17.YOGA AND ITS POWERS
**********************

Much of our psychic science comes from the Far East, where mystic powers have been recognized since time immemorial. The Wise Men of the East were versed in astrology, and much of their lore was brought westward through the centuries. Meanwhile, in India, generations of scholars and adepts have continued to contemplate life in a timeless fashion, classing all manifestations of the mysterious as within the realm of their natural philosophies.

This is particularly true with yoga, which has been defined as a “union” between man and the higher planes. This means detachment from one’s own personality, on the theory that our lives are clouded by a form of illusion termed “maya.” Once those higher planes are attained, the incredible becomes reality, as the individual controls forces that to the uninitiated are unseen and even unknown.

Such is the reputed power of yoga. Skeptics may argue that it merely consists of supplanting illusion with delusion, that the lower planes may have their fallacies, but that the so-called higher planes may themselves be purely imaginary. Still, yoga has maintained its pace, and there is no doubt that persons adept in its practice have achieved physical and mental results beyond generally accepted limitations.

There are various types of yoga, each regarded as a path toward spiritual attainment, such as karma yoga, which invoices good works, bhakti yoga, which stresses worship, and jnana yoga, which seeks wisdom. All have points in common

but the two that are of chief interest to students of occult are hatha yoga, which deal with physical development through breathing exercises and bodily postures, and raja yoga, the “kingly path,” which deals directly with mental control and the development of latent psychic forces.

These two, hatha and raja, are interlocked because the practice of hatha yoga so subjugates the physical body that the mind can function more freely in the field of raja yoga. There is some conflict here, however: Many ascetics have so trained themselves in hatha yoga that they believe it functions in the higher realms; whereas the proponents of raja yoga regard hatha yoga as a mere stepping stone to real attainment.

According to Patanjali, who codified the philosophy and practice of yoga about the year 200 B.C., there are eight steps to such attainment, the first four being:

1. CONTROL OF SELF, or yama, which requires fair dealing toward others in everyday life. 2. PURITY OF THOUGHT, or niyama, as an accompaniment to outward action.

3. CONTROL OF THE BODY, asana, through the adoption and practice of certain bodily postures.

4. ABSORPTION OF VITAL FORCES, or pranayama through rhythmic breathing and breath retention.

Those four constitute a “fourfold path” that can be summed under the head of hatha yoga. This is the form of yoga that gained wide popularity in America as a means toward attaining physical health and strength, along with a serenity of mind. The great stress is placed upon the “asanas or bodily postures.”

These include headstands, body twists, back bends, and a variety of poses that supposedly resemble such living creatures as the cobra, eagle, locust, lion, peacock, turtle, and even a Bee.

But the basic form is padmasana, or the lotus posture, in which a person is seated cross-legged with hands extended beyond the knees, each thumb and forefinger forming a circle.

There are variations of the lotus posture, one favorite being shirshapadmasana, or the upside-down lotus, which combines the basic posture with a headstand. Some students of hatha yoga assume such positions for hours. But for practical purposes, the regular lotus posture is all that is required to reach the fourth stage of pranayama or rythmic breathing.

Here, the psychic factor comes into play. In rhythmic breathing, Which includes a form known as the “grand psychic breath,” the idea is not merely to develop lung power and chest expansion. According to yoga, the air is charged with a subtle but vital force known as “prana,” which can be stored in the brain and nerve centers and transmitted to all parts of the body, much like an electric current.

The supposed power of this vital force can be put to the following test: One person lies flat on his back preferably on a couch, keeping his body rigid. Four other persons take positions, two at each side, and extend their forefingers beneath the first man’s body at intervals from neck to ankles.

Padmasana or the “lotus posture” of yogic contemplation. The circles represent mystical wheels called “chakras” whereby the vital force is drawn from the base of the spine to the top of the head, achieving a higher consciousness which each of the seven levels.

All five breathe rhythmically in unison, taking in a long breath, retaining it, and exhaling at a given signal, which can come from still another person. On a designated breath — say the fifth — everyone lifts together. This, too, can come on a signal, as the inhalation is completed. To their amazement, the four lifters bring the supine person upward on their fingertips.

The effect is that the person’s body has gone weightless. It can also be worked with a person seated in a chair, the lifters first testing the balance points, then breathing in rhythm with the seated person, who is promptly raised along with the chair. During the period when Elsa Maxwell, the portly cafe society hostess, was at the height of her fabulous career, she let herself be lifted as a party stunt, proving that weight was no handicap.

Some experimenters claim there is an actual loss of weight due to the rhythmic breathing, while others attribute the result to increased strength gained by the lifters. This fits with a theory of yoga that the prana currents, running up and down alongside the spinal column, arouse a latent force known as the kundalini, which activates psychic nerve centers called chakras, making it possible to accomplish many amazing things.

Among those long schooled in hatha yoga are mendicants of the sadhu class, who show their scorn for mundane things in bizarre ways. To them, asana has become a way of life, for one will hold an arm in upraised position until its muscles become useless; another may sit so still that birds build a nest in his hair; and sadhus have even taken up permanent residence upon a tightrope, spending all their sleeping and waking hours there.

Of similar breed are itinerant wonder workers called fakirs, who demonstrate their immunity to pain by thrusting long needles and thin daggers through their arms and cheeks as well as lying on beds of sharp spikes. They also stop or quicken their pulse-beats at will, and some put themselves in a cataleptic stage so they can be buried in a coffin for hours or even days, emerging as alive as ever.

Students of hatha yoga are warned against using asanas and other exercises called mudras for such base and useless purposes. They are advised to continue beyond the stage of pranayama into the higher steps of raja yoga. This constitutes the “Eightfold path,” and through it, the awakening of the kundalini is supposed to take place gradually, making it possible to accomplish genuine marvels of far greater worth than the hackneyed and sometimes dubious claptrap of the fakirs.

The first four steps, already given, are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama. Having practiced them enough to acquire bodily control and rhythmic breathing, the student of raja yoga goes into the next steps:

5. INTROSPECTION, OR PRATYAHARA, where thoughts, freed from physical shackles, turn inward. As asana aids physical control, pratyahara produces mental control. The mind is put through prescribed exercises until it is immune from outside impressions. That training is preliminary to:

6. CONCENTRATION, OR DHARANA, in which the mind is pinpointed on a single idea.

7. MEDITATION, OR DHYANA, wherein an idea can be examined in minute detail under constant focus.

8. ECSTASY, OR SAMADHI, a superconscious state that permits complete detachment from all worldly surroundings.

The three highest stages are known collectively as SAMYAMA, and by the time a yogi reaches that goal he has acquired such psychic powers as clairvoyance, telepathy, and ability to vision the past and future. If he continues on to attain the status of an adept, he can develop eight “Superior” powers, namely:

1. ANIMA, OR THE ABILITY TO SHRINK TO THE SIZE OF AN ATOM.

2. MAHIMA, TO INCREASE IN SIZE AS GREATLY AS DESIRED.

3. GARIMA, TO BECOME EXTREMELY HEAVY.

4. LAGHIMA, TO BECOME LIGHT, so the body will float in air.

5. PRAPTI, THE ABILITY TO BRING ANYTHING WITHIN REACH.

6. PRAKAMYA, OR IMMEDIATE REALIZATION OF DESIRE.

7. ISITVA, OR CREATION OF MATTER THROUGH POWER OF THOUGHT.

8. VASITVA, THE DOMINION OVER ALL OBJECTS, ANIMATE AND INANIMATE.

There is no doubt whatever that sincere practitioners of raja yoga not only believe in these amazing powers, but are often positive that they possess them. Stories are told of yogis dwelling in the Himalaya Mountains, warding off wild beasts by power of mind, such as vasitva. Others are said to float seated in midair during their contemplations, an example of laghima. Awed witnesses have even described parades of sky-walking adepts marching in from the snowy ranges.

When skeptics scoff, believers admit that such marvels are seldom seen because yogis are reluctant to perform them publicly. However, some have given private showings for privileged patrons, and over the years there have been reliably reports of instances where yogis have made tree leaves flutter without a breeze, and have restored dead birds to life, as evidences of prakamya.

One adept produced the scent of any perfumes that strangers requested mentally, without expressing their wishes aloud. This would appear to be prakamya, with telepathic overtones, unless it could be charged off as hypnotism on the yogi’s part.

But there are also reports of a wonder worker who laid a mere feather on one side of a scales and caused it to counterbalance a man’s weight on the other, a case of sheer garima; and the same adept could also make water boil in a vase by merely moving his hands toward it.

Often, such adepts have reputedly undergone prolonged living burials while in a state of samadhi, and there is a remarkable tale of one such yogi being seen in a big city like Calcutta while his body was entombed in the vault of a maharaja’s palace a thousand miles away.

Such a case, if actual, would presuppose the power of astral projection on the yogi’s part, coupled with isitva, whereby the thought would take form at the desired spot. Astral protection is a matter of routine with these adepts, though their excursions through the upper reaches are often purely mental. As proof of their ability to project an actual idea, or illusion, authorities cite We “astral call bell,” a ringing sound that one adept causes another to hear at a far distance, so he can concentrate and open telepathic communication.

Practically speaking, that is the prototype of our modern telephone bell; but from the metaphysical standpoint, a yogi might just as well project his own mental image, as an illusion of sight rather than sound. Grating him that faculty, he could employ isitva during a demonstration before a group, causing physical objects — even living creatures and human beings — to appear and disappear at will. Whether these were actual creations or mere thought images would not matter. Either way, the onlookers would believe that they had witnessed the incredible.

This has been offered as an explanation of the famous “Indian rove trick,” wherein a fakir tosses a rope in air and causes it to remain suspended while a boy climbs it and suddenly disappears from the top. Elaborated versions claim that the fakir, too, climbs the rope and disappears. In other accounts, he chases the boy up the rope with a big knife; then, from nowhere, pieces of the boy’s body fall to earth, where upon the fakir reappears at the top of the rope, comes down and covers the boy’s body with a cloth promptly assembling the fragments and magically restoring the boy to life.

That really would be taxing the “higher powers” of yoga, so an alternate proposition has been offered; namely, that “mass hypnotism” is responsible. Actually, this amounts to the same thing, since all yogic powers are probably hypnotic to begin with. But skeptics for years spiked that argument with the glib pronouncement that “Mass hypnotism is an impossibility.”

True, perhaps, as hypnotism was known and practiced in Europe and America during the early l900’s, when that claim was current. But that did not prove that mass hypnotism was impossible among the yogis of India. Then, while the controversy still simmered, along came Hitler and proved that mass hypnotism was possible anywhere almost at any time.

Hypnotic annals of America include the celebrated radio broadcast of the “men from Mars,” where thousands of listeners thought they were hearing an authentic news report and began calling up newspapers, as well as police, saying that they had seen Martian spaceships landing in their own backyards with little green men clambering out. The wave of hysteria that followed the so-called discovery of flying saucers was another case of mass hypnotism.

Yet this can be simplified still further, if we regard the rope trick and kindred marvels simply as a case where the individual members of a small group are hypnotized separately but simultaneously. This has been demonstrated by stage hypnotists, and it has long been a practice among fraudulent spirit mediums, when dealing with susceptible clients. Once the lights are out, the sitters will accept the crudest ventriloquial tricks as “spirit voices” or imagine that a waving curtain is an “ethereal breeze.”

So it goes in India, or so it once went, back in the days when people claimed they had seen the rope trick. Again, skeptics will demand: “If the rope trick is the result of group hypnotism, granting such to be possible, why do the fakirs restrict themselves only to that one supermiracle?” The answer is, they don’t. Reports of equally fantastic marvels have come from witnesses quite as reliable as those who have described the rope trick. The only difference is that these other wonders have been seen much less frequently. Some have already been listed, such as levitation and sky-walking.

There have been reports of fire-walking and water-waking adepts, too, and other fanciful demonstrations.

Usually these are hard to trace, and like the rope trick, the descriptions turn out to be second or third-hand. But whenever you do catch up with an actual witness to the feat—and several instances could be cited of this—his description is partly vague, partly stylized. Seldom, if ever, does it contain corroborative facts, or the essentials of sound investigation.

The witness may remember the place, but not the name of the fakir. He may recall the names of other witnesses, but if so, he has now lost track of them. Often he is not sure as to the time of day, nor even the exact surroundings. He is apt to include details that he heard from some other source, such as the business of a photographer taking a picture of the boy at the top of the rope, only to develop it and have the print show the boy still on the ground with the rope coiled beside him.

In short, the witness who saw the rope trick talks just like the man who goes up on the stage during a hypnotic act and lets the “professor” mesmerize him. He knows he was at the theater, he remembers others who were there, but the crazy things that happened are just a jumble in his mind. He talks like he had come out of a trance, which he actually did. Apparently, the witness to the rope trick remembers what the fakir wants him to remember, just as the hypnotized subject recalls only what the hypnotist told him.

The rope trick follows a pattern, like all well-tried hypnotic stunts. Probably the fact that it has been reported so often in comparison to over marvels is because people are “conditioned” to it. They have heard of the rope trick, they want to see the rope trick, so the fakir shows them the rope trick. It can definitely be that simple.

Most certainly the hypnotic explanation is far more satisfactory than efforts to explain the rope trick by fake or mechanical means, such as the fakir tossing the rope up to a hidden balcony in a smoke-filled courtyard, or over a wire stretched between two tall trees, or by use of an articulated rope that stiffens like a bamboo pole, due to the operation of an interior device. Anyone accepting such absurdities as the secret of the rope trick in its full-fledged form may very well have been hypnotized into believing them.

One fact is certain: However far modern science may advance in the exploration and recognition of human abilities beyond the limits of the ordinary senses, the farther it will go toward establishing the higher claims of yoga, whose devotees have been following the “psychic path” long before anyone else ever heard of it. If our Western savants prove that parapsychology has much to offer and succeed in cracking down its riddles as they have done with atomic energy, the clearing clouds of doubt will reveal the Oriental mystics floating serenely in the midst of their own aura, as they always have!