It is worth pointing out that Yogananda refers to just such a Yogi in his Autobiography
when he recounts the story of “A Mohammedan Wonder- Worker” ( chapter 18), a
fakir who gained control over a “disembodied spirit” called Hazrat.
Rastelli 2000: 358– 59.
Brunner 1975: 434– 35.
White 2009: 168.
Lamont 2004: 3– 4. See also White 2009: 207– 8.
See White 2009 and Pinch 2006.
Bernier 1976: 316– 21.
For an account of such performances in the context of Indian street magic, see
Siegel 1991.
White 2009: 200– 201.
See Diamond 2013: 236– 57.
See Narayan 1993.
Oman 1903: 26– 27.
Rose 1916: 289.
Lamont 2004: 20.
See Lamont 2004 and Siegel 1991.
Lamont 2004: 30.
Lamont 2004: 30– 31.
See Lamont 2004 for an extensive history of the Indian rope trick. The majority of
the subsequent account draws on his work.
See Lamont 2004: 159.
Lamont 2004: 80– 81.
Lamont 2004: 82.
See Altman 2013 for a more complex account of the construction and representa-
tion of Hinduism prior to this period.
Quoted in Syman 2010: 16.
Thoreau 2004: 48– 51.
Syman 2010: 33.
Syman 2010: 29.
“Thoreau” in Fraser Magazine, reprinted in Eclectic Magazine on August 1866,
p. 180. Quoted in Syman 2010: 26.
See King 1999: 7– 35, 118– 43.
The publication on Arnold’s work in England also coincided with the founding
on the Pali Text Society in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids. Rhys Davids,
who first became familiar with Buddhist literature as a civil servant in colonial
British India, went on to serve as Professor of Pali at the University of London
from 1882 to 1904. He advocated for the nobility and pristine origins of Buddhism
based partially on a racialized Aryan identity that formed a common bond between
Britain and the Buddha’s own kingdom. Many of these points were published in his
