In Japan there are physicians who kick the patient in the back, twist his neck, or simply give him a heavy slap on the shoulder, and the patient feels like a new man. In China there are physicians who practice acupuncture (the insertion of needles). They prick a place quite apart from the ailing organ and pain disappears−−quite suddenly. In Ceylon there are doctors who touch the patient's skin with a red hot iron−−and they aim with the precision of a fraction of a millimeter. A quick pain. The patient is cured. These are not medicine men at work. Here we have full−fledged physicians who master an art—that nobody in the West can understand? These times have passed. The example of the Japanese doctors has proven itself a hundred times. In America chiropractic has become an academic discipline. Thus too it is with acupuncture. We now have theses on the subject, as well as practicing Western physicians. The third example (Ceylon) too will no doubt some day be accepted, perhaps along with some practices of medicine men that we ridiculed some 50 years ago. Primitive people are really not as primitive as we in our arrogant prejudice are apt to imagine. Are not the methods of modern politicians more primitive than those of a medicine man in the jungle? We want to study the following chapters on asanas and their psycho−physical background with this in mind. "Why so many words?" some will ask. "Asanas are physical exercises." And in a sense he is right. "Nonsense," another will say, "all these senseless contortions." And in a sense he too is right. A third will consider asanas a practice that nobody can quite understand. Right too. A fourth one stands thoughtfully in a corner. "I will learn to understand the inner connections. I have studied medicine and will soon find out what bodily functions are involved. I cannot imagine that the yogis have taken all this out of thin air. There must be a corresponding scientific terminology. "Beware of this man. Each of the first three critics acknowledged a certain positive aspect of the practice. The first speaks of gymnastics and expects no more than the success of gymnastics. Very good. One should approach these practices not with vague expectations but with clear purposefulness. After all, only the literature of the West presents these preliminary exercises with such great mystification, whereas in comparison with what follows after them they are really little more than gymnastics. Nor should he who speaks of meaningless contortions be condemned. Perhaps he is right. For who is capable of explaining the internal relationships? Why give the contortions a meaning for which we have not the slightest proof−−except for a few books whose value the average Western reader is unable to ascertain? This skeptic is not likely to start practice, but he is justified in his statement if by "sense" he understands that which can be clearly defined by our intellect. These are practices that "nobody can really understand" because they reach too deeply into our inner world, touch on areas