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I originally found this claim in a Facebook post:

Now, these temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust. The main idol is placed in the core center of the temple, known as “Garbhagriha” or Moolasthanam.

A Google search gave me many sites like this one with the same text (and many other similar claims about 'positive' energy in these temples) and have no citations whatsoever. Do these claims have any scientific backing?

Sklivvz
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Green Noob
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    Note that the magnetic north and south poles are not fixed and generally do not match the geographic north and south poles. This is do to magnetic changes in the Earth's core. So even if this temples are located at points "high on energy" at the time of building this effect should have been moved on by now. – Martin Scharrer Apr 03 '12 at 08:27
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    There seems to be two separate questions here: (a) are the temples ACTUALLY at places of positive energy, scientifically speaking? [Interjection: No. The term is scientifically meaningless.] (b) was there an strategy used to determine where to place the temples to maximise this supposed energy, or is this claim just invented? – Oddthinking Apr 03 '12 at 08:52
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    @Oddthinking - I think only B is on topic here until there is a claim of the energy being measurable. – Chad Apr 03 '12 at 12:39
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    Not sure if the `[physics]` and `[alternative-medicine]` tags are relevant here as it is more a question that applies to Hinduism. – rjzii Apr 03 '12 at 14:08
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    All: the claim specifically calls out "`the magnetic and electric wave distributions`" and thus the claim is **A** and not **B**. Let's not confuse the readers. – Sklivvz Apr 03 '12 at 16:31
  • @Sklivvz : The problem is that the claim is "the magnetic and electric wave distributions" and not "the magnetic and electric wave strength". The word distribution leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I would first to decide on a strategy to distinguish positive energy magnetic and elective wave distributions from bad energy distributions. Such a strategy doesn't exist to my knowledge and therefore the question is not about something that you can verify scientifically. – Christian Dec 21 '12 at 19:04
  • @Christian EM field distribution is actually measurable, [here is a paper on it](http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/p99/PAPERS/TUA167.pdf). – Sklivvz Dec 21 '12 at 20:05

1 Answers1

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With regards to the first part of your question, yes, there is a strategy for the selection of the sites for Hindu Temples that involves vastu shatra (more information) which describes the theoretical flow of energy on the basis of vaastu purusha. Sites for temples themselves are selected on the the local geography and specifically "near water, in forests and gardens, on mountaintops and in valleys, and especially in caves" which are believed to be places where the gods play and are happy.

With regards to the second part of the question, I couldn't find anything in peer reviewed journals as to the validity of the claims that there is any "energy" actually being manipulated. Doing a journal search I was able to find results on vastu shatra from the stand point of architecture, anthropological studies, or religion. There is a chance that there might be some research that has been published in a foreign language journal, but most likely the primary sources of discussion of the energies involved are going to be religious or spiritual texts or discussions about Hindu architecture.

One thing to note on my read is that this appears to be fairly new from the Western society standpoint at large when compared other systems such as feng shui so there is a chance that there hasn't been enough interest in it to do a proper analysis as well in the same way that you can find research into the feng shui.

rjzii
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    Erm, are we talking about some hindu *pseudo-energy* or real EM field? Your links support the first, the OP asks for the second. – Sklivvz Apr 03 '12 at 15:13
  • @Sklivvz - I was answering the question from the standpoint of the (B) clarification in comments between Oddthinking and Chad. Based upon that information the answer should be valid within the parameters. – rjzii Apr 03 '12 at 16:16
  • Gotcha - I'll add to the comments because they don't make any sense. – Sklivvz Apr 03 '12 at 16:30
  • @Sklivvz - Expanded the answer a bit from what it was before. – rjzii Apr 04 '12 at 12:33