What Are the Chakras, and How Does Reiki Work With Them?

Chakras are energy centers pictured along the body in Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions, used as a focus for meditation. Some Reiki practitioners treat them as extra hand positions within a session. The familiar chart of seven colored chakras is younger than it looks, shaped by Western writers from the late 19th century onward, and there is no scientific evidence that chakras exist.

What does the word mean?

Chakra is Sanskrit for “wheel” or “circle.” According to the Wikipedia article on chakras, a chakra is a psychic or psychospiritual energy center in the subtle body, used as a meditation aid in a variety of Hindu and Buddhist tantric yoga and meditation practices. In those practices, it is something a person visualizes.

Were there always seven?

No. The same article reports that medieval Buddhist texts from the 8th century CE mention four or five chakras, while Hindu sources give various numbers. The best-known version, it says, has seven chakras and comes from Sir John Woodroffe’s 1919 book The Serpent Power, a rough translation of a Sanskrit text from 1577.

Where do the colors and meanings come from?

From later writers, mostly in the West. The article traces the modern Western view of the chakras to the 1880s, with H. P. Blavatsky and other Theosophists, and says it was then shaped by Woodroffe’s book and by Charles W. Leadbeater’s 1927 book The Chakras. It credits Leadbeater with adding the seven rainbow colors in 1927.

The article says psychological attributes and links to systems such as astrology, gemstones and Tarot were added later. The article cites Kurt Leland, writing for the Theosophical Society in America, who states that the rainbow colors and the list of qualities first appeared together only in 1977. The chart in a yoga studio or a Reiki room is a modern synthesis, not a copy of one ancient source.

How do Reiki practitioners work with chakras?

In one account, as an addition to the standard treatment. An article published by the International Center for Reiki Training, written by Walter Lübeck for Reiki News Magazine in 2002, describes treating a chakra as a special position for at least ten minutes on top of the whole-body treatment.

Lübeck’s method is specific. The practitioner holds a hand about four to six inches above the front of the body rather than on it, above the top of the head for the seventh chakra and from below for the first, and also treats the point on the spine where the chakra is said to connect. He assigns each chakra a set of themes, from survival and being grounded for the first to spirituality and a sense of oneness for the seventh.

What does the evidence say?

The Wikipedia article states that there is no scientific evidence to prove chakras exist, nor any meaningful way to measure them scientifically. The NCCIH page on Reiki likewise reports no scientific evidence for the energy field thought to play a role in Reiki.

That shapes how to read a chakra chart. The themes linked to each center, including any body systems a writer attaches to them, belong to the framework. They are not measured functions of the body.

Read the map as a map

A chakra system can still be a useful way to organize attention in meditation or a quiet session, as long as it stays a map rather than a diagnosis. If a practitioner names a chakra, ask which system they use and what that center stands for in it. Keep the history in mind: the version you are shown has a recent Western past. And if a chakra seems to explain a physical symptom, take the symptom to a doctor.

This article is general information, not medical or psychological advice; talk with a licensed clinician about your own situation.