WellbeingSeeker

Lots of people have been uploading videos and sharing testimonials describing the symptoms they have experienced during episodes of the so-called "Kundalini awakening". The Wikipedia article on Kundalini says the following on the matter: A convenient place to find lots of testimonials on Kundalini awakening is the subreddit on Kundalini, which has been in operation for over a decade. Below a quote from a recent testimonial: Similar stories are available in video form on YouTube. Below some examples: What is the explanation for the symptoms that people report to feel during the "Kundalini awakening" experience, such as energy rising up through the spine, vibrations, electric currents, and sometimes even ecstasy?

Silence ... it looks like nobody knows and the phenomenon is just a mystery?

Update: changed the title a little bit to be more informative.

I've been recently looking into the so-called "Toronto Blessing", which became quite popular for the controversial manifestations reported during the event. In particular, some people were observed and videotaped behaving like animals (walking like a dog, barking, roaring, howling, etc.). Check out this video. There is a very interesting commentary about the Toronto Blessing phenomenon by Andrew Netwon, a hypnotist. He comments the testimonials of two individuals who experienced uncontrollable urges to 1) fall down and laugh and 2) crawl around and roar. Andrew Newton claims that these are cases of mass hysteria and stage hypnosis. I'm not sure to what extent his claims can be scientifically validated, so I take them with a grain of salt. For the record, there are cases of people behaving like chickens during stage hypnosis events performed by Barry Jones. However, to my layman eyes these stage hypnosis performances look, well, staged, whereas the Toronto Blessing video appears to be authentic. I don't know. Honestly I'm quite far from being an expert on stage hypnosis, so take my layman opinion with a grain of salt too. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ So, what does any of this have to do with meditation? Well, while I was looking into all this weird animal-like behavior stuff, I had a flashback: "wait, Leo uploaded a video time ago in which he talked, among other things, exactly about this." Concretely, in the video The Dark Side Of Meditation, at 24:33, Leo declares: [...] You might start to behave like an animal. Like literally you might start to scratch yourself like an animal, or, crawl around on your knees, or even howl like a wolf [howling]. Can you imagine that you are sitting there, meditating for weeks, and one day you just have this uncontrollably urge to start howling like a wolf, and as you are doing that, your spouse walks in the door ... yeah, that's pretty awkward ... and now you have some explaining to do. And they look at you like you're going insane. What is this meditation thing you're doing? it's turning you into an animal. So expect that. I'm not saying that it'll necessarily happen to you, but if it does, don't be surprised by it is what I'm saying [...] Additionally, I was able to find a couple of testimonials describing similar experiences on this very same site, namely, this and this. They both testify about feeling uncontrollable urges to behave in animalistic ways, giving credence to Leo's claims. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ So, my questions for you guys: 1) How common is it to experience sudden, uncontrollable urges to behave like an animal during meditation? Does this happen with certain kinds of meditation practices? 2) Is there any underlying connection between urges to behave like an animal during meditation and the animal-like behaviors reported during the Toronto Blessing? Let's have an informative discussion.

Any thoughts on this @Leo Gura ?

@Artsu sounds like you have personally witnessed the spirit realm?

Doing my own independent research, I've noticed a clear pattern of religious people reporting feelings and sensations that they usually describe with expressions such as "waves of electricity", "fire", "heat", "burning all over", among others. I've heard expressions like these mainly from individuals in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles. For illustrative purposes, here are some example video clips from individuals describing their first-hand experiences: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O. Also, here is a quote from a very descriptive testimonial posted on Charisma Magazine: Source: https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/revival/32085-this-is-what-it-looks-like-when-holy-spirit-s-electric-power-sweeps-over-you (cached version) Reviewing literature about these experiences in Google Scholar, I came across a paper published in 2014 by Julia L. Cassaniti and Tanya Marie Luhrmann titled The Cultural Kindling of Spiritual Experiences (https://doi.org/10.1086/677881). In this paper, there is a very interesting claim made by the authors. Here are two quotes: In other words, these authors are essentially claiming that the overwhelming feelings reported by religious individuals, typically described with expressions such as "waves of electricity", "power", "fire", "heat", "burning all over", etc., would be nothing but physiological symptoms produced by sudden and intense surges of the adrenaline hormone released into the individuals' bloodstreams. However, the paper offers no evidence to justify this claim. Moreover, a quick research into adrenaline rushes shows that they play a big part of the body's fight-or-flight response, which is an evolutionary adaptation that gets triggered by situations that we perceive as dangerous, such as horror movies, extreme sports and similar, which to my layman understanding would make no sense in a typical religious worship setting. So, is it factually correct that adrenaline rushes are the ultimate cause behind the dramatic spiritual experiences reported by individuals in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles?

@seeking_brilliance do you know what are the physiological symptoms that people experience during kundalini awakening or shaktipat? Do people feel "electric currents", "heat", "fire" or anything similar to the "Holy Spirit" experience of Pentecostals / Charismatics?

@Artsu That would imply that spirits are real though, with the corresponding earth-shattering implications of that statement.

@purerogue Any idea what else could be the cause then? I've noticed many individuals in Christian circles report having these feelings and sensations when someone else lays hands upon them (as if some sort of energy transfer were taking place, which reminds me of the concept of Shaktipat in Hinduism).

I've noticed there is a strange phenomenon occurring in religious settings, particularly in Pentecostal and Charismatic groups. There are people that seem to be experiencing episodes of body shaking and trembling, which sometimes can be very extreme and dramatic. I'm sharing illustrative examples below so you can understand what I mean: Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Example 4 Example 5 Example 6 Example 7 Example 8 Example 9 Example 10 Example 11 Example 12 Example 13 Example 14 I was really curious to know whether the phenomenon had been scientifically studied already and if there was an official scientific explanation for it. So I decided to post two questions, one on Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange and another on Skeptics StackExchange. Both sites have very competent moderators and a culture of peer review and making sure answers are serious and backed by sources. Subjective, speculative and baseless answers usually are harshly punished with downvotes and sometimes even straight up deleted by moderators. If you are looking for serious answers, these sites (and StackExchange in general to be honest) are the way to go. So I posted these questions. It turns out, to my surprise, that so far no one has posted an answer providing a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. At the moment only one person has posted an answer, but by the author's own admission his answer is just speculative and not based on rigorous science. I also posted a similar question on reddit, but the best answer I've received at the moment is this paper where they perform a comparison analysis of spiritual experiences reported by people from different religions, but unfortunately the paper doesn't provide a scientific explanation of the causes behind the extreme body shaking and trembling some people experience. The paper acknowledges that the phenomenon happens but doesn't explain why and how it happens. Having said that, I would like to know your take guys on these weird manifestations. If you happen to know a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, I would deeply appreciate it if you post an answer either at psychology.SE or skeptics.SE. On the other hand, if you don't know a scientific explanation but you have anecdotal experience to share, or if you believe the phenomenon is truly supernatural and have experienced it first-hand yourself, or if you just want to speculate and state your opinion, feel free to share, all ideas and opinions are welcomed.

@Alternest Hypnosis is the 7th hypothesis proposed in this answer, but unfortunately the same answer dismisses it as very unlikely. By the way, I'm having a super interesting discussion with the author of the answer here: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/112139/discussion-between-tony-mobbs-and-spirit-realm-investigator. The guy is a reputable member of Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange and he got so intrigued with the subject matter that he's planning on publishing a paper on it.

Is there any scientific explanation for this :0000000 ???

Hi people. Please check out this video: This video uploaded a few days ago compares and identifies interesting similarities between manifestations that have occurred in the Toronto Blessing, current Charismatic sects and Hindu Shaktipat. The uploader is Christian, so there is an evident bias to label these manifestations as demonic, but subjective interpretations aside, the similarities identified in the video might be worth considering. Maybe there is an underlying common phenomenon going on that can explain these similarities? Please, feel free to share your thoughts.

Hello people. Just two updates: 1) I found two new astonishing examples: 2) A very reputable user of Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange posted a very complete answer to my question, check it out: https://psychology.stackexchange.com/a/25800/25376

And Muslims also have their fair share of weird manifestations :

More examples of weird body shaking, this time in a Hindu context:

Oh wow, this video has just appeared in my recommendation feed and was uploaded just a few hours ago. Summary: a whole crowd in a Philippiness' shopping mall collapsing to the floor and many of them shaking like crazy O.o:

@Space do you have some links to live recordings of shaktipat teachers causing people to shake? I would like to watch some to contrast the experience with that of western charismatic and pentecostal churches.

@Kalki Avatar I actually know two testimonies of people claiming to have been delivered from demonic possession with levitation included: this one and this one.

@An young being did he explain why he faked it? did the shaking look realistic as in the OP's videos?

@wwhy if we rule out external supernatural causes, the releasing of pent up energies such as stress and anxiety seems to me the most reasonable alternative explanation at the moment. What doesn't feel right about that explanation though is that, if people are experiencing involuntary tremors produced by their nervous systems in order to release stress/anxiety, you would expect to see their bodies trembling like when you are very very nervous (like people with stage-fright before presenting to an audience), right? However, in many videos the shaking doesn't follow this pattern at all. For example in this video this girl is rather collapsing to the floor as if overwhelmed by something, and she begins to shake her hands uncontrollably but the rest of her body does not seem to be trembling that much. I don't think the flight-fight system in our brains sends signals to shake your hands like that. Similarly in this video the preacher is prophesying to a girl, and then he says "[...] and the fire you are looking for [...]" and in reaction to that the girl begins to shake her left arm, but no uniform tremors over her whole body as you would expect in a fight-flight situation. Then the preacher blows on her forehead and the girl even cries and faints as if she was feeling overwhelmed by "something" the preacher blew over her. And a couple more examples. In this video a dude starts trembling but then in a few moments he's shown crying in agony and dramatically wallowing on the floor, but he's not experiencing tremors anymore, so that doesn't look like a flight-fight response at all to me. Similarly here you see a girl shaking in a very weird fashion, I don't know about you but for me that doesn't look like fight-flight tremors at all. Additionally, in many of these examples the reaction seems to be triggered by a preacher with an alleged high "spiritual status", so I think a natural explanation should incorporate an element of hypnosis or something to account for this somehow, so I don't think that flight-or-flight tremors is an adequate explanation that accounts for all the aspects and nuances of the phenomenon.

@Seed thanks for sharing your experience. Do you happen to have live recordings of this (either yourself or someone else experiencing something similar)?

@allislove If you are completely sure that there are no external supernatural causes, would you mind posting an answer at skeptics.SE?

@Aaron p I agree that some cases of shaking and trembling could probably be explained with behavioral imitation, i.e. some people see others shaking and they want to experience the same or feel part of the group and so they start imitating and eventually might learn to fake it quite easily. For example I'm pretty sure a good percentage of the crowds here, here and here is voluntarily doing the shaking (i.e. faking it). However, there are other cases in which I find it really hard to believe that "group think and imitation" is a valid explanation. Let me show some examples: This guy has a mind blowing testimony. He was an atheist. He entered a church to debate with believers about the existence of God, he then challenged a woman to pray for him and out of nowhere he began to shake uncontrollably (the guy actually ended up converting, the full testimony is astonishing). I even talked to the guy in the video's comment section and he told me that he didn't know about anything of the things that happened to him, everything was 100% unexpected. There is no way this is "group think and imitation". This woman testifies about feeling electricity all through her body. She's even crying when she talks about her experience. So she clearly experienced something that she describes as electricity, she is even crying about it, so there is no way she is faking it to imitate others. This lady explicitly claims that her tremors are caused by "the glory of God", i.e. that they are completely involuntary. She's not doing it to imitate someone else or fit in the group, because according to her testimony she began to have these experiences the first week of the Brownsville Revival and they would take place when the "presence of God" allegedly would come over her. In this video several young people come forward to testify about their experience. Some of them are even crying, so there is no way they are intentionally faking it. If they are testifying about their experience and even getting emotional about it, then they had to have a genuine experience, they are not faking it. This girl went up to the altar to get prayed for healing of her feet (she had pain in her feet). Unexpectedly she ended up feeling overwhelmed by "God's anointing" (according to the preacher), collapsed to the floor and began to shake and cry uncontrollably and very dramatically so. Later on in the video they picked her up to try to talk to her but she was still sobbing and in a few moments she started shaking and collapsed once again. The whole scene is so dramatic and well performed, that ... it just can't be fake, it has to be genuine. She's the only one being prayed for in the altar at that moment, everyone is silently paying attention to her, so this is not a case of mass hysteria, there is no one else to imitate, so for me everything points to this being a genuine case. Here you have a little girl trembling and fainting in response to the preacher's command. This girl looks very sincere to me. The fact that she is just a little girl and the sincerity in her facial expression make strongly believe that she's having a genuine experience. She's not faking it in order to imitate someone else. People here and here are experiencing shaking, trembling and fainting. Judging by their body language and facial expressions, I feel persuaded to believe that most of them (if not all) are having a genuine experience, they are not faking it. @wwhy the hypothesis that these people are releasing pent up negative energy / traumas seems interesting. Do you know if this has been scientifically researched in humans? Is this the same shaking that happens in the fight or flight response or a shaking of a different kind (i.e. controlled by a different brain subsystem) ?