Sinister Yogis by David Gordon White (PDF)

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. Please note: The digital edition does not include 1 of the 24 images that appear in the physical edition.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐While the title seems to demand a corrective recognition of the breadth of yogic practices and motivations, Sinister Yogis is instead a significant supplement to our understanding of Indian religion. David White is very clear in delineating between the exposition of yoga in practice manuals (which has been addressed significantly by other scholars & authors) versus his own project, which is documenting the popular social assessment of yogis through narratives from different strata and times throughout Indian history. Anyone with an interest in India or religious history will find this book a fascinating and pleasurable read.However, I want to address what I see as the two “elephants in the room” that are everywhere implied in this book yet never spoken. The first is the obviously shamanic nature of the experiences White is chronicling. They fit quite neatly into the mode of what contemporary researchers call either Out of Body Experiences (O.B.E.s) or Near Death Experiences (N.D.E.s). Given White’s training at Chicago and significant exposure to the Eliadian discourse (itself a largely “pan-shamanic” enterprise), it is quite odd that the word “shaman” is never referenced in this book, even if it were to be discounted as an outdated trope. With this omission, White misses the opportunity to set his study within a much wider context of religious chronicles of experiences with non-ordinary states of consciousness.Which brings me to the second “elephant”: entheogens. Pretty much everyone who has studied Indian religion is aware of the (at minimum) rhetorical importance of soma, the divine elixir of the gods that was clearly a powerful visionary plant ally. White devotes a great deal of his study to (in particular) Vedic descriptions of soul journeys that predominantly begin with death (or near death) on the battlefield. It is also well know that warriors drank soma prior to engaging in battle, so is it really all that hard to conceive that they might find themselves leaving this world in the manner of Aldous Huxley? Again, I think the omission of any discussion of the relationship between soma consumption and the Vedic notion of visionary ascent (or yogic possession) represents a major missed opportunity. I don’t mean to argue that all yogic altered states of consciousness are drug induced, but to survey the spectrum of non-ordinary states of consciousness reported by Indian yogis and their chroniclers without acknowledging the persistent and significant influence of the soma cult throughout Indian history strikes me as an unfortunate oversight.Overall though there is MUCH to be gained from this very accessible and richly textured study. In these days of institutionalized religion and ossified belief systems, SOMEBODY has to provide us with telling observations such as “there could be no doubt that the vedic seers and the Buddha himself were clearly `experientialists’ whose supernatural attainments, so championed in the narrative literature, cannot be ignored.” (p. 112) White is a scholar who reminds us through his work that to be a yogi is more than to venerate a predecessor’s yogic path. One must journey, and one must see.

⭐This is definitely not for the casual reader…it’s dense with hypothesis, examples, citations, quotes, lists…almost written like a thesis, and geared for the academic reader. Editorially, it is not organized for the average Jane/Joe…you will get lost in the density of the supporting examples…it is not an easy read, but it is nevertheless informative.For example, the word yogi, according to the author, denoted a cannibalistic Bacchus-like character, and/or a shape(human)-shifter. Only much later did “yogi” take on more a positive, spiritual context. At the same time, “yogi” could also denote a charlatan, a side-show (man could hold his breath for one hour, etc), and even a grifter. There is even some interesting information on the Naths and their political power.Yogi/yogini did not always mean a person who does stretching poses to get ready for meditation, nor did it denote a spiritual leader. The author contends that it was only in recent history that asanas (positions) were established, and that more positive associations were linked to yogis. And it will surprise you to know of the actual origin and context of asana. This latter information is not terribly new (see Paul Brunyon and NE Sjoman), and is only briefly discussed in this book.I do agree with others reviewers in that the shamanistic aspect of the yogi is not as emphasized as much as the sinister aspect, but this may have been addressed in previous writings. Also, the author is probably trying to draw readers to yoga history by giving the topic a little more controversy.If you want a fast, easy, history of yoga, I would read the preface to “Yoga” by Linda Sparrowe, but if you already have a few yoga history books on the shelf, this would be a good addition to your learning.

⭐A History of “Yogis”: Classic yogic tales from authorized texts of IndiaWhite, in Sinister Yogis, takes readers on a metaphysical and scholarly romp through the realms of yoga practitioners, yogis, and their classical texts from prehistory through to the present. “Nearly every history of `yoga’ to date has in fact been a history of meditation”, says White in his Preface to this book. Our author takes a different approach in this book and presents yogi’s and their practices (the entire range of yogis), not only the self-realized contemplatives, hatha yogis, raja yogis, tantric, karma and bhakti yogis.Each of these characters below from India’s past were engaged in some way in yogic and yogi practice:- wandering hermits who take over other peoples bodies;- vedic chariot warriors who pierce the disk of the sun during death on the battlefield;- philosophers who establish foundations of true perception and cognition;- contemplatives who see themselves in god and god in themselves;- mercenaries who sought fortunes from the spoils of war.Readers discover that yogis and yogic methods are much more versatile, powerful, and sometimes diabolical than what is typically portrayed in the meditation and yoga histories we read here in the West.Westerners, myself included, hold a romantic idea that yogis are primarily mystical holy men and women–saints with supernatural powers, divinely-self realized, and experienced in samadhi meditaton, and initiated from ancient lineages of enlightened gurus. The wisdom of the East, embodied in the self-realized yogis, is all we seem to know about (or want to know). But, White confronts us with yogis who are holy men and bogeymen–he shows compelling evidence of kindly characters but often also sinister yogis are what we find in the authorized Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. Also, in South Asia, in Bollywood films, and in Hindu bedtime stories yogis are often depicted as control freaks, body snatchers, alchemists and casters of spells. We, Westerners, likely will not hear of these “other” yogi stories–until we read White’s Sinister Yogis.If you easily get defensive at suggestions that not all yogis and yoga practices may be “good, warm, and fuzzy”, then this book may not be for you. For everyone else, White’s Yoga scholarship and book is packed with fascinating stories and facts of yogis and yogic practices from prehistory to post modern times. I highly recommend this book.

⭐Als Einstieg für die Erarbeitung des Bedeutungsfeldes des Begriffes “Yogi” benutzt der Autor populäre Erzählzyklen aus dem indischen Mittelalter (Vikrama / Vetali Zyklen).Hier wird schon klar, dass in Indien ein Yogi keinesfalls ein Heiliger sein musste, sondern – zumindest in der Populärliteratur – durchaus der guten oder bösen Hexe / dem guten oder bösen Zauberer in abendländischen Erzählungen gleichzusetzen war.Danach verfolgt er die Begriffe “Yoga” und “Yogi”, besonders auch den technischen Begriff “yogayukta”, durch die indische Sakralliteratur von den Veden bis in die Neuzeit.Es wird auch deutlich, dass die heutigen Assoziationsfelder für Yoga / Yogi mehr mit der indischen Kolonialzeit und darauffolgender (Hatha-)Yoga Neu-/Wiedererfindung zu tun haben, als mit den alten Bedeutungsfeldern.Ein Yogi in alten Sinne konnte sich selbst in eine andere Person (tot oder lebendig) versetzen. Dazu kommen noch weitere Fähigkeiten, die bei verschiedenen Yogis auftreten können (Vervielfachung etc).D.h. ein Yogi konnte vielleicht nicht sich selbst verknoten, und die Bedeutung von Pranayama blieb – wenn überhaupt – eher auf Ebene Atemanhalten.Dafür hat er aber auf jeden Fall Siddhis; und die Moral spielt bei der Bezeichnung als Yogi keine Rolle.Das Buch ist sehr scholastisch und kein einfacher Lesestoff, daher ist es nur bedingt zu empfehlen.Wem aber die Fülle der exakten Daten nicht schreckt – und das es sich wirklich nicht wie ein Roman liest -, der hat eine fundierte Wissenssammlung über die Begriffe “Yoga” und “Yogi” jenseits romantisierender Umdeutung.

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⭐libro imperdibile per chi si occupi di yoga a qualunque livello, per comprendere quanta distanza vi sia tra la spesso pretesa ‘originalità’ degli yoga contemporanei e la tradizione antica

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⭐very precious point of view for any tantric practitioner Interesting for historical view and even more so for personal practice enormous quantity of further reading references from someone that didn’t obviously just think about it but that has been spending a lot of time on a meditation cushion (sinister yogi)

⭐Ouvrage drôle, spirituel qui dévoile le cynisme et l’avidité des sois disant enseignants de yoga.Cela devait être dit et écrit. Un livre à lire.

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