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UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Here Comes The Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3c55f73q Author Pokazanyeva, Anna Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Here Comes The Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies by Anna Pokazanyeva Committee in charge: Professor Barbara A. Holdrege, Chair Professor David Gordon White Professor Rudy V. Busto December 2015 The dissertation of Anna Pokazanyeva is approved. ____________________________________________ David Gordon White ____________________________________________ Rudy V. Busto ____________________________________________ Barbara A. Holdrege, Committee Chair September 2015 Here Comes The Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda Copyright © 2015 by Anna Pokazanyeva iii VITA OF ANNA POKAZANYEVA September 2015 EDUCATION Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara, Religious Studies, expected 2015 M.A., University of California at Santa Barbara, Religious Studies, 2011 B.A., Rutgers University, English, French, minors in Religion and South Asian Studies, 2008 PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 2015 Lecturer, Religious Studies Program, California Polytechnic State University 2013-4 Teaching Associate (Summer Session), Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara 2010-13 Teaching Assistant, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: South Asian and American Religions Studies in Discourses of the Body in South Asia with Professor Barbara A. Holdrege Studies in Tantric Ritual with Professor David Gordon White Studies in American Metaphysical Religions with Professor Catherine L. Albanese iv ABSTRACT Here Comes The Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda by Anna Pokazanyeva This study examines the figure of the Yogi as he moves from nineteenth-century colonial India into the Western, and specifically American, imagination and historical landscape. The study utilizes Paramahansa Yogananda as a case study and approaches his role and contributions from two perspectives: a literary critical approach to his writings and a historical account of the contexts that serve to illuminate his work and career especially where they contribute to our understanding of the modern interaction between Indian and Western thought. Chapters 1 and 2 trace a broad history of Yogis and Yogi-figures, first contextualizing them in their original Indian framework before moving to Western portrayals and interactions. Chapter 3 surveys Yogananda’s life through the lens of sources other than his famous Autobiography, while Chapter 4 analyzes on Yogananda’s teachings in the United States as reflecting the concerns of Progressive Era capitalism and scientific universalism. Finally, Chapter 5 examines the Autobiography itself as a carefully constructed narrative of Yogananda’s spiritual growth and identity as a Yogi. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii Dramatis Personae ....................................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER 1: The Turbaned Superman ....................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 2: Yogis Without Borders .......................................................................................... 79 CHAPTER 3: Biography of a Yogi ............................................................................................ 128 CHAPTER 4: Your Superpowers Revealed ............................................................................... 180 CHAPTER 5: Astral Siddhas and Yogi Christs ......................................................................... 219 EPILOGUE ................................................................................................................................. 258 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 278 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1“Bed of Thorns,” National Geographic 24 (1913). .............................................. 41 Figure 1.2 “American Women Victims of Hindu Mysticism,” The Washington Post, February 12, 1912. ......................................................................................................... 73 Figure 1.3 Film advertisement for The Love Girl (1916) in The Moving Picture World (July 1916). ............................................................................................................................. 76 Figure 3.1 Yogananda’s audience in Los Angeles on February 22, 1925. East-West 1.1, p 17. ..................................................................................................................................... 150 Figure 3.2 “Swami Buys Swanky Automobile,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1925, p. G3. ............................................................................................................................... 151 Figure 3.3 Hamid Bey advertisement in Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1931, p. 9. ............... 166 Figure 3.4 Hamid Bey advertisement in Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1931, p. A8. .......... 167 Figure 3.5 Count Roman Ostoja hypnotizing a rabbit. 1932. Bettman Collection. ........ Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 4.1 Müller’s “Slow Trunk Circling Exercise” from his My System (1904), p 65. ... 194 Figure 4.2 Yogananda’s “Exercise for Waist” from his Yogoda or Tissue-Will System of Physical Perfection (1925), p 14. ................................................................................ 195 Figure 5.1 Bela Lugosi as Luxor, the Egyptian mystic turned supervillain, with his death- ray machine in Chandu the Magician (1932). ............................................................. 272 vii DRAMATIS PERSONAE A. K. Mozumdar, Bhagat Singh Thind, Yogi Hari Rama, Yogi Rishi Singh Gherwal, Yogi Wassan Singh, unaffiliated early twentieth-century Yogis of Indian descent. Bikram Choudhury, Hollywood Yogi superstar and founder of Bikram Yoga (“hot yoga”), disciple of Yogananda’s brother, Bishnu Ghosh. Bishnu Charan Ghosh, younger brother of Yogananda, Indian physical culturalist, guru (direct teacher) of Bikram Choudhury. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (aka Madame Blavatsky, aka HPB), Russian-born Spiritualist medium, occultist, and central founder of the Theosophical Society in 1875. Lahiri Mahasaya (b. Shyama Charan Lahiri), received Kriya Yoga doctrine from Babaji, guru of Sri Yukteswar, grand-guru of Yogananda. Mahavatar Babaji, immortal liberated being residing in the Himalayas, guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, father of Kriya Yoga. Nirad Ranjan Chowdhury (aka Sri Nerode), associate of Yogananda, 1926-1939. Pierre “The Omnipotent Oom” Bernard (b. Perry Baker), American-born Yogi, occultist, and founder of the Tantrik Order of America (1905) and Clarkstown Country Club in Nyack, New York (1918). Sri Yukteswar (b. Priyanath Karar), disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, guru of Yogananda. Swami Abhedananda, Swami Paramananda, early Yogis of the Vedanta Society. Swami Dhirananda (b. Basu Kumar Bagchi), childhood friend and associate of Yogananda in the United States, 1922-1929. Swami Kriyananda (b. James Donald Walters), disciple of Yogananda and founder of Ananda Church of Self Realization. Swami (Paramahansa) Yogananda (b. Mukunda Lal Ghosh), disciple of Sri Yukteswar, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, American Yogi extraordinaire. Swami Satyananda (b. Manamohan Mazumder), childhood friend and lifelong associate of Yogananda, disciple of Sri Yukteswar. Swami Satyeswarananda, studied under Satyananda, biographer of Yogananda. Swami Vivekananda (b. Narendra Nath Datta), Indian representative at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions and one of the first Yogis to visit America, disciple of the Bengali mystic Ramakrishna, founder of Vedanta Society. Yogi Hamid Bey, Yogi Roman Ostoja, associates of Yogananda during the 1930s. Yogi Ramacharaka, pseudonym of New Thought author William Walker Atkinson. viii A Yogi is a man who thinks and thinks And never has time for forty winks, Seldom eats, rarely drinks, And is usually from Rangoon. A Yogi is a man who takes a pin And casually sticks it through his skin. You’ll always find his picture in A “Believe It Or Not” cartoon. With him it’s mind over matter, But I know one who lost his mind, Became as mad as a hatter. There was a Yogi who lost his will power. He met a dancing girl and fell in love. He couldn’t concentrate or lie on broken glass, He could only sit and wait for her to pass. Unhappy Yogi, he tried forgetting, But she was all that he was conscious of. At night when he stretched out upon his bed of nails,
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