Spinning Around š¶
In Tuesdayās newsletter, we asked you for your opinion of the āFive Tibetan Ritesā, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 41% said āI have never heard of these beforeā
- About 27% said āthey restore youth by adjusting internal vortexesā
- About 22% said āthey are basically yoga, by a different nameā
- About 11% said āthey are a pseudoscience popular in the USā
So what does the science say?
The Five Tibetan Rites are five Tibetan rites: True or False?
False, though this is more question of social science than of health science, so weāll not count it against them for having a misleading name.
The first known mentioning of the āFive Tibetan Ritesā is by an American named Peter Kelder, who in 1939 published, through a small LA occult-specialized publishing house, a booklet called āThe Eye of Revelationā. This work was then varyingly republished, repackaged, and occasionally expanded upon by Kelder or other American authors, including Chris Kilhamās popular 1994 book āThe Five Tibetansā.
The āFive Tibetan Ritesā are unknown as such in Tibet, except for what awareness of them has been raised by people asking about them in the context of the American phenomenon.
Hereās a good history book, for those interested:
The author didnāt originally set out to ādebunkā anything, and is himself a keen spiritualist (and practitioner of the five rites), but he was curious about the origins of the rites, and ultimately found themāas a collection of five rites, and the other assorted advices given by Kelderāto be an American synthesis in the whole, each part inspired by various different physical practices (some of them hatha yoga, some from the then-popular German gymnastics movement, some purely American spiritualism, all available in books that were popular in California in the early 1900s).
You may be wondering: why didnāt Kelder just say that, then, instead of telling stories of an ancient Tibetan tradition that empirically does not exist? The answer to this lies again in social science not health science, but itās been argued that itās common for Westerners to āpick ānā mixā ideas from the East, champion them as inscrutably mystical, and (since they are inscrutable) then simply decide how to interpret and represent them. Hereās an excellent book on this, if youāre interested:
Orientalism ā by Edward Said
(in Kelderās case, this meant that āthereās a Tibetan tradition, trust meā was thus more marketable in the West than āI read these books in LAā)
They are at least five rites: True or False?
True! If we use the broad definition of āriteā as āsomething done repeatedly in a solemn fashionā. And there are indeed five of them:
- Spinning around (good for balance)
- Leg raises (this oneās from German gymnastics)
- Kneeling back bend (various possible sources)
- Tabletop (hatha yoga, amongst others)
- Pendulum (hatha yoga, amongst others) ā you may recognize this one from the Sun Salutation
You can see them demonstrated here:
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Kelder also advocated for what was basically the Hay Diet (named not for the substance but for William Hay; it involved separating foods into acid and alkali, not necessarily according to the actual pH of the foods, and combining only āacidā foods or only āalkaliā foods at a time), which was popular at the time, but has since been rejected as without scientific merit. Kelder referred to this as āthe sixth riteā.
The Five Rites restore youth by adjusting internal vortexes: True or False?
False, in any scientific sense of that statement. Scientifically speaking, the body does not have vortexes to adjust, therefore that is not the mechanism of action.
Spiritually speaking, who knows? Not us, a humble health science publication.
The Five Rites are a pseudoscience popular in the US: True or False?
True, if 27% of those who responded of our mostly North American readership can be considered as representative of what is popular.
Howeverā¦
āPseudoscienceā gets thrown around a lot as a bad word; itās often used as a criticism, but it doesnāt have to be. Consider:
A small child who hears about āeating the rainbowā and mistakenly understands that we are all fuelled by internal rainbows that need powering-up by eating fruits and vegetables of different colors, and then does soā¦
ā¦does not hold a remotely scientific view of how things are happening, but is nevertheless doing the correct thing as recommended by our best current science.
Itās thus a little similar with the five rites. Becauseā¦
The Five Rites are at least good for our health: True or False?
True! They are great for the health.
The first one (spinning around) is good for balance. Science would recommend doing it both ways rather than just one way, but one is not bad. It trains balance, trains our stabilizing muscles, and confuses our heart a bit (in a good way).
See also: Fall Special (How To Not Fall, And Not Get Injured If You Do)
The second one (leg raises) is excellent for core strength, which in turn helps keep our organs where they are supposed to be (this is a bigger health issue than most people realise, because āout of sight, out of mindā), which is beneficial for many aspects of our health!
See also: Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It ā visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your internal organs; too much there becomes a problem!
The third, fourth, and fifth ones stretch our spine (healthily), strengthen our back, and in the cases of the fourth and fifth ones, are good full-body exercises for building strength, and maintaining muscle mass and mobility.
See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility
So in shortā¦
If youāve been enjoying the Five Rites, by all means keep on doing them; they might not be Tibetan (or an ancient practice, as presented), and any mystical aspect is beyond the scope of our health science publication, but they are great for the health in science-based ways!
Take care!