This will be the first post of many looking into the Esoteric (likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest) and Occult (hidden) connections of Chiropractic, and the structures it is intended to work upon.
Image source: http://louisdyer.com/portfolio-item/kundalini-awakening/
How does one undergo a Kundalini awakening, and what does it mean? And if there is an inherent energy that travels through the spinal cord, wouldn't it need an unobstructed path? Let's take a look at the idea of the Kundalini, and why an adjustment to the spine may just be one of the most powerful tools to help you achieve enlightenment.
The Kundalini is a term of Sanskrit origin and translates literally to "coiled one". It refers to a believed sacred and divine energy that is coiled and dormant at the base of the spine, which through meditation or yogic training, can be drawn up the spinal cord to the crown of the head. This is something that sometimes can happen spontaneously, but for most it is extremely difficult to achieve, and many spend their entire lives training this skill which in its completion, results in what is called a Kundalini awakening. In this post, we are going to discuss one possible benefit to chiropractic adjustments, and why there is quite literally no other treatment in the world that can provide the same benefits. This will be the first of a series of posts on the esoteric and occult significance of the spinal cord and nervous system, and how it is the key to our divinity.
The Kundalini is spoken about as a serpent of divine wisdom and origin. It is our inner connection to the source, and the potential of ascension. In practice, an individual learns to draw this winding serpent up the spine by conquering the impulses and desires of the lower self and learn to use them as tools as they progress to the divine version of their being. The imagery here is quite significant, as serpent knowledge symbolism is shared through almost all ancient cultures and mythologies/theologies. Some examples of this known more readily to western cultures would take place in the bible on multiple occasions, but most directly it appears in both the creation myth of the garden of Eden- in which the serpent tricks the Eve to eat the apple from "the tree of knowledge", (interestingly, gnostic christians believe that the serpent in this situation was actually the benevolent God trying to free humanity from slavery under the jealous and lesser God of Yahweh). The second major place the serpent appears again is in the book of Numbers, in which during the Exodus, when his people begin to rebel and speak against Moses and his God triggers the response from God to send out serpents to bite and kill the people who have betrayed them. In this story, after much pleading from the people to Moses for him to bargain with God, Moses is awarded a staff which turns into a snake that he was told would save and protect all of the people who gazed upon it.
Outside of the Christian world, the snake symbolism is even more prevalent, such as the Mayan culture in which "The serpent was a very important social and religious symbol, revered by the Maya. Maya mythology describes serpents as being the vehicles by which celestial bodies, such as the sun and stars, cross the heavens. The shedding of their skin made them a symbol of rebirth and renewal" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Serpent), as well as being a prevalent entity in the Hindu, Sumerian, Native American, and many other mythologies as well. This post; however, cannot serve as an extensive discussion on snake symbolism across cultures, because that in itself could fill an entire chapter of a book, but anyone who has interest in the topic will have hundreds of books to choose from by performing a simple google search. My recommendations would be Man, the Grand Symbol of the Mysteries (1932) or The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), both my Manly P. Hall. But, for now, back to the topic of the Kundalini.
The Kundalini travels from the sacrum up to the crown of the head. Along this path lie the 7 Chakra points (some belief systems have 9 or 10, in which they extend beneath the ground and up above the head in astral space). Though these belief systems and areas of study come from different backgrounds, the Kundalini and the Chakra systems share a lot of the same tenants. Let's take a look.
Each Chakra corresponds to a different place along the spine and is associated with different levels of spiritual ability and learned skills or gifts. The way the chakras are situated places them in an order of ranking, in which the lowest chakra - the root chakra- represents the foundations of feeling connected or grounded, and the lowest plane of spiritual development. When this chakra is out of balance one is often said to be bogged down with the materialistic aspects of the world. Whereas the highest chakra is the Crown Chakra and represents our connection to the source and our true divinity. Notice how they also represent a progression from material to divine upward along the spine, just like the Kundalini?
Image Source: http://bodyspiritual.com/how-to-energize-your-chakras/
Now let's bring some science into this bitch.
Interestingly, the Chakras correspond with nervous system bundles with higher than normal density of neurons and closely related glandular networks that control our hormone production and endocrine balance. Progressing up from the coccyx (tailbone), up the spine, each section of vertebra is closely linked with a specific chakra- or a specific branch of our nervous system. Take the Root and Sacral Chakra's for example. Directly running in front of the sacrum is what is called the Sacral Plexus. A hub of sympathetic ganglion (meaning large bulbs of dense nerves) that regulate and control the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system in the lower extremities. In english, for my non-nerd folk, this controls the fight or flight mechanism in your legs, which regulates blood flow, muscle tension, and sensation in the lower limbs. Guess what can make someone feel super ungrounded and disconnected with the earth? When your blood vessels are being constricted in your legs creating lowered or strange sensations, and your muscles are extra tight because the sympathetic nervous system controlling them is being over stimulated! Believe me, I have been there! When you have an over stimulation of this area due to a sacrum distortion, one of the signs (which I actually experienced for about a year straight) is completely numb and cold feet, like you are wearing socks that have stopped blood from getting down there.
We can also take a look at the thoracic spine in which we have a chain of nerve bunches called the Sympathetic trunk that runs down both sides of the thoracic vertebrae all the way from our first thoracic vertebra down to our 11th. If you look at the image below you will see how it divides up into different sections which control different areas of our body and organs. I would like you to note the Cardiac plexus, which is associated with the Heart Chakra, and also note the Anterior Vagal Trunk - the extremity of the very much talked about Vagus Nerve - which correlates with the Solar Plexus Chakra.
Image source: https://www.earthslab.com/anatomy/thoracic-sympathetic-trunks-course-relations-ganglia-and-its-branches/
Ummm Kayyy, Enough with the Nerd Talk
Ok Nick, this is a fun game of Connect the Dots, but what does this have to do with a chiropractic adjustment? Well, I thought you would never ask!
You see, a chiropractic adjustment is a very specific and fast motion. According to research done at the Haavik Research Centre is New Zealand by the award winning Chiropractor and Neurophysiologist Dr. Heidi Haavik, it has been shown that a chiropractic adjustment, when done along the spine or sacrum, will stimulate the nerve bundles around the vertebral segment being adjusted, as well as the golgi tendon fibers in the muscles surrounding that segment (cells designed to response to stretch in the muscle), resulting in a stimulation of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This is the control centre and the hub of executive control inside of our brains. But what is the fundamental part of the adjustment that is required to create this response? The SPEED.
These adjustments are unlike any other "manipulation" done by any other profession out there. The closest in its origin to that of chiropractic would be osteopathy- which is a great modality, and one that I am favourable towards in the United States because they are Doctors and have received extensive medical and anatomy/physiology training, much like chiropractic doctors; however, osteopathic manual therapists, as the degree which is given out in Canada are not the same. However, my point is that even in the manipulations done by an osteopthath (of either US or Canadian origin), and the same manipulations which are now being taught to physiotherapists and massage therapists, are completely different in nature from a chiropractic adjustment.
A chiropractic adjustment, as performed by most chiropractic techniques, is a high velocity, low amplitude movement, performed with greater speed than that of the HVLA movements of manual therapy; and according to Dr. Haavik, the speed is actually a requirement for the stimulation of the prefrontal cortex in the same way. Now, I would like to make a caveat here and address that there are also gentle techniques of chiropractic that are extremely effective at clearing the pathway in the upper cervical area, and the manipulations mentioned above, as performed by other practicing modalities, are also valid and effective as well; however, for the specific topic we are addressing, only the high speed adjustments can stimulate the nervous system in the same way required to have the effects shown in Dr. Haaviks work at: https://therealitycheck.com, or check out her book if you would like to learn more, or google her name and pick one of the some 70 or so studies she has currently published in peer reviewed journals across the world.
Now let's get back to our initial topic of the Kundalini. Why would a high speed specific chiropractic adjustment be helpful? Well, you see, in some ways the chiropractic profession may have stumbled across a way to hack the Kundalini, by quite simply "cracking" the Kundalini.
Finding the Roadblocks
When looking at the spine, we look for areas that have the highest amount of stress, and lacking movement. In his book, The Body Electric (1985), Robert O. Becker explains how stress causes the tissues in the muscle and bone to change their electrical signature. This electrical change can not only lead to inflammation, but also inhibits the nerves in the area from sending and receiving signals at their highest speed. Remember, nerves are electric in nature, so when you change the current around a nerve, you change the function of the nerve. This becomes quite literally an electrical roadblock for the Kundalini to have to travel past. Secondly, the discs and spinal cord in that area are nourished by fluids that are circulated around them by a process called imbibition, in which the movement of each spinal segment is required to properly pump fluid and nourish that level of the spinal cord. Spinal segments that do not move do not create imbibition, so there will be a pooling of cellular waste in the fluids of that area, and a lack of fresh nutrients reaching that segment, which then leads to a chemical roadblock for the Kundalini current. Thirdly, when these areas have been under stress for long enough, bone will begin to grow in the form of degenerative joint disease, or if there is an acute injury to the area and a vertebra is displaced, or a disc becomes herniated, then these all represent possible physical and mechanical roadblocks to the Kundalini. But guess what a chiropractic adjustment does? It clears all 3 types of roadblocks and restores a clear path!
Our Forgotten Past
This is one of the most profound and neglected sides of chiropractic. We have spent so much time trying to justify what we do scientifically (which I am all for, and we have done in some extremely groundbreaking studies, many of which have been conducted by Dr. Heidi Haavik), but because we have turned our attention so far into the mechanical and physical world of what we do, we have forgotten about the more profound implications of our healing paradigm. So much so that the chiropractic philosophy, which was written to be the guiding force behind the REASON we do what we do, has been removed and banished by all but 3 remaining chiropractic schools in North America.
You see, chiropractic was founded on a mixture of allopathic and occult understandings of the human body. These understandings were vastly ahead of their time, and current science is only just starting to catch up. The ironic thing is that it is to these understandings that we owe so much of our discoveries in science. The empirical world has a nasty habit of taking ideas from the spiritual teachings of ancient cultures, studying them, proving them, and then disregarding their origin and claiming invention because the rest of the scientific world will scoff at them if they mention their true source of inspiration. This is just as true in medicine, as in any other scientific pursuit. Don't believe me? Just look at the Caduceus that is used as the international symbol of medicine, which was actually taken from Hermes and the study of Hermetic philosophy, and actually demonstrates the dual Kundalini serpent climbing up the spinal cord to the crown.
Image source: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/miniatures/figurines/caduceus-medical-symbol-3d-print-model
The Future of Medicine
What we actually do with an adjustment is only just being discovered, and we are still not legally allowed to mention most of what our scientific studies have demonstrated to our patients because the results of these studies have not been "accepted by the mainstream" yet; so according to the politics of medicine, they are still considered to be on the fringe and therefore currently irrelevant. In order to "prove" a drug works, all they need to do is show it affecting the area they have intended in one study, regardless of its effects on other areas, and that drug can be patented and sold. However, the reason chiropractic has faced such a hard time getting our message out is because in order to wholly understand and show the effects of what we do, there would have to be a complete shift in the way mainstream science and medicine views the body.
Reductionism and mechanistic division would have to be completely abandoned and an acknowledgment of the human body as a whole indivisible system would have to take its place. But we are getting there! Current science from all aspects of the world is starting to acquire the tools needed to finally demonstrate things that go far beyond and outside our current beliefs of what we think is possible; and mark my words, within this lifetime, there will be a monumental shift in the way we all understand ourselves, and these interesting vehicles that we currently reside in.
Thank You for the Support!
As always, I appreciate your interest and support. I know this was a long one, but if you made it to then end then I hope it showed you a perspective that you haven't already had, or if you have, then maybe I have made you want to dive even deeper into these topics! Please like and subscribe to my blog if you are interested to learn more, and please share this post with anyone you think would enjoy it! There are many people out there who think the same as us and share these same interests, we just need to find each other!
Nick, fantastic article and so beautifully presented. These words literally feel true. I was blessed with a spontaneous kundalini event 1.5yrs ago. Thanks so much for sharing this perspective regarding 'cracking' the kundalini. It remains a mystery to me the non-stop back and bone popping throughout every day since— it's not something I ever experienced prior to kundalini... not even fingers. The popping seems to correspond with energetic/electric/fascial release. I would love to play ping-pong with perspectives on this. Are you experiencing kundalini as well? Saludos and thanks again. -Dave Romero