Joga i newage’owe praktyki terapeutyczne w ostatniej dekadzie PRL na przykładzie Akademii Życia
Yoga and New Age Therapeutic Practices in the Final Decade of the Polish People’s Republic: The Case of the Academy of Life

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the entanglement of yoga with New Age practices in the final years of the Polish People’s Republic, focusing on the Academy of Life (AŻ). In the 1980s, yoga was incorporated into therapeutic processes. Alongside rebirthing, polarity, Touch for Healing, prosperity consciousness, and related practices, it played a significant role in self-help groups oriented toward self-care and self-development. The new lifestyle promoted by the AŻ, which also seeped into the mainstream, contained the seeds of neoliberalism. One need only recall the words of Lucyna Winnicka on the body: “Take better care of it than of your own car... It possesses an extraordinary capacity for self-regulation and self-improvement – if you let it.” The methodological framework for this analysis draws on studies of the so-called psycho-boom and soma-boom of the 1970s. The source material comprises both published and unpublished statements by individuals associated with the AŻ circle.

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