44 Biography of a YogiAt these moments, he would assert that the same women were “not steady, seri-
ous, or sincere.” In Boston, especially, “the women are all faddists, all fickle, merely
bent on following something new and strange.”^62
Aside from being treated as a novelty item, Vivekananda also came up against
the expectations that American audiences had of Yogis. “Give Us Some Miracles!”
demanded the Detroit Evening News when Vivekananda turned out to have little
more than philosophy up his sleeve. It was deemed by the public that he should
“put up or shut up.”^63 Vivekananda, in turn, not only had little flair for the super-
natural but was fundamentally ambivalent about his role in the West. Contrary
to the popular belief among his American followers, he revealed a rather practical
rationalization for his presence on the Western stage. He viewed his journey to
America above all as a financial venture aimed at raising funds to elevate the con-
dition of his home nation, summarizing the matter as follows: “As our country is
poor in social virtues, so this country is lacking in spirituality. I give them spiritu-
ality and they give me money.”^64 This statement appeared in a private correspon-
dence and was issued before Vivekananda actually arrived on American shores.
However, it seems that time spent with his American disciples did little to abate
his ambivalence as a spiritual teacher to the West. Toward the end of his American
sojourn, he declared to an inquiring woman in San Francisco: “Madam, I am not
teaching religion. I am selling my own brain for money to help my people.”^65
Nor was every person Vivekananda encountered entirely convinced of his
spiritual credentials. Certain Christian Scientists, for instance, responded some-
what skeptically. Ashton Jonson, enthusiastic over his sermons but shocked to see
a Yogi in a state of such bodily ill health, wrote to Sarah Bull:
I no more condemn or criticize him than I do a child who falls down and
hurts itself. If I am asked to recognize that Swami is manifesting the high-
est Divine consciousness in this disease ... I do not feel that the highest
consciousness can ever demand a diseased body in which to manifest. Of
course I do not pretend to worship Swami’s feet as Miss Noble does.^66That Vivekananda was not able to appear coherent as a Yogi to Jonson had
as much to do with the extent to which Yogis, by way of the Theosophical
Mahatmas, had been incorporated into the American metaphysical worldview as
with Vivekananda’s own ambivalent Yogihood.
Although Vivekananda became increasingly absorbed and indeed invested in
mysticism as his health worsened, it is not at all clear that he had ever meant to
present himself as a self- realized adept for any reason other than gaining cred-
ibility with his American benefactors. His grasp on this persona was histori-
cally rather tenuous, as the more disaffected of his public and private statements