num_pages: 25
description: Since at least the early nineteenth century religious ideas and practices coming from India have had a profound influence on many esoteric currents in Europe England and North America. It would be difficult to exaggerate the impact of Hindu and Buddhist traditions of yoga and Tantra on modern esoteric movements from the Theosophical Society onwardthough these have often undergone profound transformations in the course of their long complexjourney to the West. In this article I would like to trace the genealogy of just one set of ideas developed in India and their formative influence on modern esotericism: namely the system of energy centers called cakras  literally wheels or nodes of subtle power  that are believed to lie along the axis of the body from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. In one form or another the cakras have now become pervasive elements in virtually all of New Age thought alternative spirituality and many forms of esotericism in modern American and Europe. Indeed I think we could reasonably argue that some idea of a subtle bodyheavily indebted to Indian thought and usually based on the cakra systemis one of the few things that is shared in common by almost all of the many diverse and eclectic movements that we now call the New Age.
language: English
title: Subtle Bodies: Cartographies of the Soul, from India to "the West"
publisher: Academia.edu