A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Yogeys

*YOGEYS, (SANAISYS, or SUNASEES,) Hindoo Devotees, who practise a variety of self-tortures, and mortify the body in order to merit heavenly felicity, and obtain the immaterial nature of Brahma, the supreme. In the Mahabarat, a Yogey is thus defined: "The man who keepeth the outward accidents from entering the mind, and his eyes fixed in contemplation between his brows; who maketh his breath pass equally through his nostrils; ...... keeping his head, his neck, and his body steady without motion, his eyes fixed on the point of his nose, looking at nothing else around," &c. he is a Yogey —and is forever blessed.

These Yogeys, as practices of self-devotion, cast themselves down on spikes stuck in bags of straw, walk on fire, pierce themselves with pins, and bore their tongues; but the most famous act of devotion is swinging by means of honks drawn through their backs and sides, and fastened with ropes to trees, by which they will spin round very rapidly for half an hour or more. And some poor creatures, in order to be sure of going to heaven (as they suppose) cast themselves under the wheels of the chariot of Jaggernaut, and are voluntarily crushed to death.