The Chandian Effect: Explaining the Modus Operandi Behind Near-Death Experiences, Religious Visions, and Other Paranormal Projections

The Chandian Effect describes subjective visionary manifestations in which a devotee has a transpersonal encounter involving a sacred figure or form, of which the object of devotion is unaware. The term was first coined by David C. Lane, and so called because Faqir Chand was the first Sant Mat guru to speak at length about the unknowing aspects of such encounters. The effect designates two major factors in these manifestations: 1. The overwhelming experience of certainty that is associated with religious ecstasies. 2. The subjective projection of sacred forms by a meditator or devotee without the conscious knowledge of the object beheld as the center of the experience. Faqir Chand revealed that all gurus are ignorant about the real cause of the visions and miracles attributed to them, and that because of this ignorance, the gurus gained power and devotion from followers that accredited omnipresence and omniscience to them even though these gurus possessed neither.