by Robert Love
The founder of Anusara yoga recently stepped down amid charge of intimate impropriety with his pupil . But America ’s first yoga scandal dates back to America ’s first Yogi Berra . Here ’s the narration of " the Great Oom . "
On the morning of Tuesday , May 3 , 1910 , New York City ’s papers carried refreshful headlines about a midnight police raid on an Upper West Side yoga shoal . “ He Says He ’s A Swami , ” theNew York Heraldwrote . “ His Students in Tights , ” add together a scandalizedTribune . That good morning , Pierre Bernard , a yoga instructor from the Midwest , observe himself behind bars , enmeshed in a scandal that would tar his name — and the practice of yoga — for decades . By the end of the week , the story of “ the Great Oom ” was interior news show .
Bernard was charged with abduction . In the legal lyric of 1910 , he was articulate to have “ sweet-talk and enticed ” one of his students , 19 - year - old Zelia Hopp . In Sojourner Truth , Bernard was the young lady ’s guru . With the blessing of Hopp ’s parents , he had been learn her canonical breath control and hatha yoga postures to help with her affection condition . Hopp was just one of rafts of wealthy disciples who were paying the mysterious stranger to transmit secrets from the East — and perhaps a little redundant . Was Bernard a Dr. ? A cad ? An unquestionable guru ? When he appeared in court after the raid , the first matter the puzzled judge wanted to know was , “ What is this man ? ”
The Temple of Oom
America ’s first yogi was born Perry Arnold Baker in Leon , Iowa , in 1876 . As a boy , he loved reading , especially books about spiritualty , hypnotism , and the occult arts . In 1889 he met a master of all of these things , a Syrian - Indian instructor of Tantric yoga discover Sylvais Hamati . Hamati consider that the body is godlike , and the drill of hatha yoga is central to its sanctification . Along with postures and pranayama ( right breathing ) , his teachings include sex rites , magic trick , and the adoration of the goddess Shakti .
After Baker became Hamati ’s follower , the pair incite to San Francisco , where Baker change his name to Pierre Bernard . He begin teaching hatha yoga to anyone who could launch the huge fee of $ 100 ( about $ 2,300 in today ’s dollars ) . But traffic in such seditious beliefs during the Victorian age was dangerous business organisation . Bernard and his band of Tantriks were chase after from San Francisco in 1906 and from Seattle in 1909 , at long last regroup in New York , where he stop up in front of the befuddled judge .
Bernard ’s motor inn shell was a strident five - day spread for reporters , and readers across the res publica were hypnotized . Female spectator nearly fainted from fright when face their guru . Some of the accusation were wild , such as one about Bernard using his spells to run a whitened slave ringing . Others were likely dependable : fib of blood oaths and lovemaking in a red room outfitted with a lift bed . On May 23 , the New York Grand Jury render two indictments against Bernard , for abduction and fraudulently impersonating a doctor , and he was sent to New York ’s notorious Tombs prison for the next three month .
Cults from the Same Cloth
In the oddment , Zelia Hopp and the other witnesses refuse to show , and the cathexis against Bernard were quietly dropped . But the damage to yoga — and anything ostensibly related — was done . The next year , a Christian religious mystic named Evelyn Arthur See was nab in Chicago and charge as a white slave trader . His trial was a practical replay of the Bernard legal proceeding . Meanwhile , back in New York City , “ esoteric psychologist ” Dr. William Latson , who instruct Hindu dancing as a way of freeing his distaff patient from their libidinal restraints , committed suicide in his office .
Combined with Bernard ’s notoriety and See ’s conviction , the Latson scandal turned public sentiment against yoga and mysticism ; newspapers begin print feature - length exposés blaming yoga for “ domestic infelicity , and insanity and decease . ” The federal politics opened prescribed investigations against various swamis and Hindu priests . America was spellbound , horrified , and obsessed with whatThe Washington Postcalled “ This Soul Destroying Poison of the East : The Tragic Flood of Broken Homes and Hearts , Disgrace and Suicide . ” Yoga had become public opposition No . 1 .
Bernard eventually regrouped and founded successful yoga schools in New York City and Nyack , N.Y. , where he entertained extravagantly , produce a ruck of elephants , and taught yoga to the pick of high lodge , include the daughters of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt . But he was never fully able to escape the opprobrium bring upon him by his test . As for yoga , it was only after Bernard ’s death in 1955 that the practice got its 2nd chance .
Robert Love is the author ofThe Great Oom : The Improbable nascency of Yoga in America . Image credit : Bernard Collection , Historical Society of Rockland County .
