In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

This paper examines the figure of the Indian yogi in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century within the intertwined histories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology. In Western scientific and popular media, Indian yogis and fakirs were repeatedly represented as “mesmerists” (c. 1830-1860s) and later “hypnotists” (c. 1880-1920s), masters of attention and suggestion at a time when science and technology were increasingly revealing the fragility and vulnerability of the mind and will. This paper shows how the extraordinary figure of the yogi was interpreted through the new categories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology, and how the modern Western mind (and self) was understood and enacted through engagement with the yogi.  Through the yogi, Western audiences both explored and distanced themselves from the unsettling possibility that the mind is more permeable, the self more suggestible, and the will more limited than the dominant ideal of the rational, self-transparent liberal subject would admit.

There is a curious trend that appears in the teachings of several prominent twentieth-century gurus: samskaras, or mental dispositions born of accrued from the imprints of past action (karma), are increasingly articulated as residing in the energy wheels (cakras) or subtle channels (nadis) of the visionary yogic body. This is hardly out of step with modern wellness culture, which has long embraced the idea that “the body keeps the score.” But it is fairly unprecedented in pre-modern South Asian sources where such concepts generally represent two parallel, if not directly competing, models. This paper examines the key moments of innovation and synthesis in both South Asian and Euro-American sources that yielded this trend, paying especially close attention to conceptual overlap between the evolving models of Kundalini and the unconscious.

Based on ethnographic “fieldwork” conducted during a 75-hour online course on Indian, or “Vedic” astrology (also called jyotish), this paper explores how astrological thinking among yoga practitioners serves as a contemporary diagnostic language of the self, and notably a hybrid form in which jyotish is refracted through twentieth-century psychological astrology. Rather than relying on the predictive possibilities of a classically-Indic astrology, the version of jyotish taught in this course posits a Jung-inspired worldview where cosmic forces are not agents of change but archetypal energies to be adjusted, strengthened, or stirred. Here, I trace the contours of this hybridized psychological astrology–part Indian, part Jungian, and entirely compatible with the ethos of interiority and self-care that dominates the discourse of the global yoga industry. 

This paper examines the figure of the Indian yogi in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century within the intertwined histories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology. In Western scientific and popular media, Indian yogis and fakirs were repeatedly represented as “mesmerists” (c. 1830-1860s) and later “hypnotists” (c. 1880-1920s), masters of attention and suggestion at a time when science and technology were increasingly revealing the fragility and vulnerability of the mind and will. This paper shows how the extraordinary figure of the yogi was interpreted through the new categories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology, and how the modern Western mind (and self) was understood and enacted through engagement with the yogi.  Through the yogi, Western audiences both explored and distanced themselves from the unsettling possibility that the mind is more permeable, the self more suggestible, and the will more limited than the dominant ideal of the rational, self-transparent liberal subject would admit.

There is a curious trend that appears in the teachings of several prominent twentieth-century gurus: samskaras, or mental dispositions born of accrued from the imprints of past action (karma), are increasingly articulated as residing in the energy wheels (cakras) or subtle channels (nadis) of the visionary yogic body. This is hardly out of step with modern wellness culture, which has long embraced the idea that “the body keeps the score.” But it is fairly unprecedented in pre-modern South Asian sources where such concepts generally represent two parallel, if not directly competing, models. This paper examines the key moments of innovation and synthesis in both South Asian and Euro-American sources that yielded this trend, paying especially close attention to conceptual overlap between the evolving models of Kundalini and the unconscious.

Based on ethnographic “fieldwork” conducted during a 75-hour online course on Indian, or “Vedic” astrology (also called jyotish), this paper explores how astrological thinking among yoga practitioners serves as a contemporary diagnostic language of the self, and notably a hybrid form in which jyotish is refracted through twentieth-century psychological astrology. Rather than relying on the predictive possibilities of a classically-Indic astrology, the version of jyotish taught in this course posits a Jung-inspired worldview where cosmic forces are not agents of change but archetypal energies to be adjusted, strengthened, or stirred. Here, I trace the contours of this hybridized psychological astrology–part Indian, part Jungian, and entirely compatible with the ethos of interiority and self-care that dominates the discourse of the global yoga industry. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard.