Epilogue 185
And yet when we see Choudhury criticized for routinely comparing himself
to Jesus Christ and the Buddha, we must remember that he is modeling himself
on a legacy of earlier Yogis who were subjected to precisely such comparisons. The
only difference is that these earlier Yogis generally did not apply such sobriquets
to themselves— at least not in public— but allowed the media to act on their
behalf. On the other hand, Yogananda was reportedly quite fond of claiming that
he had been Arjuna and William the Conqueror in previous incarnations,^16 and
disaffected disciples continue to claim that he impressed many a female student
with tales of his valiant deeds.
Coda
Of course, most Bikram Yoga practitioners are not the least bit aware of their guru’s
implication in this lineage of the Yogi. Indeed, quite a few of them have no con-
ception that “Bikram” is a real living person and not some foreign word that des-
ignates the style’s ancient Indian origins. And yet, as Courtney Bender has argued,
despite the general aversion to history shared by today’s New Metaphysicals, prac-
tices do have memory.^17 Although, as Bender notes, “narrating spirituality in a way
that gives it a past and affords it a tradition makes it unrecognizable to those who
practice and produce it,” a narrative of practice can help shed light on the ways in
which spiritual identities are produced and reproduced. It is in this context that
I will restate my original claim that what is key about the Yogi is not precisely who
he is but what he does. In fact, it is what he does that makes him who he is. And
what he does is embody, however tenuously, the possibility of the superhuman.
The performances of Yogananda, Ghosh, and Choudhury are in the final anal-
ysis not so different from the nineteenth- century strongmen and women who
performed in vaudeville acts, bending iron bars and supporting seemingly impos-
sible weights, or the contortionists who twisted themselves into equally impos-
sible postures. Indeed, some of these performers were arguably more impressive
than even the Yogi due to their theatrical inclinations. For instance, one Miss
Darnett was famous for singing in a supine position as her chest and thighs sup-
ported a platform that held her musical accompaniment: a piano together with
the pianist.^18 Decontextualized, such displays easily fall into the larger genre of
freakery. The physically anomalous human body can inspire morbid fascination,
as was the case with the early images of Yogi ascetics, but, framed correctly, it can
also inspire wonder. There is a thin line within popular culture between the side-
show freak and the superhero.
The Yogi is significant insomuch as he provides a rich metaphysical precedent
for the superhuman. With the introduction of the Theosophical Mahatmas and