Fascist Yoga

Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness

By: Stewart Home

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Paperback | 20 July 2025 | Edition Number 1

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224 Pages

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19.8 x 13.0 x 2.7

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The practice of yoga promises peace, self-realisation and release, thanks to the power of its 'mystic' Indian origins. But what if this is just hype? In Fascist Yoga, Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of modern postural practice.

Starting with the world's first modern yogi ? a Californian escapologist who added Hindu fairy dust to circus exercises, this history reveals a community full of grifters, occultists and white supremacists, out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise.

From Aleister Crowley to Ezra Pound to Heinrich Himmler; cult leaders and brainwashed followers; TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity with a dangerous understanding of wellness.

About the Author

Stewart Home is a legend of counterculture. He is an artist, filmmaker, pamphleteer, art historian and activist, and the author of countless pulp fictions, including most recently Art School Orgy and She's My Witch. He regularly performs to audiences across the world and recently started making headstand paintings with the canvas placed above him and brushes held in his toes. He was born and lives in London.

Industry Reviews

'Fascist Yoga is a serious treatise on a zeitgeisty topic. To the man who may be Britain's most avant-garde writer and artist, yoga is a swindle that dupes the well-meaning middle classes. It's also a breeding ground for fascists. It isn't even particularly good for you' -- Telegraph

'Namaste, fascists! An original and entertaining analysis of the dubious origins of the Western middle class's favourite postural exercise' -- The Times

'Home wanted to do a headstand. However, after some cursory research, he realised something troubling: so did the Waffen-SS' -- Observer

'Western yoga existed in uncomfortably close proximity to various strands of extreme right-wing thought .. [Home's] writing about yoga is intended less as an academic study than as an attempt to educate practitioners about the influence of fascism on their culture' -- New York Review of Books

'Fascinating' -- Prospect

'Home's illuminating survey of Western yoga and its fascistic influences brings into relief the hidden side of the popular health and wellness movement ... a riveting work for readers interested in yoga and right-wing movement' -- Library Journal

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