The Dangerous World of Harmful Yoga Cults With Yoga Teacher and Author Matthew Remski

Earlier this month, Matthew Remski interviewed me for his podcast “Conspirituality” (my interview starts at the 37-minute mark) where we talk about my newest book, The Cult of Trump, and explore the overlaps between the cults of personality that destroy political, wellness, and spiritual cultures. We discuss changes in cultic technique in the age of lockdown, and how best to maintain contact with a person transformed by manipulation.

It was such a good conversation, I wanted to continue the discussion for my YouTube channel and blog. Matthew is a former member who now helps people to understand destructive yoga cults.  He has helped to expose the dangers centered around globalized yoga and Buddhism. In our discussion, he shares about his transition from being an insider to becoming an outsider and how critical inquiry played a big role.

Matthew’s latest book, Practice And All Is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics, And Healing In Yoga And Beyond shares tips on how to co-create safer yoga and spiritual communities. Through dogged investigative work, careful listening to survivor stories of assault and abuse, and close analysis of the cultic mechanisms at play in the sphere of Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga community, he offers a sober view into collective and intergenerational trauma. The book also offers a clear pathway forward to critical thinking, student empowerment, self-and-other care, as well as community resilience. His book concludes with practical tools for a world rocked by abuse revelations. It opens a window on the possibility of healing—and even re-enchantment.