Yogis Without Borders 59
common denominator of metaphysical discourse is best articulated through the
language of “energ y” and “flow.” She briefly notes that this energetic model gen-
erally conforms to scientific theories of ether in the nineteenth century before
adopting the paradigms of quantum physics in the twentieth.
Although the language of waves, currents, magnetism, and electricity is fairly
ubiquitous across metaphysical literature, regardless of the particular tradition to
which it belongs, some authors take this terminolog y more literally than others.
Indeed, these scientific metaphors are so pervasive precisely because the develop-
ment of post- Enlightenment metaphysical traditions has historically hewed quite
closely to the development of post- Enlightenment science. The energetic mod-
els of metaphysical traditions like Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, and to a
lesser extent Christian Science and New Thought, do not simply resemble scien-
tific theories of ether; they frequently rely on and directly co- opt these theories.
There exists a blurry line between physics and metaphysics, demonstrated by the
reliance on popular scientific theory even by more esoteric metaphysical schools
such as Theosophy, and this line becomes progressively blurrier the further back
one follows it in time.
This chapter seeks to elucidate two points. On the one hand, it argues that sci-
entific theory has consistently served as a crucial element of metaphysical thought
and, indeed, that the two have often functioned in tandem. To this end, it offers
an alternative and complementary reading of the evolution of metaphysical spiri-
tuality in the United States by shifting the focus from the spiritual force of mind
to its metaphysical medium— the ether. In doing so, it sheds new light on the
relationship between metaphysical religion and modernity, especially in the form
of scientific rationalism, that has been the focus of so many previous studies.
On the other hand, this chapter traces the history of a single set of analogous
terms— English ether and Sanskrit ākāśa— as a way of illustrating just how inex-
tricably intertwined Indian and Western categories of thought can become when
they enter the dialogue of metaphysical speculation. From one perspective, one
might say that the pull of modern rationalism was so strong, both among the
intelligentsia of colonial India and in the West, that Indian categories adapted by
reemerging as Western scientific concepts in disguise. However, the real dynamic
is far more complicated, as the Western appropriation and Indian reappropriation
of such categories reflect an ongoing contestation of spheres of value and author-
ity. The dialogic nature of the relationship is crucial to note. The association of
ākāśa with ether opened a linguistic door by way of which Vivekananda’s mod-
ernized Yogi was able to enter Western metaphysical thought, but the entrance
of the Yogi in turn reinforced the individualistic yet universal flavor of the meta-
physical discourse of human potential. A scientifically rationalized Yogi— at once
Self and Other, familiar yet strange, embodied in the human (Indian) man and