Secrets of the Himalaya Mountain Masters and Ladders to Cosmic Consciousness

Denver, CO: C.B. Kimball, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good+. First Edition. Hardcover. "Yoga was described as “yogi philosophy,” and it was common to talk of hypnotism and yoga interchangeably. Indian-born yoga teachers in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century were highly mobile and would move from one city to another, giving public lectures and teaching private courses. Punjabi Sikh immigrant from the village of Ball named Wassan Singh. Wassan Singh came to the United States in 1906 and worked in the lumber mills of the Pacific Northwest for about a decade and a half until he reinvented himself as Yogi Wassan and began to travel and lecture as “Super Akasha” and “Hindu Yogi Wassan Hatha Yogi. While much of Yogi Wassan’s repertoire was similar to his peers, he placed a strong emphasis on physical wellness through diet, exercise, and breathing regimens. In his public lectures, Yogi Wassan would often perform feats of strength on stage and use his own brawny body as proof of his techniques."-www.saada.org.Yogi Wassan’s 1927 magnum opus, Secrets of the Himalaya Mountain Masters and Ladder to Cosmic Consciousness, features a vaguely ha ha-yogic model, relying upon a system of plexuses opened along the principal energetic channels, which constitute “The Secret Key of Opana Yama” or “the System used by Householders to develop without excessive practice.” A combination of diet, basic calisthenics, and specialized exercises promises to produce a “Super-Man” and “Super-Woman” endowed with perfect bodily health and telepathy, as well as the power of self-projection through an “ethereal body.”-Anna Pokazanyeva, 2015. Light shelfwear, even toning, loss to front ep, folded corner, otherwise tight, bright, and unmarred. Bound in patterned, glaze blue and light blue cloth with gilt titling and pictorial. 8vo. 407pp. Illus. (b/w, portrait). Bookseller ticket at rear, inscription.