The story of systems with 9, 12, and 13 chakras, from Barbara Brennan and Cyndi Dale to Human Design and the new maps of consciousness

For nearly a century, the seven-chakra system was the dominant map of Western spirituality. It appeared in books, yoga courses, energy therapies, transpersonal psychology, coaching and wellness culture. For millions of people, the seven centres became a familiar schema of the subtle body — a story about emotions, identity, intuition and meaning.

And yet, in recent decades, something has shifted. Other models began to appear: nine chakras, ten chakras, twelve chakras, thirteen chakras. Sometimes even more.

Why? Because as interest in consciousness expanded, many contemporary schools concluded that the old map no longer described the full human experience.

The classical seven-chakra model is built around the individual — body, emotions, mind, spirit. But after the 1980s a new question emerges, almost inevitably: what lies beyond the individual? Beyond personal story? Beyond identity?

And so models begin to appear that include the relationship with the Earth, the relationship with ancestors, the collective field, transpersonal dimensions, planetary consciousness, cosmic consciousness. This is not a simple technical extension — it is a shift in perspective: from individual psychology to the geography of consciousness.

A necessary clarification: the earlier articles in this series referred to academic researchers — historians of religions, philologists, anthropologists — who study texts and traditions from a scholarly perspective. The authors presented in this article (Brennan, Dale, Judith, De Stefano, Ra Uru Hu) are figures of contemporary spirituality: teachers, practitioners, creators of systems. They operate in the space of spiritual exploration, not academic research. Their perspectives are not less valuable for that — but their epistemic status is different, and deserves to be treated as such.

And one of the figures who opens this new stage is Barbara Brennan.

Barbara Brennan and the expansion of the energetic field

Barbara Brennan is one of the most influential figures in contemporary spirituality. A former atmospheric physics researcher at NASA and founder of an energy‑healing school, she brings in the 1980s–1990s a completely new vision of the subtle body.

For Brennan, the chakras are no longer the center of the story, but nodes in a multidimensional energetic field that extends far beyond the limits of the physical body.

In her works — Hands of Light and Light Emerging — she offers a detailed description of the aura as a layered structure, overlapping energy levels, emotional, mental and spiritual fields, flows of energy circulating in and beyond the body, and the interactions between the personal field and the collective field.

In this model, chakras become points of energy entry and exit, centers for processing subtle information, interfaces between levels of the field, and mechanisms through which consciousness expresses itself in matter. But they are no longer sufficient to describe the full complexity of being.

Brennan introduces the idea that the energy field extends several meters around the body, that there are levels of the aura that go beyond the seven chakras, that there are secondary, tertiary and transpersonal centers, and that there are points of connection with the Earth, with ancestors and with higher planes of consciousness.

As a result, many schools influenced by her begin to speak of centers above the head (the Soul Star, the Spirit Star), centers below the feet (the Earth Chakra), lateral or peripheral centers, and interface points with the collective field.

In this vision, the human being is no longer just a system of seven centers, but an expanding field,a multidimensional structure in which the chakras are only part of a far vaster architecture. Brennan does not "add" chakras — she expands the map,opening space for a new understanding of consciousness, one that includes the relationship with the planet, with others, and with the universe.

Cyndi Dale and the popularization of extended systems

If Barbara Brennan opened the space for the idea of a multidimensional energetic field, Cyndi Dale is the one who brought this perspective into the mainstream. Probably no other author has contributed more to the spread of many-chakra systems in contemporary spirituality.

In her vast and encyclopedic works, Dale brings together energy models from diverse traditions — shamanic, Asian, Western mystical, Theosophical, psychological and transpersonal. From this broad comparison she observes something essential: there is no single universal map of the chakras,but multiple ways in which cultures have described the relationship between body, energy, and consciousness.

Instead of searching for the “correct” model, Dale proposes a flexible perspective: each system is a useful metaphor, a different lens through which to view human experience.

Her writings thus include models with 7 chakras as well as with 9, 12, 13 or even more centers, some positioned at the front of the body, at the back, in the field or in subtle planes. She introduces important distinctions: personal and transpersonal chakras, centers connected to the body and centers connected to the collective field, levels linked to the Earth and levels linked to cosmic dimensions.

This approach becomes extremely influential in modern spiritual literature. For the first time, the chakras are presented not as a fixed system, but as an open, adaptable, ever‑evolving language.Dale does not merely popularizes extended systems — she normalizes them.She transforms them into a tool for exploration rather than a dogma.

If Brennan expanded the field, Dale expands the language,opening space for a spirituality in which maps do not exclude one another, but complement one another.

Anodea Judith — the psychology of chakras and the map of personal development

If Barbara Brennan extended the field and Cyndi Dale extended the language, Anodea Judith is the one who made chakras intelligible to the Western public through a profound psychology of the subtle centers.

In works such as Wheels of Life and Eastern Body, Western Mind, Judith proposes a unique synthesis of Tantric symbolism, humanistic psychology, attachment theory, child development, trauma and resilience, and the dynamics of emotions and the body.

For Judith, chakras are not merely energy centers or spiritual symbols. They are archetypes of human development, stages through which we pass from birth to maturity, each carrying its own themes: safety, relationship, personal power, love, expression, vision, meaning.

In this vision, chakra blockages are not "energy problems" but traces of emotional experience: trauma, attachment ruptures, conditioning, relational patterns. Judith thus offers a language through which chakras become maps of healing, therapeutic tools, landmarks of emotional maturation, bridges between body, psyche and spirituality.

Her contribution is decisive: she is the one who transformed chakras into a coherent psychological model, accessible to therapists, coaches, yoga practitioners and those interested in personal development. If Brennan opened the field and Dale opened the language, Judith opened the interior — she made chakras relevant to the emotional life of the modern human being.

The emergence of transpersonal chakras

Beginning in the 1980s–1990s, as the New Age movement matures and interest in transpersonal dimensions of consciousness grows, a subtle but profound shift appears: the chakras are no longer seen only as an inner system, but as interface points between the individual and the larger fields of existence..

The first of these extensions is what many schools call The Soul Star Chakra, plasată la 20–40 cm deasupra capului. Ea este asociată cu: scopul sufletului, sensul vieții, memoria spirituală și conexiunea cu dimensiunile transpersonale. Această chakră marchează trecerea de la psihologia individuală la to the geography of the soul..

From here, models with eight and nine chakras develop, in which the human being is no longer described only through body and emotions, but also through its relationship with subtle planes of existence. As interest in spiritual dimensions expands, even more complex systems appear — with ten, twelve, or even thirteen chakras. Some come from modern Kundalini Yoga lineages, others from Western energy schools, others from contemporary syntheses of mysticism, psychology, and spiritual cosmology.

These models frequently include:

• The Earth Chakra — connection with the planet, embodiment, ancestral memory.
• The Soul Star Chakra — soul identity and evolutionary direction.
• Thymus Chakra — expanded compassion, healing, collective consciousness.
• The Spirit Star Chakra — higher levels of consciousness, monadic planes.
• Divine Gateway — access to subtle dimensions of creation.
• Unity Consciousness — perception of the interconnectedness of all things.

The emphasis is no longer solely on the development of the individual. The focus shifts to the individual’s participation in a larger field of consciousness — planetary, collective, cosmic.

In this direction there also appear concepts such as the Adamantine Grid — a term used in some energy schools to describe a subtle network of light or information said to connect all forms of life, seen as a "matrix" of evolution, a field in which collective transformations of consciousness are inscribed — and Christic Consciousness, associated not with any specific religious tradition but with a state of consciousness characterized by compassion, unity and the perception of the sacred nature of existence.

These models do not seek to replace tradition — they extend it, translate it into the language of an era that seeks meaning not only within but in the vastness of the universe.

The nine‑chakra system

In many contemporary schools, the extension of the classical model happens not only “upward,” toward higher dimensions of consciousness, but also “downward,” toward the body, the Earth, and embodiment.

Models thus appear that include the soles of the feet and the knees as centers of direction, movement and relationship with concrete life, followed by root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye and crown. The emphasis shifts from the idea of spiritual ascension toward a broader understanding of incarnation: not only "how we ascend" but "how we inhabit our own existence" — how we settle into body, into destiny, into the rhythm of the planet.

n this direction stands also the vision of Matías De Stefano — a contemporary Argentine spiritual teacher (b. 1987), known for his lectures and documentaries on cosmic memory, spiritual evolution and multidimensional consciousness. He does not operate in the space of academic research or philology but in that of experiential contemporary spirituality. Unlike an Alexis Sanderson or an André Padoux, who analyze texts from a historical and philological perspective, De Stefano proposes a cosmology grounded in direct spiritual experience and intuition — a different kind of knowledge, which should be read as such.

De Stefano does not propose a fixed chakra system but an architecture of consciousness in which the human being is seen as a node between Earth, body, memory, soul and cosmic fields. For him, the centers are not merely psychological levels but gateways through which information circulates between dimensions: some linked to incarnation and history, others to identity and expression, others to the higher planes of consciousness.

In this perspective, the nine‑chakra model becomes a map of continuity between body and cosmos, between personal life and universal memory — an attempt to describe the human being not as a closed system, but as a living intersection between worlds.

In many of his lectures and works, De Stefano speaks of the idea that memory does not belong to the individual alone. Just as the body retains traces of its own history and families transmit stories and experiences across generations, there is also a broader memory inscribed in the very structure of the planet and of humanity. In this perspective, consciousness is not isolated within a single person but participates continuously in a vaster field of information and experience.

For De Stefano, spiritual evolution does not mean escaping the world, but participating more consciously in it. The human being is not seen as a separate entity trying to reach a higher level, but as a meeting point between matter and consciousness, between the memory of the Earth and the potential of the cosmos. This is why many of his representations emphasize both roots and embodiment, as well as connections that transcend individual identity.

This shift in perspective reflects one of the major tendencies of contemporary spirituality. If classical models described primarily the inner transformation of the individual, many current systems attempt to understand the individual’s relationship with broader networks of belonging: the human family, the planet, ecosystems, and what is perceived as an intelligence present throughout the universe.

Human Design and the 9 energetic centers

Human Design represents a distinct case in the evolution of contemporary energy models. Like Gene Keys and many of the energy systems that have appeared in recent decades, Human Design is a contemporary construction developed at the end of the twentieth century, drawing on and reinterpreting elements from different traditions and disciplines: the I Ching, astrology, Kabbalah, quantum physics and yogic chakras.

The system was created by Ra Uru Hu — the spiritual name adopted by Alan Krakower (1948–2011), a Canadian who described Human Design as the result of an intense spiritual experience in 1987, not as the product of academic study or a prolonged traditional practice. This is a relevant distinction: unlike the historians and philologists cited in the earlier articles in this series, Ra Uru Hu is the founder of a contemporary spiritual system, with all the implications that brings — originality, but also the absence of academic verifiability.

Here we are not witnessing an extension of the chakra system but a structural transformation of it.The traditional seven-chakra model is not preserved, nor multiplied, but — it is reconfigured into a completely different architecture: nine energetic centers.

In Human Design, these centers are described as mechanisms for processing energy and information, each with a specific function. They are:

• Head Center – inspiration, mental pressure, questions.
• Ajna Center – conceptualization, analysis, interpretation.
• Throat Center – manifestation, communication, transformation.
• G Center – identity, direction, love.
• Heart/Ego/Will Center – willpower, commitment, personal value.
• Solar Plexus (Emotional Center) – emotional waves, clarity over time.
• Sacral Center – life force, response, vital energy.
• Spleen Center – instinct, survival, bodily intuition.
• Root Center – pressure, motivation, evolutionary impulse.

In this architecture, several functions that in the chakra system were grouped within the same centers are redistributed across nine distinct centers. According to the system proposed by Ra Uru Hu, this change is symbolically associated with the discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781 and marks the transition from "the seven-centered being" to "the nine-centered being" — a narrative internal to the system, without correspondence in the Indian traditions or in academic research.

The centers are not "blocked" or "harmonized." They are defined (stable, consistent, predictable), undefined (open, sensitive to environment, amplifying), or completely open (spaces of learning and wisdom). Human Design shifts the emphasis from spirituality to what it describes as energetic mechanics, from symbol to function, and from the question "how should we be" to the idea that each person has their own way of operating.

For Ra Uru Hu, the nine centers are not the goal of the system — they are the framework through which a central principle can be understood: every human being has their own nature and a unique way of navigating life. The fundamental problem described by the system is not a lack of spiritual development but what Human Design calls conditioning: the unconscious absorption of family expectations, social norms and collective fears. To return to one's own nature, the system proposes two central concepts — Strategy (the way each energetic type is invited to interact with life) and Authority (the inner form of decision-making). Human Design thus appears not merely as a new energy map but as a system proposing a different perspective on personal development: not the accumulation of techniques or the reaching of a higher level of consciousness, but the process of becoming what one already is.

Gene Keys — from mechanics to contemplation

From Human Design emerges Gene Keysa system created by Richard Rudd, which preserves the structure of the 64 gates but shifts the focus from energetic mechanics to the transformation of consciousness..

If Human Design describes how a person’s energy functions, Gene Keys describes the inner potential of that same energy — the way it can evolve, mature and radiate into the world. Instead of fixed centers and definitions, Gene Keys introduces a contemplative approach: each key is a frequency, a spectrum running from shadow to gift to essence. The map is no longer merely a mechanism but a living process of inner refinement.

For many people who arrive at Human Design, Gene Keys becomes the natural next step: a transition from structure to meaning, from design to destiny, from energetic architecture to the alchemy of consciousness.

In many contemporary currents, this extension of the chakra system is also connected to the idea of the light body: not as objective proof of a subtle anatomy, but as an image of a being no longer perceived solely through the physical body or the seven classical centers. The light body becomes a broad metaphor for this new spiritual sensibility: the human being as presence in field, as relational structure, as a node between Earth, memory, consciousness and cosmos.

From "ascension" to "expansion"

In the classical yoga traditions, chakras were linked to an inner journey: the awakening of Kundalini energy. The energy rose from the base of the spine through the subtle centers in a vertical movement oriented toward liberation and the union of individual energy with universal consciousness.

In contemporary systems, this image begins to change. Energy is no longer described only as a force that rises, but as a movement that circulates: downward, toward the Earth; outward, toward the collective field; inward, toward memory and ancestors; upward, toward transpersonal planes.

From here arises one of the major differences between classical and modern models. We no longer speak only of ascension but of expansion. Not only of the awakening of an inner energy, but of the widening of the relationship between individual, body, planet, humanity and cosmos. The new energy centers appear precisely to express this shift in perspective. They do not necessarily say that the human being has "more chakras" in a literal sense, but that contemporary spirituality needs a broader map for the experiences it is attempting to describe.

Looking at all these models — from the seven classical chakras to systems with nine, twelve or thirteen centers, from Kundalini to Human Design, from Brennan's fields to De Stefano's cosmic architectures — it becomes clear that we are not speaking only of energy structures.

We are speaking of how every era draws its own map of being.

In Tantra, chakras were gateways to awakening. In Theosophy, mechanisms of the soul's evolution. In modern psychology, symbols of inner transformation. In the New Age, maps of personal development. In contemporary models, they become interface points between individual, planet and cosmos.

This appears to be the profound shift of our time: from ascension to expansion, from the interior to interconnection, from individual to field.

Perhaps the new chakras speak not only of a multiplication of centers, but of a multiplication of perspectives. Not of making the map more complicated, but of widening the horizon.

Chakras remain a living language. And this language continues to rewrite itself along with the way the human being attempts to understand themselves: not as a separate being, but as part of a larger weave of life.

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If you would like to continue this exploration, the series traces the history and evolution of chakras from their roots in India to contemporary models. These article are not an academic resource, but a narrative synthesis.

Art 1 : Chakras — the story before the West

Art 2 : Chakras in the West: reinvention, psychology, and New Age

Art 4: Chakras between history, symbol, and experience

Art 5 : Modern Indian voices on chakras and Kundalini

And if you’re interested in how these models can be used in practice — in multidimensional constellations and in exploring human experience— you can also read the article „Chakrele – o hartă a luminii care ne traversează”.

In the guides the Architecture of Being series, my interest is different: not where these maps come from, but what happens when we use them in practice. There, the chakras and subtle bodies become representatives in the constellation field — meeting points between body, emotions, family memory, and human experience.

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Perhaps no map can contain the entire territory. But sometimes the right map can help us see more clearly the path we are walking.