Preface xiiixiii
any one thing. It’s about yoga but not about āsana. It’s about mystical India,
but it’s also about science. It’s about Hinduism, but it’s also about Mesmerism,
Swedenborgianism, New Thought, and even Christianity. It’s about a Yogi but
also about a man.
The practice that drew me in, like most varieties of postural yoga in the United
States, entered the mainstream during the last two decades of the twentieth cen-
tury. What I did not know when I started my project was that Yogananda taught
these same postures on American soil over three- quarters of a century earlier.
From this perspective, they likely predate (at least in their arrival to the West)
the Krishnamacaryan style that is today widely perceived to be the hallmark of
modern postural yoga. Yogananda may well be the single most important figure
in yoga’s early American history and he marks a central turning point— from the
various physical and metaphysical activities that Yogis were believed to engage in
to the practice popularly known as yoga today.
As the above pages no doubt demonstrate, the journey that ended in this book
has been personal at least as much as it has been scholarly. In acknowledging the
many people who have made it possible, it occurs to me that I would be remiss in
not starting that list with Paramahansa Yogananda himself. It is his life that has
allowed me to make sense of why I keep going back to that sweaty room.
More directly, I have been fortunate in having a number of mentors who have
fostered my ideas over the years. At Rutgers University, Edwin Bryant first intro-
duced me to the classic literature on yoga as well as to South Asian religions more
broadly. Whatever understanding I can claim of Indian philosophy and meta-
physics, I owe to him. And although we didn’t end up in the same field, I will be
forever grateful to Barry Qualls for telling a panicked girl who had, in a moment
of insanity, decided to take his senior seminar in her sophomore year that she
wrote like an angel and then continuing to encourage her even when it meant
crystals. Barbara Holdrege was my doktormutter in the truest sense. Without her
support, both scholarly and personal, none of this would have been possible. Plus,
my commas would still be a mess. David White not only offered invaluable sup-
port and insights, but his brilliant work on yoga has been central to the evolu-
tion of my own thinking. Rudy Busto filled in crucial points on the Americanist
front and Catherine Albanese first introduced me to the concept of metaphysical
religions.
Andrea Jain has been an invaluable mentor, colleague, and friend, who
offered endless guidance on this manuscript and beyond. Philip Goldberg was
not only an instrumental conversation partner but helped me to navigate the
complex realities of Yogananda’s living legacy. Scott Robinson, in addition to
being my partner in crime for the first half of this journey, is responsible for the
spark of insight that ultimately became chapter 2 of the present text. Although