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This week, Alona and Imaan are joined by Stewart Home, novelist, filmmaker and art historian, whose new book Fascist Yoga traces the unsettling links between yoga, wellness culture and the far right.
Stewart’s research uncovers yoga’s strange story: from its reinvention in the early 20th century by a Californian escapologist, to its appropriation by occultists, grifters and even Nazis. Today, as the wellness industry booms online, conspiracy theorists and alt-right influencers have seized on yoga myths to push anti-science and anti-democratic ideas.
Stewart explains how yoga became a recruiting ground for reactionary politics, why abuse has been so widespread in yoga schools, and what the rise of figures like RFK Jr says about the state of health, power and paranoia in the west. He also discusses figures like Savitri Devi—who believed that Hitler was an avatar of a Hindu god—and the overlap between western mythmaking and Hindu nationalism in Modi’s India.
Plus, Imaan and Alona discuss Reddit: “banger” or “dud”?
Stewart’s book Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness’ is available now
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