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The Yogic Studies Podcast

YSP 41 Keith Edward Cantú | The History of Theosophy and Yoga episode / season 1

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In this episode we welcome back Keith Cantú for a wide ranging conversation on the history of the Theosophical Society and in particular its unique relationship with the modern history of yoga. We discuss the influence of figures like Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, as well as lesser-known South Asian Theosophists and Theosophy-adjacent authors and scholars. We discuss the impact of Theosophical publications on the global dissemination of yoga in English-print books and journals, a legacy still felt today in modern yoga circles. We conclude the conversation by previewing Keith's upcoming online course, YS 126 | Theosophy and Yoga. Speaker Bio Dr. Keith Edward Cantú is a historian of religions whose interdisciplinary research especially focuses on South Asian yoga, tantra, and the interface between Sanskrit and Indic vernacular languages like Bengali, Tamil, and Hindi, and on modern occult movements in Europe and North America such as Thelema and the Theosophical Society. He is currently both Research Affiliate at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, where he will begin a full-time postdoctoral fellowship in Asian Religious Traditions next June as part of the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative, and Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at St. Lawrence University. He previously was a research fellow at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in the “Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Esoteric Practices and Alternative Rationalities from a Global Perspective” and Assistant Professor (postdoc) at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland in the project “Cultures of Patronage: India 1674–1890,” and received his doctoral degree in Religious Studies (South Asian religions) in 2021 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Keith’s first monograph, Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami and Śivarājayoga , has been published this year by Oxford University Press (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism series), and he is actively engaged in reprinting and translating several previously unknown or largely forgotten Tamil and Hindi works of Sri Sabhapati Swami and of his gurus. In addition to work on the swami, he is the author of numerous chapters and articles as varied as an ethnography of Tantric songs and sādhana or “practice” in Bengali, Indological research on south Indian mantra and yoga practices at tumuli and temples and on the Sanskrit alchemical mythology of Srisailam, modern yoga and discourses of Orientalism and cultural authenticity, haṭhayoga as “black magic” in Theosophy, and Islamic esotericism in the songs of the Bāuls and Fakirs of Bengal. A scholar-musician, Keith regularly sings and performs the Bāul songs of the nineteenth-century Bengali humanist poet Lalon Fakir (Lālan Phakir, d. 1890) as well as Śyāmāsaṅgīt or “music for the dark Goddess,” which he learned directly from sadhus and sadhikas during immersive stays in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India over the past twelve years, and regularly co-teaches a course on Tantric meditation and its connection with this music at the Esalen Institute near Big Sur, California. English versions of many of Lalon’s songs as translated by the late Carol Salomon can be found in City of Mirrors: Songs of Lālan Sā̃i , published in 2017 with Oxford's South Asia Research series, which Keith co-edited together with Dr. Saymon Zakaria. Links YS 126 | Theosophy and Yoga https://ucsb.academia.edu/KeithCantu YSP Ep 28 | Esotericism, Bauls, and Sabhapati Swami

Season 1

episodes

51. Sunila Kale and Christian Novetzke | The Yoga of Power

50. Anya Golovkova | rvidy, Tantra, and the Goddess

49. Daniela Bevilacqua | From Tapas to Modern Yoga

48. Brian Dana Akers | The Yoga Manifesto and the World of Yoga Publishing

47. Zo Slatoff | Yoga, Vednta, and Ashtanga Yoga

46. Kunsang | From Buddhist Nun to Tibetan Translator

45. Lucy May Constantini | Kalarippayarr: Martial Art of Kerala

YSP 45 Lucy May Constantini | Kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘: Martial Art of Kerala

44. Kate Hartmann | Pilgrimage and Buddhism

43. Christopher Jain Miller | Embodying Transnational Yoga

43. Christopher Jain Miller | Embodying Translational Yoga

42. Samuel M. Grimes | Newar Buddhism, Nepal, and Yoga

41. Keith Edward Cant | The History of Theosophy and Yoga

40. Caley Smith | The World of Vedic Sanskrit

39. Lubomr Ondraka | Yogic and Tantric Bodies

38. Carl Ernst | The History of Sufism and Yoga

37. James Mallinson | Datttreya's Discourse on Yoga

36. Philip Deslippe | Early American Yoga and the "Swami Circuit"

35. Arti Dhand | The Great Epic, Mahbhrata

34. Dagmar Wujastyk | Entangled Histories of Yoga, yurveda and Alchemy

33. Stuart Sarbacker | Agayoga: Eight Limbs of Yoga

32. Sravana Borkataky-Varma | Hijrs, Women, and Gender in kta Tantra

31. Rajiv Ranjan | On Teaching and Learning Hindi

30. Raj Balkaran | The Significance of the Devmhtmya

29. Varun Khanna | The Wisdom of the Upaniads

28. Keith Edward Cant | Esotericism, Bauls, and Sabhapati Swami

27. James Mallinson | The Source Texts of Haha Yoga

26. Adrin Muoz | The Study of Yoga in Latin America

25. Edwin Bryant | Bhakti Yoga and the Bhgavatapura

13. Raj Balkaran | Puras and Hindu Mythology

9. Jason Birch | Manuscript Hunting and the History of Medieval Yogas

10. Ian Baker | Tibetan Yoga, Hidden Lands, and Bringing Esoteric Teachings to Light

12. Ruth Westoby | Women and Gender in Yoga

16. Daniel Simpson | The Truth of Yoga

0. Seth Powell | Introducing the Yogic Studies Podcast

11. Philipp Maas | The Ptajalayogastra and its Textual History

15. Mark Singleton | Yoga Body, 10 Years Later

5. James Mallinson | The History and Practice of Haha Yoga

7. Karen OBrien-Kop | Ptajala Yoga, Yogcra Buddhism, and Re-Thinking the Category of "Classical Yoga"

8. Sravana Borkataky-Varma | kta Tantra, Female Practitioners, and Misperceptions of Tantra

1. Finnian Gerety | Vedic Ritual, O, and Early Yoga

4. Philip Deslippe | Making Sense of Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga

2. Daniela Bevilacqua | Hindu Asceticism and Haha Yoga

6. Ben Williams | aiva Tantra, Abhinavagupta, and the Tantric Sahdaya

14. Amanda Lucia | White Utopias, Yoga, and Transformational Festivals

3. Antonia Ruppel | On Teaching and Learning Sanskrit

20. Suzanne Newcombe + Karen O'Brien-Kop | Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies

23. Patton Burchett | Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India

22. Kate Hartmann | Buddhism, Pilgrimage, and BSO

24. Jvala Singh | The History of Sikhi and Yoga

21. Philipp Maas | What is Skhya Philosophy?

18. Jacqueline Hargreaves | The Luminescent and Embodied Philology

19. Theodora Wildcroft | Post-Lineage Yoga: From Guru to #MeToo

17. Stuart Sarbacker | Tracing the Path of Yoga

See all Podcasts

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