Fear of Yoga

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On the West Coast a growing xenophobia, first aimed at Chinese and Japanese laborers, slowly turned toward 'East Indians.' Starting in the 1880s, a series of laws, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act, was passed to control immigration. In San Francisco, the proudly racist Asiatic Exclusion League, which in the past had campaigned against the 'yellow peril' from China, Japan, and Korea, turned its attention to immigrants from India. By 1906 all Asian Indians were denied U.S. citizenship; in 1917 the Asiatic Barred Zone Act excluded all immigration from South and Southeast Asia, including India. It wasn't repealed until 1965.

At the same time, a spiritual American reform movement was nearing the height of its success in a campaign to 'purify' the nation's morals through legislation. You can read the tea leaves here: Fear of foreigners plus a purity panic (brought to a boil by the sensational 'yellow press') set loose the idea that these dark-skinned foreigners and the morals-loosening effects of their 'yogi philosophy' were a menace to society. Groups of followers were from then on routinely described as 'cults.' In the spring of 1908, newspaper readers from coast to coast read about the humiliation of Mr. Winthrop Ellsworth Stone, the president of Purdue University, whose wife fell under the yoga spell and left him and their children.

The American media's war on yoga picked up momentum, fueled by growing 'white slave' hysteria (They are stealing our daughters!). In June 1910, the month Congress unanimously passed the Mann Act, known as the White Slavery Act, the American yogi Pierre Bernard was jailed for abducting two young women in New York City; a week of sensational press coverage, in which he was forever branded the Omnipotent Oom, the Loving Guru of the Tantriks, ensued. Here's one of 50 headlines from that week, from William Randolph Hearst's New York American: 'Police Break in on Weird Hindu Rites: Girls and Men Mystics Cease Strange Dance as 'Priest' Is Arrested.'

To the American consumer of news, yoga was no longer just a queer pastime; it was evil, a con, a cult-uncivilized, heathen, and anti-American. Even the word became a metonym for secret doorways and sex worship; yogis were nothing more than swindlers and seducers.

In the autumn of 1911, the slimiest-but in retrospect the most entertaining-of these attacks was published by the Los Angeles Times. 'A Hindu Apple for Modern Eve: The Cult of the Yogis Lures Women to Destruction,' the headline read. 'The incense of sandalwood burned in their honor all the way from the Lake Shore Drive to Fifth Avenue and the Back Bay,' the article said. 'These dusky-hued Orientals sat on drawing-room sofas, the center of admiring attention, while fair hands passed them cakes and served them tea in Sevres china.' Toward the end of the year, Current Literature published a version of a recent piece titled 'The Heathen Invasion of America,' which concluded: 'Literally, yoga means the 'path' that leads to wisdom. Actually it is proving the way that leads to domestic infelicity, and insanity and death.'

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