The existence of subtle, spiritual energy was well known to the ancient traditions.  For instance, the Chinese built all of their health care around it with acupuncture.    Most native traditions focus on the natural energies of the body for various types of healing.   The energies are also used for shamanic journeys and other ìacts of powerî. Common to all of the traditions is the idea that this energy has centers, or points of congregation, at various places on or near the body.  The most common term for these energy centers is "chakras".  Chakra is a Sanskrit word which means "vortex of energy".  The number of energy centers which are identified as important varies somewhat from tradition to tradition.  For instance, Chinese medicine work with hundreds of acupuncture points.  Many martial arts traditions only work with one energy center, the hara.  Many others speak of five or ten.  However, most traditions speak of seven energy centers.   These are the primary energies and the laws governing them will be our primary focus here.

The seven chakras are aligned vertically along your back, from the top of your head to just below the bottom of your spine.  Each chakra is equivalent to a wave field without particles, pure potential.  When open they are like the other side of Black Holes where the energy is streaming out, not in.

The frequency and quality of the energy flowing from each chakra is different.  Each chakra is thus considered to have its own type of spiritual energy, its own tuning.  The chakras can be initially located and identified as void spaces, pure energy fields.  Spiritual energy said to be of immeasurable power, called by the Indians "Prana" and by the Chinese "Chi", can flow through the chakras, but only if they are opened or activated. Technically speaking the chakras are the fields through which the energies flow, not the spiritual energies themselves.  They are like doors.  Certain tools and techniques unlock them.  Other tools and methods, like PrimaSounds, can even rattle them open a crack.

We know from physics that transversal energies, such as electromagnetism, which travel in empty space  ñ  the void  ñ  behave in many respects like longitudinal vibrations which travel in matter, such as sound.  For instance, both energies have distinct frequencies.  This similarity explains in part why the music I developed with Keyserling  ñ  PrimaSounds  ñ  is able to activate the Chakras.  PrimaSounds use a special musical scale which has almost the exact same frequency as the chakras. This makes resonance between the two types of energy possible.  The resonance acts to stimulate and open the chakras.  This is discussed fully in Chakra Music: the story of PrimaSounds.
 

TUNING THE ENERGIES HELPS TO INTEGRATE CONSCIOUSNESS

The discontinuity of consciousness also has an energetical aspect.  Our problems, our complexes, can be analyzed from an energy perspective.  Even our potentials and awakening can be understood in terms of energy.  When our consciousness is shattered, discordant, this inevitably has a negative effect on our energies.  The frequencies of the different primal energies get pushed out of tune by our conscious states.  Our energy tends to either unisonce (sameness), or dissonance, inharmoniousness.  This linkage between consciousness and energy is an important, but as of yet little-known law of spiritual energy:  the disruption in consciousness creates an equivalent disruption of energies.  Without coherence of consciousness the seven energies easily go out of tune.

The four lower chakras tend towards unisonce, with one or two energies dominant.  The dominant energy forces the others to be like it, distorting them, de-tuning them.  This follows the domination of one or more function over the others.  For many people today (particularly readers) the thinking function tends to dominate the others, but it can just as easily be another function dominating.  For instance, sensing dominating thinking where the parroting of the thoughts of others passes for thinking; or feeling dominating thinking where your desires and feelings replace any thinking, and all is rationalization of what you want.

According to the indigenous perspective the function which dominates in most western cultures is sensing, the ìfire elementî.  Thus we are a consumer society which craves constant stimulation and entertainment at the expense of the other elements and their energies.  The feeling energy  ñ  called the  water element  ñ  suffers the most.   Our excess fire has burned up our water.  We are burned out, with little or no feelings.  From the native view our society is an emotional desert.  We are out of touch with our deep feelings.  We need more water.  We need to grieve, to cry and let ourselves go in the deep waters of life.  1

The upper three energies tend to be dissonant, out of tune with each other, and acting separately.  The spirit does not know the body, nor the body the spirit, and neither is really in touch with the soul, the personality, who acts independently of both.  The spirit and body have to be brought together and made to work in concert with the soul.

In the process of integration of consciousness the chakras are strengthened and balanced.  The energies are harmonized and balanced.  The chakras are retuned to their natural, healthy frequencies.  Each of the seven chakras then sound their own tone, but in harmony with the others.

The goal is for each energy to sing its own tune, but in harmony with all of the others:   Harmonious-Attunement.  Each chakra has its own frequency, its own vibratory rate.  When it is tuned to this pitch it is at its strongest.  It is fully open, healthy and alive.  When all of the chakras are so attuned, they are in a natural harmony with each other.

This attunement happens by intentionally putting the different conscious states together in Awareness, the Zero dimension.   As Arnold Keyserling observes, the harmonization and tuning of the energies:
 

...can only be effectuated by Man himself, out of free decision, out of will. In order for the layers to become steps, a person must create the continuity intentionally.  It does not happen automatically, but requires effort, will and attention.  The different traditions have chosen different forms, but in the last analysis they all say the same thing:  the seven points of gravity should come into harmony, not unisonce.
 

Inner silence is the key to tuning the energies and integrating the conscious states. It is the sacred dimension or pure Awareness which unifies the otherwise unconnected states of consciousness.  It is also the black hole source of the chakras.  Thus all progress in spiritual disciplines depends upon reaching and retaining this inner silence.  PrimaSounds is one way to bring you to the place of deep inner silence.  In my book Chakra Music I explain how this dynamic state of Awareness can be achieved using PrimaSounds.  I show how PrimaSounds can be used as a tool for life tuning.  There are many other methods available in the spiritual and psychological traditions of the world.  Find the one that suits you and move from theory to practice as soon as possible. Youcan not talk your way into inner silence!
 

DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVEN ENERGIES

1. Muladhara, the energy which is the origin of our sensing capacity.

2. Swaddhishthana, the energy of our thinking power.

3. Manipura, the energy behind our emotional force.

4. Anahata, the source of our willing and attention.

5. Vishuddha, the energy of grounding and embodying.

6. Ajna, energy which pierces the ego and is in direct communication with all   beings.

7. Sahasara, the content free field of imagination that can receive the   renewing "light" and know itself as part of the whole.

The chakras have potentialities which can be realized in the course of a lifetime.  They can grow and develop in an individual in accordance with their age.  There are seven 12-year cycles representing potential stages of energy development.  In each 12-year cycle a different energy is emphasized, one after the other.   Of course, we also have all of seven of the energies at once.  Still, people working with spiritual energies find it easier to develop the full potential of a particular energy according to their stage in life.

1-12: In the first twelve years, the Muladhara chakra with its sensing energies is the easiest to develop.

12-24: In years 12 to 24, it is Swaddhishthana, the thinking energy, that can now mature, and you tend to live from out of this energy center.

24-36: Some people get stuck in thinking energies, but for an actualizing person, there is a change to Manipura feeling energies in years 24 to 36.

36-48: Then a new cycle begins, and from age 36 to 48, the willing energies, Anahata, can fully open and predominate.

48-60: If you keep realizing your potential, then your energy focus will change again, and from age 48 to 60, it will be the turn of the Vishuddha chakra to shine.

60-72: From 60 to 72, the Ajna soul energy opens fully.

72-84: In years 72 to 84, you can live from out of the Sahasara, spirit energies.

Time is sequential.  With the actualization of the potentialities of the chakras we create our future.  We move from one energy cycle to the next.  The time aspect of the chakras relates to our front side, our future.  There is also a spatial aspect to the chakras  which pertains to the flow of energies and our back side.  This will be further explored in the next chapter on the Laws of the Sacred Directions of Space.  This chapter will focus on the front side  ñ  the temporal actualization of the seven chakra potentials.  The seven layers correspond with the consciousness functions/realms.  Each of the seven also has an physical center.  This is all shown in the following chart.
 

  7. Top of head    Sahasara       Spirit         Knowledge        Neo-Cortex

  6. Inner eye         Ajna               Soul          Instinctual          Limbic

  5. Neck               Vishuddha      Body         Conditioned      Spine & Cerebellum

  4. Heart               Anahata         Willing       Attention           Blood Circulation

  3. Navel               Manipura       Feeling      Impulses           Metabolism

  2. Tip of spine     Swaddhishthana Thinking  Language      Breathing

  1. Base between  Muladhara     Sensing     Sense Data      Sex and Excretion
      anus and genitals
 

For more detailed information on the chakras, explaining this chart and more, the interested reader is referred to Chakra Music: the Story of PrimaSounds.

When each of the energies is activated and tuned, it is easier to balance and integrate consciousness.  A positive feedback loop is established.   When consciousness is united, flowing, continuous and integrated, the chakras can remain open and tuned longer.  Balance in consciousness facilitates balance of the chakras.  Alas, the feedback loop works both ways.  If conscious is disintegrated  ñ shattered and unbalanced  ñ the chakrasnaturally follow.  Your energy becomes shaky, unbalanced and out of tune.  If one kind of consciousnessdominates, so does its energy.  When, for example, you spend too much time in the sensing function, thatenergy starts to dominate over the others.  An inharmonious unisonce results.  The first chakra  overpowers the others.  They are drowned out and atrophy.

It is a fundamental law that consciousness and energy are interdependent.  That is why you need to work on both at the same time.  Energy work and consciousness work must go hand in hand, and ideally, both should be grounded by body work.  This creates the balance of body, soul and spirit.  Work on your body is obvious. Soul work constitutes work on the chakras.  The integration of consciousness and individuation is spiritual work.  Although one time of life will frequently emphasize one kind of work over another  ñ  usually in the firstthird of life body work is emphasized, in the second third of life, energy, and the last, spirit  ñ   on the long term the laws of wisdom suggest you should always strive for balance.
 

THE CASE OF:  WILHELMINE KEYSERLING  v. CONVENTIONAL UNDERSTANDING

I suddenly had a deep wish to understand.  It was a very extraordinary, intensive kind of wishing.  At the same time there was a kind of fulfillment of this wish, as if I understood everything, although there was nothing to understand.  I wanted to understand life, the world, everything.  I heard the word "understanding" and had a deep, profound feeling.  It didn't last more than a few minutes, but this wish to understand really carried my whole life, and carries it now.
 

During the war Willy, along with the rest of the young women of Austria, were forced to work for the German government.  She was first sent to Budapest, then to Germany, then finally to an Italian family in Rome where she taught German to the children and became proficient in Italian.  Just in advance of the liberation of Italy bythe invading Americans and English, she was sent back to Austria, ultimately living in Innsbruck as a translator. Near the end of the war she had nothing to do as the Germans didn't need translators.  When the War ended, the people of Innsbruck didn't need translators either, they needed food and clothes.  At that point Willy applied her sewing skills to begin a career as a dressmaker.  A year later at age 25 she was living in Paris working as a dressmaker for Christian Dior.

It was not Christian Dior, however, who caused her to move to Paris, but the attraction of the great intellect and esoteric teacher of that time, George Gurdjieff.  The person who first told Willy about Gurdjieff was her future husband to be, Arnold Keyserling.  She had just met young Arnold in Innsbruck, whom, as she puts it, even then thought and talked of almost nothing but philosophy.   As soon as she met Arnold, she knew he was a friend, a lifetime soul mate.  Indeed, five years later they were married. But in the meantime they were in for the adventure of a lifetime as they journeyed together into the world of Gurdjieff.

Arnold and Willy both traveled to Paris to see Gurdjieff for themselves.  They both quickly became part of the inner circle and moved to Paris.  Willy worked for Christian Dior during the day, then at night took "dance lessons" from Gurdjieff.  These dance lessons were taught by Gurdjieff's protégé, Madame de Saltzman.  The lessons consisted of certain body movements designed to invoke altered states of consciousness and awaken people from consensual trance.  After the lessons they would go to Gurdjieff's flat and listen to readings from his book, All and Everything.  After the readings she would stay for the late night diners and toasts described in so many of the books about Gurdjieff.

Willy says that Gurdjieff's presence when he entered a room was awesome, very powerful and wonderful, but essentially indescribable.  Even though she was not philosophically educated, her experiences with Gurdjieff gave her, as she puts it, "glimpses of a different world" which meant a great deal to her.  She had a feeling with Gurdjieff that he really knew what life was all about, that he had the kind of deep understanding that she wished for, and attained a glimpse of as a young girl.  Remembering her days with Gurdjieff over forty years later, Wilhelmine recalls:
 

It was evident to all of us who were with Gurdjieff that a human being had to make a hell of an effort to develop a real self, to link the self to the "I", and recognize the mechanical actions of the "I".  The recognition came by using awareness to "take snapshots", as he called it, of the "I".  In taking these snapshots it was important to discern between the four powers in Man - sensing, thinking, feeling and willing - to see how they mechanically inter linked.  With this recognition one day the four previously mechanical powers could be intentionally used as the capacities of a real person.

When at Gurdjieff's flat and during the diners we were at another level of awareness.  This was the first time in my life that I really lived such an awareness.  The impact which it left on me was made clear by an event which happened years later, long after Gurdjieff's death.  Arnold and I went to look at Gurdjieff's flat in Paris where we had spent so many evenings with Gurdjieff.  I went into the staircase where it was almost dark, and as I stood before the door of Gurdjieff, the knob of the door suddenly became multi-dimensional, the way people see with LSD.  It was "seeing", as Don Juan calls it, in another way which brought back all of the memories of my altered states with Gurdjieff.  This kind of "seeing" happens when you are 100% present, which is how I was in front of that door, even though the flat was already inhabited by other people, because this had been such an important place for me, the place where the most important personality I had ever encountered had lived.

Gurdjieff tried to show people how "to do".  He was a great educator.  He introduced the Enneagram to Europe.  The Enneagram, the figure of nine, is the figure of how to act and how to do.  Many years later Arnold understood the Enneagram and integrated it into the circle of twelve.

 

Joseph Hauer was a twelve-tone sage who understood the temperament of the twelve tones in the Chinese way.  Hauer was not an educator, he was a Sage.  Being with him or close to him was an experience, but it is not possible to describe what the experience meant because it meant something on many levels of one's being, even if nothing happened except drinking a glass of wine with him or doing the I Ching with him. It had effects on many levels of consciousness or on unconsciousness which only manifested themselves later in life.
 

For me these two teachers (Gurdjieff and Hauer) were primarily a human experience, although there was a deep understanding which I could not express.  For Arnold they were the basis for his theoretical understanding.  He analyzed and understood their knowledge and it later on formed part of the Wheel.

For years I was Arnold's secretary.  I typed and produced all of his books.  I listened every morning to Arnold talking about developing his ideas.  I said little, I was more of a listener, but this was really a very important part:  listening with understanding.  I understood Arnold, although not in detail in some of the theoretical areas such as physics or music, but I always understood if he was on the right path.  When his thinking sometimes went off on a tangent, I knew he was making an error.  I could wait for months to later say a few words that would help him to shift his attention back on track.

 

As part of this work she organized the first yoga class in Vienna with a teacher from India.  Willy and Arnold became students in the class.  When the teacher left, the students wanted to continue.  Willy was the best student with a natural aptitude for body movements, and so she took over the instruction.  She had studied movements in Paris, and even then Gurdjieff had told her that she should teach these movements.  Her later work with hatha yoga gave her a deep understanding of how movement and postures could shift consciousnessand awaken spiritual energy.

She later studied with many other yoga teachers, eventually completing her yoga  study with three months in an ashram in India.  For over twenty years now she has been teaching yoga in Austria, Germany, Italy and other countries.  She has developed a profound understanding of the spiritual energies, the chakras.  Her Yoga instruction is primarily concerned with procedures to apply the laws of spiritual energy discussed in this book. Her approach is based on physical exercises and procedures of all kinds.  Her excellence in body work complements and balances the more mental orientation of Arnold's work.

After editing Arnold's books for many years, and teaching yoga and the Wheel with Arnold, or by herself, Willy's own thought and understanding broadened and matured.  She began writing her own books on philosophy, the Wheel, meditation and yoga, and works of poetry.   Willy has unique insights and understanding of the natural Laws of Spiritual Energy and Space.  They spring from her encounter in the 1980s with the native American culture.

By 1980 at age 59 she was already adept at Yoga, the Wheel, the I Ching, astrology, and many types of meditation and spiritual practices.  As a master of many traditions of Europe, India and China, she was in a unique position to bridge the philosophies and mystical cultures of the "two Indias":  the Indians of India and America.  The circumstances of her meeting with the new Indians, the native Americans, were unusual.  In her words:
 

In 1980 we were invited to a conference in Ireland of representatives of the New Age.  The circumstances of the invitation were strange.  The name Keyserling came to the organizers on a Ouji board.  In Ireland we met Swift Deer.  I unexpectedly heard my voice inviting him to come to Austria so we could unite our Wheel with the American Medicine Wheel.  Swift Deer agreed.
 

The language and procedures they used were new and different.  Still, as she was equipped with a deep understanding of the Wheel, she could use her Wheel knowledge as a "Rosetta Stone".   She was able to translate what she learned from the Native American medicine men and integrate it into her life.  She discovered how the spatial laws known and used by the Native Americans balanced the temporal laws she already knew so well.  She understood how these laws all fit together into the basic constitution, the universal schemata of the Wheel.  Wilhelmine summarized this phase of her life as follows:
 

I went to see Swift Deer at his home in Los Angeles to study his work and try and figure out a way to present his knowledge to our friends in Austria.  After several months I was able to do this.  This contact was very important because Swift Deer understood the Sacred Count.  In some Northern Native American groups the understanding of the numbers behind the Sacred Count is still very much alive.  We could understand its link with the insights of Pythagoras.  Over the years we had understood the meaning of time, but our understanding of space and the directions was more theoretical.  The Native Americans had a practical, living understanding of space and the directions, and understood them as Powers.

For three years we learned a great deal by our contact with Swift Deer and also with Hyemeyohsts Storm and others.  This understanding of space and the Native American culture helped us to complete the understanding of the Wheel of the Aquarian Age, to balance our understanding of time and space: space as receiving the energies, and time as applying them and actualizing them in life.

The link between time and space, macrocosmos and microcosmos, the structure of the human body-mind-spirit is represented in the Wheel.  The Wheel harbors the Sacred Count, the numbers, mathematics and the basic geometry.   The structure of the Wheel must correspond to reality.  East, West, South and North have a place which corresponds to reality.  The place we call West is opposite to the East.  If it wasn't so in our world, it would be just a systematic order.  The Wheel must be a systemic order, which means that the link between macrocosm and microcosm, time and space, etc., must correspond to a basic reality.

 

The Wheel for me is a sacred diagram because it represents the unchangeable in our world, the basis of all change and happenings.  It is useful to contemplate this unchanging structure.  It also shows the relation between creation and the creator or the divine.  The representation of God as a human father with a white beard is no longer helpful to a human being of the Aquarian Age.  We now have to understand the divine in relation to the cosmic laws through this invisible grid of numbers and geometry.  We take this as our task.  For Arnold and me the Wheel is our task and mission at the beginning of the Aquarian Age.  All the inspiration of the Indian knowledge and American Native knowledge, this inspiration has to be reborn and integrated in the language of the Wheel, the structure of the new age.  Indeed, all understanding of the past, Christian, Indian, African, etc., has to be reborn to form a new human understanding of the new age.  This has happened, and out of this new understanding and the old understanding, was born our Earth Sanctuary and our rituals of the eight festivals, eight powers of space, which we perform in the Earth Sanctuary.
 

At the Earth Sanctuary the Keyserlings and their many friends in Vienna began to practice the eight new rituals and sacred celebrations referred to.  They are based on the understanding Wilhelmine gained from the native American shamans of the Powers and sacred space.  Now each year she leads the eight festivals held at the Earth Sanctuary by performing Earth Rituals.  The Powers of the ten directions are invoked for all to experience a communion with nature, the universe and with the infinite.  Other groups around the world, including the School of Wisdom, hold similar celebrations at the same time.

Wilhelmine Keyserling is an exemplary woman for the new age of sexual equality.  She has developed herself as an autonomous individual, and yet maintained her femininity, living with her husband as a friend and equal partner.  She is both housewife and Earth Priestess, partner and innovator.  She nurtured and supported her husband in countless ways, yet she did not neglect her own soul, her own work.  With her husband's help and encouragement she developed her own understanding, fulfilled her own potentials.  She was able to find and travel her own path, parallel to that of her husband, not behind it.  Her Yin energies and perspective balance and complement the energies and insights of her husband.  Arnold and Willy support each other, and work with each other, and yet each has their own fields of expertise, their own places and times to shine.  Their way as husband and wife follows the Tao Te symbol.  The work of each contains a piece of the other, and both depend upon, support and complement the other, and yet they are very different and separate and distinct - balanced and equal.

Their long enduring relationship is not based on traditional romantic love or marriage as property, dominion and control.  Instead theirs is a new kind of marriage based on friendship, common spiritual values and work. It is marriage as partnership built on a mutual quest for understanding and fulfillment.  It is a relationship where neither owns or controls the other, but where each recognizes and honors the other's special talents and accomplishments.  It is a partnership based on sexual freedom, space, tolerance and differences.  The Keyserlings are not saints, and certainly make no attempts to hide their faults and weaknesses.  Moreover, their marriage is not perfect, and like all marriages, has a dark side.  Nevertheless, the positive qualities described here exemplify a working relationship which has survived the test of time, and helps explain thetremendous accomplishments of each.

A couple united and working together, in equality and harmony, naturally create a combined energy whose sum is greater than the parts.  This is synergy.  Synergy occurs, and energies multiply, not just add, when the energies are combined with equality, when each energy is allowed to sing its own tune, in harmony with the others.  This is a combination of energies where no single tone dominates the others, nor goes off on its own. This is blended energy where there is harmony, not consonance or dissonance.  People combining together in this way can create synergies of greatly magnified intensity.

The Law of synergy applies on all scales, all levels, with minor fractal variations.  It applies not only in groups, but also for individuals.  We create an internal synergy when we open all seven of our energies.  When our seven chakras are all strong and balanced, the synergy created, the unified field, is far greater than the simple addition of these energies.  The forces of history may then open up   ñ   the eighth, ninth and tenth chakras. When all ten are open, balanced and working in harmony, an even greater synergy is possible.  Our total potential can be realized by our life in the world, our work for humanity and beyond.  The synergy of a real community creates much more energy for all participants.

Synergy upon synergy creates exponential effects.  Ultimately we have the potential to self organize spontaneously to a higher fractal scale of evolution.   Powers and capacities previously beyond our experience and understanding will then come into view.  New variations on the basic Laws will come into play.
 

1. See Malidoma Soméís book The Healing Wisdom of Africa for important insights into this problem and how we can escape from the hellish fires into the soothing peace of waters.
 

LAWS OF WISDOM
A Holistic Synthesis of Science and Religion.
Copyright Prima Sounds Foundation 1994-2002
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Copies may be made and distributed
without charge or changes to the text.
ISBN 1-883185-94-7