As a distinct category of yoga practice, “modern yoga” evades simple definition. Researchers study modern yoga within a variety of disciplines, adding to the ambiguity of the category. These diffuse approaches can harden the disciplinary boundaries that surround certain expressions of the category. Consider that although yoga originated within South Asian religious traditions, some current expressions of yoga practice, such as those found in fitness or biomedical contexts, can appear to have little to do with Religious Studies. However, I suggest that bracketing off such expressions of modern yoga practice—although necessary for specialized analysis—can hinder the fruitful investigation of “yoga” as a more complex category and limit the potential reach of Religious Studies inquiries. In this dissertation, I draw on methods from intellectual history, phenomenology, and comparative analysis to explore the category of modern yoga by developing a typology built around three organizing principles: legitimacy, embodiment, and American identity. Legitimacy represents the various ways that types of modern yoga practice are considered authentic. Embodiment represents the common theme among the various expressions of modern yoga practice that each is an embodied form of practice. I develop embodiment further to analyze the concept of connectedness, which includes connection with oneself, others, and one's environment. Finally, American identity represents how the varieties of modern yoga practice dynamically respond to their cultural contexts. The typology proposes that modern yoga comprises five sub-categories: religious yoga, spiritual yoga, fitness yoga, wellness yoga, and biomedical yoga. Like the unique colors on a palette, these categories are themselves distinct. Yet, also like colors on a palette, each represents just one shade among a nearly infinite number of real-world expressions. I argue that this classificatory system is useful to Religious Studies, because comparative analysis of the subcategories illustrates how even the most apparently secularized forms of yoga practice are relevant for Religious Studies inquiries. By constructing the categories of this typology, while simultaneously blurring their internal boundaries, I provide an expanded conceptual vocabulary with which to discuss the expansive expressions of modern yoga and to support future interdisciplinary work.

Studien ämnar till att undersöka anledningarna till samt resultatet av att yoga har blivit så populärt i Sverige, sett till sekulariseringsprocessen i Sverige idag, att det som ett resultat bidragit till att det erbjuds som en hälsofrämjande träningsform till skolpersonal på en gymnasieskola i Sverige. Vi har därför undersökt lärares och skolpersonals upplevelser av personalyoga, främst kundaliniyoga, som ett verktyg för stresshantering och tittat på yogans religiösa bakgrund. Sex kvalitativa intervjuer, där både lärare, skolpersonal och yogainstruktör blivit intervjuade har genomförts, transkriberats och analyserats. Resultatet visade att samtliga respondenter ansåg att yoga fungerar stressreducerande men endast en av de sex respondenterna ansåg att yoga var religiös utövning. Nästan alla respondenter var dock medvetna om att yoga har religiösa rötter i hinduism och buddhism, men samtidigt ansåg samtliga respondenter att målet med personalyogan endast var avkoppling i hälsofrämjande syfte. Utifrån resultatet har vi dragit slutsatsen att respondenterna är påverkade av sekulariseringsprocessen i Sverige samt att synen på yoga har gått från en mer religiös handling till en allt mer filosofisk väg och förhållningssätt i västvärlden.

The purpose of this study is to document and analyze the presence of yoga in school in the city of Värmland region, Sweden. To this day, there is a lack of emperic studies of yoga in schools and therefore, it is interesting to find out how yoga will be usefull in schools. The chosen method for this study was to observe and find out how students and teachers practice yoga in a secular contexts during school lessons. The critical part of using yoga in schools is about the background from yoga, and how yoga can be connected with religious and Hinduism spirituality. The results from this study show that yoga in school is more like an activity with a series of movements with focus on wellness and with the possibility to refresh the body and brain during a school lesson, and this without any connections of religious contexts at all.

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This study aims to investigate Christian responses to New Age practices, specifically by examining how the New Age practice of yoga, is described in Swedish Christian press. The reasearch questions were the following two: 1) How is Yoga described in the Swedish Protestant Christian Press? 2) How is yoga presented in the Swedish Protestant Christian newspapers Kyrkans Tidning, Dagen, Sändaren and Världen idag based on Lundgren’s risk and resource theory? The method used was content analysis, both in qualitative and quantitative approaches and the material consisted of 379 articles from 4 different Christian newspapers. Risk or resource theory and yogaphobia were applied to the results and the discussion. Regarding the first question, yoga is described as either a resource, a threat or other. In the resource category, the following subcategories emerged: yoga as a resource for physical health, yoga as a resource for mental health, yoga as a resource for activity in operation, yoga as a resource for a path to Christian spirituality, yoga as a resource for a path to an internal quest and yoga as a resource for a modernization of the church. Within the threat category, the following subcategories emerged: yoga as a threat to Christianity, yoga as a threat to church activities, yoga as a threat by dark forces, yoga as a threat to non-denominationalism,yoga as a threat to taxpayers, yoga as a threat to human health, and yoga as a threat to societal progress. The second research question addresses how yoga is presented based on the risk and resource theory. Surprisingly, the majority of the articles were found to belong to the other category, meaning that the article was neutral in its reporting. However, the risk category consisted of almost twice as many articles as the resource category. An interesting discovery in the analysis part was that both the theory of yogaphobia and “yoga as a risk” advocate that the practice of yoga in a Christian context contributes to a contradiction between the fundamental dogmas of Christianity and the opposite ones based in other religions. In contrast, yogaphobia is associated with a fear or phobia of yoga, while yoga as a risk is associated with criticism based on substantiated arguments. / Folkkyrkans nya ansikten - levd religion, nyandliga praktiker och teologisk legitimitet.