Hi
I have been doing some amateur sleuthing around Krishnamacharya and his legacy.
For those interested in this sort of stuff I recently came across a copy of an article on The American Heart Association website. Its a paper from 1961 called Experiments in India on "Voluntary" Control of the Heart and Pulse by MA WENGER, B. K. BAGCHI and B. K. ANAND.
pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/cir...44!8091!-1
The paper was a follow up to the original investigation of Krishnamacharyas heart stopping demonstrated to Dr. Therese Brosse in 1935. Her article was published in 1946 but I can't find a version on the web its called Brosse, T.
"A Psychophysiological Study." Main Currents in Modern Thought 4 (1946): 77-84.
The 1961 article describes how the 3 gentlemen travelled around india tetsing the ability of 3 "yogi"s and one non yogi who claimed they could stop their heart betas. The article is summarised on the noetics webpage as:
"Wenger, Bagchi, and Anand guessed that these three subjects used the Valsalva maneuver, consisting of strong abdominal contractions and breath arrest, to reduce venous return to the heart. "With little blood to pump the heart," they wrote, "sounds are diminished . . . and the palpable radial pulse seems to disappear. High amplification finger plethysmography continued to show pulse waves, however; and the electrocardiograph showed heart [contractions]." During such breath retention, moreover, their subjects' hearts changed position so that the potentials in one of their EKG leads decreased, which led Wenger and Bagchi to suggest that Brosse's earlier demonstration of complete heart cessation might have resulted from her use of a single EKG lead that lost its potentials when her subject's heart position shifted."
What is interesting to me is in the article STK claims he is too old (67) to stop his heart without a months practice , but he then is convinced to demonstrate the method he used, however he states that he will not actually stop his heart, so its uncertain what ability is being tested.
I leave you to come to your own conclusions., but pretty cool to see his ECG readout...
If anyone has an electronic copy of the Brosse article I'd be interested in seeing it . Apparently she was a theosophist and became a pupil of SKT in Mysore returning a number of times with other europeans. So she must have been there when Guruji was assisting SKT at the Yogashala. However, alot of the material on her history is in french and my 'O' level French isn't up to much these days so any other information on her gratefully received.
cheers
Jonathan, NZ
I have been doing some amateur sleuthing around Krishnamacharya and his legacy.
For those interested in this sort of stuff I recently came across a copy of an article on The American Heart Association website. Its a paper from 1961 called Experiments in India on "Voluntary" Control of the Heart and Pulse by MA WENGER, B. K. BAGCHI and B. K. ANAND.
pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/cir...44!8091!-1
The paper was a follow up to the original investigation of Krishnamacharyas heart stopping demonstrated to Dr. Therese Brosse in 1935. Her article was published in 1946 but I can't find a version on the web its called Brosse, T.
"A Psychophysiological Study." Main Currents in Modern Thought 4 (1946): 77-84.
The 1961 article describes how the 3 gentlemen travelled around india tetsing the ability of 3 "yogi"s and one non yogi who claimed they could stop their heart betas. The article is summarised on the noetics webpage as:
"Wenger, Bagchi, and Anand guessed that these three subjects used the Valsalva maneuver, consisting of strong abdominal contractions and breath arrest, to reduce venous return to the heart. "With little blood to pump the heart," they wrote, "sounds are diminished . . . and the palpable radial pulse seems to disappear. High amplification finger plethysmography continued to show pulse waves, however; and the electrocardiograph showed heart [contractions]." During such breath retention, moreover, their subjects' hearts changed position so that the potentials in one of their EKG leads decreased, which led Wenger and Bagchi to suggest that Brosse's earlier demonstration of complete heart cessation might have resulted from her use of a single EKG lead that lost its potentials when her subject's heart position shifted."
What is interesting to me is in the article STK claims he is too old (67) to stop his heart without a months practice , but he then is convinced to demonstrate the method he used, however he states that he will not actually stop his heart, so its uncertain what ability is being tested.
I leave you to come to your own conclusions., but pretty cool to see his ECG readout...
If anyone has an electronic copy of the Brosse article I'd be interested in seeing it . Apparently she was a theosophist and became a pupil of SKT in Mysore returning a number of times with other europeans. So she must have been there when Guruji was assisting SKT at the Yogashala. However, alot of the material on her history is in french and my 'O' level French isn't up to much these days so any other information on her gratefully received.
cheers
Jonathan, NZ
