The Goddess Pose

April 27, 2015
Curious about the roots of yoga, journalist/author Goldberg (Kingdom Coming) began digging for clues to the connections between the yoga of India and its Americanized version. She came across the obituary of 102-year-old Indra Devi (née Eugenia Peterson), often called the First Lady of Yoga. This fascinating biography delves deeply into Devi’s life (she was born in Latvia in l899 to a family of Russian aristocrats) while chronicling a wider history: Devi, a Zelig-like figure who was a student of the legendary sage Krishnamacharya, seemed to show up wherever the action was. Her life story, which touches three centuries (she died in 2002), goes from the Russian Revolution, Weimar Berlin, the Indian independence movement, and Japanese-occupied Shanghai to Hollywood, Vietnam, Mexico, Argentina, and Panama, where she was spiritual advisor to Noriega’s second-in-command. Goldberg painstakingly renders the details of Devi’s kaleidoscopic journey and also explores the underpinnings of her outlook, including a yogic disavowal of attachment, a yearning for freedom, and an unflagging (but not saccharine) sense of trust and positivity. Devi taught yoga well into her 90s. Though the text will be of particular interest to practitioners and teachers of yoga, this sparkling tale of a remarkable trailblazer should enlighten and inspire every reader.

April 15, 2015
Investigative journalist Goldberg (The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, 2009, etc.) fluidly explores the extraordinary life of Indra Devi (1899-2002), the woman who helped transform the ancient Indian discipline of yoga into a worldwide phenomenon. Born Eugenia Peterson to a noble family in Riga, Latvia, Devi's early life was marked by instability and separations from family members. Her father vanished after divorcing Devi's mother, who pursued a peripatetic life as an actress. After graduating from school in 1916, Devi followed her mother from Moscow to Berlin, where both immersed themselves in cabaret culture. In 1926, Devi had a life-changing encounter with Jiddu Krishnamurti, who introduced her to the Indian-inflected spirituality known as theosophy. She traveled to India, a place that so beguiled her with its "constant sense of transcendence" that she found she could no longer live comfortably in the West. She returned to India, where she continued her involvement in esoteric spirituality and began serious study of yoga, then an all-male practice. Yet she was able to charm some of the discipline's leading exponents, including Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, into teaching her. Just before the outbreak of World War II, she moved to Shanghai with her diplomat husband, where she began teaching yoga and going by the name Indira (later changed to Indra) Devi. By 1947, she had found her way to California. There, she gravitated into the orbit of cultural luminary Aldous Huxley, taught yoga in Hollywood, and, after a divorce, married a homeopathic physician named Siegfried Knauer. Devi opened a yoga school in Mexico and became close to the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. Eventually, she moved to Buenos Aires, where she continued her work as a yoga teacher and lecturer. Goldberg's book, which uses material she uncovered about Devi on four continents, is not only thoroughly researched; it also offers insights into a magnificently elusive figure, the culture she loved, and the yogic practice she bequeathed to the West. Fascinating reading about an intriguing woman.

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Starred review from April 15, 2015

Inspired by her interest in yoga, journalist and author Goldberg (The Means of Reproduction) gives us a highly readable biography of the so-called "first lady of yoga," an eccentric personality who has also been called a female Forrest Gump because of the wide-ranging nature of her experiences. Born Eugenia Peterson in czarist Russia, the self-proclaimed Indra Devi (1899-2002) reinvented herself many times over as she traveled throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States over the course of her century-long life. Fascinated with spiritualism and the occult from an early age, the rebellious and nomadic Devi journeyed to India to learn the secrets of yoga and brought her craft to southern California in the post-World War II years just as New Age culture was emerging. A tutor to Gloria Swanson, Jennifer Jones, and Greta Garbo among others, Devi became internationally renown as the global interest in yoga exploded in the 1990s. This painstakingly researched book is more than mere biography, however. It helps readers to understand where yoga, as we practice it in the West came from, and how it differs from its roots. VERDICT Highly recommended for general readers and cultural historians alike. This fascinating and groundbreaking book should be enthusiastically received by a wide audience. [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/14.]--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

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Starred review from June 1, 2015
Indra Devi was renowned as the First Lady of Yoga in the West, but her flamboyantly dramatic story has never been fully told until now. Investigative journalist Goldberg, by dint of ardent research, adept synthesis, and narrative pizzazz, tracks her chimerical subject around the world to chronicle Devi's intrepidly improvised, nomadic, and seemingly charmed life with awe and skepticism. Born Eugenia Peterson in Riga, Latvia, in 1899 to a 16-year-old Russian aristocrat who jettisoned marriage for an acting career, Devi also became a performer as they navigated the violent upheavals of WWI and all that followed. Goldberg establishes each scene with dazzling detail and rich historical dimension as she chronicles her subject's astounding adventures in Weimar Berlin, Bombay, Shanghai, Hollywood, and Buenos Aires. Devi, a poor, stateless refugee, took on the roles of wife to a Czech attache in India (where she changed her name); prominent follower of Krishnamurti, Krishnamacharya, and Sathya Sai Baba; yoga teacher to the stars, including Gloria Swanson; internationally best-selling author; and half of an alternative-medicine power couple whose clients included Igor Stravinsky and Marilyn Monroe. Throughout this whirlwind biography, Goldberg provides fresh and enlightening insights into the evolution and impact of modern yoga while Devi, who lived to be 102, forever at the spinning center of things, shimmers provocatively in her almost supernatural charisma, ambition, contrariness, and resilience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)