Claim: The Indian/Chinese systems of nadis/meridians have been proved by science because of hyaluronic acid and piezoelectricity

Rory

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I've been seeing this claim for a few years and I believe it's mentioned in some of the books of Paul Grilley, but finding a source for the claim or any paper relating to it seems difficult. Now I've been asked to proofread a book that repeats the claim, like so:

The ancient healing traditions of yoga and Ayurveda, as well as the vast system of Chinese medicine, have long believed we are made of energy. Thousands of years ago, yoga, acupuncture, tai chi, and qi gong developed a language to explain this concept, which goes something like this:

The human body is made up of nadis. Nadis are pathways through which energy flows. When we practice yoga, we harness this energy. In doing so, we’re able to create a life force which heals and supports the body, mind, and spirit in profound ways.

Until very recently, the concepts of prana (life force), and nadis (energetic pathways), were esoteric and abstract to the Western mind. How do you understand something you can’t see with the human eye? How do you comprehend that which isn’t seen in the physical body after the soul has moved on at death?

Lucky for us modern day yoga teachers, Western science has come to a point in its own evolution whereby it has been discovered that the energetic body exists. While ancient saints, seers, and yogis have known this phenomenon for millennia, it’s important for us to wrap our western minds around such a concept—in order to evolve as yoga teachers and yoga students. The better we understand these concepts, the more effective our classes (and our practice) will be. So, let’s break it down.

Prana, which is called chi in the Chinese tradition, is life force energy. In scientific terms some aspects of prana are called piezoelectric energy. This life force—prana, chi, piezoelectric energy—whatever you choose to call it, is what allows living organisms to adapt.

Imagine dragging your feet along a rug. The rug creates an electric charge within you, which then produces a shock when you touch the doorknob of your bedroom door. This is similar to piezoelectric energy. It’s an electric charge within your body. This electric charge runs along a circuit in the body. The circuit is made of hyaluronic acid.

Upon further examination of life force energy in scientific terms, we see this:

When piezoelectric energy moves through the area of hyaluronic acid, it looks like a circuit running throughout the body. This circuit often corresponds to the ancient nadis. If you lay a map of these hyaluronic acid pathways over a map of the nadis, they look the same!
(Bold added by me to highlight specific claims.)

Now, I know pretty much next to nothing about "hyaluronic acid" and "piezoelectric energy" - nor about nadis, prana, meridians and chi, to be honest - but it all sounds a bit far-fetched to me.

I guess the question is: is there any truth in this idea that piezoelectric energy runs through a circuit of hyaluronic acid; that this circuit has been mapped by "science"; and that it "looks the same" as ancient maps of the nadis?

Feels like some citations are required.
 
I like how the effect is like both piezoelectricity and static electricity, I'm curious what they think the union of those is, apart from involving electrons. They seem unaware that piezoelectricity is reversible - what happens to the body when this reverse happens? Also - what's the pressure causing this piezoelectricity, and what solid are they claiming builds up the charge separation? Smells more of woo-woo than anything else.
 
Okay, here's one actual paper that seems at least partially connected to this claim:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ar.10185

It states:

Acupuncture meridians traditionally are believed to constitute channels connecting the surface of the body to internalorgans. We hypothesize that the network of acupuncture points and meridians can be viewed as a representation ofthe network formed by interstitial connective tissue. This hypothesis is supported by ultrasound images showingconnective tissue cleavage planes at acupuncture points in normal human subjects. To test this hypothesis, wemapped acupuncture points in serial gross anatomical sections through the human arm. We found an 80%correspondence between the sites of acupuncture points and the location of intermuscular or intramuscularconnective tissue planes in postmortem tissue sections. We propose that the anatomical relationship of acupuncturepoints and meridians to connective tissue planes is relevant to acupuncture’s mechanism of action and suggests apotentially important integrative role for interstitial connective tissue.

I can't pretend to understand that stuff or how it relates to the claim in the OP.

Regarding the idea of hyaluronic acid as some sort of 'circuit' within the body that corresponds to nadis/meridians, the main source seems to be Dr Hiroshi Motoyama's 'modern meridian theory' - but whether there's any science behind it or it's just an idea I've yet to discover.

(He does have a wikipedia page, where he's labelled a "parapsychologist, pseudoscientist, spiritual instructor and author" - though I don't think just because wikipedia calls someone a 'pseudoscientist' is enough to debunk something, since wikipedia tends to hand that particular designation out a little too freely in my opinion.)
 
Pinpointing the source of the claim:

After years of research Dr. Motoyama published “Measurement of Ki Energy Diagnoses & Treatment: Treatment Principle of Oriental Medicine from an Electrophysiological Viewpoints” in 1977, to articulate the correlation between Nadi Lines and Prana, or Ki energy. Dr. Motoyama discovered that gently stressing the joints and pulling the bones apart through a series of long holds stimulates the production of hyaluronic acid (HA). HA is an extremely large and hydrophilic molecule which binds water and ions. It can retain 10 times its weight in water. According to Motoyama, when this molecule is in abundance it becomes the building block of the Nadi Line. The HA molecules coil together to create a barrier, an electrically insulated tube within which an aqueous solution provides extremely conductive channels, tiny superhighways of prana. In essence, Motoyama’s discoveries establish that Yin Yoga restores and strengthens the flow of Prana by increasing the abundance of HA in the joints. So, when HA is in abundance so is the life force in our bodies.

http://sofiamileti.com/restorative-yoga-hyaluronic-acid-meridians-chi/

That's very similar to what a friend who teaches this theory told me: there's a network of hyaluronic channels in the body; hyaluronic acid binds water (the figure normally quoted is "1000 times its weight"); water conducts electricity; therefore there's an electrical circuit within the body, and this corresponds to the meridians/nadis.

Anyway, following the trail of Motoyama I come to the California Institute for Human Science, which he founded in 1992. On the website there's a page that talks about an Apparatus for Meridian Identification (AMI):

The AMI works by monitoring the electrical conductivity and capacity at specific acupoints at the tip of fingers and toes. It measures the electrical conductivity, capacitance, and polarization of skin tissue and fluids; it uses these to evaluate the tissue condition and the functioning of the acupuncture meridians and their corresponding internal organs. After years of research, CIHS found Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama was able to show that there is a close correlation between the electrical conductivity of meridians and the flow of Ki (or Chi) in the meridians.

https://www.cihs.edu/ami-research

On this page there are many links to extracts from the aforementioned book and "AMI research papers". At first glance, they appear 'scientific' [tsic], though the only paper that was published in a journal that has an SJR-rating (of 0.44) is this one:

https://05078625-9e0f-4ffc-823c-889...d/c3921d_23f3e917bf1848b096845d5bc19d6d10.pdf

So I guess that's a good place to start. No mention of hyaluronic acid in that one though - but there is in these extracts from the book:

Structure and Function of the Dermis
Characteristics of the Dermal Connective Tissue which seems to determine the BP Values
Fundamental Physical Nature of the BP Current

Anyone understand skin, cells, and electricity? I don't. :)
 
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PS The CIHS catalog makes for interesting reading:

https://www.cihs.edu/catalog

I see that in the 2003/04 edition this course was offered:

LP 711 Physical Structure and Bioelectrical Properties of the Skin

The course is intended to teach basic knowledge on the anatomy and physiology of the water-rich phase of the dermal connective tissue. The mechanism of the formation of the electrical field and the gradient of the electrical potential in the connective tissue resulting from the filtering function of mucopolisaccharides (such as hyaluronic acid) will be studied. Recommended preparation: LP 512. (4 units)

http://www.markfoster.net/struc/cihs-2003.pdf

I don't see anything similar offered today - but lots of courses using the aforementioned AMI.
 
I have looked around but I did not find any debunk of the specific claims from specialists in the field.

It looks to me the claims are at best woo and at worst not even wrong, but I'm no specialist in anatomy nor physiology so I cannot go further with confidence. That said:

- All of the human body is a relatively good electricity conductor (and it's not due to water, which by itself has a very low conductivity, but rather to ions dissolved in the body fluids)
- Thus, in order to canalize the flow of electricity it's not enough to have a conductor, you also need an insulation between the conductor and the exterior (which is also conducting). I.e. neurons conduct electricity and indeed they have an insulation: the cell membrane of the neuron itself. They are very clearly organized in a network, with specialized and evident couplings between cells, and measuring their electrical signals is rather easy (action potential in nerves were discovered in 1843 by Emil DuBois-Reymond, says wikipedia).
- Thus the 'hyaluronic acid circuits' (or any other kind of circuit) would have to be insulated (by membranes for instance). I doubt this could have escaped attention until now. They should also be organized in a network (actually in cables/bundles following the 'meridians'), yet another thing I doubt could have escaped attention. Lastly, any meaningful electrical signal would have been recorded long ago (notice they are long range signals, 'meridians' run through the whole body).
- And in the end the main argument against acupunture is it does not work, and no amount of hyaluronic acid can overcome this .

We hypothesize that the network of acupuncture points and meridians can be viewed as a representation of the network formed by interstitial connective tissue.
If what the article says is true (I cannot give any technical judgement on https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ar.10185) I have a different hypothesis: the 'meridians' are just lines drawn on the outside of the body and they naturally tend to follow the outline of muscles (and of the intervening connective tissue). Consider also this:
What's more, nobody can seem to agree on how many meridians there are or where they should be. At one point acupuncture charts mapped 365 points, based on the number of days in the year, not on anatomy. But today acupuncturists claim to have "discovered" some 2,000 meridian points, pretty much guaranteeing that you could glue a needle to a dart, chuck it at the patient from across the room, and hit one of them. Are there 9, 10, or 11 meridians? Nobody seems to know. It doesn't matter, because no research has found evidence (PDF) for the existence of acupuncture points, meridians, or qi.
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4431 (there are many good articles debunking acupunture and meridians in general)


About piezoelectricity: I know something about it but from the point of view of industrial actuators, no idea how that could apply to the human body though. Soft tissues seem to be very ill suited to work as a piezoelectric generator but it seems bones do generate piezoelectric potentials:
Scientists discovered that bone was a piezoelectric material in 1957. Since then, they have found that piezoelectricity occurs when bone collagen fibers slide against each other. This leads to the accumulation of charges and the generation of a tiny current, which opens up calcium ion channels in bone cells called osteocytes. This triggers a cascade of signaling pathways that ultimately promote bone formation.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-bone-natural-electricity-regeneration.html

It's a local phenomenon: the potential is dissipated (through the tiny current) where it is generated so there is no need for an insulation, which would instead be required if one wanted to channel the current somewhere. For example: if you want to use the femur as a piezoelectric generator to power a 'cable' running from the hip to the knee you need to insulate both the femur and the channel. I guess that would be pretty evident, even to the people who originally discovered the bones piezoelectric effect in 1957.
 
Thanks for taking the time to look into this, all very interesting. I'm especially piqued by your statement that it wouldn't be possible for electrical current to flow through specific (non-insulated) channels because the whole of the human body is conductive, cos that would seem to debunk the notion right there.

Interesting also to learn that water in and of itself isn't a great conductor, but rather it's the ions in impure water that facilitates the conducting of electricity. One learns something new everyday! :)

I think the wording in the OP can be fairly dismissed as woowoo and bunk - a clumsy interpretation, probably, of someone else's interpretation of Motoyama's claims - so now I'm more interested in getting to the bottom of Motoyama's stuff and that machine he made.

I found a patent for it here. There it says:

The apparatus diagnoses the function of every internal organ by measuring the change of electric resistance at a plurality of specific points in the surface layer of the living body.

There are diagrams and descriptions and stuff; but, as ever, it's over my head.

This seems to be the most detailed paper I can find, and I've written to one of the authors. I also found these pictures of it in action:

1623939042194.png
Source: https://psy-tek.com/testing/apparatus-for-meridian-identification/

I wonder what it's actually doing?
 
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Thanks for taking the time to look into this, all very interesting. I'm especially piqued by your statement that it wouldn't be possible for electrical current to flow through specific (non-insulated) channels because the whole of the human body is conductive, cos that would seem to debunk the notion right there.

Interesting also to learn that water in and of itself isn't a great conductor, but rather it's the ions in impure water that facilitates the conducting of electricity. One learns something new everyday! :)

I think the wording in the OP can be fairly dismissed as woowoo and bunk - a clumsy interpretation, probably, of someone else's interpretation of Motoyama's claims - so now I'm more interested in getting to the bottom of Motoyama's stuff and that machine he made.

I found a patent for it here. There it says:



There are diagrams and descriptions and stuff; but, as ever, it's over my head.

This seems to be the most detailed paper I can find, and I've written to one of the authors. I also found these pictures of it in action:

1623939042194.png
Source: https://psy-tek.com/testing/apparatus-for-meridian-identification/

I wonder what it's actually doing?
He measures electrical resistance between different points of the body (fingers and toes, it seems). This is not difficult to do of course!

Measuring resistances is a legitimate method to investigate the properties of materials, it's used for instance by geologists:
Two properties are of primary concern in the application of electrical methods : (1) the ability of rocks to conduct an electric cur-rent, and (2) the polarization which occurs when an electrical current is passed through them (induced polarization). The electrical conductivity of Earth materials can be studied by measuring the electrioal potential distribution produced at the Earth’s surface by an electric curren.t that is passed through the Earth or by detecting the electromagnetic field produced by an alternating electric cur-rent that is introduced into the Earth. The measurement of natural electric potentials (spontaneous polarization, telluric currents, and streaming potentials) has also found application in geologic investigations. The principal methods using natural energy sources are (1) telluric current, (2) magnetotelluric, (3) spontaneous polarization, and (4) streaming potential.

And I do not doubt that measuring skin resistances can give useful data (ie.: how much the skin is moist). What's outlandish is the claim of Motoyama that this allows to " .... diagnoses the function of every internal organ by measuring the change of electric resistance at a plurality of specific points in the surface layer of the living body which are directly related to the internal organ." It's so silly (even fractally wrong) that it doesn't deserve consideration (not mentioning that it's Motoyama or his followers who need to present proofs that what they say is true, not the other way around). Just look at this figure in the patent application:

And compare it with this one:





"Electrodiagnostic devices", such as Motoyama's also have a long history.. the best I can do is to refer you to the Quackwatch article here, I'm sure there are many more online articles on the subject.
 
"piezoelectric energy" is snake oil.

Electric energy is electric energy, and the pathways for it through the body are the nerve fibres. If I was looking for a scientific network of "life force", I'd be looking there, because if you cut the nerves, your will (as a form of life force) gets cut off from your limbs, which you can no longer control (example: a quadriplegic). Pain applied to part of your body reaches your self through the nerves, as do sensations.

The piezoelectric effect is the property of some materials (crystals) to convert pressure to electricity and vice versa. It's not a form of energy, it is a way to convert between different forms of energy (mechanical<-> electric).

For the good Mr. Motoyama, what I would want to know is what knowledge he claims his apparatus can give him. And then you should think about how a debunker like James Randi would have tested the claim: maybe have someone who is schooled in the use of the apparatus rake measurements of different people with different ailments, and then have Motoyama diagnose these people from the measurements alone. If his writings do not contain any testable claims, they are bunk. If Motoyama has failed to tsst them, they are likely bunk.
 
"Electrodiagnostic devices", such as Motoyama's also have a long history.. the best I can do is to refer you to the Quackwatch article here

Ah yes, that Quackwatch article is a good resource: I don't see Motoyama's AMI mentioned, but I do see several other machines that were described as doing the same thing (with regard to meridians) such as the Acugraph and Prognos, and it seems to describe the whole process very thoroughly. Interesting to note that the FDA has banned importation and marketing of EAV devices (though doesn't appear to do much about it).

Following links related to the Prognos machine I see claims that it was used by cosmonauts on the Mir space station:

Prof. Dr.Med.V.Polyakov in 1993 and 1994, traveled 438 days with the MIR space station around Earth. During his flight, the Prognos system was used to monitor the health of the cosmonauts in space.

http://progressieve-geneeskunde.nl/en/what-is-prognos/

The same site also says that:

The Portland State University in Canada, has shown that the Prognos diagnosis and therapy can reliably determine the situation of the meridians. Prognos is utilized in several hospitals there.

http://progressieve-geneeskunde.nl/en/valery-polyakov/

Actually, they mean Portland State University in Oregon - but elswhere on the site they get it right:

For five years, the Portland State University in Oregon has conducted systematic studies of the mechanisms of acupuncture and also researched similarities between Western diagnosis techniques and Oriental energetic readings.

http://progressieve-geneeskunde.nl/en/?s=prognos

Interestingly, however, the first PSU paper I read concludes that:

Within the reliability limits of our study methods, none of the three Acupuncture Points (APs) tested has lower skin impedance than at either of the [two] nearby control points [on the Meridian line (MPs) and off it (NPs)]. These results are not consistent with previous studies that detected lower skin impedance at APs than nearby sites. Further study is necessary to determine whether MPs have lower skin impedance than nearby NPs. Our study suggests caution is warranted when developing, using, and interpreting results from electrodermal screening devices. Further studies are needed to clarify the clinically important and controversial hypothesis that APs are sites of lower impedance.

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=ece_fac

In a nutshell, they found no difference in conductivity when measuring at an acupuncture point, a point on a supposed meridian line, or a point away from a supposed meridian line. This was in contradiction to previous claims, but in agreement with more rigorous and controlled studies, which found that conductivity would vary according to:

the skin/electrode interface
probe size and shape
pressure exerted by the probe
duration of probe application
inclination of the probe tip on the skin
variations in skin condition (dry/moist, thickness and integrity of the stratum corneum)
the frequency of applied current
whether a multichannel system, a concentric probe, a four-electrode system, or a two-electrode system is used
fluctuations in the underlying psychophysiologic condition of the subject
potential investigator bias

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=ece_fac

Not looking good for any of the claims around the ideas posted in the OP.
 
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All of the human body is a relatively good electricity conductor (and it's not due to water, which by itself has a very low conductivity, but rather to ions dissolved in the body fluids)

So I've been talking with a friend who teaches this 'theory' as part of his yoga teaching and he's been admirably open to it being 'bunk'.

One question he had when I presented him with the above point was: well what if there's a 'channel' of highly conductive matter surrounded by less conductive matter? Would that then not create something akin to a non-insulated channel?

I could see some logic in this: I suppose it's a bit like a lightning strike hitting a tree. The electricity flows through the branches of the tree, even though the tree is surrounded by a substance that also conducts electricity (ie, the air) - it's just that the tree conducts better.

Thoughts?
 
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One question he had when I presented him with the above point was: well what if there's a 'channel' of highly conductive matter surrounded by less conductive matter? Would that then not create something akin to a non-insulated channel?

I could see some logic in this: I suppose it's a bit like a lightning strike hitting a tree. The electricity flows through the branches of the tree, even though the tree is surrounded by a substance that also conducts electricity (ie, the air) - it's just that the tree conducts better.


Damp wood (as in an alive tree) has a resistivity of 1000 to 10,000 Ω·m
Air has a resistivity of 1 billion (US) to 1 quadrillion (US) Ω·m
( source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity )

So there is a factor of at least 100,000 between the tree and the air

Here's a study on the resistivity of human tissues:
Article:
The aim of this study was to investigate systematically the resistivities of human tissues as published in review studies (100 Hz-10 MHz). A data set of 103 resistivities for 21 different human tissues was compiled from six review studies. For each kind of tissue the mean and its 95% confidence interval were calculated. Moreover, an analysis of covariance showed that the calculated means were not statistically different for most tissues, namely skeletal (171 Ω·cm) and cardiac (175 Ω·cm) muscle, kidney (211 Ω·cm), liver (342 Ω·cm), lung (157 Ω·cm) and spleen (405 Ω·cm), with bone (>17 583 Ω·cm), fat (3850 Ω·cm) and, most likely, the stratum corneum of the skin having higher resistivities. The insignificance of differences between various tissue means could imply an equality of their resistivities, or, alternatively, could be the result of the large confidence intervals which obscured real existing differences.

Basically, all soft tissues have similarly low resitivities (since they're all basically impure water), with bone and fat slightly higher. You need insulating sheaths like the nerves have for electricity to be channeled.

A better analogy than the tree is a pipe system: if you have a big pipe with small taps then most water will stay in the big pipe (but some flows out); if you have bigger taps you have much less water in the big pipe. The water doesn't "stay in the bigger pipe because it is more comfortable", it goes everywhere it can. And so does electricity, proportional to the resistance of the tissue, unless it is insulated.
 
Damp wood (as in an alive tree) has a resistivity of 1000 to 10,000 Ω·m
Air has a resistivity of 1 billion (US) to 1 quadrillion (US) Ω·m
( source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity )

So there is a factor of at least 100,000 between the tree and the air

Here's a study on the resistivity of human tissues:
Article:
The aim of this study was to investigate systematically the resistivities of human tissues as published in review studies (100 Hz-10 MHz). A data set of 103 resistivities for 21 different human tissues was compiled from six review studies. For each kind of tissue the mean and its 95% confidence interval were calculated. Moreover, an analysis of covariance showed that the calculated means were not statistically different for most tissues, namely skeletal (171 Ω·cm) and cardiac (175 Ω·cm) muscle, kidney (211 Ω·cm), liver (342 Ω·cm), lung (157 Ω·cm) and spleen (405 Ω·cm), with bone (>17 583 Ω·cm), fat (3850 Ω·cm) and, most likely, the stratum corneum of the skin having higher resistivities. The insignificance of differences between various tissue means could imply an equality of their resistivities, or, alternatively, could be the result of the large confidence intervals which obscured real existing differences.

Basically, all soft tissues have similarly low resitivities (since they're all basically impure water), with bone and fat slightly higher. You need insulating sheaths like the nerves have for electricity to be channeled.

A better analogy than the tree is a pipe system: if you have a big pipe with small taps then most water will stay in the big pipe (but some flows out); if you have bigger taps you have much less water in the big pipe. The water doesn't "stay in the bigger pipe because it is more comfortable", it goes everywhere it can. And so does electricity, proportional to the resistance of the tissue, unless it is insulated.

Exactly.

Lightning is also a bad analogy from another point of view: the electric field is so high that no useful comparisons can be made with a current flowing through the human body. Air is ionized by the intense electric field, this is why it can conduct a lightning even if its basic (non-ionized) conductivity is so low. And a tree is preferentially hit by a lightning because with respect to air it's practically a short-circuit (as Mendel says) and it's higher than the surrounding ground (so less air needs to be ionized for the lightning to start) and, importantly, because of Coulumb's theorem: basically, the more something is sharp the more the local electric field is strong, thus at the top of a branch the electric field is much higher than on flat ground and the ionization starts there preferentially (this is how lightning rods work, btw). So, nothing really comparable to what happens in a human body (unless struck by a lightning, of course xD).

Mendel's pipe analogy is instead rather good for the purpose.
 
Hey, this might provide some answers. There is so much junk out there with regards to Yoga and Ayurveda... uneducated people just throwing around words like prana without having a clue what they're talking about, but this guy really knows his stuff: https://trueayurveda.wordpress.com/2016/11/19/more-on-pranayama/ Let me know what you think.

Thanks for that. I had a read through of the page you linked to but couldn't see anything related to what we are talking about in this thread. If there is something elsewhere on that website though, please feel free to quote it here.

Cheers. :)
 
Thanks for that. I had a read through of the page you linked to but couldn't see anything related to what we are talking about in this thread. If there is something elsewhere on that website though, please feel free to quote it here.

Cheers. :)
This is from the article I sent you: "The nadis are minute channels, no, they also do not exist in western sciences and paradigm." so that's one place where I see the relation with you are talking about in this thread. At the same time the article is a critique on what yoga has become in this day and age, and I would be suprised if this Paul Grilley guy would be any different than that... i.e. suprised if he were to have any clue about what nadis or prana actually is (except for a cool sounding word taken from the east. Just say words like chi, prana, nadis or OM many times and naive westerners might mistake you for an expert ;P), which renders his claims moot.

This one is about exactly that. Perhaps it will be more helpful: https://trueayurveda.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/most-possibly-the-only-legit-yoga-asana-out-there/
 
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It's best if you put relevant quotes directly in the thread.

Also, it really ought to be something with some scientific or evidential support, not just, as you say, an opinion or idea such as "the nadis are minute channels."

Cheers. :)
 
It's best if you put relevant quotes directly in the thread.

Also, it really ought to be something with some scientific or evidential support, not just, as you say, an opinion or idea such as "the nadis are minute channels."

The whole article is relevant to the thread is you ask me, and with my quote I was more referring to the part of the sentence that followed after the minute channels part.

"it really ought to be something with some scientific or evidential support"

That's the point though... that sounds like asking to scientifically prove the state of Samadhi, while that state can only be proved experientially by the individual. Yet that doesn't mean that any western yoga practicioner should be allowed to talk about those subjects as if they were an expert and as if they actually knew what it meant.

I'll give another shot in explaining what I mean:

"Modern science knows of energy as material physical energy, can be physically measured… light, magnet, sound etc. It is now thought to be nothing but converted matter. Non-material energy cannot be measured yet. Our consciousness, Brahman, Chitta… these are still energy but cannot be measured by present day science. Development of future technologies may be able to measure this. We know that the entire creation of Brahman is a creation of consciousness… consciousness has created everything. That is non-physical energy. Maybe there are ways to convert that energy, the chakras and nadis are the way in which we convert that eternal, subtle, divine energy into physical energy… But really presenting whole idea in terms of modern science cannot be done now. Or maybe I should say that modern scientific limitations do not allow these to be presented by it’s paradigm which continually changes to its new discoveries and turns a blind eye to other paradigm’s that do not fit its own. It has great limitations. Some say modern science is a myth-making machine. Many truths are made into myths because cannot be proved by modern science because it doesn’t understand them. Non-physical energy is even more subtle. Prana is biological energy. The movement of the heart is a physical energy. The energy of the heart that moves it is physical energy. The Kundalini is even MORE subtle."

"How is modern science ever going to be able to prove of anything non physical? I think we have seen this folly in the search for the god particle and its results with Higgs Boson."

Source: https://trueayurveda.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/science-and-energy/


Anyway, the above is proparbly not satisfactory to you either, or the way you'd like information to be presented to you, but I doubt you'll find anything better on the subject. Just trying to help here, but maybe this stuff simply has no place on a forum like this. But hey, I thought I'd might try ;).
 
Non-material energy cannot be measured yet.

I'm pretty much astonished by the measurement skills humanity has got in current times. We can measure attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second) and we can measures gravitational waves with an instrument so exquisite that it can detect a change in length, over kilometers, of less than the diameter of a proton.

'Non-material energy' looks to me just another case of positing something exists which cannot be measured by definition (and one can always move the goalposts if needed), pretend it's real and then starting speculating about it. Not even wrong.
 
I'm pretty much astonished by the measurement skills humanity has got in current times. We can measure attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second) and we can measures gravitational waves with an instrument so exquisite that it can detect a change in length, over kilometers, of less than the diameter of a proton.

'Non-material energy' looks to me just another case of positing something exists which cannot be measured by definition (and one can always move the goalposts if needed), pretend it's real and then starting speculating about it. Not even wrong.
I totally get what you mean. And that's the problem with all of this... because it is of a paradigm unknown to the west anyone and your mother can just make up whatever they want and there is nothing you can say to tell them they're wrong. Anyone can claim they're in some sort of heightened state of awareness (or even spoken to aliens in some other dimension) and there's many people who do exactly that and at the same time rape their followers or similar stuff to that. Yet at the same time, we don't know what we don't know, so similar to all the fake guru types and their followers out there, one might just not know what they're talking about, say the whole paradigm spoken about in the article is made up while being ignorant to a whole realm of existence unknown to the scientific world. Anyway, I don't think I'll be posting stuff like this from now on, because as I suspected it is not the interest or way of thinking of this forum, which is fine by me.

Cheers.
 
"Non-material energy". Sorry but what the heck is that?

Energy is energy. Matter is energy, energy is matter. "Non material energy" is woo woo bs. Sorry.
 
"Non-material energy". Sorry but what the heck is that?

Energy is energy. Matter is energy, energy is matter. "Non material energy" is woo woo bs. Sorry.
He's speaking of the panchakosha. Different levels/layers of reality. Let's not forget that all this stuff about nadis and prana etc. is rooted in religion. Western "yogi's" tend to wanna forget that all this stuff comes from hinduism and bhuddism which is concerned with spirituality and God. God is non-material... you can't prove nor disprove God through western science exactly because of what you say... western science is matter-ialistic and not concerned with anything spiritual, hence anything spiritual from their point of view must be woo woo bs. I think that is the crux here. You can have any opinion you want ofcourse. All I wanted to convey here is that it is doubtful that there is western scientific proof of the nadis (and actually, we might agree there), which is the subject of this thread.

Also, the writer of the article is confined to using english words/western terminology and so, he has to convey concepts for which the english language has no words, hence he ends up writing things like "non-material energy" and such. Perhaps a similar phenomenon is that we call hinduism polytheistic, yet in truth hinduism says there is only one God. The multitud of Gods in hinduism are but expressions of that one God. I don't mean to digress here, nor to evangelisize, I'm just trying to point out the limitations of language and translations of languages.
 
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we can measures gravitational waves with an instrument so exquisite that it can detect a change in length, over kilometers, of less than the diameter of a proton.
... caused by an event 5*10^25 metres away. More than 40 orders of magnitude are relevant in every LIGO event! It's hard not to be in complete awe at this feat.

(Ob. OT FE: Over the 4 km length of each of LIGO's arm, the Earth curves away by nearly a meter! Precision concrete pouring was required to counteract this curvature.)
 
I'm not saying I disagree with the premise of what "the writer of the article is saying" @J.d.K (I don't disagree with it), I'm just saying it doesn't seem very relevant to the topic of this thread, which is:

"Some people have said there is scientific evidence for the meridians/nadis. Is there?"

What your man there is saying is "you're trying to measure the non-material, and that's not gonna work."

I understand where you/him are coming from - it's not exactly a new idea, and I've seen it formulated much better in many other places - but I fail to see how it adds to the discussion. And bringing God/Brahman/Ayurveda into it is really a different conversation, even if it's related.

The best thing, I think, is to keep the conversation focused on the notion of nadis/meridians and any evidence that either supports or undermines the assertions made in the OP (and particularly by Motoyama). Supporters of the 'modern meridian theory' claim there is scientific evidence to back up their claims. But as we've seen, it doesn't appear that they're right.

So, to bring the conversation back on topic, it seems that what you're saying is: "this guy on a website says that the nadis are non-physical and therefore can't be scientifically measured, and that's why you won't find physical evidence for them."

Would you say that's a reasonable interpretation of what you're saying?

If so, the only possible response to that is "fair enough". :)
 
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I'm not saying I disagree with the premise of what "the writer of the article is saying" @J.d.K (I don't disagree with it), I'm just saying it doesn't seem very relevant to the topic of this thread, which is:

"Some people have said there is scientific evidence for the meridians/nadis. Is there?"

What your man there is saying is "you're trying to measure the non-material, and that's not gonna work."

I understand where you/him are coming from - it's not exactly a new idea, and I've seen it formulated much better in many other places - but I fail to see how it adds to the discussion. And bringing God/Brahman/Ayurveda into it is really a different conversation, even if it's related.

The best thing, I think, is to keep the conversation focused on the notion of nadis/meridians and any evidence that either supports or undermines the assertions made in the OP (and particularly by Motoyama). Supporters of the 'modern meridian theory' claim their is scientific evidence to back up their claims. But as we've seen, it doesn't appear that they're right.

So, to bring the conversation back on topic, it seems that what you're saying is: "this guy on a website says that the nadis are non-physical and therefore can't be scientifically measured, and that's why you won't find physical evidence for them."

Would you say that's a reasonable interpretation of what you're saying?
Hey,

God/Brahman/Ayurveda is all part of that same paradigm that concerns itself with nadis and prana. Ayurveda is a subsidiary veda (upaveda) and actually recognizes the different kinds of prana which move through the nadis.

"Would you say that's a reasonable interpretation of what you're saying?" I'm just trying to throw in a different perspective on the whole thing. Also I have to be open about my ignorance and thus I am not actually qualified to speak on these topics (but who here is?). If there are in fact many different levels of energy ranging from materialistic, to subtler energies to non-material then the question is where on that spectrum fall prana and the nadis?

"Our consciousness, Brahman, Chitta… these are still energy but cannot be measured by present day science. Development of future technologies may be able to measure this. We know that the entire creation of Brahman is a creation of consciousness… consciousness has created everything. That is non-physical energy. Maybe there are ways to convert that energy, the chakras and nadis are the way in which we convert that eternal, subtle, divine energy into physical energy…“ (https://trueayurveda.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/science-and-energy/)

How subtle or unsubtle does something have to be to be able to be measured by western science? How subtle or unsubtle are nadis and prana exactly? To what degree of subtlety is science able to meassure with its current technology (And I think small might not equal subtle..: "We can measure attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second")? Since I have no answer to those questions, and add to that my limited understanding of biology and chemistry... I do not have a basis to say that Paul Grilley is not onto something. Personally I'm just very careful with translating ayurvedic and yogic concepts into western scientific ones and vice versa (I have some knowledge of Ayurveda and encountered very bad instances of translations of concepts). I know the man who wrote the blog and know how properly schooled he is in those subjects. His whole blog is about the problem with the western approach to eastern wisdom with good arguments and citations. I just thought it might give some insight to the question you asked, even though I doesn't speak directly about hyaluronic acid, etc. Anyway, thanks for having kept being respectful.
 
He's speaking of the panchakosha. Different levels/layers of reality. Let's not forget that all this stuff about nadis and prana etc. is rooted in religion. Western "yogi's" tend to wanna forget that all this stuff comes from hinduism and bhuddism which is concerned with spirituality and God. God is non-material... you can't prove nor disprove God through western science exactly because of what you say... western science is matter-ialistic and not concerned with anything spiritual, hence anything spiritual from their point of view must be woo woo bs. I think that is the crux here. You can have any opinion you want ofcourse. All I wanted to convey here is that it is doubtful that there is western scientific proof of the nadis (and actually, we might agree there), which is the subject of this thread.
Agreed. Indeed there is no scientific proof of nadis.

Also, the writer of the article is confined to using english words/western terminology and so, he has to convey concepts for which the english language has no words, hence he ends up writing things like "non-material energy" and such. Perhaps a similar phenomenon is that we call hinduism polytheistic, yet in truth hinduism says there is only one God. The multitud of Gods in hinduism are but expressions of that one God. I don't mean to digress here, nor to evangelisize, I'm just trying to point out the limitations of language and translations of languages.

Thanks, I see your point.


I guess the original question has been discussed above..
I guess the question is: is there any truth in this idea that piezoelectric energy runs through a circuit of hyaluronic acid; that this circuit has been mapped by "science"; and that it "looks the same" as ancient maps of the nadis?

To me, this sounds unlikely (that science has mapped anything that matches nadis or other "networks"). The problem is of course that these terms and ideas originate from the time we did not have scientific knowledge of the human body, so some things were "invented" to explain certain things. That it is related to religion is not surprising as religious movements like to have "secrets only known to certain people".
 
That it is related to religion is not surprising as religious movements like to have "secrets only known to certain people".

That seems true. And to some people it's seen as a way for religions to maintain power and manipulate people. No doubt that is often the case. But in many cases it's also because esoteric knowledge may not only be non-beneficial for the masses but even detrimental and confusing. Taking pranayama, for example, there has long been an attraction by certain people to very strong breathing practices such as "breath of fire" or "holotropic breathing/rebirthing". This is understandable, because it gets people high - but it's also generally done without awareness of the potential psychological downsides of such powerful practices - which, in my experience, the best teachers stress and therefore don't teach these techniques unless they truly feel the recipient is in the right place to receive them.

There are many examples like these. Personally, I'm not averse to a bit of secrecy in spirituality - I'm not sure how smart it's been to have everything available at the click of a mouse button or on a bookstore shelf, given the psychological problems these things can lead to/embellish - but perhaps it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things.

PS As a disclaimer I do have some personal experience of so-called 'energy channels' in the body, which seems quite reasonable to me. But I still don't feel it in any ways supports the specific notion of nadis or meridians - the maps of which, it cannot be ignored, contradict one another.

I know the man who wrote the blog and know how properly schooled he is in those subjects.

And you're not "the man"?

Gotta ask. ;)
 
And you're not "the man"?

Gotta ask. ;)
Lol nah. I know jack sh!t compared to the writer of that blog. He used to be my doctor until he got retired. He doesn't write any new articles either. The stuff you write about the dangers and naivity of people fooling around without proper guidance is actually completely in line with the stuff he writes about by the way. Personally, I have yet to begin my formal education, but I have done some preparatory work and because of that I can say with confidence that so much of what is out there is just garbage. Literally, I had a conversation with an Aussie Ayurvedic practicioner and when I asked him why thought peanuts were heating he said "because they are of the nightshade family". The ignorance in that statement is huge, most obviously because peanuts are of the bean family (as many people know, and he, as someone who works with plants and consults clients for health, definitely should know).
 
How is that?
"Modern science knows of energy as material physical energy, can be physically measured… light, magnet, sound etc."

- "magnet" is not a form of energy (though "electromagnetic" is).
- energy is often immaterial, e.g. sound energy moves through a material medium, but it is not matter itself. Potential energy is the difference between an object high up and an object low dow, but it's not the material of the object that contains the energy.

it's all very fine to talk about spiritual energy and be clear that this is a very different concept of energy than the one "modern science" (aka century-old physics) uses. But the claim referenced in Rory's original post links spiritual "energy" with physical forms of energy, and when this is being done by people who talk as if they have no clue about physical energy, I know that's not trustworthy.
 
these are still energy but cannot be measured by present day science. Development of future technologies may be able to measure this
Can this energy affect ordinary matter that we're familiar with? Which of the fundamental particles/fields we are familiar with does it interact with? With what strength?
If it can affect the matter that our bodies are made of, then it can affect sensors we specifically design to detect it or its effects (which could involve bodies if need be), and if there's no way it can affect the matter our bodies are made from, then there's no way it can affect us at all, and the claim is void.
 
Yeah, I gotta disagree that that is the problem here. Yes they originate from a different time, but they did have scientific knowledge of the human body and I don't think this stuff is made up just to "explain" things they did not understand. I think this is a very lamentable arrogance of the modern scientific world... to think that we know so much better now and that our forefathers were ignorant. The claim of modern science is that we're open minded, conveyed in this quote (supposedly by Einstein, I did not check): "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Yet if this is true, why don't we come of our high horses and are open to the possibility of the ancient people having knowledge beyond our current comprehension? It certainly would explain the magnificence of the work done in Machu Picchu, Eastern Island, the pyramids, etc. supposedly done by people that would've been "primitive" in our eyes. Were they though? Ancient batteries:
I know I am digressing here, but so are you by introducing those statements.

You are digressing quite a bit here. :)

Anyway, I did not claim that modern science is the ultimate truth and definitely I did not say our forefathers were ignorant..

What I do think is that we, in modern times, have progressed in a more deterministic scientifical framework. Thus the "older science" has to be proven on facts and measurements to fit our understanding. As long as we do not have measurements and facts proving these nadis, what can we conclude? Unless we stay in the gray zone (like religion is)...
 
"Modern science knows of energy as material physical energy, can be physically measured… light, magnet, sound etc."

- "magnet" is not a form of energy (though "electromagnetic" is).
- energy is often immaterial, e.g. sound energy moves through a material medium, but it is not matter itself. Potential energy is the difference between an object high up and an object low dow, but it's not the material of the object that contains the energy.

it's all very fine to talk about spiritual energy and be clear that this is a very different concept of energy than the one "modern science" (aka century-old physics) uses. But the claim referenced in Rory's original post links spiritual "energy" with physical forms of energy, and when this is being done by people who talk as if they have no clue about physical energy, I know that's not trustworthy.
I suppose he's just being lazy with the magnet thing. Everyone knows just "magnet" is not energy.
As you say the concepts of energy are different, aswell of the definitions of material and immaterial. In yoga and Ayurveda the building blocks of the universe are the 5 elements... Akash, wind, fire, water and earth. I'm not sure about the first, but the latter 4 are all considered material in this paradigm, albeit of different degrees of grossness. Western science doesn't recognize these as building blocks... the two are different paradigms, making this conversation, subject and thread very complex and perhaps even fruitless. That doesn't mean he would fail advanced science in high school. The man is a professional and actually knows how to read MRI-scans etc. (which is more complex than reading X-ray) so I think he's solid in the advanced high school science department. He would just have to drop the Yoga/Ayurveda-mindset while writing the answers to the questions on the test. The two paradigms might be mutually exclusive though, so perhaps he wouldn't agree with what he would be writing on that test, lol ;).

"But the claim referenced in Rory's original post links spiritual "energy" with physical forms of energy, and when this is being done by people who talk as if they have no clue about physical energy, I know that's not trustworthy."


Isn't that exactly what I have been saying though? That we have to be very careful when trying to link these paradigms, because changes are big were are putting an equal sign between two separate things.
 
Can this energy affect ordinary matter that we're familiar with? Which of the fundamental particles/fields we are familiar with does it interact with? With what strength?
If it can affect the matter that our bodies are made of, then it can affect sensors we specifically design to detect it or its effects (which could involve bodies if need be), and if there's no way it can affect the matter our bodies are made from, then there's no way it can affect us at all, and the claim is void.
Yes it can affect ordinary matter. In fact, it according to these sciences they are the source of ordinary matter. Anyway, I think I better stop the conversation here. I'm no expert in this field so I better stay modest and I think I have shared here to the extent that my knowledge goes.
 
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"Modern science knows of energy as material physical energy, can be physically measured… light, magnet, sound etc."

- "magnet" is not a form of energy (though "electromagnetic" is).
- energy is often immaterial, e.g. sound energy moves through a material medium, but it is not matter itself. Potential energy is the difference between an object high up and an object low dow, but it's not the material of the object that contains the energy.

it's all very fine to talk about spiritual energy and be clear that this is a very different concept of energy than the one "modern science" (aka century-old physics) uses. But the claim referenced in Rory's original post links spiritual "energy" with physical forms of energy, and when this is being done by people who talk as if they have no clue about physical energy, I know that's not trustworthy.
Very true!

If I may add: energy... does not actually exist! It's not something physical such as a proton or a photon, it's just a mathematical quantity which we can calculate and which, mathematically, can be proved to be conserved in physical transformations under broad assumptions. As such, it's quite useful as a calculation tool and even in everyday life, so much that we have given it a name: 'energy'. It's easier than saying "The quantity

Immagine.png
of a system whose Lagrangian is L" (this being a classical definition of energy for mechanical systems, it's not valid in different conditions or if we need to consider relativity and/or quantum effects, but you get the idea).
 
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Plus, people on Metabunk won't trawl through some outside source to find something someone tells them is there, it has to be included in the post (the infamous "no-click policy").
Ah, thanks for pointing out the no-click policy.

And yeah, I shouldn't have forwarded the battery thing, because I did not look into it properly. The ancient archeology argument still stands though.

The logic conveyed in the blogposts I shared seems relevant to me to this thread, but I'm sorry to hear you disagree.

"Ravi: I did not claim that modern science is the ultimate truth and definitely I did not say our forefathers were ignorant.."

Well, I'm sorry if I misinterpretated you, so I'm trying to understand:

"The problem is of course that these terms and ideas originate from the time we did not have scientific knowledge of the human body, so some things were "invented" to explain certain things"


I see you added the "..." around invented, but still it sounds like you're downplaying their knowledge. You saying there wasn't scientific knowledge of the human body also seems to imply their ignorance, but I reckon that you meant to say modern scientific knowledge. Science comes from late Latin scientificus ‘producing knowledge’ so in a way scientific knowledge is producing knowledge knowledge (not trying to split hairs, I just like looking at language and meaning). So what I read in the above quote is that these terms and ideas originate from a time in which we did not produce knowledge of the human body, so some things were invented to explain things. In other words we were not knowledgeable i.e. ignorant. Not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to explain my interpretation.
 
What I do think is that we, in modern times, have progressed in a more deterministic scientifical framework. Thus the "older science" has to be proven on facts and measurements to fit our understanding. As long as we do not have measurements and facts proving these nadis, what can we conclude? Unless we stay in the gray zone (like religion is)...
As long as we don't know, we cannot conclude anything indeed. Religion is not gray per sé. Blind belief is gray, yes.... "I believe in the God because the Bible says there is one and the bible is the only and absolute truth because that is the truth".
Personally I don't really care about western science proving nadis and such, because the paths where those things are mentioned are designed to be known, felt and understood within the body and mind. The vessel of knowledge and understanding in Yoga and Ayurveda is the body-mind. This is why they provide techniques to purify that vessel, rather than putting it through a scanner and have a modern scientist tell you if something is true or not. Unfortunately this is a way of approaching science unknown to the west and it is (ab)used in a way that makes Yoga and Ayurveda anything you want it to be. There's dozens of scriptures written on these paths yet we think we can just feel our way through it, which understandably gives Yoga and Ayurveda a woo woo pseudo-science reputation.
 
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