Fascist Yoga
Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pluto Press
Publishing:20th Jul '25
£14.99
This title is due to be published on 20th July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
The practice of yoga promises peace, self-realisation and release, thanks to the power of its 'mystic' Indian origins. But what if this is just hype? In Fascist Yoga, Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of modern postural practice.
Starting with the world’s first modern yogi – a Californian escapologist who added Hindu fairy dust to circus exercises, this history reveals a community full of grifters, occultists and white supremacists, out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise.
From Aleister Crowley to Ezra Pound to Heinrich Himmler; cult leaders and brainwashed followers; TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity with a dangerous understanding of wellness.
'With this scabrous broadside, Stewart Home exposes Hatha yoga's political shadow. His painstaking research reveals a hidden, decidedly inauthentic history as murky as it is intriguing. Teasing a thread from a pair of dhoti pants, soon the whole garment threatens to fall apart before our eyes'
-- Matthew Ingram, author of The Garden and Retreat'Anything Stewart Home writes, thinks, fancies, or loathes intrigues me. Reading Home is a special experience, dizzying. Home turns things upside down and shakes them up, and sometimes he recites his work standing on his head. Engaging with him, you might land on your head, also'
-- Lynne Tillman, author of Weird Fucks and MothercareISBN: 9780745351124
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages