This Is Not A House On Fire (It's Exercise,...)

 O.K., this is good. A friend called me at work today to tell me about it. (Here, you have to picture me talking cultism on a construction site - with everyone listening in,...) Check it out - first, a quote from Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial candidate and pastor E.W. Jackson:

"When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. . . . The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. . . . [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want."

 

 Seems pretty clear to me, and I'm an atheist. An atheist who understands the Christian dialect. Here's what The Atlantic's Garance Franke-Ruta has to say in response:

"Yoga has become so normalized in American life that this seems an extreme position (no pun intended). And yet Jackson's warning about on the spiritual dangers of yoga are not uncommon among Christian conservatives representing a variety of denominations."

 

 Isn't it nice to know something completely alien to the American people and culture (except for the oikaphobes) is normal? And, of course, the preacher is nutty because,...well, he's a preacher. America's apparently unfamiliar with them. Unfortunately, Carl Jung wasn't a preacher (he was just kind-of a preacher) and he said something pretty close to what E.W. Jackson said as well, calling yoga's torments "Hellish":

Funny how these American yogi's pumping this crap within the "yoga-industrial complex" never mention that - or studies showing a negative effect from yoga - in their yoga classes ("What you're doing can drive you crazy. O.K., let's go!").

Or articles supporting yoga (which is normal in America) by people who hate Christians (which is obviously some new faddish import from India or something,...).

 

 It's just Rah-Rah-Rah, join the cult of stretching, and the other "ancient teachings" (that make you hate anything normal) that comes with it. 

   

 That indoctrination process is something else they don't mention, BTW. They "just do it" and then, you know what? "Going Green" and abortion and gays throwing shit in churches, and thinking the greatest country on Earth is it's ultimate problem - and just everything un-American - somehow makes as much sense, as "America", as stupid "spiritual" American tourists getting gang raped overseas says "India" and "spirituality". 

  Actually any sex says "yoga" (yogi's all over this country are being busted for it) but don't tell Glenn Reynolds, who both promotes and chooses to laugh about it all, the fuck faced idiot.

   

 Here's another juicy morsel from The Atlantic article:

Anyone who has experience with what I think of as the American yoga-industrial complex knows that the pope's warning gets at an underlying tension in the way yoga is taught in the West. Either it's presented as an ancient spiritual practice conducted through the body -- and as such one that can conflict with the religious tenets of other faiths, especially their fundamentalist strains -- or it is assimilated into the competitive athletic cult of the body, shorn of its spiritual underpinnings and significance and turned into something like Indian pilates.

 

The "Cult of the body". Kinda has a nice ring to it, no?

Yeah, even if it does mean you're a self-interested jack-ass. And why do so many women take pictures that make them look like Satan's baby killers?

Anyway, at least somebody's admitting A) there's a "yoga-industrial complex", B) it's a "spiritual practice" that's "presented" as what it's not, C) yoga "can conflict with" the outside world (what's outside the practitioner's narcicissim), D) it's a cult - "of the body" or whatever else (as the preacher said) they want to "fill" it with, and E) it's definitely Indian - and definitely not American.

   

 Wow - if The Atlantic was ever tortured for information, they wouldn't last a minute,...