Kundalini and the output of a Random Number Generator

Parapsychologists have long been preoccupied with the issue of repeatability (see, for example, Shapin & Coly, 1985). It has occurred to me from time to time to ponder whether researchers are in an appropriate position to seek unusual/rare phenomena from essentially naive participants if they do not know how to elicit such phenomena from themselves. I am thus very much in favor of experimenters testing themselves and trying to train themselves to educe such phenomena. Self-experimentation is in fact not an uncommon approach in psi research, for example, with pseudoor-true random number generators (RNGs): two such experimenters are Dean Radin (e.g., 1990; 1990-1991), and Helmut Schmidt (1991, 1997, 2000). The experiments to be reported in the present paper are of such a kind.

The initial suggestion was that scores on a Random Number Generator may be higher when the phenomenon known as "Kundalini" is in progress within a participant. (1) The word "Kundalini" is:

   A Sanskrit term variously translated, but most commonly as
   "life-force," and sometimes, simply, as "the energy," often used as
   a theoretical construct to explain a syndrome of various
   psychophysiological and other phenomena, which are described as
   energy-like sensations starting usually [but not necessarily] at
   the base of the spine, and then progressing rapidly with a powerful
   surge, upwards through the body to the crown of the head; the
   experience is said to lead to higher and more desirable states of
   awareness, such as mystical consciousness, along with the
   manifestation of paranormal phenomena. (Thalbourne, 2003, pp.
   61-62)

It is my understanding that "Kundalini" means literally "the coiled one," especially as applied to a snake, which from a coiled position may suddenly spring up and strike. The reader may accordingly sometimes hear Kundalini referred to as "the Serpent Power" (e.g., Avalon, 1974; Grof & Grof, 1985). Kundalini is also a goddess in the Hindu pantheon, which is probably why it is traditionally spelled with a capital K.

I experience Kundalini fairly regularly (Thalbourne, in press a), though in my case the energy usually begins from the throat region and goes simultaneously up to my scalp and down to my toes. Aside from the definition given above, how may the sensations of (functional) Kundalini be described for people who have not experienced them? Perhaps there is a relation to the expression "it sent tingles up my spine." Again, it is "pleasantly creepy," to coin an oxymoron. Apart from this phrase, the best I can do by way of description is to liken it to the deliciousness of a big yawn that seems to travel from the mouth throughout the body.

Music frequently inspires Kundalini in me, both music that I consider moving and beautiful, and other sorts of music on occasion. This factor was incorporated into the experiments to be described here, in a manner to which we shall come later.

D. Scott Rogo (1985) gives a useful description of Kundalini-like phenomena mentioned in the parapsychological literature. For example, he quotes a correspondent of Professor James Hyslop (1919), who was said to be "plagued by psychic experiences" (p. 110) and who stated that when "the fluid [sic] gets out and gets in head it is enough to set any one crazy. My nervous strength soon gives out. I am nearing a breakdown. With the fluid in proper place there is no trouble at all" (p. 511). This would appear to be a case of dysfunctional Kundalini--what might today be described as a spiritual emergency (see also the harrowing account of Gopi Krishna's [1971] personal battle with "misdirected" Kundalini).

Rogo also mentions similar phenomena occurring among the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, where it is called n/um, together with the manifestation of psychic phenomena. Moreover, he mentions a similar phenomenon among practitioners of Judaic mysticism, or Kabbalism. Concerning the latter, he says, "Whereas most Eastern traditions speak of the Kundalini as a heat energy, the Kabbalistic tradition refers to it as 'light.' It is also suggestive that the Kabbalistic rabbis were, by tradition, gifted with psychic powers" (p. 110).

Kundalini research has been conducted in relation to near-death experiences (NDEs). For example, Ring (1992) embedded nine Kundalini items in a 60-item inventory of psychophysical changes administered to 74 individuals who had had NDEs and to a control group of 54 participants who expressed interest in NDEs but had never had one themselves. The ND-experients were roughly three times more likely to acknowledge these nine physical manifestations typical of Kundalini activation than were the control participants.

Following Itzhak Bentov (1977), who talked about "the physiokundalini syndrome," Bruce Greyson reported research on Kundalini (Greyson, 1993a, 1993b) using a 19-item "physio-Kundalini scale." At the end of the first of these studies, Greyson concluded that "psychiatric patients are no more likely to experience Kundalini awakening than the general public." (p. 54). In the second study, Greyson reports that the mean number of the 19 physio-kundalini symptoms acknowledged was significantly higher for ND-experients than for either of two control groups--(1) individuals who had come close to death but had not had a near-death experience and (2) individuals who had never come close to death.