A good read for those interested in or with experience among such
yogis, actual or self-proclaimed.
http://www.amazon.com/Sinister-Yogis-David-Gordon-White/dp/0226895130
"Yogis do not fare better with the authorized scriptures of certain
medieval sects: the Vaisnava Jayakhya Samhita calls yogis "cruel
beings" and classifies them together with evildoers, the demonic dead
(bhutas), and zombies (vetalas). Even today, sinister yogis are stock
villains in Bollywood film plots, and as soon as one ventures out
from the subcontinents metropolitan areas, yogis are such objects of
dread and fear that parents threaten disobedient children with them:
"Be good or the yogi will come and take you away." Yogis are
bogeymen, control freaks, cannibals and terror mongers.
Sinister Yogis [Hardcover]
David Gordon White (Author)
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is a riveting account of the early history of yoga and yogis
in India that weighs the perspectives of both the yogis and the
public culture of yoga. The history of yoga practice, and of yogis,
is finally receiving the critical attention from scholars that will
alter the views made popular by modern yoga teachers who believe
their doctrines of mental and physical culture constitutes
‘classical yoga.’ David White’s entertaining and intelligent
account of yogis drawn largely from Hindi and Sanskrit sources will
contribute enormously to this corrective project. White has a real
gift for making difficult, opaque material comprehensible, and he
does so in writing that is bright and lucid.”—Frederick M. Smith,
University of Iowa
(Frederick M. Smith )
“White swept us up with The Alchemical Body and blew us away with
Kiss of the Yogini. Now along comes Sinister Yogis. Prepare to be
taken over completely by this final installment in White’s
‘siddha’ trilogy. These are no ordinary yogis, at least not in the
way yogis have been conceived for many a generation, and not simply
by Western scholars and spiritual entrepreneurs. And they are not
figures of a literary imagination. They are flesh and bone—when they
want to be—and they have walked among us, making and remaking the
world. White unravels a vast and interlacing literature on the theory
and practice—and especially practitioners—of yoga, ranging from
Harappa to the British Raj, and all points in between, and he
demonstrates time and again that self projection and body possession,
what he calls ‘omni-presencing’, are the keys to South Asian
religion.”—William R. Pinch, Wesleyan University
(William R. Pinch )
“In this fascinating counter-history of yoga, White shows us that
the slim slice of yoga we Americans practice, and even the yoga most
academics study, is leaving quite a lot of yoga’s deep roots
out. . . . White offers a surprising, counterintuitive take on the
roots of an extraordinary, sometimes mystical discipline.”—Barnes
& Noble Review
(Barnes & Noble Review )
"Sinister Yogis . . . successfully provides a fuller, more
contextualized history of yoga, opening up some of the elisions that
come when a tradition goes cross-cultural."—Times Literary Supplement
(Times Literary Supplement )
"Huge fun, fascinating, and beautifully written."
(Fortean Times )
"This wondrously captivating, richly detailed book is a must for
anyone interested in conceptions of the Indian yogī and of yogic
practice."—Choice
(Choice )
Product Description
Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the
West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged.
But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-
century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga’s origins
in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than
most of us realize.
To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga’s
practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and
diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as
wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural
abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and
levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As
White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear
little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns
rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of
yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in
their proper context.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Hardcover: 376 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226895130
ISBN-13: 978-0226895130
