WEBVTT - Part One: The First American Yoga Cult Leader 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:07.720 H what what what? What? Behind the bastards? Oh my god, 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.920 it's a podcast about the worst people in all of 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:16.239 history with me Robert Evans, the worst podcaster in all 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:16.800 of history. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.520 It's not fair. 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:20.280 You're right, you're right, you're right. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.960 There's there's definitely worse and the Yeah, sure, I could 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:24.680 think of several. 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.160 I like, off top, there's definitely way worse. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.920 That's good. That's good. I finally uh uh got you 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:34.960 to got you to praise me on air, Sophie. 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:36.080 That was all wonderful. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.160 That was it. That was the long con. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.680 I'm like, you're not the worst one. Congrats? Yeah, yeah, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:45.800 what pride praise? 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.880 Yeah, that's that. I really feel good. I'm definitely ahead 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.440 of the guys at the Serial Vapists podcast. 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:54.640 Is that a podcast? 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.160 It was a podcast. It was one of the back 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.560 when we were all still working at Crack. I like 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.760 after I because the first podcast I listened to was 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:05.560 like a hardcore history or something. I was like, oh, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.200 this is kind of neat, and I was just like 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.040 fucking around. I think I think it was looking for 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.119 Cereal because people had told me Cereal was a good podcast, 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.600 and like underneath Cereal popped up another podcast, The Serial Vapists. 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.160 I've talked about this on air before, but it is 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.320 like some guys who lived in like North Carolina and 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.360 just like drove to local vape shops and reviewed them. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:27.480 And reviewed a vape shop. 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:29.160 Yeah, it was so funny. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.920 That's so great. Also, Katie Stoles here, everyone. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.440 Hey, Katie Stole, one of the best podcasters. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:37.959 Agree agree? 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.920 Yeah, oh I wouldn't, but that's for my therapist and 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:42.560 idol Unpack. 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:49.400 Thank you, Katie Stole. You and I used to, uh 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.480 used to work together on a podcast that is currently 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.680 legally condemned by eleven US states. So while we while 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.320 we get through the litigation, how's your deposition, By the way. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.880 I'm not at liberty to say right, right, of course, 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.080 of course, fucking crushed. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.560 Yeah, oh good, oh good, oh good. Sanders really tore 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.600 me apart on the stand. So that's that's nice to hear. Katie. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:18.440 How do you feel about yoga? 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.520 I am so glad you asked. I'm gonna get some 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.040 hate for this, I know it. Not a big fan, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.400 not a fan of yoga. I know. 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.080 You're so graceful. I would have assumed, Oh, thank. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.560 You, I do. My body lends itself to yoga. 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.040 I've got open hips, like I can do all the 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:43.200 positions and stuff. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:44.640 It frustrates me. 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:47.720 Yoga does which probably is a suggestion that I should 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.560 do it. But holding a pose makes me angry. And 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.800 somebody might say, maybe somebody we talk about today, that 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.639 there's some energy moving through me. 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.040 But it makes me angry. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.680 People say there's energy moving through you. Guys. 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.120 Know, there's something about yoga that it's I I always 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.840 would go to it saying I should do this, and 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.799 I dropped dropped that completely drinking the pandemic. I also 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.680 have a little bit of an issue with how nobody 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.840 understand like there's there's all sorts of understanding. There's different 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.840 types of yoga, but in La it's very much a 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.720 yoga culture. Yeah, and uh and they're always selling something 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.400 and you got to wear your outfits and all this 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.120 stuff you don't gotta but you know, uh so I 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.200 I have a bad taste in my mouth with yoga currently, and. 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.440 Katie, that is not going to change today because we 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.880 are we are talking this week about two different yoga conmen. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.000 For you know, I should I should say my part. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.760 I've done a decent amount of yoga in my life, 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:51.880 I used to do it. I used to do it 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.600 like every single week. Sometimes I do like a video. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:56.680 Sometimes i'd go to a class. When I lived in 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:58.880 La I would do you know, I did Bickram from 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.600 time to time, who we'll be talking about in their 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.400 second episode this week. And I like it, like I 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.520 don't like as a general rule, I hate exercising around 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.400 other people. It's part of why, Like as soon as 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.960 I got a house, like I built myself a gym. 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.240 I don't do like yoga regularly, but like I do 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:18.680 like these days, I do particularly like a lot of 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.479 hollow bodies and planks because I hurt my lower back 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.159 in Iraq a couple of years back and ever since then, 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.800 Like if I don't I find if I don't do 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.200 a bunch of both of those things like every single week, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.520 like my back starts to fucking seize up on me. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.480 So I value like the the health benefits you can get, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.920 which I think are undeniable, that there are like significant 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.400 potential health benefits to yoga. It is probably worth noting that, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.880 like you can also seriously hurt yourself doing it if 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:49.120 you're not like careful. But all of that is kind 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.480 of beside the point, because we're not talking about like 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.680 the merits of yoga is exercise. I canch again that yeah, yeah, 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.200 it can be great. We're talking about yoga as a 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.080 thing that khan men gravitate to, which which should not 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.000 be read as like us, we're not we're not trying 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:05.640 to cancel yoga if you like yoga. 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.200 Also, I just need to chime in again and say, like, yes, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.440 even though I started off with the rant about yoga, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:18.440 it is objectively beneficial, especially for depending on your body 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:20.400 and your physique with anything you have to do. 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.200 Go to the right that all exercise has. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.760 Yeah, yeah, but but yeah, uh. 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.240 So, yeah, that's that's where we are. That's what we're 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.360 talking about today. Again, one way or the other, We're 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.599 going to take a lot of shit online for this stuff. 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.440 But like I do want to make it clear, there's 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.280 no we're not talking about like we're not trying to 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.240 like blow up yoga. We're not trying to like, uh 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.159 reveal the evil that's behind stretching and ship in a 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.440 group of people. It's just that yoga, like everything else 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:54.599 in American culture, lends itself to conmon and cult leaders. Yeah, exactly, right, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.880 It's not different than like politics or religion, you know, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.640 it's this is just another yet another thing that lends 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.400 itself to comment and cultists, and they're they're different type 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.400 kinds of common and cultists. Yoga cult leaders are a 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.120 special breed and and we're talking about two of them 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.960 this week. So yeah, I before when I was kind 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:16.840 of figuring out how to put these episodes together, I 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.200 kind of briefly flirted with giving like an overview of 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.120 like the entire long history of yoga. But to be honest, 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.599 like there's so much debate by people who study it 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.360 about like how exactly to describe the evolution of yoga 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.880 as a discipline, And I am not one of those historians, 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:35.640 So I feel like I would fuck it up if 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.919 I tried to go into too much detail that about 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.359 that I am going to give, you know, what I 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.279 think is kind of like the briefest accurate description of 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:49.080 like what yoga was historically. Yoga is the right approach 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.880 for sure. Yeah, yeah, because it's it is complicated well, and. 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.080 Also it's part of what's gross about it when I 0:06:55.080 --> 0:07:00.680 talk about la yoga culture is just people not understanding 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.479 what they're talking about in terms of the history or like, yeah, 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.279 you know, the spiritual nature of it. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.600 Yeah, continue, Yeah, Well, because yoga, as you know, when 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.200 people in La who have like got their four hundred 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.120 dollars Lululemon like outfits or whatever, talk about yoga that thing, right, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.760 the yoga that you will experience if you type yoga 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.880 into Google Maps and rock walk into like the nearest store, right, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.880 that's like one hundred years old, right, arguably significantly less. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.560 Obviously a number of the different kind of moves that 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.600 you do, the different kind of stretches and stuff, are 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.480 much older, and some of the concepts are much older. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.480 But like yoga as as we kind of talk about 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.440 it is a fairly new thing now. Obviously, there's also 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.400 a yoga that goes back much much further. The earliest 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.880 yoga teachings are kind of a mix of philosophy and 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.600 like different sorts of breathing styles and kind of health rules. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:55.120 You can you can kind of compare some of them 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.320 to sort of the you know, in the Bible, the 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.160 Old Testament. You've got these rules like donate you know, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.720 cloven hoofed anim or whatever. Like it's it's kind of 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:06.200 some stuff like that too. Alongside in one kind of 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:12.520 branch of yoga asanas or like postures. Right, development of 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.760 what became yoga probably started around like fifteen hundred BC. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.120 A lot of it is like kind of like fifteen 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.360 hundred BC to five hundred BC is sort of like 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:27.320 the earliest period of yoga. I think generally agreed to be. Hey, everyone, 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.960 Robert here, just wanted to clarify. If you look into this, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.400 A lot of people will talk about, you know, the 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.199 origins of yoga dating back like five thousand years, which 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.360 is obviously a bit older than fifteen hundred BC. You know, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.760 it depends on kind of what you're talking about. The term, 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.840 you know, the word yoga is much less old than that, 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.840 broadly speaking, without kind of getting into or taking aside 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.679 because that's certainly not my place, it's it's worth looking. 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.840 You can look at kind of yoga and all of 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.400 the things that sort of around it and fed into it. Well, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.000 there's not really a clean start date. Something that's brought 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.640 as old in its earliest origins is like Judaism, Right, 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.320 it's in that ballpark at least. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.320 I actually am surprised that's so long ago. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.920 It's so but it would not be it's nothing like again, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:13.640 it's not like what you get right when you walk 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.560 into a store. It's like a series of different like 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.120 meditation or like like like philosophical like discussions. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.600 And I really shouldn't be surprised, but it was like. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.920 Wow, yeah, yeah, it's not like stretching and stuff, right, 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:32.520 it's much it's like kind of a philosophical, spiritual like 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.200 set of like teachings and stuff, probably the most influential. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.840 And there's a bunch of different branches, right, So like 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.680 like if you were in you know, Northeast India right 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.400 talking about and someone were to say, around like five 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.319 hundred BC talk about yoga, they might mean something very 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.079 different from somebody who's like, you know, in Bombay or whatever, Mumbai. 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.760 That's just like there were different sort of like branches 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.360 or schools of yoga. And the school of yoga that 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.480 was kind of most influential to what people in Los 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.040 Angeles mean when they talk about yoga is called Hatha yoga, 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.760 which was heavily influenced by Buddhism. Several of the earliest 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.760 Hatha texts, which date from around a thousand a d 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.240 or so, focus on the preservation of vital force This 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.760 is often embodied by semen or minstrel fluid, which was 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.320 believed to like drip out of the body, so there's 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.760 some like retention of like, you know, vital fluid stuff 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.199 in there. Hatha yoga translates most directly to the yoga 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.240 of violence or force, But the violence there does not 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.520 mean like not like beating people up or whatever. It's 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.440 the forceful fusing of opposites, or at least that's how 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.160 the book Hell Bent by competitive yoga guy Benjamin Lore, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.120 that's how he explains it. Quote. The violence of the 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.000 violent yoga comes primarily from the method used to achieve 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.080 these results, the forceful fusing of opposites. It's an ideal 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.760 embodied in the sanscript named Hatha, where stands for the 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.560 solar masculine energies and thaugh for the lunar feminine forces, 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.000 and reiterated throughout all Hatha practice. But it is perhaps 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.520 best appreciated by the knats, which is like kind of 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.640 the guys doing hatha yoga. Principal innovation postures or bending 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.440 the body into forms. Prior to the medieval rise of 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:22.000 Hatha yoga, standing contortive postures simply did not exist. In yoga, 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.959 the word asana was present. However, it was used almost 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:29.080 exclusively in the etymological sense as seat or throne. The 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:34.119 asana practices described in pre Hatha Yogic literature were meditative postures, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:40.040 firm and stable positions, thrones from which to contemplate existence. Right. So, initially, 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.160 this is the kind of asanas is referring to, like, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.120 this is how you sit while you're doing these meditations 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.560 on these kind of spiritual things. In the medieval period, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.760 when Hatha yoga, you know, becomes a branch of sort 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.600 of the different sort of yogic disciplines or whatever, this 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.040 expands from just sort of like a meditative posture to 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.080 something closer to what we would recognize if we walk 0:11:59.080 --> 0:11:59.880 into a yoga shop. 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:00.360 La. 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:06.079 Right now, Hatha yogi's are kind of religious wild men, right, 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.000 And this is a thing. This is a big thing 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.040 in India. Actually, you get like people kind of play 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.960 acting like this, and certain particularly like Pentecostal disciplines in 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.120 the United States, but like, India is a place I've 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.440 spent a decent amount of time. When you're in certain 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.720 cities particularly, you'll see these like crowds of dudes called 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.720 Sadhu's who are these Like, I mean, they're effectively like 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.280 kind of wild roving priests. They'll have these like long 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.600 like often like down to their feet, dreadlocks, and beards 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.240 that are like painted and these bright like orange colors, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.640 and they some of them engage in like these really 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.800 like in public and stuff. These really like physically like 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:43.720 this is like the laying on beds of spikes kind 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.880 of stuff, right, yeah, like yeah, yeah, these kind of 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:53.400 like very demonstrative acts of like intense physical demonstrations and 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.120 whatnot that are kind of showing their level of mastery 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:58.760 and stuff that they have over their body or whatever. 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.240 Like this is a constant that goes that is kind 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.120 of like very common all throughout different kind of Indian 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.880 religious traditions. And the Hatha Yogi's were one of like 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.840 the earlier examples of this. Uh. Their yoga included kind 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.960 of what would sound to modern people like it includes 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.160 kind of a peculiar variety of health acts. One of 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.120 the things they would do was suck water up through 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.320 their anuses to perform in a self nima. Yeah, like 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.360 self animas or a thing. I mean, I don't know 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.040 how to do that, Katie, but that's a thing they 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:35.720 would do. They would like they supposedly they would teach 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:36.559 that the UK. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.560 I almost did, but I did it, But I did 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:44.840 do it. Put a marked out on my notepad to 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:45.640 look at it later. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.600 They would also do stuff like they would teach people 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.320 that if you, if you, if you could drink the 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.800 middle third of your urine stream, it would destroy diseases 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.000 of the eyes or or give you the ability to 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.080 do claravoyance. And this is again thistually not uncommon. There 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.480 were a lot of different cultures were like some degree 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.560 of drinking urine was something that people that was like 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:09.960 a part of traditional medicine. And there's a number of 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.360 meso American groups who were like mix urine with tobacco 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.680 or whatever. Oh yeah, it's like it's a thing. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:22.080 Yeah, I was taken aback by by what did you say? 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:22.880 Mid stream? 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.560 So it's the beginning, the middle of the stream, Yeah, 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.120 the middle third collected or do you bend over? 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.440 And you know I didn't for me to go, I 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.920 should have. I should have looked that one up further. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:35.880 And I do apologize for you. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.480 You know what, this is my bad. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.040 I don't need to get a hung up on the 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.560 specifics here. 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.080 This is this is kind of as far as I 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.200 can tell, you wouldn't go wildly amiss and kind of 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.040 looking at this the way that most Americans look at 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.040 like snake handlers in the Pentecostal tradition, where it's like, 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.440 this is not it's not like nobody follows these guys 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.880 or like nobody thinks that these guys you know, have 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.200 something to them, And in fact, a decent number of 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.520 people probably think, you know, these folks have are right 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.400 about a number of things, but they're also they're kind 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.800 of fringe, right, this is not the Hatha Yogis are 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.120 not like the most mainstream chunk of the Yogic discipline. 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.520 They're not. They're like they're they're kind of seen as 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.960 weirdos at the time by a lot of people, right. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.120 And the way I can get that, yeah. 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.160 Yeah, in the same way like a lot of monks, 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.400 you know, we're seen traditionally is like, you know, maybe 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.160 we think they're holy, but they're also a little exactly right. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.760 It's not that you're like disrespecting them. 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.160 They're there, but it's not representative of how everybody is moving. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:40.240 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hatha Yogi's engaged in acts of extreme 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:44.080 religious estheticism, like chaining themselves in place for days at 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.000 a time or sleeping on beds of nails. They were 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.240 often seen and kind of treated something like wizards in 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.880 old medieval folklore. Right, they're they're dangerous and they're generally 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.760 to be avoided, but they also possess potent knowledge, and 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.240 so maybe you'd go to one of these guys. Maybe 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:01.520 most of the time you would kind of want to 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.880 keep your distance because they're weird and like kind of 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.080 off putting, but like you get like your kid gets 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.160 sick or something, maybe you go to them hoping that 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.400 they know something right, because they're seen as sort of 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.920 possessing this knowledge that can be useful to people who 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.120 are who are desperate. Now, when the British take over, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.400 the new Raj has no place for anything as strange 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.000 or as uncontrollable as Hatha yoga, it's practitioners became outlaws, 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.840 banned under a law restricting miscellaneous and disreputable vagrants, which 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.920 is also an interesting an accurate description of everyone we 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:34.200 hire here at Cool Zone. 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.960 Yeah, yeah, it is so ah interesting. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.400 Yeah, and Cody, let's be fair. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.360 I know, yep, I was thinking that too, and our 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:46.440 whole team everybody. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:51.840 Yeah, so yoga was much wider as a discipline than 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.120 just Hatha, and many Hindu monks still embraced kind of 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.760 different branches of what many of them Yoga is often 0:16:57.800 --> 0:16:59.840 considered by these guys, they think talk about it like 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.040 a science, right, that consider it to be a science, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.040 And so I think it might be accurate to say that, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.199 Like if you were to like talk to one of 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.680 these yogis, you know, from like the sixteen, seventeen, eighteen 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.280 hundreds and show them a bunch of like people doing 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.159 modern day what we call yoga in La and be like, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.639 this is yoga. It would be like walking up to 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.880 a scientist with an eighth grade biology textbook and being 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.520 like this book is signed, like this is all science, 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.960 Like this book is what science is. Like, well, no, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.080 that's one example of it, but like there's a lot 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.680 of other things involved in the jay. Yeah. 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.600 Also what we see is probably unrecognizable to them for sure. Yeah. Yeah. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.840 Yeah. So in eighteen ninety three, a Hindu monk who 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.320 came to be known as Swami Vivekananda was born to 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.119 a wealthy family in Calcutta, which was the capital of 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.280 the British Raj He became a disciple of a mystic 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.080 rama Krishna and took monastic vows right before his teacher 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.320 passed on, Which is kind of a story you hear 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.440 a lot among these sort of like guru type guys, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.439 is like they'll have this teacher, they'll follow them, and 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.479 like when that teacher's on their deathbed, they'll make some 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.800 sort of like vows and stuff in order to carry 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.280 on their work. Vivid Cananda traveled the country for five 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.960 years before deciding it was his karma to go to 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.600 the United States and spread an understanding of the Hindu faith. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.960 The best place to do that in eighteen ninety three 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.359 was the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. Back in the 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.760 day before we had TikTok and Twitter to teach us 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.480 about foreigners and various kinds of grindset, people held massive 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.040 fairs every few years to get an idea of what 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.080 was happening in the world. Right that was your TikTok. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.800 Because you'd show up in Chicago or New York. They'd 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.600 build a bunch of like dangerous fire hazard buildings that 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.879 looked pretty from a distance, and you'd look at some 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.639 like Frenchman show you new cannons that were about to 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:45.080 massacre people in Africa. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.719 It's like a mash up of TikTok and burning Man. 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.240 Yeah exactly, Yeah, TikTok, burning Man and like a Raitheon 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.440 arms fair. Yeah, that's the that's these expositions. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.040 Honestly, this feels much healthier just to get it all 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.480 done at once, Yeah, and just do all was and then. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:01.840 The rest of the time you don't have to deal 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:02.080 with it. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:02.480 Yeah. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.560 Yeah, you see Andrew Tait one week and then he 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.320 dies in a structure fire like it's beautiful. 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.439 That's much more tolerable to me. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.560 But yeah, so yeah, these were basically early trade shows, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.760 except the industry was the human race, and as a result, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.080 the Colombian Exposition had a World's Parliament of Religions, which 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.480 was an inner faith conference with the noble goal of 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:29.880 making Americans less chauvinist about their weird brand of Protestantism. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.800 Now a bit of a legend has grown up around 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.159 this guy and this this meeting at the World Parliament 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.480 of Religions that says that he kind of announced to 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.160 the crowd at the Parliament that he considered them sisters 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.679 and brothers of America, and he was met with rivers 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.520 of applause, and he used this momentum from this meeting 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.960 to go on this successful lecture tour where he sold 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.920 a bunch of books, and he like spread Eastern mysticism 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.000 all around the United States for the first time, and 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.000 he even opened several branches of like a mission on 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.840 US soil. Pieces of this are true, but painting vi 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.320 Cananda's speech as an unqualified success leaves a lot out, 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.200 As this write up by Philippe de Slip makes clear, 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.720 the approval given to Vivid Cananda at the Parliament in 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.679 Chicago was not unique to him. However, in the account 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.360 of the Parliament published by its president, John Henry Barrow's 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.719 applause was also freely given to the other speakers as 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.720 part of the self congratulatory spirit of the parliament, and 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.720 Vivid Cananda did not just receive praise at the Parliament. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.600 Barrows also noted that very little approval was shown to 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:29.879 some of the sentiments expressed by Vivid Cananda in his 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.320 closing address. Vivid Cananda's subsequent lecture tours drew curiosity and interest, 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.639 but also some hostility. In a letter to one of 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.000 his American students in eighteen ninety seven, Swami Vivid Cananda 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.560 described himself as a much reviled preacher in the United States, 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.159 which I don't think is surprising, right that Americans not 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.600 at all would meet their first Hindu like religious leader 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.760 and be racist, right like that, that's not shocking, you know, 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:53.520 I like. 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:55.680 This seems yeah to be expected. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:57.240 He it's the eighteen nineties. 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.119 Or I'm surprised with the idea that he was a 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.960 raving success that immediately as a very successful book tour, 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:05.000 lecture tour. 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.520 I mean I was like, wow, okay. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.000 Yeah, honestly, I'm kind of surprised nobody tried to assassinate him. 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.359 Like that's better than I would have guessed from Americans 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:14.399 in the eighteen minutes. 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:16.040 So he made it out of there a lot. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.520 He made it. You know what, I might raise that 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:27.080 flag up on my flagpole today, America. Sometimes we're slightly 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.359 less racist than you'd think. You know what else is 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:31.959 less racist than you'd think, Katie? 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.679 Oh h h. 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:37.119 What what Robert? 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.560 I can't beget products and services that support this podcast. 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:47.560 Absolutely obviously, Katie. Yeah, yes, sometimes anyway, yeah, sometimes. 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:57.480 Ah, we're back and uh yeah, better than ever or 0:21:57.560 --> 0:21:59.800 more or less the same as ever either way. So 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.920 well yeah, despite the predictable distaste that many Americans felt 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.280 for him, Vivid Cananda's teachings on Indian religion and mysticism 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.439 had a signific I should say on the Hindu religion 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.800 and mysticism because it's this is actually a big problem. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.919 Like a huge number of Indians are are Muslim. I 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:16.919 don't want to be. And also you know there's like 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.879 not just Muslim in Hindu. I don't want to be. 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.359 Like the Indian religion is Hinduism. That's a big problem today. 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.119 But like he is talking specifically about like the Hindu religion, 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.480 Hindu mysticism, and his teachings on that topic have a 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:33.160 significant impact on what you might call early American seekers. 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.320 Even at that period of time, there was widespread interest 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:38.760 in the East and alternatives to kind of the same 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.440 old Judeo Christian clap trap that seem to a lot 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:43.640 of people in this period to be kind of dreary 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.960 and lacking in avenues to pursue self fulfillment. Right. Part 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:49.840 of what's happening in this period is that Christianity has 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.000 not caught up to modernity, right, and so people are 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.560 experiencing this rapid advance in science, but like they're still 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.600 basically worshiping kind of in the same way they would 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.520 have in teen seventeen hundreds. And folks are like, well, 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.720 this kind of seems boring as shit, right, especially folks 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.880 who are like, you know, upper middle class or wealthy. Right, 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.280 it's just not as exciting to those folks into like 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.280 intellectuals as this guy Vivid Cananda coming in and talking 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.320 about this like weird new religion they've never heard anything about. 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:23.400 Of particular interest to these early seekers was yoga. Now, 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:27.480 Vivi Caananda was a not a big believer in Hatha yoga, 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:30.359 nor was he teaching asanas to like large groups of people. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.320 He's not leading like what you know again, what we 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:35.199 would recognize in the modern terms, like yoga sessions. But 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.920 he did mention various practices that were part of yoga. 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:41.840 Although at the time there was kind of fairly little 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.760 agreement about what yoga was. Vivid Cananda spoke about it 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.080 mainly as a philosophy of self improvement and often as 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:51.960 dietary guidelines too. I'm gonna quote from Filipe again here. 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.000 His published lectures in the United States are flooded with 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:57.240 the word power, and in one of them he enjoins 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:00.879 his listeners to stand as a rock. You are indestructible. 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.280 Not unlike in immobile Rock vivid. Cananda's approach was devoid 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:07.000 of the flowing sequences of asanas or postures that are 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:11.440 now commonly associated with the practice. So while he avoided 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:14.240 talk of hatha yoga in public, he did speak more 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.480 openly about it to his close followers. He admitted to 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.040 them that in eighteen ninety he'd gotten interested in it 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:22.760 as a solution for his health, but had backed away 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:26.360 from his studies after his master admonished him to audiences 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:31.040 he called hatha gymnastics and queer breathing exercises. But in private, 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.679 over the years he taught small groups of students a 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.399 handful of different poses. Right, So this is kind of 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:38.520 a thing that maybe he was a little bit lukewarm on. 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:40.920 There was some stuff he found interesting. So when he's 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:43.879 got these more dedicated groups of practitioners, he'll walk them 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:47.199 through some poses. He'll do probably the very first like 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:51.080 yoga sessions like in the United States, But in public 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:53.280 when he's doing is bigspe he doesn't really talk about 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:55.679 this other than to kind of broadly mention like, ah ye, 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:59.440 and some people do this, you know. Vivid Cananda's time 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:02.280 in the United Slime States marks, according to religious studies 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:06.800 lecturer Suzanne Newcom, a turning point in how Indian religiosity 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:09.920 was understood outside of India. In the decades to come, 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:12.560 the profile of such teachings would be raised again by 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:14.960 a wave of immigrants to the United States, many of 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.280 whom came to work dangerous jobs on railroads. The government 0:25:18.840 --> 0:25:21.000 was loathed to give them civil rights, and so many 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:23.960 of them wound up itinerants, wandering around the country and 0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:27.040 dispensing spiritual advice, because like, what else are they going 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:29.520 to do? Right, There's not a lot of gigs, you know. 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:33.960 One prominent American writer in nineteen thirty eight referred to 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:37.879 these people as traveling salesmen, writing that every winter we 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:40.879 can find advertisements of the appearances of yogis in the 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:43.080 cities of the East, and during the spring and the 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:46.239 summer they work the back places. But by the end 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:49.520 of the nineteen thirties, a revival of hathapractices in India 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:51.840 had brought a wider knowledge of the asanas to the 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:56.919 United States. Gradually, many progressive Americans started to view yoga 0:25:57.040 --> 0:25:59.439 not as some sort of foreign magic but as a 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:05.720 physical exercise and kind of That process is pretty steady 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:08.040 over like a twenty year period or something like that, 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:10.840 but there are some hiccups in it. And probably the 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:15.240 biggest hiccup in like the road to yoga being seen 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:19.000 as respectable is the life and career of an American 0:26:19.240 --> 0:26:23.800 named Pierre Arnold Bernard. He's probably the first man to 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.000 get rich off of yoga in the United States, and 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:28.320 of course he is a white dude, right, it makes 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:31.080 sense that the first guy to get fucking loaded from 0:26:31.200 --> 0:26:34.960 yoga in the US is a white guy. 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:36.000 Yeah. 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:40.880 Absolutely, that's another thing that's absolutely not surprising, not all disappointing. 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:42.000 I was, I mean I was. 0:26:42.040 --> 0:26:44.399 I had to hope that Vivi Canando was going to 0:26:44.480 --> 0:26:46.600 be the person who got rich and was a bastard. 0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:47.320 But that's not the way. 0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:48.000 This is. No. 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:50.280 No, I mean, I don't think he is. I don't 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:52.800 think like. I don't I don't think he was like 0:26:53.920 --> 0:26:56.480 broke from doing what he was doing. But he does 0:26:56.480 --> 0:26:57.960 not seem to have bit like I don't. 0:26:57.760 --> 0:27:01.119 Actually wish that in any capacity, but unsurprising that this 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:04.000 is enter the white Man, the. 0:27:04.000 --> 0:27:06.959 Inter the white Man. Yeah, this is our first yoga Grifter. 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:11.080 Born Perry Baker in eighteen seventy six. 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:13.320 He met he changed his name to Pierre. 0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:17.240 Yeah, he sure did. He sure did. This is before 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:19.199 nine to eleven. It was good to be freaky. 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:22.560 Thank you for noticing that, Katie. 0:27:23.359 --> 0:27:27.680 Born Perry Baker eighteen seventy six. He meets his first 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:32.000 Yogi at age thirteen in Eastern Nebraska, which gives you 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:33.959 an idea of, like, how many of these guys are 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:37.520 kind of wandering around like a kid in eighteen like 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:43.600 ninety nine, East Nebraska meets like a wandering Yogi, which 0:27:43.640 --> 0:27:47.919 paints again we often think differently about America in the 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:50.280 past than it would have been. I think that's kind 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:54.239 of worth noting. So Perry had long been obsessed with 0:27:54.280 --> 0:27:57.159 spirituality in the occult. You know, we've talked about this 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:00.159 in the Helena Blovotsky episodes. Jamie talks about this in 0:28:00.200 --> 0:28:04.000 her Ghost Church podcast. The end of the eighteen hundreds 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:08.840 early nineteen hundreds, there's this wave of spiritism, right, these 0:28:09.040 --> 0:28:12.040 like people are doing like channeling and they're they're talking 0:28:12.080 --> 0:28:14.240 to the dead, and you know, you've got all these 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:18.040 kind of like magicians wandering around the country doing shows. 0:28:18.680 --> 0:28:21.760 The occult is really sort of taking off in popular culture. 0:28:22.080 --> 0:28:25.439 And as a kid, Perry's super into this stuff. So 0:28:25.520 --> 0:28:29.399 when he runs across this Syrian Indian yogi named Silvaus 0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:34.280 Hamadi who's a practitioner of Hatha yoga, he's really he's 0:28:34.320 --> 0:28:37.119 down with what this guy is teaching. Now, I can't 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:40.640 tell you if Silveus Hamadi was like a legitimate for 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:43.400 one thing, He's like, I can't, I can't like guarantee 0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:45.320 for you that this guy is in any way teaching 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:49.880 legitimate yoga. Like it's the eighteen nineties. You know, who 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:53.240 knows what's going on here. But with Silvus at least 0:28:53.280 --> 0:28:56.800 his yoga includes what's described in the literature I read 0:28:56.840 --> 0:28:59.600 as magical sex rights that were acts of worship for 0:28:59.640 --> 0:29:04.640 the god shak D. So you know, Perry gets on 0:29:04.680 --> 0:29:06.880 board with this shit and kind of as a young man, 0:29:07.080 --> 0:29:10.760 he and his guru moved to San Francisco, where Perry 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:13.960 changes his name to Pierre. He starts teaching hatha to 0:29:14.200 --> 0:29:18.000 interested seekers in charging an exorbitant price for the privilege. 0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:22.400 One hundred dollars. That's like what it costs to get 0:29:22.400 --> 0:29:25.080 like initiated into his orders so you can like do 0:29:25.240 --> 0:29:28.720 yoga with them, which is several thousand dollars today, Like 0:29:28.840 --> 0:29:31.680 he is, Yeah, he is fucking charging like that's a 0:29:31.720 --> 0:29:32.720 lot of money today. 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:35.320 It's a lot of money to pay twenty five bucks 0:29:35.320 --> 0:29:36.880 thirty bucks for a yoga class. 0:29:37.000 --> 0:29:40.720 Yeah. No, you're you're paying like the equivalent of several grand. 0:29:40.800 --> 0:29:44.120 Now you're paying that to become like a member of 0:29:44.160 --> 0:29:46.480 this sort of yoga organization so you can come in 0:29:46.520 --> 0:29:49.120 and do like regular although I think you're often kind 0:29:49.120 --> 0:29:51.720 of like pushed to, you know, give donations beyond that. 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:57.840 Obviously he's he's not targeting poor people, right, why would he? Yeah, Now, 0:29:57.920 --> 0:30:01.000 this is not a popular business to be in. San 0:30:01.040 --> 0:30:03.680 Francisco was not at this point a willing mecca for 0:30:03.720 --> 0:30:06.440 the weird, and Bernard was forced to flee with his 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:10.560 few followers, who called themselves the Tantricks with ak you've 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:14.160 heard of tantric you know yoga or like they are 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:16.480 they spell a t A N t ri i K. 0:30:17.920 --> 0:30:22.200 In nineteen oh six, they moved from San Francisco to Seattle, 0:30:22.280 --> 0:30:25.160 which was also not yet strange enough to host them. 0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:27.840 And so three years later, after having picked up and 0:30:27.880 --> 0:30:30.920 they're picking up people, he's picking up followers like he's 0:30:30.960 --> 0:30:34.480 running like a little cult and he's getting cult. Yeah yeah. 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:36.760 He picks them up in Noracal, he picks them up 0:30:36.840 --> 0:30:41.480 in Washington, and then they head east to New York City. 0:30:42.440 --> 0:30:45.760 Now by this point, Bernard's followers are calling themselves the 0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:48.720 Tantric Order, and they, you know, with the kind of 0:30:48.800 --> 0:30:51.800 limited funds they have because they're not doing great. They 0:30:51.880 --> 0:30:56.200 get by a townhouse which they decorate in mystic stylings 0:30:56.480 --> 0:31:00.520 and start to operate as a yoga school and a sanitarium. Now, 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:03.960 the best book on Bernard is called The Great Um 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:07.640 by Robert Love, and in that book, Love describes Bernard's 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:11.080 early East Coast clientele as a mix of well healed 0:31:11.120 --> 0:31:16.080 interested parties, doctors, patients, the sickly, occultists, spiritual seekers, and 0:31:16.160 --> 0:31:20.360 health fad enthusiasts. So this is not a lot's changed. 0:31:21.000 --> 0:31:26.480 I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, basically folks, 0:31:26.600 --> 0:31:29.200 yeah yeah yeah. 0:31:29.400 --> 0:31:33.280 So the city right, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, New York. Honestly, 0:31:33.320 --> 0:31:36.640 New York hasn't changed a whole lot. Now, yeah. Quote 0:31:36.760 --> 0:31:38.840 the Tantrick Herald spread the news there was a new 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:41.800 guru in town. Come try our hatha yoga classes offered 0:31:41.840 --> 0:31:44.240 several times a week in the evenings along with instruction 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:47.680 and yoga, breathing, meditation and philosophy, or drop by on 0:31:47.720 --> 0:31:50.120 the weekends on back in it evenings when food and 0:31:50.160 --> 0:31:52.000 drink would be offered and the house was open to 0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:56.800 respectful curious seekers. And you know he's mixing. The Tantriks 0:31:56.840 --> 0:31:59.240 are like not again, this is not you wouldn't like 0:31:59.240 --> 0:32:02.080 if you were to like bring some yogas over from India, 0:32:02.200 --> 0:32:04.320 they would have a lot of notes on what these 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:06.880 guys are doing. But people doing like back in eight evenings, 0:32:06.920 --> 0:32:12.680 which is like not, you know, Hindu is evidence of 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:15.120 kind of they're they're mixing and mashing a lot of stuff, 0:32:15.160 --> 0:32:18.600 but they're using kind of the branding of yoga because 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.480 it's it's Eastern and mysterious, right and it has you 0:32:21.560 --> 0:32:24.560 have to think too here. Yoga has a connotation that's 0:32:24.600 --> 0:32:26.960 more like if you talk about like magic today again 0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:30.719 like than like it does now. Yeah, these people are 0:32:30.760 --> 0:32:32.800 not just thinking like oh, I'm going to go get 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.160 like in better shape and improve my joint health. Right, 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:37.360 that's not why people get into yoga in this period 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:37.760 of time. 0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:41.680 It's probably more like going to your U Tarot person or. 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:46.479 Yeah, that's definitely right, but yeah, definitely closer than like 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:48.960 I'm gonna go get healthy, you know, I'm gonna get fit, 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:53.080 I'm gonna get you know, flexible. One of these early 0:32:53.200 --> 0:32:56.400 seekers was a woman named Zellia hop She lived with 0:32:56.440 --> 0:32:59.680 her which is a pretty cool name out by the way. Yeah, 0:32:59.760 --> 0:33:02.080 she lived with her parents in the Bronx and had 0:33:02.080 --> 0:33:06.000 suffered from a series of ill defined but serious physical ailments. 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:09.480 Numerous doctors had failed to offer her any relief or 0:33:09.560 --> 0:33:12.440 long term benefit, and she was ill enough. It's kind 0:33:12.440 --> 0:33:16.440 of unclear, like what's wrong with her. It seems like 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:17.960 it's one of either one of those things where they 0:33:18.040 --> 0:33:19.920 just didn't have a diagnosis. It might have been just 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:22.120 like maybe she had some sort of allergy that at 0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:24.880 the time everything her parents were giving it like and 0:33:24.920 --> 0:33:28.560 they just didn't idea yeah exactly, like right, yeah, we 0:33:28.600 --> 0:33:31.280 don't really know, but she's ill enough that her parents 0:33:31.320 --> 0:33:34.760 are terrified that she might suffer from the worst fate 0:33:34.840 --> 0:33:38.760 a woman can experience, not being married to a dude. 0:33:39.240 --> 0:33:41.160 Yes, is it being single? 0:33:41.280 --> 0:33:44.920 Is it being single? Yeah, it's being single. Well she's 0:33:44.960 --> 0:33:47.080 a spinster, she's like twenty one, you. 0:33:47.080 --> 0:33:49.960 Know, Oh my god, I don't really. 0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:56.760 So Zellia has got an older sister, Esther, who had 0:33:56.760 --> 0:33:59.680 heard the news about the Tantricks arrival in the Big Apple, 0:34:00.040 --> 0:34:02.280 and she told her parents that like, hey, you know, 0:34:02.360 --> 0:34:05.800 there's these guys, this new order. They're doing this Eastern 0:34:06.040 --> 0:34:10.000 philosophy that's like got medical aspects to it. And I 0:34:10.040 --> 0:34:12.080 hear there's the you know, their leader is this guy, 0:34:12.239 --> 0:34:16.320 doctor Warren, who's a powerful healer who just come from Seattle. 0:34:16.600 --> 0:34:19.319 Now doctor Warren is Bernard. This was another name he 0:34:19.400 --> 0:34:23.280 went under. And you know, Pierre Bernard is not a doctor, 0:34:23.560 --> 0:34:26.560 although I should note when I say that most doctors 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:29.840 in nineteen or nine aren't really doctors. Yeah, exactly, So 0:34:29.880 --> 0:34:31.319 this is not as alarming as it. 0:34:31.360 --> 0:34:35.279 Normally it is the qualification for doctor, and then was 0:34:35.360 --> 0:34:36.680 just deciding you are one. 0:34:36.960 --> 0:34:39.720 Yeah, but so he changes his name. He's not even 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:44.400 Pierre Bernard as doctor Warren. 0:34:44.600 --> 0:34:47.839 Yeah right, it's ot a left field there, yeah, yeah, 0:34:47.840 --> 0:34:51.600 at least in his like public facing stuff. So Pierre 0:34:51.880 --> 0:34:53.719 told them that he was like they you know, they 0:34:53.760 --> 0:34:55.840 go to him to kind of get a consult and stuff, 0:34:55.840 --> 0:35:00.200 and Pierre's like, I'm an expert in curing neurasthenia, which 0:35:00.239 --> 0:35:04.080 is a heart condition that he said that she had. Now, 0:35:04.600 --> 0:35:08.200 Pierre he knows more about medicine than the average person. 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:11.320 He's not educated, but he's an autodidact, so he reads 0:35:11.360 --> 0:35:13.200 a lot of medical texts along with a lot of 0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:16.279 spiritual texts, and he's really good at like weaving all 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:18.920 of this together and like mixing. Some of this is 0:35:19.000 --> 0:35:21.360 like legitimate, you know, yoga. Some of this is like 0:35:21.440 --> 0:35:24.319 different aspects of like Hindu or Buddhist beliefs that he's read. 0:35:24.440 --> 0:35:26.000 Some of this is like shit he picks up from 0:35:26.000 --> 0:35:30.080 medical textbooks, and some of it's like probably Blovatsky style, 0:35:30.160 --> 0:35:33.040 like a cult, you know whatever. And he's he's pretty 0:35:33.040 --> 0:35:35.240 good at like mixing and mashing all of this together. 0:35:35.560 --> 0:35:38.520 And he really impresses the family in his first visit 0:35:38.840 --> 0:35:41.640 or in their first visit to him, but he still 0:35:41.760 --> 0:35:44.399 charges them, Like when after he gets their consult, they're 0:35:44.440 --> 0:35:47.800 like into what he's saying, but the price he quotes 0:35:47.840 --> 0:35:51.840 them to treat her is like outrageous. It starts with 0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:55.960 a forty dollars initiation fee, which is, you know, an 0:35:56.000 --> 0:35:58.960 average American at that point gets about thirteen dollars a 0:35:59.000 --> 0:36:01.640 week for about fifty fifty nine hours of labor. Right, 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:06.080 So he's charging them almost three weeks of like full 0:36:06.120 --> 0:36:09.560 time labor to get it initiated, right, and then there's 0:36:09.680 --> 0:36:12.480 ongoing charges after that. 0:36:12.640 --> 0:36:14.560 Also doesn't sound that different from. 0:36:14.520 --> 0:36:19.080 Uh today, No, yeah, this is how a lot of 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:22.919 like quack stuff still works right where. You know, we've 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:26.239 talked about this in a bunch of different contexts. But 0:36:26.400 --> 0:36:28.600 her parents are able to put together the funds even 0:36:28.600 --> 0:36:30.560 though it's a serious like it is like a burden 0:36:30.600 --> 0:36:34.359 for them, and off Zellia goes. Robert Love writes about 0:36:34.360 --> 0:36:37.400 what happens next. The next day, with her parents' approval, 0:36:37.560 --> 0:36:40.560 Miss Hop traveled alone to Manhattan and arrived at the Brownstone, 0:36:40.560 --> 0:36:43.279 where Bernard Cigar in hand ushered her into a back 0:36:43.400 --> 0:36:46.439 room and conducted a physical exam. He concluded that yes 0:36:46.520 --> 0:36:49.400 he could help her, Yes she could regain her vitality 0:36:49.560 --> 0:36:52.160 and even flourish under his care, but it would take 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:55.840 extreme measures and individual attention. He sent one of his 0:36:55.880 --> 0:36:58.319 associates to find a suitable place, and in November he 0:36:58.400 --> 0:37:01.600 installed her in his new sanitary, a rented apartment at 0:37:01.640 --> 0:37:05.160 seventy West one oh ninth Street near Central Park. Zelia's 0:37:05.160 --> 0:37:07.040 father visited the place to make sure it was on 0:37:07.080 --> 0:37:09.200 the up and up before allowing his daughter to move in. 0:37:09.640 --> 0:37:12.920 Beneath the cloak of therapy, however, a powerful attraction developed 0:37:12.920 --> 0:37:15.239 between the worldly thirty three year old Bernard and the 0:37:15.320 --> 0:37:18.360 nineteen year old Zelia. Her first night in the apartment, 0:37:18.400 --> 0:37:20.560 Bernard paid her a visit. In between boasts of his 0:37:20.680 --> 0:37:23.640 knowledge of spiritual domains, he kissed her until her breath 0:37:23.680 --> 0:37:25.759 gave out. She was a lucky woman. He told her 0:37:25.840 --> 0:37:28.480 he was very powerful, very wealthy. He assured her of 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:31.719 his commitment and his honorable intentions. She felt herself fall 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:35.520 completely under his power, hypnotized to obey him. Several nights later, 0:37:35.600 --> 0:37:37.840 she surrendered to the most pressing of his wishes and 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:45.479 the couple made love. So, yeah, that's problematic. We could say, 0:37:45.520 --> 0:37:48.360 you know, he's supposed to be her doctor. She's living 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:52.960 in a sanitarium that he runs. You know, the age 0:37:52.960 --> 0:37:55.359 GAP's a little bit problematic too, Like, there's a lot 0:37:55.400 --> 0:38:00.839 that's problematic about this problematic. Yeah, Zea becomes a living 0:38:00.960 --> 0:38:03.319 at the tantriuc House, where the two make love on 0:38:03.400 --> 0:38:06.080 a regular basis until her family stops being able to 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:08.640 pay for her treatments. At that point, she is kicked 0:38:08.640 --> 0:38:12.120 out of the sanitarium, but when she gets back home, 0:38:12.600 --> 0:38:16.240 she's apparently free of her heart condition, Like she feels better, 0:38:16.440 --> 0:38:18.920 So I don't maybe she just needed like you know, 0:38:19.120 --> 0:38:25.920 like yeah, yeah, like I who am I to say? 0:38:26.680 --> 0:38:29.160 So for a while, her parents are like, well it 0:38:29.280 --> 0:38:31.160 was worth it, right, Like she's feeling better, you know. 0:38:31.200 --> 0:38:33.319 They don't know exactly what's happened, but they see that 0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:36.360 she seems to be in better health and that's mostly 0:38:36.400 --> 0:38:38.640 what they care about. So for a while, everything's fine. 0:38:39.320 --> 0:38:41.799 But Zellia's turnaround had more to do with the fact 0:38:41.800 --> 0:38:44.080 that she'd fallen in love with Pierre than the healing 0:38:44.200 --> 0:38:47.520 power of whatever he was advertising as yoga. A modern 0:38:47.600 --> 0:38:50.040 person might have recognized that a dude who kicks you 0:38:50.080 --> 0:38:52.359 out because you can't afford the rent and his unlicensed 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:56.080 hospital is not your soulmate, but these were more primitive times, 0:38:56.120 --> 0:38:59.560 and Lifetime Original movies hadn't yet taught that message to people. 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:05.120 The business, the business at the Tantric House continued to 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:09.080 evolve They developed an enrollment contract for potential students, which 0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:12.000 offered them either an upfront fee of one hundred dollars 0:39:12.280 --> 0:39:16.200 or three monthly installments of forty dollars each. For twenty dollars, 0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:19.239 Bernard would give you a physical examination, and for just 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:21.719 two dollars you could acquire your very own copy of 0:39:21.760 --> 0:39:25.680 their newsletter, the Journal of the Tantric Order. Yeah, which 0:39:25.880 --> 0:39:27.839 I'd love to get a copy of if anyone runs 0:39:27.840 --> 0:39:28.640 into one out there. 0:39:29.760 --> 0:39:30.760 Of the Tankic Order. 0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:35.120 Yeah, that sounds good. Initiated students could attend yoga classes 0:39:35.160 --> 0:39:39.560 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Pierre, an early trailblazer, realized 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:41.680 that the best way to get repeat customers was to 0:39:41.719 --> 0:39:44.680 put the hot chicks in his flock up front and center. 0:39:45.200 --> 0:39:49.440 His best instructor then was Aura Ray named real name Gertrude, 0:39:49.600 --> 0:39:53.480 who wore quote yogi suits, skin tight colored tights covered 0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:56.960 in tantric symbols that were basically the only attractive clothing 0:39:56.960 --> 0:40:00.080 that anyone wore in a sim like this is like 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:04.440 the early nineteen hundreds, right, Everybody's like, yeah. 0:40:03.760 --> 0:40:06.760 This is prototype Lululemon, right. 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:09.400 Yeah, exactly. He's a trailblazer. 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:12.680 Yeah, so I have him to blame for the yoga outfits. 0:40:12.800 --> 0:40:15.400 Yeah. Yeah, he is the guy who's like, well, if 0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:18.560 we just like get attractive people to wear yoga pants, 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:21.319 we can get all sorts of folks to just come 0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.640 in and hang around, right like, this is how we 0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:24.280 make money. 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:24.560 You know. 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:30.160 Go God so love rites that many of their customers 0:40:30.160 --> 0:40:33.560 were quote older men in search of rejuvenation, which often 0:40:33.640 --> 0:40:35.920 came from young women teaching them to stand on their 0:40:35.960 --> 0:40:38.920 head and making strategic physical contact to guide them in 0:40:38.960 --> 0:40:42.640 the asanas. These older men were often comparatively well off, 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:46.240 which was required to afford the blistering fees Pierre charged. 0:40:46.800 --> 0:40:50.120 He appeared only sparingly in classes to lecture his students 0:40:50.120 --> 0:40:53.440 on spiritual matters and give them his own esoteric advice 0:40:53.520 --> 0:40:57.240 on health and diet. Zelia continued to visit whenever she could, 0:40:57.239 --> 0:41:00.200 and over time she grew concerned and suspicious of about 0:41:00.239 --> 0:41:04.680 how many of his followers were attractive young women. She 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:07.040 was as she did, Yeah, I bet she did. She 0:41:07.239 --> 0:41:09.640 was also frustrated by the fact that he kept sections 0:41:09.640 --> 0:41:12.840 of the townhouse off limits to her for obvious reasons. 0:41:13.200 --> 0:41:16.000 Okay, so are they still dating in some capacity here? 0:41:16.440 --> 0:41:18.239 I mean, is charging her. 0:41:18.520 --> 0:41:21.200 She would say they're dating. Pierre would say they are 0:41:21.239 --> 0:41:25.360 not dating, right, Like, I think that's kind like me alone. 0:41:26.600 --> 0:41:28.799 I mean, you know, I'm teaching her, right like she's 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:30.800 a she's a student. You know, I'm teaching her in 0:41:30.840 --> 0:41:36.400 the only way that I can. So eventually she demanded 0:41:36.440 --> 0:41:38.680 that he marry her if she was going to keep 0:41:38.760 --> 0:41:42.759 dropping by and you know, putting out Somehow, the State 0:41:42.800 --> 0:41:46.760 of Affairs ended with Gertrude and Zellia meeting and Pierre 0:41:46.760 --> 0:41:51.560 talking them into having a threesome with him. So now, 0:41:51.840 --> 0:41:56.439 Katie that that sounds gross, right, like that's that's that's 0:41:56.560 --> 0:41:59.520 that's problematic, But it kind of goes in a good 0:41:59.560 --> 0:42:03.680 direction because Gertrude and Zellia, in an unlikely fashion, like 0:42:03.800 --> 0:42:08.160 become friends and they start talking without Pierre there about 0:42:08.280 --> 0:42:11.480 the way he's treating them both, and Zellia starts asking 0:42:11.680 --> 0:42:15.239 Gertrude questions like, Zellia like you would expect, you know, 0:42:15.320 --> 0:42:17.280 especially given the time, like even the day, you'd expect 0:42:17.320 --> 0:42:19.680 Zellia to be like, fuck Gertrude, fuck this lady who's 0:42:19.719 --> 0:42:21.879 like getting in between me and this guy. But Zelly 0:42:22.040 --> 0:42:24.479 is like, has he been paying you for all the work? 0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:27.879 That you do teaching yoga classes. And Gertrude's like, well, no, 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:29.920 he's not paying me, And Zelli is like, you know 0:42:30.000 --> 0:42:31.960 that's fucked up, right, Like you know you should be 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.200 getting paid to do this job. 0:42:34.360 --> 0:42:37.839 I like this turn for Yeah, sure, I like these 0:42:37.880 --> 0:42:43.360 two women. Good good job girls. Also there's part of 0:42:43.360 --> 0:42:44.239 me that's also. 0:42:44.080 --> 0:42:45.880 Like, what year are we at right now on the timeline? 0:42:46.000 --> 0:42:47.920 This is like nineteen o nine, nineteen ten. 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:50.360 I do love I do like the introduction of a 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:53.320 little threesome situation in the early nineteen hundreds. 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:55.960 In general, I'm a three skit. I just don't like 0:42:56.000 --> 0:42:57.200 a man demanding it. 0:42:57.480 --> 0:42:59.840 No, but I do like that it is a It 0:42:59.880 --> 0:43:03.439 is a threesome that a man institutes problematically that ends 0:43:03.440 --> 0:43:05.960 in the two women becoming friends and being like, wait 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:08.520 a second, he's not paying you for your labor, Like whoa, 0:43:08.920 --> 0:43:11.479 we got a fucking deal with this. Yeah, I'd watch 0:43:11.520 --> 0:43:14.960 that movie. Yeah yeah, yeah. And the story there's some actually, 0:43:14.960 --> 0:43:17.279 there's some fun beats coming up. But you know what's 0:43:17.600 --> 0:43:23.480 even more fun than the romantic equivalent of unionization? 0:43:23.920 --> 0:43:28.320 I got it this time? Is it advertisements? It is advertisements. 0:43:28.480 --> 0:43:33.799 The romantic, the romantic unionizations of products and podcasts. 0:43:33.840 --> 0:43:43.880 That's right, that's right, that's right. We're back. So so 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:48.560 Gertrude and Zellia start talking, and Gertrude realizes, like this 0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:50.839 is you know, oh yeah, this is a really fucked 0:43:50.920 --> 0:43:55.279 up situation, and so she bounces. She abandons Pierre and 0:43:55.320 --> 0:43:58.120 the tantric order, and Zelly is like, you can come 0:43:58.160 --> 0:44:00.880 crash with me and my parents, and so she starts. 0:44:00.920 --> 0:44:03.399 She's like living with Zelia and her parents. I don't 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:07.640 know what Zellia tells her parents. Yeah, like I'm gonna 0:44:07.680 --> 0:44:09.800 guess she doesn't bring up the threesome. 0:44:09.440 --> 0:44:12.960 Right my friends. 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:17.960 Yeah, buddy, Yeah. But like Gertrude crashes there for a 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:22.319 for a while. Pierre gets worried after a period of 0:44:22.320 --> 0:44:25.319 time like that she's been absent for so long, so 0:44:25.440 --> 0:44:28.240 he sends one of his followers to talk her into returning, 0:44:28.280 --> 0:44:30.480 and he's like, you know, we need you here. We've 0:44:30.520 --> 0:44:33.440 got like some business stuff like this is like especially 0:44:33.440 --> 0:44:34.920 if you want to get paid, like you got to 0:44:34.960 --> 0:44:36.400 come back and like we got to take care of 0:44:36.400 --> 0:44:39.520 some things. So Gertrude's like, all right, well I'll go 0:44:39.680 --> 0:44:41.919 back with you to like deal with this because maybe 0:44:41.920 --> 0:44:45.600 it'll work out, but she promises Zellia, I'm gonna come back, 0:44:45.760 --> 0:44:50.320 like I'm not gonna stay there obviously, So Gertrude leaves. 0:44:50.520 --> 0:44:52.200 It's supposed to be just for a little while, but 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:55.080 days go by and Zelia starts to get worried, so 0:44:55.120 --> 0:44:58.480 she writes to Gertrude's sister in Seattle, and in the 0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:01.640 letter that Zelia writes gertrude sister, she kind of insinuates 0:45:01.719 --> 0:45:05.680 Gertrude might be being held against her will. Zellia doesn't 0:45:05.680 --> 0:45:07.840 really know what's going on, but she knows Pierre. She 0:45:07.920 --> 0:45:10.239 kind of knows the vibes, and she's like, I think 0:45:10.280 --> 0:45:13.920 something fucked up is going on. So Gertrude's sister travels 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:17.520 east and like travels east with like fucking hell on 0:45:17.560 --> 0:45:20.480 her mind because she had not been happy when Gertrude 0:45:20.480 --> 0:45:23.239 had left Seattle with this guy, so she's kind of 0:45:23.239 --> 0:45:26.040 been like waiting for something fucked up to happen. So 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:28.600 she travels east with the intention of like fucking shit 0:45:28.760 --> 0:45:32.399 up for Pierre. She had Also, it's also probably worth 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:34.000 noting she had been dumped by a member of the 0:45:34.000 --> 0:45:38.319 Tantric Order earlier, so she also has yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:40.719 her sister adds, there's like she's not a little bit 0:45:40.760 --> 0:45:43.960 of a brud too. Yeah, this is these are this 0:45:44.000 --> 0:45:48.840 is a messy story, so chaotic you can make although 0:45:49.040 --> 0:45:52.400 again there's a there's a pretty good like Hulu plus 0:45:52.520 --> 0:45:57.200 you know original series in this absolutely. So she and 0:45:57.280 --> 0:45:59.800 Zelle a Gertrude's sister, and Zellia go to the police 0:46:00.160 --> 0:46:04.000 lurid stories of like dark sex, magic and presumed unlawful 0:46:04.040 --> 0:46:07.520 imprisonment and a few nights and the police like take 0:46:07.600 --> 0:46:09.920 it seriously. And so a few nights later, you know, 0:46:10.040 --> 0:46:13.160 classes are going on at this at this townhouse where 0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:15.640 where Pierre runs you know, his order out of and 0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:18.400 during classes, Zella comes to the door of the townhouse 0:46:18.440 --> 0:46:20.960 and she gives they have like a secret knock. So 0:46:20.960 --> 0:46:23.759 she gives the secret knock, and whatever guy's at the 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:25.960 door opens the door for her and a bunch of 0:46:26.000 --> 0:46:29.440 New York detectives Russian uh, and they find you know, 0:46:29.480 --> 0:46:33.160 when they bust in what one detective describes later as quote, 0:46:33.280 --> 0:46:36.440 a young man clad in filmy garments and squatting as 0:46:36.440 --> 0:46:38.879 a sort of presiding demi god among a dozen men 0:46:38.880 --> 0:46:42.160 and women strangely garbed and tight fitting gowns of one piece, 0:46:42.719 --> 0:46:46.360 which is a very funny, like old timey description of 0:46:46.440 --> 0:46:47.960 like people in yoga outfits. 0:46:48.320 --> 0:46:50.600 Yeah, yoga outfits. 0:46:51.480 --> 0:46:56.520 Yeah proto to like early yoga outfits gin one. So 0:46:56.520 --> 0:47:00.719 they also find Yes squatting. They also find Gertrude, and 0:47:00.760 --> 0:47:04.160 she is dressed in a revealing swimsuit like garment and 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:07.480 nearly hysterical with fear. When she sees her sister, she 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:10.520 sprints over to her and begs her, for God's sake, 0:47:10.640 --> 0:47:14.200 take me away. In his book The Great Um Love, 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:19.040 Descri continues the scene quote Bernard surveyed the house and 0:47:19.040 --> 0:47:22.320 glared coldly at Zelia. So this is your revenge, she snapped, 0:47:22.400 --> 0:47:25.239 You're sore because you're jealous of Gertrude. One of the 0:47:25.280 --> 0:47:28.280 tantric women focused a menacing glare on Gertrude and began 0:47:28.400 --> 0:47:33.160 chanting on ominously, zimzimzim zz z. Gertrude, who had been 0:47:33.200 --> 0:47:36.160 around these other women for some time, was obviously spooked. 0:47:36.400 --> 0:47:39.080 She is putting a curse on me, she screamed. In 0:47:39.120 --> 0:47:41.200 the midst of all this, someone doused the lights, but 0:47:41.239 --> 0:47:43.319 it was clear even in the confusion and darkness that 0:47:43.320 --> 0:47:45.560 the young man in the filmy garments was the person 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:48.760 the police were looking for. You're under arrest, said Callahan, 0:47:48.800 --> 0:47:52.160 the detective to Bernard. Detective Joseph Lennard, the wise guy 0:47:52.200 --> 0:47:55.120 of the two partners, pointed at the symbols on Bernard's robe. 0:47:55.200 --> 0:47:57.359 What are those things on your chest? He demanded. When 0:47:57.360 --> 0:47:59.839 Bernard filled him in, the cop replied, so that's the bar. 0:48:00.640 --> 0:48:04.000 After his initial indignation, Bernard stood calmly before the police. 0:48:04.280 --> 0:48:06.760 He confirmed his identity and that of the quivering girl 0:48:06.840 --> 0:48:10.560 in tights, Gertrude Leo. Then the detectives rousted the entire 0:48:10.640 --> 0:48:13.160 party and moved them down the steps of the Brownstone 0:48:13.160 --> 0:48:16.080 and into the spring night. The officers, the irate witnesses, 0:48:16.120 --> 0:48:18.960 the young women in bathing suits, the others hissing curses, 0:48:19.000 --> 0:48:22.480 and finally Bernard, wearing the elaborate ceremonial robe of a 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:26.280 seventh degree tantric priest bearing the ancient symbols of birth, death, 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:29.320 and regeneration. Together they set out from the Brownstone, and 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:32.240 a comical looking pert parade headed for the West sixty 0:48:32.280 --> 0:48:37.480 eighth Street police station. It's yeah again, great Hulu series. 0:48:37.480 --> 0:48:42.320 In this whole story, wonderful, wonderful scene. Uh right there. 0:48:43.080 --> 0:48:45.279 I also, like, I wonder if they're doing I do 0:48:45.400 --> 0:48:48.840 know a little bit hatha breathing that uujaya breathing. 0:48:49.400 --> 0:48:50.760 Yeah, they're doing that. 0:48:51.200 --> 0:48:53.880 Or at least like whatever, because you know, you have 0:48:53.920 --> 0:48:56.640 to assume like whatever teaching they're getting is probably like 0:48:56.719 --> 0:48:59.720 translated through a couple of different books and language barriers, 0:48:59.760 --> 0:49:00.239 Like I. 0:49:00.200 --> 0:49:02.360 Mean, it sounds like they're hissing or whatever. 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:07.759 Yeah, yeah, and I'm just imagining everybody doing that. 0:49:08.239 --> 0:49:12.680 Yeah. So news of the arrest quickly ripped through the city. 0:49:12.760 --> 0:49:15.640 The New York Times headline the next day read arrest 0:49:15.760 --> 0:49:19.880 Hindu seyr, The Herald added, says he's a swami, and 0:49:19.920 --> 0:49:23.600 the Tribune noted his students in tights. Pierre was locked 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:26.799 up and charged with abduction and accused of having inveigled 0:49:26.800 --> 0:49:29.879 and enticed Zelia. When he finally showed up in court 0:49:29.880 --> 0:49:32.520 to be arraigned, the judge asked, what is this man? 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:36.120 A doctor? The detective responsible for the case replied, No, 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:38.800 he's not a doctor. He's a Hindu teacher. He claims 0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:43.000 to cure people by controlling spirits. Now, Bernard did not 0:49:43.120 --> 0:49:45.840 look very much like a yogi. He is a balding 0:49:46.120 --> 0:49:48.560 like Irish American dude in his thirties. He could have 0:49:48.600 --> 0:49:50.040 passed for a banker in the right place. 0:49:50.120 --> 0:49:57.160 Yes, that's what like the headline, Hindu whatever ard a 0:49:57.239 --> 0:49:59.840 portly old white man easily. 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:02.920 He's like thirty three, but like, yeah, he's not like 0:50:03.200 --> 0:50:07.640 he does not look particularly mystic. Yeah, the detective added, 0:50:07.880 --> 0:50:10.520 when we got upstairs, we saw eight elderly men and 0:50:10.600 --> 0:50:13.759 five women in tights and bathing costumes. They were just exercising. 0:50:13.800 --> 0:50:16.040 They were tumbling on a mat which had strange figures 0:50:16.080 --> 0:50:18.479 on it. The defendant was standing by a crystal ball 0:50:18.520 --> 0:50:20.400 and was cladd in tights that came to his knees, 0:50:20.440 --> 0:50:22.960 in a jersey on which there were some queer figures. 0:50:23.640 --> 0:50:26.120 So again that's like the kind of and that gives 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:28.800 you an idea too of like who they're they're going after, 0:50:28.920 --> 0:50:31.640 because like Pierre has these young women who are like 0:50:31.719 --> 0:50:34.440 basically working as instructors, and then these old men who 0:50:34.480 --> 0:50:38.439 are presumably wealthier, who are basically paying to like hang 0:50:38.520 --> 0:50:40.919 out with a bunch of attractive young women wearing tight 0:50:40.920 --> 0:50:44.520 clothes and stretching. Right like that that is what he's offering, 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:47.960 you know. Also again, and it's New York City, yeah, 0:50:48.000 --> 0:50:50.480 it's New York City. It is interesting to me that 0:50:50.520 --> 0:50:52.840 a crystal ball was involved. I've done a number of 0:50:52.960 --> 0:50:55.239 yoga classes, none of which involved a crystal ball. 0:50:55.440 --> 0:50:59.640 Never never, although, look, I'd show up for that class. 0:50:59.680 --> 0:51:02.319 Maybe I'd show up for that class. Yeah, yeah, I 0:51:02.360 --> 0:51:06.000 have different emotions around this. Well, we still have story left. 0:51:06.239 --> 0:51:14.520 Yeah, I do wish that my yoga involved a palanteer though. Yeah, yeah, Saramon, 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:17.560 like does it puts like a sixty minute yoga video? 0:51:18.280 --> 0:51:19.719 Oh now that would be fun. 0:51:19.800 --> 0:51:24.000 Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, staff yoga. So bail is set 0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:26.520 at fifteen thousand dollars and Bernard is sent out of 0:51:26.560 --> 0:51:30.040 the courtroom. As he's leaving, Zellia's father sprints up and 0:51:30.080 --> 0:51:32.799 shouts that man ought to be killed and I'd do 0:51:32.880 --> 0:51:36.960 it if I could, which is you know, solid parenting. Well, 0:51:37.040 --> 0:51:39.839 Pierre languished in jail. A reporter from the Evening Mail 0:51:40.000 --> 0:51:42.719 managed to secure an interview with him. Perhaps given the 0:51:42.760 --> 0:51:44.719 desperate state he was in, or perhaps just due to 0:51:44.719 --> 0:51:47.480 his exhaustion and the skill of the interviewer, Bernard was 0:51:47.560 --> 0:51:51.440 uncommonly honest. He told the journalist, I never lived in India. 0:51:51.680 --> 0:51:55.120 The whole scheme is physical culture, that's all. Only some 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.799 of those nasty tongued women got busy. You know, if 0:51:57.840 --> 0:52:00.360 you pay more attention to one than you do to another, 0:52:00.440 --> 0:52:03.719 she gets jealous. This whole white slave business was too much. 0:52:03.960 --> 0:52:05.600 Wonder they didn't hold me for murder? 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:13.840 All right, Pierre fu motherfucker fucking Pierre. 0:52:15.160 --> 0:52:17.560 Now you'll note that he mentions, he says, this is 0:52:17.640 --> 0:52:20.719 this is physical culture. That's a savvy move by him. 0:52:20.800 --> 0:52:23.680 Now we've done a pair of episodes on Bernard McFadden, 0:52:23.719 --> 0:52:28.160 who was like the first big workout exercise guru and 0:52:28.200 --> 0:52:34.279 like American pop culture right around this time. Yeah, he's 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:36.680 running a bunch of big magazines that are like one 0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:40.359 is called physical culture. So Pierre is as he's being 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:43.160 interviewed by this guy he's trying to you know, normally, 0:52:43.200 --> 0:52:45.759 when he's like trying to con people into giving him money, 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:49.000 he wants to portray himself as like this Eastern mystic 0:52:49.040 --> 0:52:52.520 who has access to like magical powers. When he's in trouble, 0:52:52.719 --> 0:52:54.640 He's like, no, I'm just like this guy who's like 0:52:54.719 --> 0:52:57.040 popular and rich and famous, right, Like this is just 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.760 another kind of physical culture, you know, it's like lifting weights. 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:03.280 He attempts to do that only when he's in trouble, 0:53:03.280 --> 0:53:04.840 but that I think that is interesting. 0:53:05.880 --> 0:53:06.480 Yeah, it's smart. 0:53:07.000 --> 0:53:10.759 Yeah, yeah. So another trend that is sweeping the nation, 0:53:10.960 --> 0:53:14.239 like physical culture, is a trend that sweeping the nation 0:53:14.239 --> 0:53:15.719 in this period of time, and he's trying to tie 0:53:15.760 --> 0:53:18.239 himself into that one season trouble. But another trend that's 0:53:18.239 --> 0:53:21.040 sweeping the nation is a panic over the existence of 0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:25.120 what are generally referred to as white slavers. The same 0:53:25.200 --> 0:53:27.759 day that Pierre was arraigned, a twenty seven year old 0:53:27.800 --> 0:53:31.279 Russian named Levinson confessed to selling young women with the 0:53:31.320 --> 0:53:34.160 aid of two and like he uses a word for 0:53:34.400 --> 0:53:38.080 black women that we don't anymore. Jenny Miller, Gertrude's sister, 0:53:38.520 --> 0:53:41.080 saw kind of tying in what he had done to 0:53:41.120 --> 0:53:43.759 this like white slaver panic as a savvy way to 0:53:43.800 --> 0:53:46.440 get revenge on Pierre. So she told the press that 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:49.280 the tantric order was engaging in an even quote higher 0:53:49.400 --> 0:53:53.080 order of the of the white slave traffic, adding wealthy women, 0:53:53.160 --> 0:53:56.160 women whose fortunes run high into the millions, are prime 0:53:56.239 --> 0:53:57.360 movers in this traffic. 0:53:58.239 --> 0:54:00.880 This historic gets messier, I'm messier. 0:54:01.280 --> 0:54:04.120 There's a little bit of like proto QAnon stuff. In 0:54:04.160 --> 0:54:07.880 here right, Yeah, Now, the Tantric Order and yoga in 0:54:08.000 --> 0:54:11.799 general became the center of a scandalous news cycle, one 0:54:11.880 --> 0:54:15.080 that galvanized much of New York high society against the 0:54:15.200 --> 0:54:19.840 very concept of Eastern mysticism. As always happens with media frenzies, 0:54:20.040 --> 0:54:22.560 there was a period of several weeks where any newsman 0:54:22.640 --> 0:54:25.000 who could come up with a bloody minded story about 0:54:25.040 --> 0:54:27.960 evil yoga cults could claim to be sure of a paycheck. 0:54:28.320 --> 0:54:30.520 Some of them sat down with anyone from the West 0:54:30.560 --> 0:54:32.319 Coast who would claim to have been a former member 0:54:32.360 --> 0:54:34.320 of the Tantrik Order, and a lot of these people 0:54:34.320 --> 0:54:38.160 were just like lying, right for whatever reason. But others 0:54:38.280 --> 0:54:42.120 journalists started digging through various Hindu texts, often like bad 0:54:42.200 --> 0:54:46.360 translations of Hindu texts that they only partly understood, looking 0:54:46.440 --> 0:54:49.839 for anything that they could like tie into this broader thing, right, 0:54:49.880 --> 0:54:52.160 that they could like, Ah, here's another you know, it's 0:54:52.440 --> 0:54:56.879 it's journalism hasn't changed either, you know, Centurion or so, I. 0:54:56.800 --> 0:55:00.000 Mean, all this feels eerially familiar. Yeah, it's very very 0:55:00.040 --> 0:55:04.080 very modern story. In the great um love rights quote, 0:55:04.400 --> 0:55:07.160 reports surfaced in the press on those salacious details of 0:55:07.360 --> 0:55:10.839 Hindu tantric practices. A diligent New York World reporter had 0:55:10.840 --> 0:55:14.960 turned up a copy of Bernard's Vira Sadhana and published 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:18.400 excerpts under the headline Tantrick's worship calls for dead bodies 0:55:18.400 --> 0:55:21.880 and young girls. Since the Vira Sadhana was a compendium 0:55:21.880 --> 0:55:25.160 of abridged mystical tracks and translated Hindu writings that were 0:55:25.200 --> 0:55:29.040 long on metaphor and symbol, UM's enemies found everything they wanted. 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:32.920 They picked from a combination platter of yoga's alleged supernatural powers, 0:55:33.120 --> 0:55:35.880 sex rituals, phallic worship, and yes, even a mention of 0:55:35.920 --> 0:55:39.640 medieval Hindu rights that used dead bodies. When apprized by 0:55:39.680 --> 0:55:41.719 a reporter that some of the texts he published were 0:55:41.760 --> 0:55:45.840 sealacious in nature, Bernard answered wistfully, that's the trouble with people. 0:55:46.000 --> 0:55:50.640 They so readily misunderstood and a true conception of the system. 0:55:50.680 --> 0:55:52.440 And a lot of this is like, you know, you 0:55:52.480 --> 0:55:56.760 can find like texts in pieces in the Bible, pieces 0:55:56.760 --> 0:55:59.760 in like literally every religious text that like most practitions 0:55:59.760 --> 0:56:01.759 will they are like, well, that's a metaphor that's not 0:56:01.800 --> 0:56:04.279 meant to be literal like and also it is like 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:06.800 I don't know the quality of the translations he's getting, 0:56:07.080 --> 0:56:10.040 but people are finding stuff from like these medieval texts 0:56:10.080 --> 0:56:13.400 that like are fucked up sounding to modern ears, and 0:56:13.440 --> 0:56:15.719 he's kind of just like printed out in order to 0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:18.120 have something to sell, and they're accusing him of like 0:56:18.360 --> 0:56:19.560 stuff he's not doing. 0:56:19.680 --> 0:56:21.680 Right. Like, at the end of the day, Bernard is 0:56:21.719 --> 0:56:25.520 like a creep and probably a rapist, a sex pest, 0:56:26.440 --> 0:56:30.160 but he's not like sacrificing people or like, you know, 0:56:30.560 --> 0:56:33.520 doing rituals with dead bodies. You know, he's like a 0:56:33.560 --> 0:56:35.520 pretty pedestrian kind of creep. No. 0:56:35.640 --> 0:56:39.320 I mean you could also add into grift or baby 0:56:39.480 --> 0:56:43.279 or you know, appropriating something, not understanding what he is. 0:56:43.239 --> 0:56:48.640 He's teaching at all. Yeah, definitely not doing those things. 0:56:49.719 --> 0:56:52.400 I'm not an expert on on yoga or on on 0:56:52.480 --> 0:56:56.280 Hindu mysticism, but I do not believe Crystal Ball's feature prominently. 0:56:56.600 --> 0:56:57.720 No, I've never heard of that. 0:56:57.880 --> 0:57:02.000 Yeah, so a lot of it's also kind of worth 0:57:02.040 --> 0:57:04.560 noting that. Again, while he is definitely a sex pest, 0:57:04.840 --> 0:57:06.799 a lot of what got him damned by the press 0:57:06.840 --> 0:57:09.600 in his day are statements that were just two pro 0:57:09.719 --> 0:57:13.200 sex and even sometimes pro woman. For the era, one 0:57:13.239 --> 0:57:16.920 passage from the virus ad Hanna was particularly outrageous to 0:57:17.480 --> 0:57:21.400 people in nineteen ten New York. Sex worship as a 0:57:21.440 --> 0:57:24.200 religion represents a stage in the development of the human mind, 0:57:24.240 --> 0:57:26.640 and the grand theologies of today are the outcome of 0:57:26.640 --> 0:57:29.120 this mode of worship. It constitutes the basis of all 0:57:29.160 --> 0:57:31.920 that is sacred, wholly, and beautiful. The whole world is 0:57:31.960 --> 0:57:36.480 embodied in the woman. Now, yeah, that's heteronormative, but to 0:57:36.520 --> 0:57:38.439 most people in twenty twenty three, it's not what you'd 0:57:38.480 --> 0:57:41.680 call like a particularly offensive statement, even if it is 0:57:41.680 --> 0:57:44.920 a bit reductive and you know, horny. That said, as 0:57:44.960 --> 0:57:48.400 the arraignment went on, the allegations continued to pour out. 0:57:48.800 --> 0:57:51.880 Some were likely true and some were you know, exaggerated 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:55.360 or just false. Zelia, who was never a full initiate, 0:57:55.440 --> 0:57:58.560 told lurid stories of blood oaths that either you know, 0:57:58.680 --> 0:58:00.920 were exaggerated. You know, she's in kind of a heightened 0:58:00.920 --> 0:58:03.800 state when she encounters this, But you know, I don't 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:07.120 think anyone was like doing any serious like blood magic 0:58:07.200 --> 0:58:10.320 or whatever. But she also told like stories of like 0:58:10.520 --> 0:58:15.080 orgies in sort of like sexual like being pressured into 0:58:15.120 --> 0:58:17.720 having group sex and stuff that definitely did happen, right 0:58:18.160 --> 0:58:22.200 ay for sure. Yeah, things got really dark when Gertrude 0:58:22.240 --> 0:58:25.280 took the stand. Though she alleged that on September seventeenth, 0:58:25.360 --> 0:58:28.120 nineteen oh nine, Pierre had threatened to drug her with 0:58:28.240 --> 0:58:31.959 morphine when she became what he called hysterical, She said 0:58:31.960 --> 0:58:34.400 that he kept her prisoner with his hypnotic powers. Now, 0:58:34.440 --> 0:58:37.960 obviously I'm not like a particular believer in hypnotic powers, 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:40.560 but I certainly believe that a mix of drugs, the 0:58:40.600 --> 0:58:43.520 mind altering impact of cult dynamics, and good old fashioned 0:58:43.600 --> 0:58:45.960 gas lighting canna have the effect of keeping someone a 0:58:45.960 --> 0:58:48.240 prisoner without having them chained to a wall. 0:58:48.360 --> 0:58:50.120 Right, We've seen it time and time again. 0:58:50.160 --> 0:58:51.680 It happens all over the world. 0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:57.800 This is yeah, uh, accounting for the time frame that 0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:01.360 we are in as well, where you know, I am 0:59:01.400 --> 0:59:05.760 imagining these women being swept up in this and really 0:59:05.800 --> 0:59:10.120 not having the tools to understand or remove themselves from 0:59:10.120 --> 0:59:10.720 a situation. 0:59:11.320 --> 0:59:13.520 Well, and even like even if they'd had sort of 0:59:13.560 --> 0:59:15.600 you know, in more a culture that had given them 0:59:15.640 --> 0:59:19.600 more tools. This exact story, cult leaders plying followers with 0:59:19.680 --> 0:59:22.800 like a mix of drugs and gas lighting and sexual abuse. 0:59:23.000 --> 0:59:25.640 That happens, That's happening there's thousands of people living that 0:59:25.720 --> 0:59:26.520 life right now. 0:59:26.480 --> 0:59:28.960 Right, yeah, absolutely, And I also do not mean to 0:59:29.000 --> 0:59:32.040 suggest that you know people now should know better or 0:59:32.040 --> 0:59:35.680 whatever I'm just imagining at that time, being like it's 0:59:35.680 --> 0:59:39.160 even an element of magic and email and. 0:59:39.440 --> 0:59:41.800 Yes, well, and also today, if you get out of 0:59:41.800 --> 0:59:45.720 that situation today, there's infrastructure to help you. Right even 0:59:45.720 --> 0:59:47.680 in that infrastructure, just you can find books that people 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:50.120 have written about going through similar experiences and the way 0:59:50.160 --> 0:59:54.040 cult dynamics work that doesn't really exist for someone like Gertrude, 0:59:54.120 --> 0:59:58.240 you know, in nineteen ten, she told the court quote, 0:59:58.280 --> 1:00:00.440 I both feared and loved him. He made me believe 1:00:00.480 --> 1:00:02.760 that he could communicate with priests of the Order all 1:00:02.800 --> 1:00:04.600 over the world who would sit in counsel at his 1:00:04.680 --> 1:00:07.120 command and take a awigh my mind if I did 1:00:07.200 --> 1:00:10.760 not obey him. And one of the heartbreaking dimentions about 1:00:10.760 --> 1:00:12.920 this is that in order to lay out the abuse 1:00:13.440 --> 1:00:17.280 that both women absolutely experienced, Zelia and Gertrude had to 1:00:17.320 --> 1:00:21.240 admit to having premarital sex. In Gertrude's case, this involved 1:00:21.240 --> 1:00:23.800 sex with a number of men as part of sexual rights. 1:00:24.720 --> 1:00:28.560 Some of this does sound very satanic, panicky, but part 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:31.200 of why I tend to like why I believe like 1:00:31.280 --> 1:00:35.120 what they're saying is that Gertrude and Zelia they suffered 1:00:35.200 --> 1:00:38.640 massive personal consequences for doing this. Going up in front 1:00:38.680 --> 1:00:42.000 of like a court and saying that you had sex 1:00:42.080 --> 1:00:46.320 outside of marriage in this period of time closes off 1:00:46.360 --> 1:00:48.160 opportunities for you as a woman. 1:00:48.280 --> 1:00:52.520 Yeah, this isn't something you just do, No, something. It's 1:00:52.520 --> 1:00:53.040 also not. 1:00:52.960 --> 1:00:55.680 Something that not that it's something you just do today. 1:00:55.840 --> 1:00:58.080 But this is there's even more consequences. 1:00:58.320 --> 1:01:03.720 It's like, yeah, big deal. Very brave of them. Yeah no, 1:01:04.440 --> 1:01:07.240 it's just like I very brave too. 1:01:07.800 --> 1:01:10.840 Yeah, it's a terrible situation for them to be put in. 1:01:11.160 --> 1:01:14.720 As the Atlantic Constitution put it in one headline, ruin 1:01:14.840 --> 1:01:17.360 brought to this woman by high priest, right, Like that's 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:19.880 the way it's being category. Like she's been ruined by him, 1:01:19.920 --> 1:01:23.760 you know. The judge did decide to sustain the charges, 1:01:23.800 --> 1:01:26.760 and a grand jury later indicted Pierre on two counts. 1:01:27.040 --> 1:01:30.920 The newspapers started referring to him derisively as the Great Ome. 1:01:32.000 --> 1:01:34.960 His followers dissolved, and the townhouse lay vacant while he 1:01:35.040 --> 1:01:38.520 languished in jail waiting for his trial, but as the 1:01:38.520 --> 1:01:41.760 weeks ticked by his lawyers found what they called evidence 1:01:41.760 --> 1:01:45.920 against Gertrude's previously chased character. They alleged that she had 1:01:46.000 --> 1:01:48.160 lied about her age and that she had slept with 1:01:48.200 --> 1:01:52.640 someone outside of marriage previously. Pierre's lawyer offered to produce 1:01:52.720 --> 1:01:55.480 these claims and witnesses to them in court, so the 1:01:55.560 --> 1:01:58.720 DA dropped Gertrude as a witness and a complainant. Right 1:01:58.960 --> 1:02:01.880 he dropped the charge is based on Pierre's abuse of 1:02:01.880 --> 1:02:05.000 Gertrude because this lawyer was like, I found evidence that 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:08.360 she had sex outside of marriage once, Like that's the 1:02:08.440 --> 1:02:13.280 time wherein he reduced bail on Pierre. But the case 1:02:13.360 --> 1:02:16.960 did go forward at this point, though, Zelia decided that 1:02:17.000 --> 1:02:20.400 she too wanted off the case. Her family said that 1:02:20.480 --> 1:02:23.080 she had moved out of state. She wanted the charges. 1:02:23.360 --> 1:02:25.680 She just wanted it to end. Like the way her 1:02:25.680 --> 1:02:27.920 family described it is that the case had nearly driven 1:02:27.960 --> 1:02:30.640 her insane. I think it was just too much for her, 1:02:30.720 --> 1:02:32.960 and once Gertrude kind of was out, it was like, 1:02:33.040 --> 1:02:35.400 I can't, I can't go through this, like. 1:02:35.560 --> 1:02:37.400 The just by myself. 1:02:37.680 --> 1:02:41.960 Yeah, yeah, it's horrible. They're they're both in a horrible situation. Eventually, 1:02:42.000 --> 1:02:45.080 the case folded and Pierre was released a free man, 1:02:45.520 --> 1:02:47.600 But as stain had been left on yoga that would 1:02:47.640 --> 1:02:50.520 take decades to wash away, As Robert Love wrote in 1:02:50.560 --> 1:02:53.960 this column for Mental Flaws. The next year, a Christian 1:02:54.000 --> 1:02:56.920 mystic named Evelyn Arthur c was arrested in Chicago and 1:02:57.040 --> 1:02:59.600 charged as a white slaver. His trial was a virtual 1:02:59.640 --> 1:03:03.120 replay of the Bernard proceedings. Meanwhile, back in New York City, 1:03:03.440 --> 1:03:07.320 esoteric psychologist doctor William Latson, who taught Hindu dancing as 1:03:07.360 --> 1:03:11.320 a way of freeing his female patients from their liberal restraints, 1:03:11.480 --> 1:03:15.200 committed suicide in his office. Combined with Bernard's notoriety and 1:03:15.240 --> 1:03:18.360 seized conviction, the lats and scandal turned public sentiment against 1:03:18.440 --> 1:03:22.360 yoga and mysticism. Newspapers began publishing feature length expose as 1:03:22.400 --> 1:03:26.800 blaming yoga for domestic infelicity, insanity, and death. The federal 1:03:26.800 --> 1:03:31.280 government opened official investigations against various swamis and Hindu priests. 1:03:31.480 --> 1:03:34.560 America was fascinated, horrified, and obsessed with what the Washington 1:03:34.600 --> 1:03:37.800 Post called the soul destroying poison of the East, the 1:03:37.880 --> 1:03:41.440 tragic flood of broken homes and hearts, disgrace and suicide. 1:03:41.760 --> 1:03:44.120 Yoga had become public enemy number one. 1:03:44.280 --> 1:03:47.440 There there she goes again, America. 1:03:47.320 --> 1:03:52.400 Good old America, Now, Katie. No moral panic is stronger 1:03:52.400 --> 1:03:55.000 than the desire of upper middle class white people to 1:03:55.040 --> 1:03:57.440 feel connected to something that makes them different from the 1:03:57.440 --> 1:04:01.040 people they play bridge with. So Bernard was eventually able 1:04:01.080 --> 1:04:05.240 to establish several successful yoga schools. He rebuilt his he 1:04:05.280 --> 1:04:09.120 rebuilt his cult. He became fabulously wealthy. He established a 1:04:09.240 --> 1:04:11.840 sizable compound with a herd of elephants in it. I 1:04:11.880 --> 1:04:14.320 believe somewhere like Upstate New York. It's in somewhere in 1:04:14.320 --> 1:04:16.680 the Northeast. And he worked with a number of the 1:04:16.720 --> 1:04:19.000 wealthiest people in the country at the time, including the 1:04:19.120 --> 1:04:22.600 Vanderbilt daughters. Yes, he's extremely successful. If you want to 1:04:22.680 --> 1:04:24.960 learn about this guy's whole life story, I really recommend 1:04:25.240 --> 1:04:28.520 Robert Loves the Great Um. It's an interesting, well written 1:04:28.520 --> 1:04:32.320 book about this fella. Yoga itself languished until the late 1:04:32.480 --> 1:04:35.880 nineteen fifties, when enough distance from the moral panic years 1:04:35.920 --> 1:04:38.600 allowed a new generation to see it as simply a 1:04:38.720 --> 1:04:43.160 secular exercise remedy. It was still transmitted to people largely 1:04:43.200 --> 1:04:47.640 by white Americans like Richard Hitelman, and Lilias Folan. Television 1:04:47.720 --> 1:04:49.720 was key to this spread. It made it easy to 1:04:49.760 --> 1:04:52.720 show people different poses in a manner that seemed straightforward 1:04:52.960 --> 1:04:56.040 and absent the trappings of mysticism that had made Pierre 1:04:56.040 --> 1:04:59.720 Bernard seem so shady. Then the nineteen sixties hit, the 1:04:59.800 --> 1:05:02.000 h bees all started doing yoga and the New Age 1:05:02.000 --> 1:05:04.600 movement took off, and in the middle of that process, 1:05:04.880 --> 1:05:07.840 a young Indian immigrant would introduce the continent to a 1:05:07.880 --> 1:05:11.480 new version of yoga. His name was Bickram. And we're 1:05:11.520 --> 1:05:14.040 gonna talk about all that in part two. 1:05:14.000 --> 1:05:17.520 Katie, I cannot wait. I can't wait because it don't 1:05:17.520 --> 1:05:19.400 have to wait long. We're going to record it a media. 1:05:19.320 --> 1:05:21.080 We're gonna we're gonna talk about this in like ten minutes. 1:05:21.160 --> 1:05:23.160 Yeah, but the rest of you all have to wait. 1:05:23.720 --> 1:05:28.600 You get Yeah, you gotta wait like a day or so. Motherfuckers, shittheads. 1:05:29.360 --> 1:05:32.760 That was very interesting. Yeah, and I'm excited for the 1:05:32.880 --> 1:05:33.160 night here. 1:05:34.200 --> 1:05:36.840 So am I, Katie? You got any plug ub host plug? Wow? 1:05:37.000 --> 1:05:40.040 I guess so, I guess problematic, I guess I do. 1:05:40.240 --> 1:05:40.520 I guess. 1:05:40.560 --> 1:05:43.320 I'd like to tell you guys about our little show 1:05:43.440 --> 1:05:44.560 called some More News. 1:05:45.080 --> 1:05:46.240 You've heard me talk about it before. 1:05:46.320 --> 1:05:50.200 We have a channel called some More News that our 1:05:50.280 --> 1:05:53.280 friend Cody Johnston hosts and I'm on and we have 1:05:53.320 --> 1:05:57.760 a podcast called even more News. You can find both 1:05:57.760 --> 1:06:01.040 of them in the same audio feed. And you know, 1:06:01.120 --> 1:06:02.680 we're on social media and stuff. 1:06:02.440 --> 1:06:06.720 Like that too. And also i'd like to promote next week's. 1:06:06.400 --> 1:06:11.560 Episode of this show, part two of this episode. Oh cool, 1:06:12.760 --> 1:06:17.080 That's what I'd like to promote today. Robert anything we 1:06:17.120 --> 1:06:19.880 lost Robert? Oh, Robert, Scott, Roberts Gon. You know what, guys, 1:06:19.880 --> 1:06:22.520 that's it for us here behind the Master. Robert has 1:06:22.600 --> 1:06:26.400 dropped off off the zoom and now we've taken control. 1:06:27.000 --> 1:06:28.800 What I want to What do I want to do 1:06:28.880 --> 1:06:45.320 with this power? I don't know. He's back. 1:06:46.000 --> 1:06:48.680 Ah fuck ah fuck? Are we still recording or did 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:49.880 we end? Well? 1:06:50.160 --> 1:06:51.560 We're ending now randing Now. 1:06:52.280 --> 1:06:54.840 Well, we said some really horrible ship about you, and 1:06:54.880 --> 1:06:56.280 I've asked you just to bleep. 1:06:56.080 --> 1:06:56.640 All of it. 1:06:57.720 --> 1:07:00.480 Wow. Well, that's good, that's good, that's good. 1:07:00.560 --> 1:07:04.880 I felt appropriate anyways, by motherfuckers, buy motherfuckers. 1:07:05.600 --> 1:07:09.080 Yeah. 1:07:09.320 --> 1:07:12.040 Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. 1:07:12.400 --> 1:07:15.680 For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia 1:07:15.840 --> 1:07:19.080 Dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 1:07:19.120 --> 1:07:21.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.