Yogalands

Why curiosity is the most important posture.

Promoted as a way of healing people from wounds inflicted by the world, modern yoga offers an “anti-world” to which practitioners can escape. Yet yoga can never free itself entirely from the compromises and contradictions of the real world. Yogalands encourages practitioners and critics to be curious about the many meanings and impacts of yoga.

Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.

Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.

"Yogalands is an inherently fascinating and thought-provoking read that will hold immense appeal to readers with an interest in the practice of yoga and its historical origins in the context of Eastern religions." Midwest Review of Books

“Fascinating... revealing subtle ways in which yoga, for so many, is spiritual, yes, but also religious without being religion.” Spirituality & Practice

“In this honest, critical, and compassionate study, Bramadat challenges simplistic accounts of Western appropriations of historically Asian spiritual practices, rousing curiosity about yoga’s complex entanglements with North American approaches to religion, health, and trauma. The result is a nuanced picture of what yoga is and why it matters.” Andrea R. Jain, author of Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality

"This is a great book! It made me laugh. It got me thinking about how to be a better teacher because of how it presents concepts in ways that feel accessible without being condescending. It is unlike anything else I have read in modern yoga studies in both its approach and subject matter. This is a necessary book and an enjoyable read." Laurah E. Klepinger, Utica University and author of *Transnational Yoga at Work: Spiritual Tourism and its Blind Spots *

“Bramadat unpacks and culturally and conceptually situates yoga practitioners’ prevailing attitudes toward authenticity, authority, their relationship to religion, and their experiences of health, the body, and trauma. I love the way Yogalands meets practitioners on their own terms while maintaining a critical perspective.” Anya P. Foxen, author of Inhaling Spirit: Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga