“Was this why I had come”: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, pp. 9–10.
“passes his hand”: Yogi Ramacharaka, Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy (New York: Cosimo Inc., 2007), p. 148.
“Less energetic women”: MacMillan, Women of the Raj, p. 102.
“The next morning I woke up”: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, p. 14.
CHAPTER 7
“No respectable people”: “ ‘Sadhus’ on the Chowpatty Foreshore,” Times of India, September 15, 1932.
“through the rows of mushroom-like umbrellas”: Eugenie Strakaty (Indira Devi), Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness (Allahabad, India: Kitabistan, 1948), p. 18.
The men were naked or nearly: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, p. 1.
“But these are not yogis”: Ibid., p. 2.
“torture and self-maceration”: H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Volume 1: Cosmogenesis (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893), p. 78.
“We have nothing”: Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1982), p. 23.
“the word yoga”: Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 4.
“The posture”: Georg Feuerstein, The Yoga-Sutra of Pantanjali: A New Translation and Commentary (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1989), p. 154
“Yoga is the restriction”: Ibid., p. 26.
“Depend upon it”: Quoted in J. J. Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Eastern and Western Thought (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 87.
“one of the greatest things”: Ibid., p. 155.
“presupposes that we turn”: Feuerstein, The Yoga-Sutra of Pantanjali, pp. 10–11.
“the term”: Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, p. 35.
The first of these books: Ibid., p. 230; James Mallinson, The Shiva Samhita: A Critical Edition and English Translation (Woodstock, NY: YogaVidya, 2007), pp. 63–70.
“worship of the goddess”: Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), p. 419.
“Five Jewels”: Ibid., p. 424.
“the function of an organ”: Arthur Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot (New York: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 130–31.
“The Yogi who can protect”: The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, trans. Pancham Singh, e-book (no publisher, 1915), n.p.
“must be blocked”: Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, pp. 130–31.
“He who knows”: The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, trans. Pancham Singh, e-book (no publisher, 1915), n.p.
“Subtle physiology”: Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, pp. 233–34.
“Jauguis”: Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 37.
“highly organized bands”: Ibid., p. 39.
According to G. S. Ghurye: G. S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus (Bombay, India: Popular Prakashan, 1964), p. 112.
“almost the counterpart”: Singleton, Yoga Body, p. 41.
“explain the apparent discrepancy”: Ibid.
“No longer able”: Ibid., p. 40.
“Religion, like the white light”: Quoted in Rev. John Henry Barrows, ed., The World’s Parliament of Religions: An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with the Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago: Parliament Publishing Co., 1893), p. 3.
Mary Baker Eddy: Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit, p. 333.
Many attendees were Theosophists: Ibid., p. 332.
“clad in gorgeous red apparel”: Barrows, The World’s Parliament of Religions, p. 62.
“disgusted”: Vikram Sampath, Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars (New Delhi, India: Rupa and Co., 2009), p. 514.
“By preaching”: Narasingha P. Sil, “Vivekānanda’s Rāmakrsna: An Untold Story of Mythmaking and Propaganda,” Numen 40, no. 1 (January 1993).
“As our country”: Quoted in Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 109.
“Allow me”: Harold W. French, The Swan’s White Way: Ramakrishna and Western Culture (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974), p. 57.
“undoubtedly the greatest”: Ibid., p. 55.
When his book Raja Yoga: Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit, p. 354.
Schwartz argues: Evan I. Schwartz, Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), p. 276.
“Sandow looks and feels”: Mark Adams, Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (New York: Harper, 2009), p. 34; “He Is a Man of Mighty Muscle,” Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1893.
“Behold the mighty Englishman”: Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 21.
“The entire country”: Narasingha Prosad Sil, Swami Vivekananda: A Reassessment (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1997), p. 53.
“How will you struggle”: Singleton, Yoga Body, p. 100.
“electrified”: “Sandow’s Visit to Bombay,” Times of India, November 23, 1904.
Local newspapers heaped: David L. Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 157–58.
The Maharaja of Baroda: Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire (New York: New York University Press, 1997), p. 84.
“The native Indians”: Quoted in Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, p. 157.
“He reminded me”: Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, p. 102.
“He opened out”: Joseph Alter, Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 81.
He read the works: Alter, Yoga in Modern India, p. 82; Alter, “Gandhi’s Body, p. 67.
To Gandhi, for example: Mandhar Gharote and Manmath Gharote, Swami Kuvalayananda: A Pioneer of Scientific Yoga and Indian Physical Education (Lonavla, India: Lonavla Yoga Institute, 1999), p. 97.
There, he began: “Yogic Exercises for Women,” Times of India (1861); April 27, 1935.
“Which will probably be”: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, p. 17.
Certainly, as she spent: Apostolli, Indra Devi, pp. 167–68.
Seeking to escape the tedious social whirl: Ibid., p. 169.
CHAPTER 8
Gandhi called the Maharaja: Sampath, Splendours of Royal Mysore, p. 521.
The maharaja built universities: James Manor, Political Change in an Indian State: Mysore 1917–1955 (Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1978), p. 12.
The maharaja was: Sampath, Splendours of Royal Mysore, p. 649.
“absorbed the best”: Annie Cahn Fung, “Paul Brunton: A Bridge between India and the West,” translated from “Paul Brunton: un pont entre l’Inde et l’Occident,” doctoral thesis, Department of Religious Anthropology, Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne, 1992, p. 57.
“a pan-Indian hub”: Singleton, Yoga Body, p. 100.
A manual compiled: See N. E. Sjoman, The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace (New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications, 1999).
“You may have never”: Fernando Pagés Ruiz, “Krishnamacharya’s Legacy,” Yoga Journal, May/June 2001.
Upon awakening: Kausthub Desikachar, The Yoga of the Yogi: The Legacy of T. Krishnamacharya (Chennai, India: Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, 2005), pp. 31–33.
Krishnamacharya claimed that: Pagés Ruiz, “Krishnamacharya’s Legacy.”
At the end: Desikachar, The Yoga of the Yogi, pp. 54–60.
On his days off: Pagés Ruiz, “Krishnamacharya’s Legacy.”
They concluded that: M. A. Wenger, B. K. Bagchi, and B. K. Anand, “Experiments in India on ‘Voluntary’ Control of the Heart and Pulse,” Circulation 24 (1961).
“The Physical Instruction�
��: Singleton, Yoga Body, p. 179.
As Singleton has shown: Ibid., pp. 199–201.
From there, the practitioner: Ibid., p. 200.
“It is quite clear”: Sjoman, The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace, pp. 53–55.
Life magazine sent a photographer: “Heir to $400,000,000 Gets Married in India,” Life, August 15, 1938.
Festivities began with: “200 Prisoners Set Free: Mysore Ruler’s Clemency,” Times of India, May 16, 1938.
“presented a scene”: Ibid.
“In my school there are no women”: Kausthub Desikachar, The Yoga of the Yogi: The Legacy of T. Krishnamacharya (Chennai, India: Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, 2005), p. 99.
Eugenia tried to: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 171.
“Guruji had a frightful personality”: B. K. S. Iyengar, Astadala Yogamala: Collected Works, vol. 1 (Mumbai, India: Allied Publishers Private Ltd., 2000), p. 52.
“My sisters and sisters-in-law”: Ibid., p. 22.
“Why are you going to complicate”: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 115.
“From now on”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 30.
“I imagined”: Ibid., p. 31.
“The European student”: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 117.
This notion that yoga: P. Singh et al., “The Impact of Yoga upon Female Patients Suffering from Hypothyroidism,” Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (2010), doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.11.004; Beth E. Cohen, et al., “Feasibility and Acceptability of Restorative Yoga for Treatment of Hot Flushes: A Pilot Trial,” Maturitas 56, no. 2 (February 20, 2007); Suresh C. Jain et al., “A Study of Response Pattern of Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetics to Yoga Therapy,” Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 19, no. 1 (January 1993).
“interact reciprocally”: Paul Salmon et al., “Yoga and Mindfulness: Clinical Aspects of an Ancient Mind/Body Practice,” Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 16, no. 1 (February 2009).
“I felt as light”: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, p. 19.
“He told her that”: Ibid., p. 21.
“Now that you are going to visit”: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 175.
CHAPTER 9
Encountering her new home: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 119.
“far advanced along the spiritual path”: Audrey Youngman, “The Grande Dame of Yoga,” Yoga Journal, October 1996.
“I understood then why”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 58.
“Do you know”: Youngman, “The Grande Dame of Yoga.”
“I discovered that I didn’t”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, pp. 62–63.
“As you stepped ashore”: Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai (London: John Murray, 1999), p. 3.
Thousands of Eastern European: Horst “Peter” Eisfelder, Chinese Exile: My Years in Shanghai and Nanking (Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu Foundation, 2003), p. 39.
The White Russians: Sergeant, Shanghai, p. 31.
There were six daily: Marcia Reynders Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 84.
“everything from handbags”: Emily Hahn, China to Me, E-reads reprint, 1999, p. 81.
The occupiers waged a terror: Stella Dong, Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: HarperPerennial, 2001), p. 264; John B. Powell, My Twenty-Five Years in China, full text available at http://archive.org/stream/mytwentyfiveyear009218mbp/mytwentyfiveyear009218mbp_djvu.txt.
“Do anything you want”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, pp. 63, 70.
Yet, instead of quitting: Jan Strakaty personal service record, electronic file obtained from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague.
Jan had kept his Czech passport: Ibid.; “Baltic Citizens in China Offered Soviet Citizenship,” China Weekly Review, September 28, 1940.
“The members of the ‘Circle’ ”: Jan Strakaty personal service record.
“without prior notification”: Ibid.
He and Jan Seba tried: Ibid.
The first person to call: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 121.
Then someone suggested: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, pp. 64–70.
By day, Devi turned: Ibid., p. 71.
“We did the exercises”: Youngman, “The Grande Dame of Yoga.”
“Before we start”…“In the more advanced stages”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, pp. 91–113; Indra Devi, Yoga for Americans: An Authentic Course for Home Practice (MACE Records, exact date unknown).
“Mrs. B.”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 23.
The American military attaché: FBI report made by Woodrow P. Lipscomb, September 15, 1950, obtained through FOIA request.
“I don’t know anything”: Hahn, China to Me, p. 82.
He gave her a shiny blue: Ken Cuthbertson, Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1998), p. 135.
“She was an eccentric person”: Hahn, China to Me, p. 82.
“Sorry we cannot extend”: Ibid., p. 107.
“shaking her head”: Ibid., p. 82.
These days of silence drove: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 84.
“Sinmay adored her”: Hahn, China to Me, p. 82.
“I was spending”: Ibid.
“Mr. Levin’s image”…So she withdrew: Ibid., p. 83.
“Probably in the back”: Ibid., p. 108.
“Zhenia!”: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 192.
Avshalomov fell in love: Jacob Avshalomov and Aaron Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way: Composers Out of China—A Chronicle (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2002), p. 37.
He found increasing success: Avshalomov and Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way, p. 65.
“I feel old and tired”: Ibid., p. 148.
“rehearsing the Indian”: Ibid., p. 151.
“Indira Devi danced”: Ibid., p. 152.
“Creative work”: Ibid., p. 163.
“kindred souls”: Report by William G. Osborn of interview with Mrs. H. H. Vreeland, FBI file 65-1804, obtained through FOIA request.
“The ballet has”: Avshalomov and Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way, p. 167.
“To get into a movie”: Vanya Oakes, White Man’s Folly (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1943), p. 357.
“Shanghai”: Ibid., p. 359.
“There on the river stretch”: Edna Lee Booker, Flight from China (New York: Macmillan Co., 1945), p. 131.
“The Imperial Japanese”: Ibid., p. 133
“I shall never forget”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, pp. 68–69.
“with a Japanese sentry”: Ibid., p. 69.
Years later: Youngman “The Grande Dame of Yoga.”
“Stood for 1½ hours”: Peggy Abkhazi, The Curious Cage: A Shanghai Journal 1941–1945 (Victoria, BC: Sono Nis Press, 1981), p. 22.
“We could hardly”: Booker, Flight from China, p. 133.
The red armbands: Ibid., p. 153.
The Japanese froze: Stella Dong, Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: HarperPerennial, 2001), p. 270.
Those who could afford: Booker, Flight from China, p. 151.
“Hundreds of Chinese”: Ibid., p. 150.
“The Russian community”: Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 237.
After the war: Youngman, “The Grande Dame of Yoga,” p. 78.
She continued giving: Ibid.
“On certain days”: Dong, Shanghai, p. 277.
Some industrious camp inmates: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 68.
Eventually, when a Japanese: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p 125.
“it was almost”: Valentin V. Fedoulenko, “Russian Émigré Life in Shanghai,” interview conducted by Boris Raymond in July, August, and September 1966, published by the Universi
ty of California, Bancroft Library/Berkeley Regional Oral History Office, 1967. Full text available at http://archive.org/stream/russianemigrbeshanoofedorich/russianemigrbeshanoofedorich_djvu.txt.
“to be either”: Youngman, “The Grande Dame of Yoga.”
One day, she told Jan: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 195–96.
66“new and most cruel bomb.” Emperor Hirohito, accepting the Potsdam Declaration, Radio Broadcast, transmitted by Domei and recorded by the Federal Communications Commission, August 14, 1945, transcript available at https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.xhtml.
“Wherever we went”: Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 243.
“Shanghai is now”: Avshalomov and Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way, p. 202.
“I was interested”; “Indira Devi’s much-advertised”: K. P. S. Menon, Twilight in China (Bombay, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1972), pp. 125, 135.
“I firmly believe”: Avshalomov and Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way, p. 226.
A few months later: Jan Strakaty personal service record.
CHAPTER 10
“the paradise of hermits”: Mircea Eliade, Autobiography, Volume 1: 1907–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 188.
“well-regulated diet”: Sarah Strauss, “Adapt, Adjust, Accommodate: The Production of Yoga in a Transnational World,” in Mark Singleton and Jean Byrne, eds., Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives, e-book (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), n.p.
“His approach to solving”: Ibid.
“an ideal place”: Ibid.
like a dog grateful for scraps: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 129.
“Come tomorrow and study”: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 205.
Like Vivekananda: Sarah Strauss, Positioning Yoga (Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005), p. 9.
Back at the castle: Devi, Una mujer de tres siglos, p. 129.
At times: Devi, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, p. 11.
“[g]rief, mental distress”: Vivekananda, Raja Yoga, p. 126.
Her teacher told her: Apostolli, Indra Devi, p. 207.
“People are coming”: Strakaty, Yoga: The Technique of Health and Happiness, p. 51.
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