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Journeys in the Kali Yuga: A Pilgrimage from Esoteric India to Pagan Europe
A beautifully evocative account of one man’s odyssey to discover authentic and unbroken magical traditions in the East and reawaken them in the West
• Details the author’s encounters with the Naga Babas, his initiation into their tradition, and his experience at the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering on Earth
• Shares the similarities he discovered between the teachings of the Indian tradition and the Western traditions of magic, alchemy, and pagan pantheons
• Introduces a wide cast of characters, including Goa Gil, the world-renowned guru of the Goa techno-trance scene, and Mahant Amar Bharti Ji, a “raised-arm Baba,” who for more than 40 years has held up one arm in devotion to Shiva
Beautifully detailing his spiritual pilgrimage from West to East and back again, in the age of strife known as the Kali Yuga, Aki Cederberg shares the authentic and unbroken magical traditions he experienced in India and Nepal and how his search for a spiritual homeland ultimately led him back to his native Europe.
Cederberg explains how his odyssey began as a search for spiritual roots, something missing in the spiritually disconnected life of the Western world, where the indigenous traditions were long ago severed by the spread of Christianity. Traveling to India, he encounters the ancient esoteric order of mystic, wild, naked holy men known as the Naga Babas, the living source of the Hindu traditions of magic and yoga. Immersing himself in the teachings of the tradition, he receives an initiation and partakes in the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering on Earth. With his evocative descriptions, Cederberg shows how traveling in India can be an overwhelming, even psychedelic experience. Everything in this ancient land is multiplied and people and things, sights and sounds, joy and suffering. Yet beyond the apparent confusion and chaos, a strange, subtle order begins to reveal itself. He starts to glimpse resemblances and analogies between the teachings of the Indian tradition and the Western traditions of magic, alchemy, and pagan pantheons. He meets a wide cast of characters, from mystical hucksters in Rishikesh and the veritable army of naked, chillum-smoking mystics of Maya Devi to Goa Gil, the world-renowned guru of the Goa techno-trance scene, and Mahant Amar Bharti Ji, an urdhvabahu or “raised-arm Baba,” who for more than 40 years has held up one arm in devotion to Shiva.
After extensive traveling and immersing himself in the extraordinary world of India, Cederberg returns to his native soil of Europe. Traveling to holy places where old pagan divinities still linger in the shadows of the modern world, he dreams of forgotten gods and contemplates how they might be awakened yet again, reconnecting the West with its own pre-Christian spiritual traditions, sacred landscapes, and soul.
• Details the author’s encounters with the Naga Babas, his initiation into their tradition, and his experience at the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering on Earth
• Shares the similarities he discovered between the teachings of the Indian tradition and the Western traditions of magic, alchemy, and pagan pantheons
• Introduces a wide cast of characters, including Goa Gil, the world-renowned guru of the Goa techno-trance scene, and Mahant Amar Bharti Ji, a “raised-arm Baba,” who for more than 40 years has held up one arm in devotion to Shiva
Beautifully detailing his spiritual pilgrimage from West to East and back again, in the age of strife known as the Kali Yuga, Aki Cederberg shares the authentic and unbroken magical traditions he experienced in India and Nepal and how his search for a spiritual homeland ultimately led him back to his native Europe.
Cederberg explains how his odyssey began as a search for spiritual roots, something missing in the spiritually disconnected life of the Western world, where the indigenous traditions were long ago severed by the spread of Christianity. Traveling to India, he encounters the ancient esoteric order of mystic, wild, naked holy men known as the Naga Babas, the living source of the Hindu traditions of magic and yoga. Immersing himself in the teachings of the tradition, he receives an initiation and partakes in the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering on Earth. With his evocative descriptions, Cederberg shows how traveling in India can be an overwhelming, even psychedelic experience. Everything in this ancient land is multiplied and people and things, sights and sounds, joy and suffering. Yet beyond the apparent confusion and chaos, a strange, subtle order begins to reveal itself. He starts to glimpse resemblances and analogies between the teachings of the Indian tradition and the Western traditions of magic, alchemy, and pagan pantheons. He meets a wide cast of characters, from mystical hucksters in Rishikesh and the veritable army of naked, chillum-smoking mystics of Maya Devi to Goa Gil, the world-renowned guru of the Goa techno-trance scene, and Mahant Amar Bharti Ji, an urdhvabahu or “raised-arm Baba,” who for more than 40 years has held up one arm in devotion to Shiva.
After extensive traveling and immersing himself in the extraordinary world of India, Cederberg returns to his native soil of Europe. Traveling to holy places where old pagan divinities still linger in the shadows of the modern world, he dreams of forgotten gods and contemplates how they might be awakened yet again, reconnecting the West with its own pre-Christian spiritual traditions, sacred landscapes, and soul.
200 pages, Paperback
First published December 12, 2017
18 people are currently reading
248 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 11, 2018
Aki Cederberg's book is a poetic masterpiece, describing his personal experiences with religion in India as part of a quest that ultimately ends up bringing him back to his own roots in the Nordic and Finnish pagan traditions. But the highlight of the book isn't the travel writing, it is the chapters where Cederberg describes his own spiritual and mental evolution as he progresses and deals with the challenges that religious practice brought him. For anyone who wants to know twenty-first century India as it is, is interested in European paganism or Traditionalism, or is interested in the meditations and reflections of a serious Western spiritual seeker, this book is for you.
I will be publishing more detailed reviews in New Dawn magazine and at Counter-Currents.
I will be publishing more detailed reviews in New Dawn magazine and at Counter-Currents.
January 27, 2018
This book was one of the most significant reading experiences I've had so far. Cederberg’s story presented me a new way of viewing the world and its deeper layers; it changed my perspective on the spiritual, as well as on the physical levels of existence. In doing so, it also swept away a big chunk of cynicism that has been bothering me for years. A job rather difficult to do in this meaning-vacuum of a world we live in today...
Even though Cederberg’s extraordinary journey and his weird experiences made a really exciting and amusing story to read, there was this serious and in my mind melancholic undertone in the book. This undertone is composed of the constant yearning for something real, and of the awful feeling, that something profound is missing from our culture. Something that once had been an essential part of it. As if the world we live in is somehow hollow and artificial, especially here in the West. That undertone appealed to me greatly, because I've been struggling with those kind of feelings myself for a long time, not really knowing why, and what it was that I feel I'm missing.
Cederberg’s book helped me understand those feelings, and the reasons what might be causing them. But more importantly, it made believe that it is possible to find some true meaning in this world; something real and authentic; something timeless to connect to. His story made me see ancient themes in a new light. It made me ponder the concept of gods in a whole new way, and, in a sense, restored my belief in them. It forced me to think what is sacred to me in life and why. It also reshaped my relationship to nature and to my homeland. All in all, It shed a new kind of bright light to my own spiritual path, and at the same time, it helped me too see the significance of the physical aspect of life too. After reading the book, I have felt the need to get out of the world of sheer abstractions and go explore and experience and feel the world outside. I also feel the need to mention, that I have found new kind of joy and purpose in exercising as well, which was perhaps the most unexpected effects of this book.
I think it's the honesty in Cederberg’s writing that makes the book so compelling, fascinating and convincing. He writes about his experiences genuinely and beautifully, but without unnecessary embellishment. At his journeys from West to East and back again, Cederberg has acquired a lot of intriguing experiences, valuable knowledge and I dare to say, real wisdom. And in his book, he manages to intersperse this wisdom into the story, in an entertaining, tangible and beautiful way.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeking something meaningful and sacred in this world or is interested in genuine self-exploration. And of course to those, who just enjoy a deeply personal, touching and entertaining adventure story.
Even though Cederberg’s extraordinary journey and his weird experiences made a really exciting and amusing story to read, there was this serious and in my mind melancholic undertone in the book. This undertone is composed of the constant yearning for something real, and of the awful feeling, that something profound is missing from our culture. Something that once had been an essential part of it. As if the world we live in is somehow hollow and artificial, especially here in the West. That undertone appealed to me greatly, because I've been struggling with those kind of feelings myself for a long time, not really knowing why, and what it was that I feel I'm missing.
Cederberg’s book helped me understand those feelings, and the reasons what might be causing them. But more importantly, it made believe that it is possible to find some true meaning in this world; something real and authentic; something timeless to connect to. His story made me see ancient themes in a new light. It made me ponder the concept of gods in a whole new way, and, in a sense, restored my belief in them. It forced me to think what is sacred to me in life and why. It also reshaped my relationship to nature and to my homeland. All in all, It shed a new kind of bright light to my own spiritual path, and at the same time, it helped me too see the significance of the physical aspect of life too. After reading the book, I have felt the need to get out of the world of sheer abstractions and go explore and experience and feel the world outside. I also feel the need to mention, that I have found new kind of joy and purpose in exercising as well, which was perhaps the most unexpected effects of this book.
I think it's the honesty in Cederberg’s writing that makes the book so compelling, fascinating and convincing. He writes about his experiences genuinely and beautifully, but without unnecessary embellishment. At his journeys from West to East and back again, Cederberg has acquired a lot of intriguing experiences, valuable knowledge and I dare to say, real wisdom. And in his book, he manages to intersperse this wisdom into the story, in an entertaining, tangible and beautiful way.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeking something meaningful and sacred in this world or is interested in genuine self-exploration. And of course to those, who just enjoy a deeply personal, touching and entertaining adventure story.
January 10, 2018
Writing about Western interest in yoga, C. G. Jung noted that “people will to do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls”. Originally a doctrine of metaphysical and spiritual integration, contemporary yoga seems to be making people even more rootless and lost in the wilderness of modernity.
Aki Cederberg’s Journeys in the Kali Yuga deals with the author's search for an authentic spiritual tradition. This quest takes him to India, home of maybe the oldest surviving pagan tradition, Sanatana Dharma. After diving deep into the world of esoteric yoga, however, the author again feels the call of his homeland. Thus begins the process of reintegration into the Nordic tradition.
Journeys in the Kali Yuga is a deeply personal, visceral, gritty, and at times humorous account of an ongoing search for something real in a world where the deepest concerns of human spirit have become mere commodities. It offers us a rare glimpse into the dreamlike world of the Indian naga babas, while taking an honest and unflinching look at the state of the modern Western soul.
Recommended to everyone with an interest in yoga, India, Hinduism, sadhus, as well as Nordic spirituality.
Aki Cederberg’s Journeys in the Kali Yuga deals with the author's search for an authentic spiritual tradition. This quest takes him to India, home of maybe the oldest surviving pagan tradition, Sanatana Dharma. After diving deep into the world of esoteric yoga, however, the author again feels the call of his homeland. Thus begins the process of reintegration into the Nordic tradition.
Journeys in the Kali Yuga is a deeply personal, visceral, gritty, and at times humorous account of an ongoing search for something real in a world where the deepest concerns of human spirit have become mere commodities. It offers us a rare glimpse into the dreamlike world of the Indian naga babas, while taking an honest and unflinching look at the state of the modern Western soul.
Recommended to everyone with an interest in yoga, India, Hinduism, sadhus, as well as Nordic spirituality.
October 4, 2017
Very boring. I think this book wasn't assigned an editor! And the bad quality of the file didn't help me read it. Everywhere on my Kindle "FOR REVIEW ONLY" would show up. Yeah, I got it; is an arc; I know is for review only, no need to remind me every five paragraphs.
So this book is about the journey of an European man in the Kali Yuga. I think the book should've started by describing the Kali Yuga and take it from there. Instead, the book started with some ramblings about nothing in particular and continued that way. I didn't have the stomach to keep reading this mess.
So this book is about the journey of an European man in the Kali Yuga. I think the book should've started by describing the Kali Yuga and take it from there. Instead, the book started with some ramblings about nothing in particular and continued that way. I didn't have the stomach to keep reading this mess.
October 30, 2024
This was an outstanding book. An excellent travelogue and so much more. I highly recommend this whether you are of European descent and dwelling or not. Much food for thought on connecting with one's native land and inherent spirituality.
August 12, 2018
Journeys in the Kali Yuga is a fascinating work. I was flipping through an Inner Traditions catalog when the title caught my eye and I was not disappointed. Cederberg is clearly very observational, has a good memory and is a deep thinker. At times he seems to take himself a bit too seriously (though in fairness, I read the book in English, not the original language that it was written in) but I am willing to overlook that because of his honesty. Cederberg lays his thoughts out and presents them as they are - and that is something that I greatly respect. His description of the filthy conditions in India along with the abject poverty were sobering and cause for concern for anyone that cares about the environment. Ultimately, it bears mentioning that I do not agree with Cederberg’s religious views but he explains them well and provided great insight in to both hinduism and the religion of his homeland.
December 24, 2019
A Personal and Frank account of a spiritual journey a Western man made to India. Rather than indulging in orientalism and sentimentality as much travel literature and spiritual self-help books do, this book instead celebrates the reality of Indian spirituality without shying away from the ugly side of Indian culture, and ultimately concludes that it is better for a man of the occident to return to his roots and worship the gods of his ancestors. This unique and sometimes very amusing piece of travel literature might serve as a spiritual compass for many lost souls of the Kali yuga.
February 21, 2024
I feel torn about this book. On one hand, I appreciate the author's matter of fact assessment of being a dabbler in esoteric Indian traditions, unable to swallow or participate in them fully. I certainly reflected and resonated with the passages about his disillusionment with the hippie new age appropriation of Indian spirituality, and of how simple and unsurprising most esoteric "secrets" are. On the other hand, his reification into a Norse legacy of elder gods is not without questionableness... While it is never spoken of or literally detailed within the book, one wonders if this guy just became a pagan Nazi, reverting to the idealized Volkdom of yore.
July 14, 2019
This is a great book, providing a fascinating insider's view of esoteric culture in India that few Westerners ever access. While I would have preferred a little more exploration of paganism in Europe, as mentioned on the cover, I was entirely satisfied with Cederberg's honest accounting of his spiritual quests.
May 24, 2021
This book had its moments but also missed a lot. The first half of the book was a bit cliche, the over-civilized postmodern Western man seeking himself in the wilds of the East, but the author seemed to be aware of this irony and allowed himself to play with the metaphor, which saved the book from being too cheeky.
Cederberg's writing was best when he referred to his personal spiritual malaise as a disillusioned post-modern European than his time in India. The chapter on 'A Wolf Age' where he ties in Kali Yuga's age of iron with the last age of his Scandinavian roots was the strongest and most compelling of the tales he spoke of. As this was near the end of the book, the earlier writing of his Eastern pilgrimage was just strong enough for me to get to this more potent message that he spoke of. It did help that the book was fairly short and to the point. Overall, not a bad story.
Cederberg's writing was best when he referred to his personal spiritual malaise as a disillusioned post-modern European than his time in India. The chapter on 'A Wolf Age' where he ties in Kali Yuga's age of iron with the last age of his Scandinavian roots was the strongest and most compelling of the tales he spoke of. As this was near the end of the book, the earlier writing of his Eastern pilgrimage was just strong enough for me to get to this more potent message that he spoke of. It did help that the book was fairly short and to the point. Overall, not a bad story.
July 11, 2018
Aki Cederberg is an excellent storyteller and writer. The first five chapters of this book, which are set in India and involve interactions and initiations with Naga Babas, are captivating. The last four chapters are more introspective and not quite as engaging. Overall a good read.
August 4, 2022
Great travelogue. The reawakening of Northern/Celtic/European paganism once subjugated by Christian tyranny is an important reclamation of the native peoples. These spiritual cultures should be remembered, revered and reinvigorated with new generations.
November 23, 2023
Very interesting and well written book, the conclusion on particular is very hopeful and uplifting. I'm looking forward to reading Holy Europe by the same author once the English translation is published.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews