Today host Pierce Salguero sits down with Marleen Thaler, a researcher at the University of Vienna and University of Graz. Together, we investigate the history of the transformation of Kundalini from a Hindu goddess resting at the base of the spine to her modern manifestation as a psychiatric syndrome. Along the way, we discuss the central importance of the Theosophical society, the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1970s, spiritual emergencies, and kundalini as a meeting point for religion and medicine.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Arthur Avalon, The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga
Gopi Krishna, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man
Lee Sennella, The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence
Spiritual Emergence Network (USA | International)
Marleen’s publications: Academia.edu

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Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com.

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Black Beryl: The Modern Remaking of Kundalini, with Marleen Thaler