Biological Possibilities in the Next Ten Thousand Years 
to include six chakra’s. This word, which is cognate with cycle 
and circle, is commonly translated as “lotus”, and numbers of 
“petals”? are given. It seems to me quite possible that intense 
introspection revealed various cyclical processes, including the 
alpha rhythm, and that the texts were misunderstood by later 
readers. The word chakra was frequently used for cyclical 
processes, such as those said to cause rebirth. Naturally enough 
they were represented by wheels. Other mystics report sensa- 
tions located in their own bodies. Many Indian mystics say 
that the perception of God includes a feeling like sexual pleasure 
felt throughout the body. St. Teresa described the sensation as 
pain, but welcomed it. 
I suggest that these people are in touch with reality, though 
not perhaps the reality which they think, as the alchemists 
undoubtedly were, and that the future of human biology in- 
cludes a voluntary control over various bodily functions and a 
consciousness of them which will be related to yoga much as 
chemistry is related to alchemy. Yogis claim to be healthier 
than other people, and I think they are probably correct in 
their claims. I have little doubt that the autophysiologists of 
the future will be unusually healthy. We are quite ignorant of 
the extent of human congenital variation in respect of the 
capacity either for obtaining information about events inside 
our bodies, or of controlling unstriped muscles and glands. 
I suggest that one of the urgent tasks before physiologists is 
the investigation of these obscure sensations by implanted 
electrodes, supersonic focusing, and similar methods. I think 
such artificial stimulation, which would inevitably arouse emo- 
tions among other things, could be of great social value. Liter- 
ature is socially valuable largely because it enables us to share 
the emotions of murderers like Orestes and Macbeth, suicides 
like Romeo and Juliet, tyrants like Xerxes and Tamerlane. 
Hence we are better able to control such emotions when we 
encounter them in ourselves, and to take avoiding reaction 
when we meet them in others. 
The third question, as to present evolutionary trends, is very 
hard to answer. When we know how a character is determined 
Ss 
