Eugenie Peterson, known as Indra Devi, was a pioneering teacher of yoga as exercise, and an early disciple of the "father of modern yoga", Tirumalai Krishnamacharya.
21 Facts About Indra Devi
2.
Indra Devi went to India in her twenties, becoming a film star there and acquiring the stage name Indra Devi.
3.
Indra Devi went to high school in Saint Petersburg, graduating with a gold medal in 1917.
4.
Indra Devi set off on 17 November 1927, crossing India from south to north, wearing a sari for the first time, sitting on the floor and eating with her fingers.
5.
Indra Devi came back three months later, a changed woman, speaking only of India, and returned Bolm's engagement ring.
6.
Indra Devi soon went back to India, selling her valuables to pay for the trip.
7.
Indra Devi became interested in yoga, Nepal's prince Mussoorie showing her some asanas, and she was impressed by the yoga guru Krishnamacharya's demonstration of apparently stopping his heart.
8.
Indra Devi asked to study with him; in 1938, he reluctantly accepted her as a student after his employer, the Maharaja of Mysore, spoke on her behalf.
9.
Indra Devi was obliged to keep to the strict vegetarian diet and the monastic hours, with lights out at 9pm.
10.
Indra Devi's husband died unexpectedly in 1946, and Devi returned to India, arriving in Bombay as the British Raj was coming to an end.
11.
Indra Devi was hosted by the maharajah of Tehri Garhwal at his palace in the Himalayas.
12.
Indra Devi was hoping to stay in Kashmir to teach yoga in a centre to be run by the Cambodian monk Bellong Mahathera, but her mother called her back to Shanghai, where Devi's house was being requisitioned by the army in the Chinese Civil War.
13.
Indra Devi claimed later that she had wanted to return to India, but she obtained a United States visa, and sailed on the troopship USS General W H Gordon to San Francisco at the end of 1947.
14.
Indra Devi taught her own form of hatha yoga, with asanas and pranayama ; she avoided spiritual teaching, which she preferred to leave to yoga gurus.
15.
Indra Devi's teaching style was in Stefanie Syman's words "gentle and even relaxing".
16.
Indra Devi was almost immediately successful in attracting leading stars, including men as well as women; Syman notes that "she could charm the pants off men".
17.
Indra Devi taught yoga to many celebrities including Greta Garbo, Eva Gabor, and Gloria Swanson.
18.
Indra Devi's books, including the 1953 Forever Young, Forever Healthy and the 1959 Yoga for Americans described a gentle, relaxing style of yoga using a small number of asanas, practised slowly.
19.
In 1953 Indra Devi married the German anthroposophical physician Sigfrid Knauer.
20.
Indra Devi closed the Tecate operation in 1977 and moved with her very ill husband to Bangalore.
21.
Yoga remains, Goldberg writes, as Indra Devi had made it, a predominantly female pursuit, despite the energetic workouts of Power Yoga; she created the link in the Western mind between yoga and organic food, "holistic spas, and biodynamic beauty products".