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Pretty and breathtaking drives in North America! Where is one to start - as there are a great many of them! This question brings me right back onto Memory Lane - to the remote past of 1987,1989 and from 1990 onwards, when I spent months doing just that: Looking for breathtaking scenery and lonely roads! In no particular order:Devil’s Backbone: Breathtaking!Take your throbbing heart into both of your hands and drive down the “Devil’s Backbone”! That is how the spine of the Sierra Madre Occidental is called between Durango and Mazatlan down in Mexico, the southern part of North America, mind you.Take the old road, called “libre”, not the new toll highway. It is an all-day affair, some 250 miles altogether. There is hardly a piece of straight road on this drive, and yes, there are buses and big rigs on the road for added excitement. “Duel” anybody?Start at quaint, mostly tranquil Durango after having paid a visit to the big statue of Pancho Villa and the gorgeous colonial cathedral there. We are already at 6000 ft above sea level. At first, there is a gradual rise of the road through endless forests of pine and oak until you reach almost 10′000 ft of altitude.Then the Big Dive. A rollercoaster ride. Lowering oneself into an endless succession of abysses, ridges, canyons and valleys all the way down to sea level. The views are incredible - if there were only turnouts! Small towns with cornfields steep enough to fall off of, cornfields that even grow in December, valleys full of unknown flowery shrubs and others with oak trees turning into fall colors in spring, giving finally way to cactus-studded thornscrub thickets and sultry warmth as you approach the coast.The views along “Espinazo del Diablo”On the Edge! One of the 70 or so different species of pine tree that have found their home in the Sierra Madre Occidental - nowhere you find more of them than there.Big Drop! The road sign reads “Dangerous curves next 186 km”. No exaggeration - and they are not talking about the sunbathers at Mazatlán. It is not one direct huge drop, though, it is more like a huge rollercoaster ride, up, down and around and up again, that does not seem to end. The haze is from lingering forest fires, a common occurrence in the dry spring here. (No warning signs for that)Spring wilting - the middle level of the canyons, located already in Sinaloa State belies its tropical location. Sinaloa is one of the wildest states of Mexico - and one of the least known. These deciduous trees are oaks- there are also dozens of oak species in these mountains.The Unknown - All it take is a few curves and a different exposure and the land greens right back up. Most of the vegetation on these hills and canyons is only loosely investigated, the area is very thinly settled - and some folks there you do definitively not want to meet.The encounter. Lanky cactus getting embraced by a violet-clad beauty. The lower level of the canyons near Mazatlán provides the traveller with their own surprises.From Beach to Mountains to Desert: Pretty and breathtaking!From fog to desert dryness across Southern California’s Peninsular Range! Take this trip in spring, when there is often a stubborn marine layer over San Diego and finish a glorious day over at Yuma, Arizona taking secondary country roads, not the Interstate 8.San Diego is known for its perpetually mild, subtropical climate. Fog and low clouds are common there for at least part of the day, and this fog thickens enough to yield a few drizzles on your way up towards Palomar Mountain. Soon, the carefully manicured street vegetation and lawns of Greater San Diego give way to typical Southern California chaparral and finally a pine-oak woodland reminiscent of interior Spain in the mountains there. As you approach the crest, you already get a hint of light through to often thick fog, then you suddenly break through the gloom and find yourself in the most brilliant sunshine and under the bluest of all blue skies.Here, too you drive down a steep decline, quickly the woods stay behind, a narrow belt of chaparral, then suddenly the desert! Within a few minutes you change from drizzly cold and gloomy greenery to some of the driest countryside on the continent. At first, you mistake the huge, impossibly blue lake in the barren plain for a desert mirage, but it is North America’s lowest lake, sitting at some 230 ft below sea level.The road leads you through Anza Borrego Desert State Park which is worth a longer stay. After a particular rainy winter ( a few inches of rain is all what’s needed) this is prime wildflower country! Most of the plants here are shortly-lived wildflowers, in a dry year, this desert is impressively desolate and barren.When heading over to Yuma, don’t miss out on the date groves near Indio, the “Chocolate Mountains” and the gorgeous sand dunes west of Yuma where the road passes right through.Southern California Solitude - yes, this is for real! The Peninsular Ranges offer a respite from bustling San Diego.The wall! A few miles behind the crest the Pacific moisture stays behind and the desert dryness takes over. The backbone of the Penisular Ranges rise like the wall of a fortress out of the desert to the east and keeps the fog and clouds at bay, forming a true climate barrier. This change is all the more dramatic if you have a persistent marine layer on the coast.The Forgotten Corner The desert scene from above appears to be a garden compared to the driest realms of southeastern California. Anza Borrego Desert rivals Death Valley for dryness and for heat - and any setting in the Soutwest for pretty clouds.Salton Sea used to be a desert jewel - it started the transformation to toxic waste dump right around 1989 when this picture was taken. The range in the back is called Chocolate Mountains. At its base, even a layman can perfectly identify the fault lines that slowly are tearing California apart.After having passed Mecca one assumes to see something like this. Not the Mecca in Saudia Arabia of course, there is a town with this name here - and the desert is of course Algodones Dunes, actually a little extension of the large dunefield of Desierto de Altar in Mexico. This is the largest dune area of the United States and served as a backdrop for desert scenes supposedly playing out in the Middle East in many Hollywood classics.Superstition Mountains: Pretty to breathtaking!Apache Trail - this is the right trip for the budding offroader with a knack for spectacular scenery without having to truly roughing it. The mostly unpaved road follows the course of Salt River through the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona. You can easily do this in a single day while visiting Phoenix or Tucson. A regular passenger car can do this trip, but you will be better off in an SUV, be it only for the better view. You can make this into a two day loop drive, starting at Tuscon. Head north on 77 to Globe and onwards to Roosevelt on 88 at the big Theodore Roosevelt Reservoir, where Apache Trail takes off towards Apache Junction, leading you into Mesa and Phoenix and back to Tucson.Classical Sonoran Desert scenery will await you here, with the unexpected twist of those large columnar cacti actually growing on the lakeshore. The Salt River has become dammed up on several occasions here making for a pretty sight of impossibly blue waters alongside those reddish, craggy rocks and an luminous, deep-blue Sonoran Desert sky. The canyon is spectacular, actually a baby version of the great “barrancas” of the Sierra Madre Occidental in nearby Sonora state, Mexico. These mountains are a northward extension of that range, for this reason you can encounter quite a few plant and animal species from Mexico here in Arizona.There are numerous campgrounds and places to eat here, but maybe you want to opt for purchasing some generous pieces of good steak in a local store and grill them yourself in a fireplace.Cowboy country! The upper Salt River Canyon looks like the Old West is envisioned by many. Despite its proximity to Tucson and Phoenix this is actually not travelled too often and sometimes serves as a backdrop for “beautiful” desert pictures.Water Saguaros - Roosevelt Reservoir - and a little cactus forest overlooking the water!Desert Mirage? Not this time. The only thing more strange would be Saguaros growing by the sea. The only place where you can see that is on the coast of Southern Sonora, Mexico. But this is truly awesome here!The Canyon - Lower Salt River Canyon looks similar to the famous “Barrancas” in the Sierra Madre - because these mountain here are actually a northward extension of this range.Sunset Drama - nothing symbolizes life in the Southwest better than the hours before and after sunset. You see it virtually every day - and I never grew tired of it in 21 years when living in Northern Chihuahua.Burr Trail: BreathtakingBurr Trail! Feel like a true wild west outlaw as you travel the old stomping grounds of Butch Cassidy and his wild bunch near “Robber’s Roost” in southeastern Utah! This drive is part of a longer route out of Moab Utah over to Capitol Reef. Bring a high-clearance, all wheel drive vehicle that can take a few rough spots. This drive is best when you actually spend a night out there under the stars all by yourself.Moab is the hub to Utah’s Red Rock Country. While you are there, you may want to get some practice with your vehicle, heading up to Sky Island in Canyonlands National Park and hone your photography skills at Arches National Park. This whole area is North America’s most picturesque region to many - and truly spectacular just to look at and experience. Then get a good topo map (paper, not that flimsy electronic stuff that may break the very first time you drop the thing.) You do not want to be out there without a proper map.Burr Trail has no pavement, but it is usually manageable. However, you might have to ford Escalante River and there might be some rough spots. Take your time and do frequent stops as you come through some of the most amazing views. Some of these formations have the most impossible colorations, a stark contrast between those vivid reds, oranges and violets of the buttes, ridges and gullies against the impossibly blue Utah sky, garnered with those bright yellows of dry grasses.Close off this color galore at Capitol Reef National Park and you might want to distrust your very own eyes!Rock Playground - this is what this area is all about. Rocks actually enjoying themselves, as if they had come alive to frolick! This of course is iconic Balanced Rock at the entrance of Arches National Park near Moab. To catch this shot it is best to stay at a campground nearby.Really?! What in the world did cause THAT gash there? Thor’s Hammer - or hatchet, rather?Pink Dream - or nightmare if you are intimidated by this kind of driving surface. And the fact that there is not much of any roadside assistance. Burr Trail offers some of the most precious of all commodities though. Solitude. And lots of pink stuff.Crossing of the Escalante - it is called a river, but after snowmelt it’s more like a trickle. Unless you get a thunderstorm. Even a pink flash flood means business, so watch out. This 1972 Ford 150 4x4 truck with camper was my home for 6 months and some 20′000 miles during that monumental trip back in 1987 when I was just 25 years old.Crumbling away. Did ever someone witness how these rocks fall off that mesa?Are we lost? At least one does not have to ask for directions here. But better to bring plenty of gas and water. - and go it alone, just in case. I had two 20 gal tanks and 4 containers with 5 gallons each extra. And some 30 gallons of water in the camper.The Castle. Maybe from a long-forgotten princess. One starts to make up his own place names, as the hours slowly add up for an entire day.Painted Desert is what I like best for a name of this unique area. Officially there are only four deserts in North America. While not being large, it is one of these places where you“cannot go from here to there”For now, enjoy the view of world most gigantic liver!The Capitol! At the end of this journey you will be awaited by a treat! Capitol Reef National Park was a huge surprise and a park that definitively deserves more attention.Not from this world - this is what came to my mind during my visit.The Crossing of Black Rock Desert: Awe inspiringly breathtaking!Burning Man Trail. I made that name up, the route has no name yet, but still. You come across the Black Rock Desert and a lot of burnt ground so to say - North America’s largest lava flow. This is a drive for folks who do not like nor need crowds. Start at Carson City,drive through Black Rock Desert, then northward into Oregon and head over to Twin Falls, Idaho via Paradise Valley and Owyhee. A lot of it is dirt road, so a sturdy, high clearance SUV is warranted - and some 5–7 days of your life.Without a doubt, this has been one of the most daunting drives I have ever undertaken. Most of it is off-pavement, but the roads are mostly graded gravel and you find them on a good map.Once you are heading towards Pyramid Lake you feel as if you were travelling on another planet, as an eerily beautiful, unreal landscape starts to unfold. It is a Land of 50 shades of grey, greyish sagebrush, the grays of the dusty rocks even the grasses tend to become grey. Then the glistening white surfaces of the so-called playas, which here are named as individual deserts. They are enormous, you cannot see across from one side of Black Rock Desert to the other. Hours pass as you round these endless, featureless and completely sterile expanses of dried mud. In southeastern Oregon don’t miss to drive atop Steen’s Mountain and wonder, why a river here became named “Donner and Blitzen” the thunder and lightning river in German.Then set out into the intimidating blackness of Southern Idaho! Never again in my life I would see a land where everything around me was black, for two days straight. There are lava tunnels with still some ice from last winter in them, and you will start to appreciate the different kind of flows as the hours mount to days and you have not seen a single living soul for days on end. I spent six days for the trip, the first night I spent in the middle of Black Rock Desert, the second on equally-dry Lake Winnemucca, the third on the edge of Alvord Desert below Steen’s Mountain, the fourth at 10′000 feet on the summit of that mountain and the fifth for the rise of the full moon over the lava beds of Southern Idaho.Pyramid Lake is a desert delight on a brutally hot and bone dry summer day as this. See the Pyramid on the other side of the lake? A fitting welcome sign for a trip into a strange world indeed.Black Rock Desert is eerily similar to another huge playa lake (dry lake bed) down in Northern Chihuahua. One get surprisingly hesitant to camp out here in the open all by oneself. When I did so I was keen to not have any light on in the camper - but finally I took my heart into both of my hands and ventured outside for taking a look at the night sky. Back in 1987 there was no Burning Man Festival yet - so I had the whole playa for myself.Surprise! A historic picture, as it seems as if Fly Geysir near Gerlach is now off limits for visitors. This is actually a well that yielded some unexpected results for the farmer who drilled it. The hot, steaming water runs continually without stopping.Drifting away into the void of the desert, a recurring motif in my innermost desires for more than 30 years now. This playa, Alvord Desert in southeastern Oregon will be my home for the night. The dark, menacing mountain in the back is Steen’s Mountain.On top of the world - the highest where I have spent the night at. The summit of Steen’s Mountain is close to 10′000 ft high, or 3000 meters. The gravel road is quite tricky in spots - hair-raisingly so during bad weather.This is Oregon, too! There is nothing that beats a night alone on Steen’s Mountain - and for a better night sky you would need to go to space.Alive! Against all odds and whatever it takes - this lonely being is rising to the challenge. This is one of the largest lava field on the planet. Whoever dares to enter will be engulfed by blackness for two days.Whatever it takes - this trickle does not give up! Flintstone-hard lava against water - somehow this moved me more than the mighty Colorado in its fight against rather soft sandstones at Grand Canyon.Whatever it takes - I made it! Yes, I felt accomplished at Twin Falls, Idaho. I thought this to be the prettiest of all water falls, after having seen Niagara and the Lower Fall of the Yellowstone. Maybe because it felt as if I discovered it all by myself, never expecting it.The Border Crosser: A trip for body heart and soul.Boldly go where almost no man dares to go! The Great Loop Drive of El Paso, taking you into “No Country for Old Men” lands. A bi-national affair and some of the most impressive canyonscapes of North America and the Great Lonely of far west Texas and Northern Chihuahua as a bonus. Make three days for this monumental trip. Drive due south out of El Paso to Chihuahua and from there northeast to Presidio, Texas and over to Big Bend National Park. Complete the loop by heading northwest from Presidio crossing the Marfa Plains and take U.S. 61 back into El Paso. This last leg is best right before sunset!This of course covers my old stomping grounds for 21 years. This is an all-pavement trip which I once undertook with my soon-to-be wife as a romantic getaway. We broke down. What a great excuse for our first complete night all by ourselves in a small motel in Aldama!The first leg down to Chihuahua uses the same route the Spanish Conquistadors established as Camino Real, it is also known as Panamericana. You come across the “Free Bridge” out of El Paso - and you are in another world! Feel like the cops from “Sicario” as you drive south through bustling, chaotic but never truly dangerous traffic in Ciudad Juarez while listening to some corrido on 1000 AM “La Rancherita”.Soon, the last outskirts stay behind and the scenery opens up and you breathe a sigh of relief. All traffic is suddenly gone - almost! You now enter another movie set - “Dune”!The name rings true! The divided freeway passes the spectacular dunefield of Samalayuca, North America’s second-largest dunefield. Stop at the turnoff and walk for half an hour until the first tall dunes to the west. Or was it an hour?Then set out into the desert sea and marvel at the impressive rock formations and mountain ranges passing by for hours. Instead of entering Chihuahua, head northeast towards the small, tranquil town of Aldama to spend the night in a small hotel as we did back then.The next segment will cover historical terrain, it was near Cuchillo Parado, Chihuahua, where the great Mexican Revolution of 1910 initiated on November 20th. You will notice a little crack in the otherwise starkly barren gibberstone plain. Soon, when the road gets closer you will discover that this “crack” is actually a 700 ft deep and stunningly narrow gorge barely a bit wider than the river flowing far below. This is Rio Conchos, which will join the here usually completely dry riverbed of the Rio Grande at Ojinaga-Presidio. Here, the road crosses back into Texas. Expect to be questioned by U.S. Border Authorities as everybody else. You will need a passport as an American citizen as well.Now you can take a leisurely trip downriver towards Big Bend National park, a showcase for true Chihuahuan Desert habitat and three of the most spectacular canyons of the continent. Drive back in the afternoon, either for Presidio or Marfa, if you want to try to check out the mysterious “Marfa Lights” at night there. In any case, in a moonless night you will be treated to some of the darkest sky of North America there where you can actually drive your car to on a paved road. A perfect spot for stargazing.The following day you can look for respite from the desert in the nearby mountains - or you opt for a visit to Hueco Tanks State Park east of El Paso on your way back. This highly scenic and surprising little park is a marvelous opportunity for picturetaking and picknicking in a true “wild west” setting.Oil, Mines, Trains and Roads - Welcome to El Paso, Texas. Here some of the most important thoroughfares of North America meet.Camino Real coming out of Mexico City towards Santa Fe intersects Interstate 10 from Florida to California. Here is also the railroad crossing between Union Pacific and Ferromex, the Mexican railroad system. Together with Ciudad Juarez, this international city has more than 2 million people. Its name used to be El Paso del Norte, when Texas still belonged to Mexico.El Umbral del Milenio. “Threshold to the Millenium” south of Ciudad Juarez right on Mex 45. You are now leaving civilization for several hours, looking at this portlight always feels as if one is setting sail onto a sea of pale brown, the intimidating Chihuahuan Desert of Chihuahua.Boldness - this is what this area south of Juarez is transmitting to me. “Wanna mess with me?!?” This is not a National Park, no Park Rangers or search troops out here. Time to turn west now….The Samalayuca Dunefield under the Light of Truth. A foreign star is burning a hole into the empty sky, where hardly a plane is flying. A land so strange that is was chosen as the backdrop for “Dune”, an iconic science fiction movie.Boldly go where no man has gone before…. The Samalayuca Desert is North America’s second- largest sandy desert, it covers most of the roadless basin southwest of El Paso in northwestern Chihuahua, about half the surface of Switzerland. About a tenth of that is made up from clean, tall dunes.Springtime - often a gloomy, dusty time in Northern Chihuahua. But these Ocotillos flower - no matter what. Who needs leaves after all if one can have sex!Impressive, intimidating or awe-inspiring. The Candelaria Mountain is rising a full 3500 ft out of this empty plain - in about 10 miles distance. That makes climbing it a bigger challenge than one might assume, it is a two day affair, as there is no public road. The mountain is a marble quarry.The sky of Chihuahua is the prettiest in the world - so says my wife who grew up in this area.Emptyness and a sense of being out of place. When seeing it first from the air, I could not help to think that God must have been angry when he created that part of the world. But maybe he just wanted it for Himself! Park the car and head out for an hour or so into this void. Then stop. For another hour. It is not uncommon not hearing a single sound in that hour.Better times - at a time when I was at the threshold of my Mexican adventure, just a step away from jumping off the cliff that would lead me from the safe but boring realm of Switzerland - to take a dive into life in itself. I was almost 28 on that picture and now I am 57 - knowing that my best times on this world lie behind me.Enough already! We have a road trip to finish. This overlook is near Ojinaga, Chihuahua, across from Presidio, Texas, above Rio Conchos.The U.S. - Mexico border is mostly a very peaceful, albeit lonely region. This is a historic picture, don’t expect the Rio Grande to be this “grande” when you visit Presidio or Big Bend. This was during the big El Niño event of 1987, with some of the wettest May in history.Texas Pride! Nor staying behind its southern neighbor Chihuahua, Western Texas has some of the most superb scenery anywhere. “El Capitan” does not have to hide behind its California namesake either, overlooking U.S. 61 between Carlsbad, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Guadalupe Mountains National Park is some of the least visited U.S. National parks - go there and feel like the first person to have seen it.This are the true Texas Rocks! This little hidden gem of the Texas Desert is “nearish” from El Paso (borrowing a word from Emily Fisher here!). Despite its arid looks, this is actually an oasis, that has warranted a stopover of the stagecoach on the Old Butterfield Trail. Of course, local Indians have rested here since about 10′000 years. Hueco Tanks is still very much esteemed by local tribes such as the Tigua, the Mescalero Apache and the Kiowa. The area, now a State Park, is full of cliff paintings. Unfortunatley, past episodes of vandalism has caused that authorities have closed off most of the park and entrance is granted only for ranger-guided tours.Beautiful! This is how one should live. It is in places like these, where my wife and I feel closest to each other, where our souls tremble in perfect harmony as if being one. The miracle of abundant water in hostile desert. Abundant Living in a place of dearth. But where does that water come from, so far away from any river?It actually is the runoff from the rocks that collects in small depressions they call huecos, Spanish for holes. You only need a quarter of an inch of rain to collect a small pond full of water. The desert makes its own water!Cattle ranchers knew that all along - like here at Cattleman’s Steak House, a little closer now to El Paso. They actually raise their own lifestock. See the little range under the sun blob? That is Sierra Juarez, where I used to live, in Ciudad Juarez. El Paso is a bit to the right, behind the bush.This will have to do. All of these trips I have done myself, as the pictures are mine as well. A great number of journeys have been excluded, not for a lack of scenery but for a lack of space. The northern part of North America has remained elusive for me, so that will maybe covered by someone who has travelled up there.

India Syndrome and Virtual OrientalismIndia today is a burgeoning global superpower, a place of outrageous poverty, and a land of tech-support call centers. But many still think of it primarily as the birthplace of yoga and meditation. {…] Some are drawn by accounts of the powers of dedicated practitioners—yogis who can levitate, breathe for months while entombed underground, melt giant swaths of snow with their body heat—believing that they too will be able to accomplish extraordinary things. This quest to become superhuman—along with culture shock, emotional isolation, illicit drugs, and the physical toll of hard-core meditation—can cause Western seekers to lose their bearings.[i]With this quote, taken from an online article in the October 2012 issue of Details magazine, author Scott Carney carves in bold the thrust of his four-and-a-half-page article, “Death on the Path to Enlightenment: Inside the Rise of India Syndrome.” He asserts that this psychological aberration, “India Syndrome,” is a mental disorder, one that threatens to disorient, destabilize or even eradicate some of the “thousands of Westerners [who] flock to India to mediate, practice yoga, and seek spiritual transcendence.”² The author continues in this vein, citing un-sourced examples of individuals afflicted with this disorder after going on spiritual journeys to India. Later these same individuals claim that they have discovered lost continents, or that the end of the world is just around the corner, or that they have discovered their third eye. The result, according to Carney, is that the majority of those inflicted with India Syndrome may “recover, but some become permanently delusional.” [ii] Mysticism, delusion and a will to evolve into a the superman: it would seem, at least according to the writer of “Death on the Path to Enlightenment,” that there is something inherently destabilizing and potentially dangerous about not just the religions of South Asia, but also the terra firma itself, or perhaps the environment, or the human habitants – or perhaps even the political or cultural entity known as “India.”Carney is neither the first nor the only person to attribute to India a detrimental if not dangerous effect upon Westerns, be it a veritable rogue’s gallery of fraudulent gurus; exotic locales that seduce and disarm; foreign customs that cause foreigners to “go native,” and other cultural or environmental factors. Other examples in the Western media over the past few decades have also detailed the destabilizing dangers of India. One only need to recall articles about the alleged activities of various ISKCON (better known as Hare Krishna) ashrams and proselytizers, or Osho (Rajneesh) centers first in San Francisco, then Oregon, and now Pune, India, or films like the 1999 Kate Winslet vehicle Holy Smoke, or other media tales which detail the dangers encountered by unsuspecting, naïve and trusting Westerners when they seek to immerse themselves in the spiritual world of South Asia. As I intend to demonstrate in this article, I view Mr. Carney’s article as contemporary or virtual Orientalism, an amalgamation of received truths, stereotypes, but most of all media re-packaging of previously circulated Western representations of mystic, spiritual and exotic India, an “other” that serves as a negative of Western logos.The idea (and term) virtual Orientalism comes from Jane Naomi Iwamura’s book of the same name. Iwamura highlights the hybrid nature of contemporary Orientalism, calling it virtual as it is a composite of different media, engaging the public on many of the same levels as Edward Said’s complex of knowledge and power (to borrow from Foucault) as applied to the domination of the “Orient” during the epoch of high colonialism, intertwined with the hyper-reality of contemporary electronic media. These latter elements enable a somewhat more subtle Orientalism than that of high Imperalism/Colonalism, perhaps even more pernicious:.Unlike its’ British and French predecessors, this new form of American Orientalism is more covert than its predecessors. Much of this has to do with the media through which it is now deployed: photography, film, television, and other electronic media. Gone are the days of direct colonial rule; the United States achieves hegemonic strength through channels that appear benign on their surface…. Images of the Orient become deeply embedded in a popular imagination that looks to the magazine page and to the big and small screens for products that are ready for immediate consumption.” [7]As with so much of today’s media Carney’s article comes to us through the portal of the Internet, as a relatively byte-sized meal, using text and a few images to underline the putative effects of this psychic infection. In the original online article in Details magazine Carney publishes a picture of Jonathan Spollen, one year and three months ago, plus a video of “flying yogis,” and an artistic illustration of Ganesh. The before and after photos of Spollen, dated from the time of publication of the article (10/12), show a cheerful Spollen one year ago, and a man who looks wan and hounded three months before the article. The images look exactly like an ad for a victim or missing person one might see on the side of a milk carton, or a suspect in a crime, circulated by the police. Victim or perpetrator, by context Spollen is placed, media-wise, in regard to a crime as victim. The perpetrator of the crime? India.Spollen, 28 years old, undertook an extended journey in South Asia, spending time with a yogi, Prahlad Jani, and then embarking upon a journey to the Himalayas in the region of Rishikesh, “the yogaphilic city on the Ganges where the Beatles visited Maharesh Mahesh Yogi.”[iii] He has not been heard from since his disappearance in October of 2011, despite efforts by his parents, Western travelers and local Indian authorities to find him. In March 2012, his passport, rucksack, bedroll and cash were located near Patna, a village not far from Rishikesh – but no sign of Spollen. The police chief of nearby Dehradun is quoted as stating that the investigation was focusing on nearby ashrams and holy men. The author quickly follows with other examples: Ryan Chambers, 21 years old from Australia, who in March of 2005 left all his personal belongings behind in his hotel room in Rishikesh, including his passport and a note which stated “if I’m gone don’t worry. I’m not dead, I’m freeing minds. But first I have to free my own”; he cites unspecified cases of “pilgrims” who have been duped by “false gurus” who empty bank accounts and imprison their unsuspecting novices, such as a 35-year old Slovakian woman who was freed in late 2011 by Nepalese police from a man claiming to be “the reincarnated Buddha.” Here Carney displays some totalizing tendencies, lumping Nepal into India in a somewhat colonialist manner, and then additionally referring to a Buddhist lama as a “guru.”Carney suns up these few examples in a totalizing, authoritative manner, claiming that Jonathan Spollen “fits the profile of the fervent young enthusiast of yoga, meditation, and Eastern thought who becomes lost – or worse – on a journey of spiritual discovery.”⁴ Though citing relatively few examples, the author’s message is simple and clear: India forms not just a political and cultural entity, but also a spiritual and psychological state of being that is inherently dangerous to Westerners. Before continuing with further examination of Carney’s article though, perhaps some questions should be posed with an eye to the history of similar phenomena. Has India always been viewed by Westerners as such, as a dangerous place where “Western rationale” withers in the face of foreign, autochthonous forces? What are the primary modes of influence? Can Indians get Indian Syndrome?Obviously, to buy into such a notion of Indian Syndrome entails accepting totalizing terms such as “Indian,” or “Western,” insofar as they are convenient, if ultimately too general to be of much use. Since Edward Said rewrote the book on the analyses of East and West in his seminal Orientalism in 1979, part and parcel of analyzing cross- and inter-cultural interactions has been separating essentialized identities – i.e., “Indian” or “Western” – from more balanced and more necessarily subjective constructs of identity. The very act of labeling a person “Western” or “Indian” is so problematic that it can serve no purpose except to furnish stereotypes or essentialize identity in order to do so. “Eastern thought,” “Western seekers,” “false gurus” – the lexicon used by Carney, establishes the dichotomy between the rational Western subject, and his or her obscure object of fascination, the “East.” Richard King, in Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and “The Mystic East” sets the scene thus:Of the many enduring images of “the Orient” that have captured the imagination of Westerners over the centuries, it is the characterization of Eastern culture, and Indian religions in particular, as “mystical” that is most relevant to our current discussion. As European culture become increasingly intrigued by the cultural mysteries and economic resources of foreign lands in an age of colonial expansion, it was inevitable that a developing awareness of the diversity of cultures and religions would require some characterization of these “alternative perspectives” in a way that displayed their alterity when compared to the normative European (Christian) perspective. vThis point of view parallels Said and other critics’ rather orthodox Orientalism, a clear thesis/antithesis between home and foreign cultures with no possible synthesis. The foreign other, in this case the guru as embodiment of Hindu mysticism, functions as a negative of Western values, consistent with the approach that Said and others propose as being the historical epistemology of Orientalism. As critic Kirin Narayan writes;Yet as Britain’s colonial relationship with India became consolidated after 1757, the Hindu holy man became increasingly saturated with negative meanings, his “self-torturing practices” an illustration of India’s spiritual and moral backwardness…As Milton Singer has argued in his ground-breaking article on images of India in the Western imagination, “Americans tend to take over and exaggerate…the prevailing European images of India.” [Narayan 478]On the most basic level, it would appear that for a Westerner to become susceptible to India Syndrome, they must already have some kind of knowledge and/or interest in Indian culture, traditions and above all else, specific religious traditions and practices.Seemingly sane people get out of bed one day claiming they've discovered the lost continent of Lemuria, or that the end of the world is nigh, or that they've awakened their third eye. Most recover, but some become permanently delusional. A few vanish or even turn up dead.This psychosis has a name: India syndrome. In 2000, the French psychiatrist Régis Airault wrote the definitive book on the phenomenon, Fous de l'Inde, which means "crazy about India." It relates his experiences as the staff psychiatrist for the French consulate in Mumbai, where he treated scores of his countrymen whose spiritual journeys had taken tragic turns. "There is a cultural fantasy at play," he explains. "[India syndrome] hits people from developed Western countries who are looking for a cultural space that is pure and exotic, where real values have been preserved. It's as if we're trying to go back in time.To be continued …Notes and ideasNeed to point out the complexity of interchange of ideas, on a rational level, between Vedanta/ Sanatana Dharma (Hindu) India and the West, luminaries and intellectuals who have embraced these same ideas at home: Ginsberg, Huxley, James, Campbell, Oppenheimer, and many othersThe history of Hinduism in the West, and friction between locals and ashrams, in particular Rajneesh and ISKONLack of preparation, understanding of stage of life in Sanatana Dharma; lack of understanding of sadhu or yoga/yogini lifestyleLong history of Western interaction with religions of South Asia, back to Alexander:Tradition of Western bias against yogis, sadhus, fakirs, gurus, etceteraFitting example for the “bad” guru archetype – Bikram Chaudhury and current lawsuitFitting example for place of Hinduism in orthodox Christian epistemology and ontology – Christian Yoga articleIn the article the lure of Yoga and Hinduism, though he never really refers to the latter, is renunciation and a mystical monism, topics discussed in depth in King’s book. Its mysticism, yoga, silent meditation, month-long meditation retreats, ashrams, deceptive yogis willing to tamper with the psyche to line their purses (dhotis don’t have pockets), yogis who can perform supernatural, superhuman or paranormal feats…it’s a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not cavalcade of freaks, charlatans and the dupes who fall for them. And all of it, by this accredited journalist, without a shred of context or background, often the most glaring examples of Orientalist stereotyping and blurring of religions and practices. Carney does mention “Eastern thought”, and “crazy for India,” as if the country were an addictive substance or a pile of ladoo.“People come to us with acute psychotic syndromes…but you put them on a plane and they are completely all right.” 5. This statement, by Medical Director Kalyan Sachdev of Privat Hospital in New Delhi, appears to be uttered with the intent of stating that whatever psychosis patients are exhibiting, they clear up once these individuals leave India – again, there is something inherently destabilizing about the country.Regis Airault, the doctor who invented (it seems) the description “India Syndrome” states that “It's important to understand that sometimes we go crazy in India because it's a culture too different from our own," he says. "It doesn't mean that we're mentally ill." 5. Reaction to the quote – 1) he needs to define crazy – since no one else has recognized India Syndrome as a medical condition, he should be much more specific and detailed. And perhaps what he is citing as “crazy” is part of a religious experience, as has been common for millenia in all of the organized (and unorganized) religions, as explored by Foucault in Madness and Civilization, the article “Through the Looking Glass Darkly: Divine Madness in the Hindu Religious Tradition,” and Chogyam Tundrup’s book Crazy Wisdom. 2) There is no mention of the fact that in Hindu and Buddhist cultural patterns there are certain times in life, and ways, that individuals may go on spiritual and yogic retreats or in search of solitude, for example, meditating in the Himalaya. There are support groups, ashrams, ways of doing it that have been part of the fabric of life in South and Central Asia for … who knows exactly how long, but examples extend back to well before the time of the Buddha and Mahavira, back even to carved images from the IVC of seated meditators – that’s 4000 years ago. 3) No mention of the four different stages of Hindu life, according to Vedanta – when it is okay to lead the life of a sadhu or renunciate, or when it is not. Most of these Westerners a) drop out of life when, by Vedanta standards, they should be householders; b) have no support system; c) do not speak Hindi or local languages I am guessing d) practice the smorgasbord approach to religion; e) tend to go for more tantric, quick-enlightenment approaches which do carry a higher risk of mental blowback – there’s a reason that Tibetan Buddhism does not start novitiates off with the Kalachakra puja.Look at it this way: if an Indian, smitten with Christianity and compelled by the examples of early Christian saints, decided to go solo in the Negev Desert, and stand on top of a pillar under the sun, would people think he was crazy? If it happened more than a few times, would we call it Israel Syndrome?What about the tens of millions of Indians who practice some sort of yoga everyday without apparent harm or insantiy?From Doniger’s The Hindus : “Unfortunately, the features of Kali and Tantra that most American devotees embrace and celebrate are often precisely the aspects that the Hindu tradition has tried, for centuries, to tone down, domesticate, deny or censor actively, the polytheistic, magical, fertile, erotic and violent aspects. American intellectuals and devotees generally turn to Hinduism for theological reasons, charismatic figures and psychophysical practices unavailable in their own traditions, Jewish and Christian traditions that already have , heaven knows, for more boring, monotheistic, rationalizing fundamentalism, as well as violence, than anyone could possibly want.” 651..No mention is made in the article of specific gurus, practices, even of the name Hinduism or any related systems of belief or practice which are grouped under this large and too-general-to-be-helpful heading. He does refer to Buddhism, without pointing out that it ceased to be an autochthonous, native religion to India over 500 years ago at least – Tibetan Buddhism much longer ago than that.[i] Scott Carney, ”Death on the Path to Enlightenment: Inside the Rise of India Syndrome,” Details, October 2012. Men's Fashion, Style, Grooming, Fitness, Lifestyle, News & Politics[ii] Carney ibid.iii Carney ibid. The continent that Carney mentions is Lemuria, an ancient continent alleged to have existed somewhere between Madagascar and Tamil Nadu, and mentioned by some Tamil writers as a possible link to a sunken landmass in Tamil legend. However in Western consciousness it was introduced by Madame Blavatsky in the late 19th century – a Westerner, not Indian. And, most obviously, with the recent discoveries by geologists of a possible sunken landmass off of the coast of Madagascar, a reappraisal of the exact identity of Lemuria may need to be undertaken.[iii] Carney ibid.iv Carney ibid.v. King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and “The Mystic East.” London: Routeledge; 1999. 96.