The Nirvana Express

January 8, 2024
Journalist Brown (Tearing Down the Wall) offers a comprehensive account of Western fascination and engagement with Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Eastern spiritual practices and philosophies. Beginning his chronicle with the East India Company’s first forays on the subcontinent in the 18th century, Brown finds that popular interest in Eastern spirituality wasn’t piqued until the Victorian era. The turning point came in the 1890s, spurred by an 1893 Chicago lecture on Vedantic thought given by Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda and an 1897 London exhibition of yoga poses performed by yogi Bava Lachman Dass. From there, Brown follows dozens of Eastern gurus and teachers and their Western boosters (including Paul Bruton, author of the influential 1934 memoir A Search in Secret India) through the 20th century, while also tracing Western backlash to the idea of the guru—which increasingly came to be perceived as a type of con man or cult leader. Brown concludes by profiling Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a controversial 1980s “sex guru” whose followers poisoned the inhabitants of The Dalles, Ore., to sway a local election. Extraordinarily detailed, Brown’s narrative has a cast of hundreds and touches on scores of famous figures—from William James and Madame Blavatsky to Brian Wilson and Timothy Leary. It’s a valuable work of cultural and religious history that stitches together many disparate threads.