On the way to achieving the supreme goal of yoga, in ecstasy or meditation, the individual practitioner may feel they’ve acquired special powers. The occult powers are referred to in Sanskrit as siddhis.[1,2] The Hindu and Buddhist yoga manuals warn practitioners not to get enamored with siddhis (supernatural powers), as these can be impediments to the Yogi’s ultimate goal: Nirvana, Self-realization, union with God or Cosmic Consciousness.
What are the siddhis, superpowers of Yogis?
The siddhis, referred to in yoga manuals, include:
- Ability to read minds without the senses (telepathy)
- Power to know events in the future (clairvoyance)
- Ability to move objects by mental effort alone (psychokinesis)
- Ability to float in the air (levitation)
- Power to make the body invisible
- Ability to move outside one’s physical body
- Power to become very large or very small
- Ability to know one’s previous incarnations
- And so on.
The attainment of siddhis, according to yoga manuals, is an indicator the theory of yoga is effective, even scientific. Attaining the siddhis is supposed to be a sign of yogic mastery. The siddhis are an abstraction that build the mythos of Yogis or mystics who have control over the mundane physical body (including stopping heartbeat, stopping breath, and physical or psychological immortality. By extension, advanced Yogis who’ve attained siddhis not only are supposed to have mastery over themselves and others, but can manipulate the entire Cosmos. (See my article The Metaphysical Universe of Yoga).[3] The siddhis, therefore, are a subjective, unverifiable “truth” that perpetuates a mystique and authority of the Yogi.
Siddhis Perpetuated by Yoga Manuals
The stories or claims of siddhis are perpetuated in yoga manuals, including Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Hindu Bhagavata Purana, and Buddhist Samaññaphala Sutta.
Outside the yoga manuals there are no well-documented, medically or scientifically verifiable, cases of siddhis. In other words, in reality there’s no credible records or evidence that siddhis are an actual thing. Their “truth” is based on stories. When we hear the stories of Batman or Superman, for comparison, we don’t take the stories of superpowers as actually real. But for some reason some people have “faith” or trust in so-called advanced Yogis who’ve attained superpowers, siddhis are made psychologically real. Feelings, intuitions, or personal experiences are not a reliable way to know the truth about anything.
Samadhis, Feelings, or Personal Experiences are Not Truth
In yogic trance[4] or samadhi some practitioners may feel that, for example, they are floating outside their physical body. Unfortunately, feelings or personal experiences, no matter how real they feel, are not necessarily real outside the brain or imagination. Dreams and hallucinations, for example, feel real to the experiencer. Yet, dreams and hallucinations are manufactured in the brain. Mystical states are easily manufactured through drastic body/brain alterations as I’ve outlined in my article Re-Interpreting Mystical Experience.
Siddhis, yogic superpowers, I argue do not actually exist, except in the imaginations and in stories in yoga manuals and yogic traditions.
How could we test whether siddhis are in fact real?
Theory to Test Yogi Superpowers (Siddhis)
There is a theory of objective truth, as Karl Popper put it, “This doctrine implies that we may seek for truth, for objective truth, though more often than not we may miss it by a wide margin. And it implies that if we respect truth, we must search for it by persistently searching for our errors by indefatigable rational criticism, and self-criticism”.[5]
When examining any truth claims it may be useful to compare objective or rational theories of truth with subjective or personal (psychological) theories of truth.
Below is a table comparing and contrasting objective and subjective truth theories:[6]
| Objective or Rational Theories of Truth | Subjective or Personal (Psychological) Theories of Truth |
| Truth as correspondence with facts (in the objective world) | Truth as property of our state of mind–or knowledge or belief |
| Objective probability (inherent in the situation, and testable by statistical tests) | Subjective probability (degree of rational belief based upon our personal/psychological knowledge) |
| Objective randomness (statistically testable) | Lack of knowledge |
| Equal in probability, consistent with physical or situational facts | Lack of knowledge |
In the above two comparisons of approaches to truth it is not difficult to see that the subjective approach, relying on feelings or personal experiences, should be considered an error, a mistake. Even though it’s understandable we may be tempted to make these errors, it is a mistake to trust personal experiences or incredible stories of siddhis told by external authorities.
How could we test these stories?
Levitation(Siddhi) Test
Levitation, for example, could be easily tested. We could measure the distance between the ground and the Yogi’s “floating” body. Yet, we find no verifiable tests confirming existence of actual “floating” levitation or other siddhis. Many laboratory experiments have been conducted since the late nineteenth century to test the theories of clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and telepathy. No laboratory tests have ever succeeded.[7]
Conclusion
Yogi superpowers (siddhis) are probably fictions, fabrications. There’s no well-documented, scientifically validated accounts of siddhis. Seekers of hidden, occult “truths” rely on subjective, psychological, or personal experiences which are rationalized (intellectualized) backwards from the external authority of scripture. Siddhis, I argue, are not an objective, actual thing. They exist only as vague unverifiable assertions perpetrated by yoga manuals and second-hand stories of mystical experiences.
Notes
Image: Super Powers, darkday, from Flickr CC BY 2.0
1 Zusne, L. and Jones, W.H. (1989) Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. p97
2 Siddhi, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhi. Accessed Aug. 10, 2018.
3 As an aside, read my post Re-Interpreting Mystical Experience which illustrates how body/brain alterations may cause mystical experiences, including out of body and ecstatic states, and so on. While mystical experiences may be valuable personally, they are mostly unreliable as sources of truth.
4 By yogic trance here we mean an altered state of consciousness or perhaps a samadhi. (See my article on Contradictions with Samadhi). Some people may claim trance is a half-conscious or super-conscious state. The point is these trance or altered states have much overlapping subjective and psychological phenomena from experiences induced by hypnosis, dreams, alcohol, drugs, deprivation of sleep, food, senses. Refer to my article on Re-Interpreting Mystical Experience, which explains how alterations in body/brain naturally generate altered or mystical states of experience.
5 Popper, K. (2002) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge Classics. p21
6 ibid. p308
7 Zusne, L. and Jones, W.H. (1989) Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. p188