by Stewart Home
Pluto Press
7/20/2025, paperback
SKU: 9780745351124
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 the world's first modern yogi – a Californian escapologist who added some Hindu fairy dust to gym and circus exercises.
Ever since, the world of yoga has been full of grifters, occultists and white supremacists, all out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise. From cult leaders and brainwashed followers to TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity.
In this new exposé, Stewart Home shows that nothing is sacred.
Reviews:
"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
'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
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 worldwide 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.