Metaphysical practices: where they come from and what they are
Meditation, chakras, Reiki, crystals, sound baths, lucid dreaming and the communities that share them online, each in its own terms and sourced line by line.
About this shelf
Metaphysical practices work with the self beyond the physical: meditation, chakras and Reiki, crystals and sound baths, lucid dreaming, astral projection and manifesting. Some are centuries old; several, in the form most people meet today, are modern. Many people now first meet them online, in communities such as astrology TikTok and spiritual TikTok.
Each article reports a practice in its own terms: where it came from, who shaped it and what its practitioners hold, followed by what testing has and has not found. These are crafts of their own, described as they are practised, and nothing here is medical advice.
What you will find here
- Where the chakras come from, and how the modern map differs from the tantric original
- Where Reiki began, and what studies have found
- Where meditation comes from, before and after modern mindfulness
- Lucid dreaming and astral projection, in tradition and in sleep research
- Crystal healing, sound baths and manifesting, and when each modern form appeared
- Astrology TikTok and spiritual TikTok as communities
The methods in this shelf
Metaphysical practices are crafts that their practitioners describe in their own terms, and many people now first meet them online. Astrology TikTok, Spiritual TikTok and WitchTok are video-app communities where creators share astrology, tarot, crystals and ritual content; CNN reported they sit under one shared umbrella of fascination with the unknown. Under body and energy, practitioners work with chakras, a Sanskrit term for wheel or disc that came into Indian tantric traditions from the first millennium CE, and with Reiki, a Japanese healing practice traced to Mikao Usui in Tokyo in the early 1920s. Under mind and consciousness, meditation is traced to Vedic India around 1500 BCE, lucid dreaming was given its modern term by Frederik Van Eeden, and astral projection was popularised through Theosophy and twentieth-century manuals. Under objects and sound, crystal healing is traced by practitioners to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and Greece, and sound baths draw on singing bowls made across Asia for over 1,000 years, with the modern form taking shape in the late twentieth century. Under intention, manifesting is a self-help practice that traces its ideas to nineteenth-century New Thought and reached wide audiences through Rhonda Byrne's 2006 book The Secret.
On this shelf
- Astrology TikTok and Spiritual TikTokWhat are astrology TikTok and spiritual TikTok?Method
- The chakrasWhat are the chakras, and where do they come from?Method
- Sound bathsWhat is a sound bath, and where did it come from?Method
- Astral projectionWhat is astral projection, and where did the idea come from?Method
- Lucid dreamingWhat is lucid dreaming?Method
- ManifestingWhat is manifesting, and where did the idea come from?Method
- Reiki: name, origins and historyWhat is Reiki, and where did it come from?Method
- Where crystal healing comes fromWhere does crystal healing come from?Method
- Where meditation comes fromWhere does meditation come from?Method
Coming to this shelf
Questions we are researching now. Each one goes up once every fact has a source.
- What is an aura reading, and how do aura photographs work?
- What is the law of attraction?
- How does house-number numerology work?
- What is the difference between Chaldean and Pythagorean numerology?
Down the midway
Spotted something wrong, out of date or missing? The corrections page says how we fix it.