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Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness
The practice of yoga promises peace, self-realisation and release thanks to the power of its 'mystic' Indian origins. But what if this is just hype?
In Fascist Yoga Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of the world’s first modern yogi—a Californian escapologist who added some Hindu fairy dust to gym and circus exercises. Ever since, the world of yoga has been full of grifters, occultists and white supremacists, all out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise. From cult leaders to brainwashed followers, TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity.
Today the COVID-19 pandemic has activated elements within the modern yoga movement to espouse far-right conspiracies. QAnon’s fascist political programmes mirror some of yoga’s key early proponents. In this new exposé Home shows that nothing is sacred.
In Fascist Yoga Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of the world’s first modern yogi—a Californian escapologist who added some Hindu fairy dust to gym and circus exercises. Ever since, the world of yoga has been full of grifters, occultists and white supremacists, all out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise. From cult leaders to brainwashed followers, TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity.
Today the COVID-19 pandemic has activated elements within the modern yoga movement to espouse far-right conspiracies. QAnon’s fascist political programmes mirror some of yoga’s key early proponents. In this new exposé Home shows that nothing is sacred.
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2025
58 people are currently reading
3620 people want to read
About the author
Stewart Home
95 books290 followersStewart Home (born London 1963) is an English writer, satirist and artist. He is best known for novels such as the non-narrative "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (2002), his re-imagining of the 1960s in "Tainted Love" (2005), and more recent books such as "She's My Witch" (2020) that use pulp and avant-garde tropes to parody conventional literature.
Home's unusual approach to writing is reflected in the readings he gives from his novels: he recites from memory, utilises ventriloquism, stands on his head and declaims his work and even shreds his own books.
Home's first book "The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War" (Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London, 1988) is an underground art history sketching continuations of dadist and surrealist influences on post-World War II fringe radical art.
Home's first novel "Pure Mania" was published 1989 (Polygon Books), and details a violent neo-punk subculture. Unmistakenly postmodern but nfluenced by surrealism and the nouveau roman, it pushes the appropriation of pulp tropes and use of repetition found within historical avant-garde fiction to such an extreme that some critics mistook it for a piece of low-brow writing.
Home continued in much the same vein with his next four novels, starting with "Defiant Pose" (Peter Owen, 1991) and continuing with "Red London" (AK Press 1994), "Blow Job" (published in 1997 but written in 1994) and Slow Death (Serpent's Tail 1996).
All Home’s early fiction collages in large amounts of prose from a wide variety of sources – and while it is often close in spirit to the work of ‘postmodern extremists’ such as Kathy Acker, the appropriated material is much more heavily reworked than in the latter’s books.
The novels Home wrote after the mid-nineties featured less subcultural material than his earlier books and focus more obviously on issues of form and aesthetics. Home’s sixth novel "Come Before Christ And Murder Love" (Serpent's Tail 1997) featured a schizophrenic narrator whose personality changed every time he had an orgasm. This was the first novel Home wrote in the first person, and much of the fiction he wrote after this utilised the device of an unreliable first-person narrator.
"Cunt" (Do Not Press 1999) is a postmodern take on the picaresque novel. "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (Canongate 2002) mixes porn with capsule reviews of dozens of obscure books as well as elaborate descriptions of stone circles, while in "Down and Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton" (Do Not Press 2004) every paragraph is exactly 100 words long. "Tainted Love" (Virgin Books) is based on the life of the author's mother, who was part of the London subcultural scene in the 1960s. "Memphis Underground" (Snow Books 2007) has a long conventional literary opening that is slowly unravelled.
Home’s 2010 novel "Blood Rites of the Bourgeois" (Book Works) is to date his only work written in the second person. The plot – as far as there is one - concerns an artist hacking the computers of London’s cultural elite to infect them with modified penis enlargement spam. Reviewing Home’s incredibly weird campus novel "Mandy, Charlie & Mary-Jane" (Penny-Ante Editions 2013) for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard observes: “I think one of the great virtues of Home's work is the way it forces us to address our own complacency.”
"The 9 Lives of Ray The Cat Jones" (Test Centre 2014) is a fictional exploration of the life of one of the author's more infamous criminal relatives. "She's My Witch" (London Books 2020), is a love story exploring an unlikely relationship between a fitness instructor and a heroin addicted witch. "Art School Orgy" (New Reality Records, 2023) is a 'BDSM extravaganza'. Before this Home published his collected poems "SEND CA$H" (Morbid Books 2018) and a book about martial arts films "Re-Enter The Dragon: Genre Theory, Brucesploitation & The Sleazy Joys of Lowbrow Cinema" (Ledatape 2018).
Home's unusual approach to writing is reflected in the readings he gives from his novels: he recites from memory, utilises ventriloquism, stands on his head and declaims his work and even shreds his own books.
Home's first book "The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War" (Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London, 1988) is an underground art history sketching continuations of dadist and surrealist influences on post-World War II fringe radical art.
Home's first novel "Pure Mania" was published 1989 (Polygon Books), and details a violent neo-punk subculture. Unmistakenly postmodern but nfluenced by surrealism and the nouveau roman, it pushes the appropriation of pulp tropes and use of repetition found within historical avant-garde fiction to such an extreme that some critics mistook it for a piece of low-brow writing.
Home continued in much the same vein with his next four novels, starting with "Defiant Pose" (Peter Owen, 1991) and continuing with "Red London" (AK Press 1994), "Blow Job" (published in 1997 but written in 1994) and Slow Death (Serpent's Tail 1996).
All Home’s early fiction collages in large amounts of prose from a wide variety of sources – and while it is often close in spirit to the work of ‘postmodern extremists’ such as Kathy Acker, the appropriated material is much more heavily reworked than in the latter’s books.
The novels Home wrote after the mid-nineties featured less subcultural material than his earlier books and focus more obviously on issues of form and aesthetics. Home’s sixth novel "Come Before Christ And Murder Love" (Serpent's Tail 1997) featured a schizophrenic narrator whose personality changed every time he had an orgasm. This was the first novel Home wrote in the first person, and much of the fiction he wrote after this utilised the device of an unreliable first-person narrator.
"Cunt" (Do Not Press 1999) is a postmodern take on the picaresque novel. "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (Canongate 2002) mixes porn with capsule reviews of dozens of obscure books as well as elaborate descriptions of stone circles, while in "Down and Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton" (Do Not Press 2004) every paragraph is exactly 100 words long. "Tainted Love" (Virgin Books) is based on the life of the author's mother, who was part of the London subcultural scene in the 1960s. "Memphis Underground" (Snow Books 2007) has a long conventional literary opening that is slowly unravelled.
Home’s 2010 novel "Blood Rites of the Bourgeois" (Book Works) is to date his only work written in the second person. The plot – as far as there is one - concerns an artist hacking the computers of London’s cultural elite to infect them with modified penis enlargement spam. Reviewing Home’s incredibly weird campus novel "Mandy, Charlie & Mary-Jane" (Penny-Ante Editions 2013) for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard observes: “I think one of the great virtues of Home's work is the way it forces us to address our own complacency.”
"The 9 Lives of Ray The Cat Jones" (Test Centre 2014) is a fictional exploration of the life of one of the author's more infamous criminal relatives. "She's My Witch" (London Books 2020), is a love story exploring an unlikely relationship between a fitness instructor and a heroin addicted witch. "Art School Orgy" (New Reality Records, 2023) is a 'BDSM extravaganza'. Before this Home published his collected poems "SEND CA$H" (Morbid Books 2018) and a book about martial arts films "Re-Enter The Dragon: Genre Theory, Brucesploitation & The Sleazy Joys of Lowbrow Cinema" (Ledatape 2018).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
September 7, 2025
This is not about the modern wellness movement. This is a history of maybe how the early figures laid the foundation, but even that needs a slight caveat because the historical work is rather sporadic- often using calls to the present as supporting evidence instead of historical narrative or context. Hard to have a neutral perspective because this is not at all the tone, style, approach that I expected or has been marketed.
(I just deleted a longer review because I’m just going to try not talking about what I hated and just tell you whether or not this is a work for you: if you want a deep dive into the history of western yoga, this *might* be okay for you. If you’re drawn in because of the “grifter” narratives about the modern new age/wellness movements that have become popular in recent years, I really doubt this is going to be the experience you’re hoping for)
(I just deleted a longer review because I’m just going to try not talking about what I hated and just tell you whether or not this is a work for you: if you want a deep dive into the history of western yoga, this *might* be okay for you. If you’re drawn in because of the “grifter” narratives about the modern new age/wellness movements that have become popular in recent years, I really doubt this is going to be the experience you’re hoping for)
July 13, 2025
crazy, fun book.
The author seems angry.
maybe spark one up and a little stretching.
The author seems angry.
maybe spark one up and a little stretching.
January 3, 2026
Be prepared: this is definitely a history book more than it’s a journalistic look at the current state of yoga. As someone who reads a lot of historical books, this was absolutely my jam, but I don’t think it’s quite what some people are expecting based on the cover. This book looks at the formation of Western postural yoga and the way some yogis throughout the twentieth century were intertwined with fascist movements. It’s not enough to turn me against yoga as a whole—I will probably continue my very occasional yoga practice—but it’s definitely a fascinating glimpse into the dark side of modern yoga history.
July 27, 2025
I don't really know what Home was trying to do here. I think we all know that there are right wing links in yoga especially during COVID and the crunchy to alt right pipeline antivax maha etc etc.
This is less about that though (which conspirituality do better anyway and in a more informed way) and more about yoga from about 100 years ago in the west and the dodgy UK/USA mainly white men that practiced and shared it.
I know that modern postural yoga is a more recent thing (that's pretty well established) but it still does link to older practices in India and still has benefits to mind and body and relaxation but I think Home is mainly about the headstands.
He ends this pretty boring diatribe (which heavily relies on quotes) by saying no one should practice postural yoga.
This is less about that though (which conspirituality do better anyway and in a more informed way) and more about yoga from about 100 years ago in the west and the dodgy UK/USA mainly white men that practiced and shared it.
I know that modern postural yoga is a more recent thing (that's pretty well established) but it still does link to older practices in India and still has benefits to mind and body and relaxation but I think Home is mainly about the headstands.
He ends this pretty boring diatribe (which heavily relies on quotes) by saying no one should practice postural yoga.
August 4, 2025
kind of a shockingly bad book?? It’s written in this hectoring, pedantic style you get in the worst left wing writing and full of insane non sequiturs like … in fascist organisations absolute deference to the supreme leader is demanded, just like modern yoga organisations!!
The grey area between the far right, reactionary anti-rationalism and wellness, new age, the esoteric etc. is super interesting to me and something I want to know more about but this was just 150 pages of dull biographies of people involved in yoga and sometimes unsavoury right wing causes too, and it never comes to any interesting conclusions or insights.
I don’t know, I don’t care about yoga much one way of the other but it seems probably like a healthy, harmless thing to do for your body and mind. Such a weird book.
The grey area between the far right, reactionary anti-rationalism and wellness, new age, the esoteric etc. is super interesting to me and something I want to know more about but this was just 150 pages of dull biographies of people involved in yoga and sometimes unsavoury right wing causes too, and it never comes to any interesting conclusions or insights.
I don’t know, I don’t care about yoga much one way of the other but it seems probably like a healthy, harmless thing to do for your body and mind. Such a weird book.
September 2, 2025
Fascinating premise. Shit execution
July 25, 2025
This book was not at all what I expected. The publisher’s description and the introduction stated that the premise was to expose “new age figures jumping aboard the antivax, anti-masking, [anti science], far-right bandwagon.” I expected a contemporary review of theory and practice, not obscure historical figures with questionable correlations to fascist origins of the present state of practice. Only in the introduction which included John Friend’s demise and a few times in the final 50 or so pages did the author address the current industry making false health claims of poses as treatments for medical conditions and promoting quackery like coffee enemas and bogus dietary supplements as yoga. His assertion that ridiculous claims that yoga as an elixir for all ailments was the forerunner to antivax and anti mask stances was tenuous. The author included multiple citations but he was too inflammatory in his tone to be objective (that he thinks a woman’s yoga accessories are ugly is irrelevant). His assumptions and assertions overstated the evidence he presented. He really just confirmed with confidence that physical yoga practice is a product of the west and was not imported from the Indian subcontinent but that was already well established.
Read
July 19, 2025Stewart Home: try Pilates instead.
August 10, 2025
Sadly, an elongated version of a substack rant about something, that happened 100 years ago.
August 6, 2025
I heard of this book in a review I read of it and Conspirituality. The author, a prominent British radical, argues that modern postural yoga is not an ancient Indian creation, but a product of European and American bodybuilding and physical culture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An early chapter is called "Did Pierre Bernard Invent Yoga in California at the Start of the Twentieth Century?" The answer, in short, is "yeah, he did." Bernard would go on to found a yoga school in Nyack, New York.
The practice of postural yoga was taken up by a number fascists in the first half of the 20th century Britain, the USA, and Europe. Some of them created myths about postural yoga's history extending back to "Aryan" peoples who wandered around Asia and who conquered the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago.
Home devotes chapters to many postwar promoters of yoga, some of whom were also occultists and most of whom wove baseless claims about the practice's history and potential physical and mental benefits, most of which was a confusing jumble of important-sounding words. Some of these promoters were in it for the loot: they published book after book and correspondence course after correspondence course on mental, psychic, and physical development through yoga. (Curiously, it seems that in the UK, the publisher Prentice Hall published reams of these works. It is curious because by the 1980s Prentice Hall was a major publisher of college textbooks, at least in the USA.)
Particularly interesting to me is his discussion of Richard Hittleman, a yoga huckster who in the 1960s created and hosted the television program Yoga for Health, which is where I first heard of yoga. The program featured Hittleman's voice and a woman who demonstrated the various poses Hittleman taught. For some reason, she had given up speaking, said Hittleman. At the age of 6 I accepted Hittleman's eplanation that it was part of her spiritual quest or something.
Home ends his discussion in the 1970s, because, he says, new technology increased the amount of media devoted to yoga. We do find that some prominent yoga promoters turned to anti-vaxx and anti-mask positions, as well as conspiracy theory, in the age of Covid.
The book blows the lid off the conventional story of yoga's history. The falsehood of the conventional origin story of postural yoga has, I should note, been addressed by a number of other scholars in recent years.
I would recommend the book to people who practice yoga and to anyone interested in fascism outside of Germany and/or in the intellectual bilge of the 20th century.
The practice of postural yoga was taken up by a number fascists in the first half of the 20th century Britain, the USA, and Europe. Some of them created myths about postural yoga's history extending back to "Aryan" peoples who wandered around Asia and who conquered the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago.
Home devotes chapters to many postwar promoters of yoga, some of whom were also occultists and most of whom wove baseless claims about the practice's history and potential physical and mental benefits, most of which was a confusing jumble of important-sounding words. Some of these promoters were in it for the loot: they published book after book and correspondence course after correspondence course on mental, psychic, and physical development through yoga. (Curiously, it seems that in the UK, the publisher Prentice Hall published reams of these works. It is curious because by the 1980s Prentice Hall was a major publisher of college textbooks, at least in the USA.)
Particularly interesting to me is his discussion of Richard Hittleman, a yoga huckster who in the 1960s created and hosted the television program Yoga for Health, which is where I first heard of yoga. The program featured Hittleman's voice and a woman who demonstrated the various poses Hittleman taught. For some reason, she had given up speaking, said Hittleman. At the age of 6 I accepted Hittleman's eplanation that it was part of her spiritual quest or something.
Home ends his discussion in the 1970s, because, he says, new technology increased the amount of media devoted to yoga. We do find that some prominent yoga promoters turned to anti-vaxx and anti-mask positions, as well as conspiracy theory, in the age of Covid.
The book blows the lid off the conventional story of yoga's history. The falsehood of the conventional origin story of postural yoga has, I should note, been addressed by a number of other scholars in recent years.
I would recommend the book to people who practice yoga and to anyone interested in fascism outside of Germany and/or in the intellectual bilge of the 20th century.
July 31, 2025
Fascinating concept but I think this book fell short on its execution. The book was clearly painstakingly researched, but I felt that it was hard to follow at times. I also think Home went more into detail than necessary in each of his profiles. He stated that his goal for writing this book was to dissuade people from falling into the "cult" of modern postural yoga. However, I think he spent too much time on the foundational figures in the movement and not enough time linking their problematic philosophies/actions to modern practices.
This is a pretty quick read so I encourage folks to give it a shot, if you're interested in the subject.
This is a pretty quick read so I encourage folks to give it a shot, if you're interested in the subject.
August 9, 2025
Very much the authors opinion using selective pieces of information to push his agenda. I don’t like what he says and would argue it is attempting to frame itself as a piece of history rather than a confused ramble. However given I hate the argument I am more likely to be critical
September 18, 2025
For someone who hates yoga, Home sure loves stretching!
December 2, 2025
if i never read the words “modern postural practice” again it will be too soon
January 11, 2026
A short book that feels like an overlong rant—poorly written, empty of substance, and astonishingly boring for something so small that skimming it still felt like a waste of time.
August 6, 2025
this was a long form essay that didn't need to be a book
dnf
September 7, 2025was kinda giving me bad, boring, and off-topic vibes in like the first 30 pages. According to the other reviews I was right :^)
October 8, 2025
claiming that the neo folk musicians needed a gimmick to sell their "piss poor" second-rate post punk music = massive respect
October 3, 2025
2.5 What did I just read?! I’d say a one-of-a-kind sociological skewering of yoga—of all things. Stewart traces the history of yoga through the many books and cultural texts that have defined it for us, and it turns out the practice may not have retained the peaceful, spiritual tradition from ancient India that we’ve always been led to believe. Instead, its evolution got far more complicated, questionable, and even insidious once it left its barn doors and went West.
The book is certainly well researched, tackling something I’d never thought to question, and that in itself is its real value. Have we been conned? What even makes someone an “accomplished yogi,” and who gets to decide? Honestly, most of the finer details flew over my head, but a bigger takeaway stuck: if yoga isn’t what we thought, what other seemingly perfect things might not be either? What’s next—cream-colored ponies? Warm woolen mittens??
Listened on audiobook-it’s short at around 5 hours, but print would probably work better as there is a lot of detail. I fear i may have missed much of its nuance.
The book is certainly well researched, tackling something I’d never thought to question, and that in itself is its real value. Have we been conned? What even makes someone an “accomplished yogi,” and who gets to decide? Honestly, most of the finer details flew over my head, but a bigger takeaway stuck: if yoga isn’t what we thought, what other seemingly perfect things might not be either? What’s next—cream-colored ponies? Warm woolen mittens??
Listened on audiobook-it’s short at around 5 hours, but print would probably work better as there is a lot of detail. I fear i may have missed much of its nuance.
February 20, 2026
This really should have a been blog post catering to a niche group of postural yoga devotees. It claims to take aim at the "New Order in Wellness" but its just a hit peice on very select people within the history of western yoga. If you adhere to the extremely obscure list of people named in this book - give it a read. If your looking for an intelligent critique of New Age beliefs, there is nothing really in here for you.
January 6, 2026
This was hard to get through as the argument is supported by sporadic facts that the author doesn’t really connect to one another in a coherent way. Honestly, it reminded me of reading papers for intro college classes as a grad student when freshman and sophomores are still learning how to structure an argument and write a compelling case.
September 20, 2025
Mmmmm the conclusion was really weird and unbased
January 13, 2026
Obsessed with this book, truly a final bastion of critical thought
October 1, 2025
Home was a bit angsty, to say the least, and I think his anger about the topic caused him to make sweeping generalizations & assumptions without sufficient evidence. Also, I’m not so sure that yoga as a practice is as entirely useless as Home believes it to be. If you take away the fabricated history of yoga, it’s really just stretching…. but whatever
September 21, 2025
This book is a good example of good non-fiction needing more than just research or an interesting story to tell.
November 20, 2025
entertaining but absurdly contrived and of almost zero actual historical benefit. really strains to make whatever point in any sort of substantiated way. mostly full of content with nothing to do with, or very loosely connected to fascism, while leaving unexplored barely touching in actually interesting connections between fascists and north Indian culture and histories and the origins of how yoga was brought to the west outside of the tiny sample of weird authors he chooses to look at. also doesn't explore connections between fascism and the "new order of wellness"! this book is just a humorous glance at some weirdo occultist grifters of the 20th century and might have been entertaining if it posited itself as such but it unfortunately aspires to be so much more and falls very short. it also throws the baby out with the bathwater to incredible extents, seems completely naive about actual benefits of postural exercise systems, and concludes that doing yoga is horrible and noone should ever do it just because some scammers in the 30's-70's used It as one component of the many scams they were running?
October 2, 2025
Fascist Yoga brings to light the fascinating history of the largely forgotten, first yoga creators—white men—in the US and the UK. Home’s argument that modern postural yoga originated from them, as much as from any Indian creators, is convincing—especially in correlation with Mark Singleton’s “Yoga Body”.
I am very sympathetic to Home’s work and appreciate the historical correction he has produced, but I wish he had told us a bit more about his mission: his own experience with modern-day gym yoga instructors, which I stay away from for the reasons he states; the issues with the practice itself, which I agree with; and how he came to the decision to move all his physical training at home. Putting himself into his narrative would give more powerful support to his takedown of modern posture practice.
As the book stands, the average reader may not understand why Home recommends abandoning modern postural yoga altogether.
I am very sympathetic to Home’s work and appreciate the historical correction he has produced, but I wish he had told us a bit more about his mission: his own experience with modern-day gym yoga instructors, which I stay away from for the reasons he states; the issues with the practice itself, which I agree with; and how he came to the decision to move all his physical training at home. Putting himself into his narrative would give more powerful support to his takedown of modern posture practice.
As the book stands, the average reader may not understand why Home recommends abandoning modern postural yoga altogether.
September 8, 2025
Thoroughly researched, but poorly structured and not particularly well written. There is a compelling book to be had out of this material, but this isn’t it.
Read
February 5, 2026Like many who have reviewed Fascist Yoga, I also felt attracted to the book because its title and blurb imply a sort of conspiratorial secret history underpinning modern yoga. While this isn't exactly the direction Home takes us, I still found it to be a concise and worthwhile retelling of the development of a seemingly-innocuous hobby.
First, an admission: the main reason I wanted to purchase and read Fascist Yoga was that I've long felt that yoga and other New Age wellness activities are imbued with an underlying evil rooted in anti-intellectual tendencies that lead to reactionary thought. To put it simply, I wanted my priors confirmed.
So were they confirmed?
Well, in a sense, yes. Home discusses about a dozen different figures integral to the development of postural yoga who vary greatly in seriousness from occult uber-fascist Julius Evola to relatively harmless grifters selling books about how yoga can give you telepathic powers. To be honest, it was mostly just different iterations of the latter character.
This brings me to my main issue with Home's well-researched work. While there are a handful of examples of genuinely evil figures in this story, for the most part he doesn't really land his main contention that yoga is harmful to its practitioners. In the conclusion, he urges the reader not to take part in postural yoga, in large part due to its tendency towards cultish behavior and anti-scientific health claims (anti-vax sentiment during COVID being his main evidence here). He's taking a great leap from simply providing evidence of fascist/grifter origins in yoga to outright implying that these origins are the reason for New Age vaccine theories. I can't help but wonder, are these theories so popular in yoga studios because of the 100ish year history of yoga, or because people that believe postural practice strengthens their spiritual powers are just more likely to believe that an immunization will give them a chronic heart condition?
Home wrote Fascist Yoga with some real bite, and I do appreciate that. He seems genuinely disillusioned by the idea of yoga and his eagerness to expose it comes through in the text. I feel, however, that he weakens his own work by taking the book from a thorough history of early yoga to an argument against the existence of the hobby in general.
First, an admission: the main reason I wanted to purchase and read Fascist Yoga was that I've long felt that yoga and other New Age wellness activities are imbued with an underlying evil rooted in anti-intellectual tendencies that lead to reactionary thought. To put it simply, I wanted my priors confirmed.
So were they confirmed?
Well, in a sense, yes. Home discusses about a dozen different figures integral to the development of postural yoga who vary greatly in seriousness from occult uber-fascist Julius Evola to relatively harmless grifters selling books about how yoga can give you telepathic powers. To be honest, it was mostly just different iterations of the latter character.
This brings me to my main issue with Home's well-researched work. While there are a handful of examples of genuinely evil figures in this story, for the most part he doesn't really land his main contention that yoga is harmful to its practitioners. In the conclusion, he urges the reader not to take part in postural yoga, in large part due to its tendency towards cultish behavior and anti-scientific health claims (anti-vax sentiment during COVID being his main evidence here). He's taking a great leap from simply providing evidence of fascist/grifter origins in yoga to outright implying that these origins are the reason for New Age vaccine theories. I can't help but wonder, are these theories so popular in yoga studios because of the 100ish year history of yoga, or because people that believe postural practice strengthens their spiritual powers are just more likely to believe that an immunization will give them a chronic heart condition?
Home wrote Fascist Yoga with some real bite, and I do appreciate that. He seems genuinely disillusioned by the idea of yoga and his eagerness to expose it comes through in the text. I feel, however, that he weakens his own work by taking the book from a thorough history of early yoga to an argument against the existence of the hobby in general.
January 18, 2026
Fascist Yoga does an okay job of drawing parallels between the grifters of the early 20th century and today, who peddle supplements and cures and are
also deeply involved in fascist movements, as it tells the story of those who brought yoga to the west.
The research is appreciated, with a notes section I found helpful (and sources I want to check out) but this book is too short for what it wants to accomplish. It feels like it was rushed to publication somehow. Or maybe I just thought it would be a journalistic deep-dive, when it was more of a quick history fixated on one perspective. (Or, conversely, maybe this could have been a magazine article).
At around 70 pages, Stewart Home finally points out how this fascist history is harmful to all "modern postural practice"- it boils down to spiritual bypassing and a focus on individual spirituality. That's a problem in modern yoga, absolutely. With America and the west heading back around to fascism, I get the alarmism, but Stewart, please offer some
solutions. Besides "cancel
yoga".
I've been practicing for about 8 years and I know where to go if I want a touch of Qanon with my Sun As. And I know how to avoid it, because I care deeply about this practice and it's integrity. I guess Stewart Home is saying that modern yoga has no integrity and we should just give up.
I don't know, Stewart. I've been aware for the majority of these last 8 years of the muddled history of this practice, the appropriation and capitalization, and I appreciate the extra insight into Pierre Bernard and Robert Love but I am not worried about my spacey grandma going alt right because she's starting chair yoga.
also deeply involved in fascist movements, as it tells the story of those who brought yoga to the west.
The research is appreciated, with a notes section I found helpful (and sources I want to check out) but this book is too short for what it wants to accomplish. It feels like it was rushed to publication somehow. Or maybe I just thought it would be a journalistic deep-dive, when it was more of a quick history fixated on one perspective. (Or, conversely, maybe this could have been a magazine article).
At around 70 pages, Stewart Home finally points out how this fascist history is harmful to all "modern postural practice"- it boils down to spiritual bypassing and a focus on individual spirituality. That's a problem in modern yoga, absolutely. With America and the west heading back around to fascism, I get the alarmism, but Stewart, please offer some
solutions. Besides "cancel
yoga".
I've been practicing for about 8 years and I know where to go if I want a touch of Qanon with my Sun As. And I know how to avoid it, because I care deeply about this practice and it's integrity. I guess Stewart Home is saying that modern yoga has no integrity and we should just give up.
I don't know, Stewart. I've been aware for the majority of these last 8 years of the muddled history of this practice, the appropriation and capitalization, and I appreciate the extra insight into Pierre Bernard and Robert Love but I am not worried about my spacey grandma going alt right because she's starting chair yoga.
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