USA, October 7, 2007: (HPI note: This long and entertaining article appeared in the April issue of Utne Reader. It recounts the coverage of yoga and Hinduism in the American press since the beginning of the 19th century when Ralph Waldo Emerson’s father published the first Sanskrit scripture translation in the United States.)
Some Excerpts:
“To the American consumer of news (around 1910), yoga was no longer just a queer pastime; it was evil, a con, a cult-uncivilized, heathen, and anti-American. Even the word became a metonym for secret doorways and sex worship; yogis were nothing more than swindlers and seducers.
“In the autumn of 1911, the slimiest-but in retrospect the most entertaining-of these attacks was published by the Los Angeles Times. “A Hindu Apple for Modern Eve: The Cult of the Yogis Lures Women to Destruction,” the headline read. “The incense of sandalwood burned in their honor all the way from the Lake Shore Drive to Fifth Avenue and the Back Bay,” the article said. “These dusky-hued Orientals sat on drawing-room sofas, the center of admiring attention, while fair hands passed them cakes and served them tea in Sevres china.” Toward the end of the year, Current Literature published a version of a recent piece titled “The Heathen Invasion of America,” which concluded: “Literally, yoga means the ‘path’ that leads to wisdom. Actually it is proving the way that leads to domestic infelicity, and insanity and death.”
“The federal government was apparently prodded into action by such press reports. “Agents are now quietly at work investigating the strange spread of these Oriental religions throughout this country,” the Washington Post reported in early 1912. The article listed a roster of female converts and their tragic ends: Miss Sarah Farnum “gave her entire fortune” for a Hindu summer school. Miss Aloise Reuss, of Chicago, went to live in the Illinois Insane Asylum. Mrs. May Wright Sewell, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was made “dangerously ill” by the teachings of her yogi.”
The the full article, click URL above.