Notes 205
as ṭhokar kriyā and reserves the title of oṃkāra kriyā for the third stage where the
praṇava sound becomes fully realized in the brahmayoni (the third eye).- On the significance of sound in the practice of haṭha yoga, see White 1996: 293.
- The word “haṃ- sa” is seen to be a mirroring of “so- ’ham,” i.e. “I am That” and thus
establishes an identification with the divine absolute. - Yogananda 1951: 374.
- Satyananda 2004: 244.
- Wildman 2011.
- See Singleton 2007a. Singleton does elsewhere refer to the work of famous body-
builder Maxick and his system of willed muscular flexion as a source for Yogananda’s
method (see Singleton 2010: 132– 33), but Maxick’s method, though perhaps sig-
nificant in the emphasis it places on mental control of muscles, lacks the calisthenic
element that distinguishes Yogananda’s system. Maxick’s work is, however, a more
likely inspiration in the case of Yogananda’s brother, bodybuilder and postural yoga
pioneer Bishnu Ghosh, as will be discussed in the conclusion of this study. - Haddock 1921: 16– 17.
- “Ghosh Yoga & Physical Culture” 2015.
- Yogananda 1951: 374.
- “Yogoda Satsanga Society of India” 2015.
- McCord 2010.
- This entire picture is further complicated by the fact that the “swinging” exercises
that form the basis of Müller’s system and its ilk on the landscape of Swedish
and German g ymnastics were modeled on Indian club swinging. For a detailed
analysis of how the colonial borrowing of physical cultural forms shaped the
phenomenon of Muscular Christianity, see Alter 2004a. From this perspective,
Yogananda’s swinging exercises are modeled on European models of traditional
Indian practices. - See Singleton 2010: 118, 138– 39. Singleton likewise mentions that Yogendra, who
would go on to be one of the main innovators of modern āsana practice in India,
was aware of, but ultimately discounted, Müller and his body- building contempo-
raries as fads. - Singleton 2010: 140.
- Gottschalk 1973 argues that Christian Science was at its base a religious teaching
and only incidentally a healing method, while Quimbyism was a healing method
and only incidentally a religious teaching. Mary Baker Eddy, Quimby’s student and
the founder of Christian Science, ultimately came to identify Quimbyism with
Mesmerism. Associated with “occultism” as a kind of “inverted transcendence,” she
saw such practices as focused on the powers of the self. Eddy likewise harbored an
intense distaste for spiritualism and devoted considerable attention in her founda-
tional Science and Health (1875) to refuting it. She took particular pains to dissoci-
ate Christian Science from Eastern religions and Theosophy.