Reviews for Sinister Yogis

The average rating for Sinister Yogis based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-08-29 00:00:00 David Dipple White's book is textually rich, and manages to convey the essence of the diverse varieties of historical yogic doctrines and praxis. His central thesis is that today's multimillion dollar industry of eclectic yoga has little to do the "historical", "doctrinal", and "soteriological" yoga of ancient India, and in fact it is a product of Swami Vivekananda's poor understanding and unbounded enthusiasm about yoga philosophies. Essentially, yoga had nothing to do with enhancing one's health, or losing weight right until the 1930's when there appeared a string of ill informed proponents, from Swami Vivekananda to Madam Helena Blavatsky, who collectively created an atmosphere where idiosyncratic "yoga" systems with their emphasis on postures, breathing, and meditation became the norm. Paramhansa Yogananda's mission of unifying yoga with Western theological traditions, in his own syncretic and unified view, also went a long way in encouraging developments like California yoga, designer yoga etc. The practice of yoga historically was about the ability to possess others' bodies at will, read others' minds, possess and enliven corpses for personal gain, and ascend to the sun in ritual apotheosis as a warrior ascetic. During yoga's formative development, as a local response to Brahmanism, yogis were looked upon with general unease: they were infamous for their sexual exploits, one reportedly sinister sage would multiply himself into six identical bodies, and copulate with six women simultaneously because of his yogic powers as a "mahayogi". A particularly brilliant incident detailed in the book pertains to Emperor Akbar, who during his long phase of religious experimentations became enamoured by magician yogis. According to one report, which White documents, once a famous "jougee" came to visit the emperor as he had learned of his interest in the discipline. Akbar asked him for a demonstration, to put his soul into a fawn which was in the palace, the yogi did this and then put the emperor's soul back in his own body. Then, his interest awakened, Akbar asked the jougee to put his soul into his body, and asked that the jougee's soul to be allowed to enter his own. This too the jougee performed, and then put the emperor's soul back in his own body. Now the emperor was convinced of this man's supernatural power, and he promised him his patronage. But, secretly he was afraid of this man's insane abilities and he ordered his soldiers to decapitate him as he prepared to leave. This the soldiers did. But, the ministers, and courtiers then noticed that Emperor Akbar was a totally changed man. He did not have any memories of his own life, and took to his harem with renewed and unseemly voluptuousness, and his manners had changed noticeably. The writer, a traveler, gives an account of the local opinion of Akbar's courtiers and ministers: they were convinced that the jougee had divined Akbar's plan to assassinate him and had switched souls with the emperor before he was decapitated.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-16 00:00:00 Virginia Wilbur Excellent, objective work on the yogic tradition, surfing easily over it's new age and neo-saffron reclamation. This is how this book is useful to those who practice and love yoga: to understand the troubled history of this practice to foreground it's super capitalistic at present. One can choose to retain what is good for personal practice.