The Chakras

Charles Webster Leadbeater's The Chakras is a foundational Theosophical text describing the subtle energy centers as Leadbeater claimed to perceive them through clairvoyant investigation, and it should be read as exactly that, a first-person esoteric account rather than an empirical or comparative scholarly study. Its influence on how chakras came to be popularly described in English-language occult and later yoga literature is real and well documented, making it valuable as a primary source for the history of Western esoteric reception of Tantric ideas. It is not a translation of or a reliable guide to the older Sanskrit tantric sources it draws loosely from, and specialists in Hindu and Buddhist tantra have noted Leadbeater's scheme diverges considerably from the textual traditions it claims descent from. Cite it for Theosophy's own account, not for the source traditions.