HINDU/ TANTRIK/ YOGA/ EASTERN PHILOSOPHY COLLECTION (26 titles in 24 volumes)

various. Hardcover. Very Good. A collection of 24 volumes (26 titles), which reflect a wide scope of largely Hindu (some Buddhist) philosophy and its application to Tantrik and yoga practices in Indian red leather bindings. The collection is from a single source, and the original owner of the books (or some of them) appears to be American yoga pioneers Blanche DeVries (1891 - 1980) and/or her spouse Pierre Bernard (1875 -1955). DeVries opened The Living Arts Center in NYC in 1945, the first yoga studio for women in the United States, and taught many influential students, including Standard Oil Company heiress Rebekah Harkness. DeVries' spouse, Pierre Bernard, known as "The Great Oom", "The Omnipotent Oom" and "Oom the Magnificent", was a Hindu scholar, occultist, philosopher, mystic and businessman. In 1924, DeVries and Bernard founded the Clarkstown Country Club in Nyack NY, where yoga was taught to an affluent clientele. (One of the volumes is an ownership copy of DeVries with the Nyack club identified on her bookplate.) The network created through this enterprise not only popularized yoga in the West but also advanced the reinvention of yoga as a science of health and well-being rather than as a religious practice. (It has also been observed that Bernard was responsible for the exaggerated association of tantra with the mystical sex in American opinion.) Except where otherwise noted, most of the titles are first or early editions; many of the titles are only commercially available in new, reprint editions or copies printed on-demand. Some are rare: the Suzuki title can be found in only three special collections worldwide, for example. Many of the books have the bookseller ticket of Samuel Weiser, 740 Broadway, NY, NY, one of the original "Fourth Avenue" sellers of old and antiquarian books in Manhattan. All books are bound in some shade of red leather (a few half leather) and all but four are in slipcases. The books were apparently bound in India, some with gilt-ruled covers and gilt spine titles, in the style, but not quality, of English bindings. The endpapers in most volumes are heavily textured, hand-made paper, with the matching coverings on the slipcases. We suspect the collection was bound in the 1980s after it had been assembled or acquired. Extracta Tantrika Series 10 Np; nd (c1920s) 75 bound typed pages, an apparent, unattributed translation in English, stamped "Reg US Pat Off." in purple ink on the first page. Red, full leather, no slipcase. Aiyar, K. Narayanasvami. Thirty Minor Upanishads. Madras: Printed by Annie Besant at the Vasanta Press, 1914. 8vo, vii, viii, 280 (Avalon, Arthur). Woodroffe, Sir John and Pramatha Natha Mukhyopadhyaya. Mahamaya The World as Power: Power as Consciousness. (Chit-Shakti) Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1929. xliv, 239. Sir John George Woodroffe (1865 - 1936), also known by his pseudonym Arthur Avalon, was a British Orientalist whose extensive and complex published works on the Tantras, and other Hindu traditions, stimulated a wide-ranging interest in Hindu philosophy and yoga. Avalon, Arthur. The Great Liberation. (Mahanirvana Tantra) A Translation from the Sanskrit, with Commentary by Arthur Avalon Madras:Ganesh & Co, 1927. Second edition, xviii, 461, (2). The top third of the front and rear signatures are stained. Basu, Major B.D. (editor). The Sacred Book of the Hindus.Volume XXVI The Srimad Devi Bhagvatam Part I translated by Swami Vijnanananda. Allahabad: Sid Nath Vasu, nd (c1920s). 8vo, (4), 352p. The Sacred Book of the Hindus.Volume XXVI The Srimad Devi Bhagvatam Part II translated by Swami Vijnanananda. Allahabad: Sid Nath Vasu, nd (c1920s). 8vo, (4), 353 - 796p (DeVries, Blanche). (Bernard, Pierre) Yoga. Nyack, NY: (Clarkstown Country Club), (1944). Promotional pamphlet for the pioneering yoga center at the Clarkstow. PLEASE CONTACT US DIRECTLY FOR COMPLETE LIST. (Inventory #: 013623)