Yoga Will Make You Psychotic And A Hindu, Far-Right Christian Group Claims

While many people around the world practice yoga as part of a spiritual practice or even just for fitness and mental/emotional well-being, there are those who believe it should be outlawed. For instance, Alabama public schools have banned yoga for the past 28 years, and now that a Democratic lawmaker in the state is trying to overturn that ban, far-right Christian groups are coming out to fight back. Their defense? Yoga, they say, makes you psychotic and turns you into a Hindu. Yes, really.

  1. Alabama lawmaker Jeremy Gray has been practicing yoga for years. He started doing it after matches as a college football player and later extended his practice to work on his ability to be patient and improve his focus, The Guardian reports. In other words, he knows first-hand how beneficial yoga can be, which is why he’s fighting the ban, thought to be the only one of its kind in America.
  2. He’s getting somewhere on lifting the ban. He wants public schools to be able to allow students to do yoga during gym classes, a proposal that was approved by the state house of representatives just last month. Last week, the senate judiciary committee also passed the motion and it’ll now move to the senate floor for further debate.
  3. Conservative Christian groups are not happy and they’re fighting back. While most people realize that yoga does have roots in Hinduism, it’s not innately tied to any one religion. However, that hasn’t stopped Christian groups from insisting that letting kids do yoga poses a grave danger. As Alabama Eagle director Becky Gerritson told state senators recently: “Yoga is a very big part of the Hindu religion, and if this bill passes then instructors will be able to come into classrooms as young as kindergarten and bring these children through guided imagery, which is a spiritual exercise.”
  4. In fact, they believe yoga could even make you “psychotic.” In addition to the idea that yoga promotes conversion to Hinduism (which it doesn’t), The National Center for Law & Policy, a group of hyper-conservative Christian lawmakers, created an entire pamphlet full of erroneous and downright false claims about yoga to scare people into keeping the ban. “Yoga can be dangerous, causing injuries, death from stroke, and psychotic episodes,” the document claims.
  5. Nikunj Trivedi, president of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, points out how ludicrous these claims are. “These arguments are a reminder of the Hindu-phobia that existed in the US in the 19th and early 20th century, when Hindus were portrayed as strange cult followers out to alter your mind and get you to do crazy things. It’s sad to see such Hindu-phobia still persisting,” he said. “Most people don’t do yoga, what they do is asana or postures. Doing postures is not going to make you Hindu.”
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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