SOAS BWY Annual Yoga Summit

Abstract Ideas about kundalini originated in medieval tantric and yogic texts, where it was portrayed as a goddess and a serpent and conceptualized as a subtle energy. While these texts did not recommend adopting a frivolous stance, kundalini was, for the most part, regarded as a beneficial force that could engender spiritual potential and ultimately lead to liberation. This stance changed drastically in the twentieth century. Against the backdrop of the anti-psychiatry movement and bolstered by theories from transpersonal psychologists, kundalini was increasingly interpreted in light of psycho-physical diseases, highlighting its potential for crisis. The initial step toward the psychologization of kundalini likely took place in a small seminar room in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1932, when the psychologist C.G. Jung (1875–961) held a seminar with the Indologist Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881–1962) on “Kundalini Yoga”. However, it was the writing(s) of an unknown Indian Pandit that brought the dangerous sides of the awakening of kundalini to the forefront. Gopi Krishna’s Kundalini: An Evolutionary Energy in Man (1967) is the first modern account by a kundalini practitioner describing his awakening experience as a crisis. This approach was then picked up by figures associated with the San Francisco-based Kundalini Clinic, who classified kundalini as a disease pattern, the so-called “kundalini syndrome”. By then, kundalini had been integrated into clinical settings, and the belief in troubling kundalini awakenings had become widely accepted among practitioners. The Kundalini Clinic, in particular, developed into a pivotal site of empirical kundalini research and treatment during the late twentieth century.

Biography

Marleen Thaler holds a PhD in Religious Studies (2024), along with additional degrees in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Oriental Studies – all from the University of Vienna. She has been a research fellow at ETH Zurich and UC Santa Barbara, CA, served as a scholar-in-residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA, and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Graz and is also employed at the University of Vienna’s research centre, “Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society.” Marleen has co-edited a volume on Subtle Energies (Brill, 2025), is currently finalizing her monograph on John Michell’s Sacred Place Theory (Equinox Publishing, 2026), and is preparing to publish her dissertation on the modern history of kundalini’s transformation. Her main research interests include global religious history, the transformation of religion, the modern history of yoga, religion and technology, and religious traditionalism.

Morning session: Yoga texts often refer to the chakras as ‘lotuses’, each flower with a differing number of petals. In this first of our experiential practice sessions, we will visualise the ‘flowers’ beginning to bloom, with the assistance of simple, powerful techniques to find inner peace.

Afternoon session: As the day reaches its crescendo, Swamiji will lead us in a closing practice of collectively chanting the bija (seed) mantras associated with each of the chakras. A bija mantra is a one-syllable sound that represents the unique frequency and intention of each chakra. By jointly chanting these potent sounds, we are tuning ourselves together energetically, wherever we may be in the physical world.

Then, before leaving the protected environment of the Summit and going out into the world, we will visualise a protective closing of the chakras. This is quite different from blocking their energy; it is not designed to exclude anyone. Closing your chakras is like shielding yourself from needless energy drain and negative input. It is a positive visualisation, pulling your aura in tightly around you when you are in crowded or public places.

Finally, during a minute of silence, each of us will be asked to send positive thoughts out into the world. This concept is so beautifully and succinctly expressed in our closing mangala mantra “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” – “May the whole world be peaceful and happy”.

Biography

Swami Saradananda is an internationally-renowned yoga mentor and author, who has been practising and teaching yoga for more than 50 years. She inspires students to want to practise; her teaching is practical as well as theoretical in nature and always enlightening!
In her personal practice, Swami Saradananda tends to focus on the energetic aspects of yoga and meditation. She is profoundly interested in some lesser-known facets of physical yoga, such as chakras, kriyas and mudras.
Drawing on her personal experience, as well as years of study, Swami Saradananda has authored the books “Relax and Unwind with Yoga”, “Chakra Meditation”, “The Essential Guide to Chakras”, “The Power of Breath”, “Mudras for Modern Life”, “The Cleansing Power of Yoga” and “Sitting Comfortably: preparing the mind and body for peaceful meditation”.
In addition to teaching and writing, Swami Saradananda has spent extensive time doing personal practice in the Himalayas. She is an alumni of SOAS with an MA degree in ‘Traditions of Yoga and Meditation’.

Oceano Respiração (Ocean Breath) is a collaborative experiment in research-creation developed between January – April 2024, by Dr Marissa Clarke and Professor Isabel Nogueira at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The album features original tracks created from field recordings of breathing, moving, and chanting in transnational yoga practices across London, Edinburgh, and Porto Alegre, alongside recordings made at beaches and riverbanks in southern Brazil. These recordings became a ‘reservoir of sonic events’ that Clarke and Nogueira transformed into compositions using audio processing techniques, virtual instruments, and analogue synthesisers.

Biography:

Marissa Clarke has recently been appointed the Associate Lecturer of Contemporary Yoga Studies at SOAS University of London. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2025, where she researched the phenomenology of yoga, the body, and sound. Her doctoral work was funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) Doctoral Training Partnership. From January to May 2024, she was a SGSAH Visiting Doctoral Researcher at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

One of Hatley’s ongoing subjects of research is the Brahmayāmala (650–750 c.e.), the earliest surviving large-scale tantra (scripture) devoted to goddess worship. He published one volume of studies, critical editions, and translations in 2018 and is preparing another, as well as a companion monograph on tantric yoginī cults in early-medieval India. Since 2010, Hatley has contributed to the Tāntrikābhidhānakośa. Dictionnaire des terms techniques de la littérature hindoue tantrique (A Dictionary of Technical Terms from Hindu Tantric Literature), published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. One current project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a critical edition, translation and study of The Wish-fulfilling Gem of Yoga (Yogacintāmaṇi) of Śivānanda Sarasvatī (fl. circa 1600), in collaboration with James Mallinson (Oxford) and Jason Birch (SOAS University of London). Śivānanda’s compendium (nibandha) represents an early and influential endeavor to integrate Patañjali’s ‘classical’ yoga and its rich commentarial tradition with the corpus of second-millennium texts teaching the body-centered practice of Haṭha Yoga. As such, the text offers a unique window into the philosophy and practice of yoga in the early modern era, at the height of the Mughal empire and on the eve of colonialism. Hatley’s most recent work concerns the history of the ‘tantric body’: its sources, key principles, and historical transformations. At the heart of the project is a genealogy of the tantric cakras (wheels) and kuṇḍalinī (the serpentine vital force believed to ascend through the body in yoga).