Sinister Yogis

By: David Gordon White

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Paperback | 30 March 2011 | Edition Number 1

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376 Pages

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2.29 x 1.55 x 0.22

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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.

Industry Reviews

"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) "This wondrously captivating, richly detailed book is a must for anyone interested in conceptions of the Indian yogi and of yogic practice." (Choice)"

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction History Regional & National History Asian History Family & Health Fitness & Diet Exercise & Workout Books Religion & Beliefs Hinduism Aspects of Religion for Non-Christians Spirituality & Religious Experience Religion

History of Religion Religious Institutions & Organisations Religious & Spiritual Leaders Buddhism Other Non-Christian Religions

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Note on Transliteration	p. xvii
Abbreviations	p. xix
Tales of Sinister Yogis	p. 1
Ceci n'est pas un Yogi	p. 38
Embodied Ascent, Meditation, and Yogic Suicide	p. 83
The Science of Entering Another Body	p. 122
Yogi Gods	p. 167
Mughal, Modern, and Postmodern Yogis	p. 198
Notes	p. 255
Bibliography	p. 303
Index	p. 337
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Sinister Yogis

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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