covering transpersonal, spiritual or medical topics. The phenomenon is sometimes called the "Kundalini-syndrome", the "Physio-Kundalini syndrome", or simply referred to as a "syndrome". Other researchers, while not using the term "syndrome", have also begun to address this phenomenon as a clinical category, or as a recognizable symptomatology.

Kundalini syndrome has been reported predominantly by people who have had a near-death experience, or by practitioners of Asian spiritual practices. Other factors that may trigger this symptomatology include a variety of intense personal crises or experiences.

According to writers in the field of transpersonal psychology the process is not always sudden and dramatic, it can also start slowly and increase gradually in activity over time. If the accompanying symptoms unfold in an intense manner that destabilizes the person, the process is usually interpreted as a spiritual emergency.

Terminology

The concept of "Kundalini" is mentioned in Upanishads (9th century BCE - 3rd century BCE) as well as the Tantrasadbhava Tantra, dating back to 8th century CE.

Commentators use different terms when describing the symptomatology and phenomenology of kundalini. These terms are similar to, but not quite synonymous with, the term "Kundalini syndrome". The terms "Kundalini Syndrome" or "Physio-Kundalini Syndrome", or the references to a "syndrome", are mostly used by writers in the field of Near-Death Studies, but also by writers in the fields of Transpersonal Psychology, Psychology, and Mental Health/Psychiatry. The terminology of "syndrome" is also associated with two measuring instruments developed by Near-death researchers: The Kundalini Scale and the Physio-Kundalini Syndrome Index.

Academic and clinical discussion

The Kundalini-phenomenon, as a topic for clinical and academic discussion, is mentioned in a few mainstream academic journals, including Psychological Reports, Mental Health, Religion & Culture, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease and The Psychiatric Clinics of North America. There is also a brief mention in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Other, less mainstream, publications that have published articles on the topic include The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, The Humanistic Psychologist and The Journal of Near-Death Studies. In addition to this the phenomenon is discussed in several independent books associated with the transpersonal field.

Commentators mention the dangers, or psychological difficulties, associated with intense or excessive practice of spiritual disciplines. According to writers in the field, such practices may, in unfortunate instances, trigger kundalini symptomatology, and lead to states of spiritual emergency. Greyson notes that contemporary western culture is poorly equipped to deal with signs of kundalini activity. Therefore, such activity might lead to major disruptions in the social and psychological functioning of people experiencing kundalini symptoms. According to Greyson, such disruptions are often confused with psychotic disorders. Jerry, writing from the perspective of transpersonal diagnosis, suggests that it is important for the clinical field to distinguish between psychotic episodes and kundalini experiences. According to his view the two categories require different courses of treatment.

In the book "The Stormy Search for the Self", Stanislav Grof, whose wife Christina underwent the dramatic shaktipat experience, gave prominence to increased levels of energy, shaking, memories of traumas, extreme emotions, inner sounds, visions, sexual arousal, and difficulty controlling behaviours. They recommended anyone having these experiences have a medical examination by a clinician knowledgeable about kundalini because of the similarity between these symptoms and indications of psychiatric and medical problems. The biological plausibility of meditative practices and Yoga causing acute psychotic illness has been suggested by a psychiatrist as being related to alterations in neurophysiological parameters, such as P300, which may be used to prescribe or proscribe yogic and meditative practices to certain people.

Both Greyson and Scotton underline the importance of differentiating between Kundalini phenomena on the one hand, and mental illness or psychopathology on the other hand. As a consequence of research findings Greyson finds support for the claim that the phenomenon of kundalini can be understood as a non-pathological force. He also implies that kundalini phenomena are not common in mental illness, and that it should be possible to differentiate this phenomenon from mental illness. According to Scotton, Kundalini-symptoms may, or may not, be associated with psychopathology, but are not reducible to any psychopathology. He thinks that it is important to differentiate between the signs of Kundalini and the symptoms of pathology, and not subsume the signs of Kundalini under a pathological diagnosis. He also notes that classical western psychiatric treatment may not be the most appropriate approach towards kundalini symptomatology. He does mention a few circumstances (mainly involving psychotic ideation) where he finds drug treatment to be appropriate, but he prefers to handle Kundalini episodes with as little physiological intervention, and drug intervention, as possible.

On the other hand, Sovatsky believes that it is important to differentiate between Kundalini as a yogic energy term (and as a marker for Kundalini awakening) and the symptoms of different preliminary yogic processes or pranic imbalances.

Research and Case-studies

Research on kundalini-symptomatology has been presented by researchers in the areas of Transpersonal Psychology and Near-death studies, but also by researchers associated with other areas of Psychology and Mental health. Among the first studies to comment upon symptoms of kundalini was Ring and Rosing's Omega Project, published in 1990. In this study the researchers found that Near-death experiencers reported several psychophysical changes in the wake of their near-death experience, including symptoms that could be interpreted as kundalini-activity.

Another study from the early nineties was conducted by NDE-researcher Bruce Greyson. Co-operating with the inpatient psychiatric unit of the University of Connecticut Health Center, Greyson administered the Physio-Kundalini Syndrome Index, a 19-item questionnaire, to patients admitted to the unit. He found that psychiatric patients reported physio-kundalini symptoms, but to a lesser degree than a group of near-death experiencers described in a previous study. Greyson followed up his previous interest in the subject with a new study in 2000, published in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology under the title “Some Neuropsychological Correlates Of The Physio-Kundalini Syndrome”. In this study a group of 321 volunteers, from the International Association for Near-Death Studies, responded to the Physio-kundalini syndrome index, as well as standardized tests designed to measure neuropsychological traits. Using statistical regression analysis the author found that kundalini arousal was significantly related to measures of fantasy proneness, dissociation, absorption, and temporal-limbic hyperconnection, but not to right-brain dominance or to demographic variables.

Thalbourne, using the terminology of "experience", administered a battery of pencil-and-paper tests, including an instrument called The Kundalini Scale to 125 first-year psychology students at Adelaide University. He found that scores on the Kundalini scale was correlated with several other scales measuring belief in the paranormal.

Prosnick & Evans developed the Physio-Kundalini Syndrome Index-7 (PKSI-7). A 7-item short-form drawn from the 19-item Physio-Kundalini Syndrome Index. They found that this instrument showed positive correlation with NDE-6, a shortened version of Greysons 16-item NDE-scale.

Sanches and Daniels, using the terminology of "awakening", distributed a pilot psychometric instrument called the Kundalini Awakening Scale (KAS) to four different groups: Yoga teachers, Yoga students, people following other spiritual traditions, and people from a general population. They found that kundalini experience was highest, but also most problematic, in the group of people following other spiritual traditions.

Scotton presented two case-examples in an article on the phenomenology of Kundalini, published in "Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology". Valanciute and Thampy presented one Case-review, in a discussion of Physio Kundalini syndrome and mental health, published in the journal Mental Health, Religion and Culture.

Psycho-spiritual evolution

Several theorists discuss the phenomenon of Kundalini in the context of psycho-spiritual evolution. Even though the symptoms, at times, may be dramatic and disturbing, several theorists tend to interpret the kundalini phenomenon, and the related symptomatology, as largely non-pathological, even maturational. Sovatsky, representing the hermeneutic of kundalini yoga, tend to interpret the energetic manifestations of Kundalini awakening as a "spinal puberty", a spiritual and somatic maturation of body and soul.

Bentov's "Physio-kundalini syndrome"

Itzhak Bentov devoted an appendix of his 1977 book Stalking the Wild Pendulum: The Mechanics of Consciousness to what he called "Physio-kundalini Syndrome". Bentov's colleague Lee Sannella subsequently also used the term to describe the incidence of physiological phenomena found to be coexistent with experiences of kundalini. Both Bentov and Sannella, concurred with Gopi Krishna's view that kundalini is a symptom of an evolution toward higher states of consciousness.

These researchers were especially interested in kundalini problems – unusual physiological occurrences that tended to happen in situations where subjects practiced long periods of meditation without proper guidance or supervision. Many of Bentov and Sannella's case studies were mostly practitioners of Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Criticism and skeptical views

Skepticism towards the concept of excess universal energy, and spiritual emergencies, has been expressed by the field of psychiatry.

Notes

a.^ See section below, called "Terminology".

b.^ According to the author (Greyson, 1993b:282) documentation of the validity and reliability of the physio-kundalini syndrome questionnaire was not available at the time of publication in 1993.

c.^ STE: Short for "Spiritually Transformative Experience".

d.^ Definition of the term "pranotthana": "Intensified, uplifted life energy" (Sovatsky, 1998:153), "The perception of energy movement" (Bynum, 1996: 260).

e.^ Spiritual Emergence: a gradual unfolding of spiritual potential with no disruption in psychological/social/occupational functioning (Turner, Lukoff ,Barnhouse & Lu, 1995).

f.^ Also mentioned below, under the heading "Research and Case-studies".

g.^ For a critical view on the instrument section of "The Omega Project", see "Letters to The Editor", Journal of Near-Death Studies Summer 1991, Volume 9, Issue 4, pp 259-264

h.^ A separate instrument, not to be confused with Ring & Rosing's Kundalini Scale (1990) mentioned earlier.

Bibliography

• Sovatsky, Stuart, Words from the Soul: Time, East/West Spirituality, and Psychotherapeutic Narrative. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998 ISBN 0-7914-3950-X. SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology.
• Scotton, Bruce The phenomenology and treatment of kundalini, in Scotton, Chinen, and Battista, editors, Textbook of transpersonal psychiatry and psychology. (pp. 261–270). New York: Basic Books, 1996.
• Greyson, Bruce. "The Physio-Kundalini Syndrome and Mental Disease". Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 43–58, 1993
• Greyson, Bruce. "Near-Death Experiences and the Physio-Kundalini Syndrome". Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 32, No. 4, Winter 1993(b)
• Greyson, Bruce. Some Neuropsychological Correlates Of The Physio-Kundalini Syndrome. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2000, Vol.32, No. 2
• Thalbourne, Michael A. Measures of the Sheep-Goat variable, Transliminality, and Their Correlates. Psychological Reports, 2001, 88: 339-50

Further reading

• Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening, Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Andrew Newberg, Sivananda Radha, Ken Wilber, John White, Stuart Sovatsky, Gopi Krishna, Barbara Harris Whitfield, Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, et al., Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True, Inc., 2009 ISBN 978-1-59179-728-9
• Whitfield, Barbara Harris (1995) Spiritual Awakenings: Insights of the near-death experience and other doorways to our soul (Health Communications, 1995).
• Yogi Bhajan with Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, The Mind: Its Projections and Multiple Facets, Santa Cruz, NM, Kundalini Research Institute, 1998 ISBN 0-9639991-6-8
• Rabyor, Mary E., Our Light Body: A Kundalini Awakening Testimonial, April 2012, 494 pages, ISBN 978-0985466305

External links

• Kundalini Research Foundation - founded by Gopi Krishna
• Kundalini Research Institute - the teachings of Yogi Bhajan
• Kundalini Research Network - co-founded by Yvonne Kason

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