Sinister Yogis Sinister Yogis

Sinister Yogis

    • $34.99
    • $34.99

Publisher 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.

GENRE
Religion & Spirituality
RELEASED
2010
July 15
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
376
Pages
PUBLISHER
University of Chicago Press
SELLER
Chicago Distribution Center
SIZE
8.5
MB

More Books by David Gordon White

The "Yoga Sutra of Patanjali" The "Yoga Sutra of Patanjali"
2014
Yoga in Practice Yoga in Practice
2011
Kiss of the Yogini Kiss of the Yogini
2006
The Alchemical Body The Alchemical Body
2012
Daemons Are Forever Daemons Are Forever
2021
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
2022