"The notion of leading people into a vulnerable, trance-like state by using a technique that was invented by an alleged rapist who then validated it by correlation with obscure medieval sources is intolerable to me."
Matthew Remski
Matthew Remski
Quote
[matthewremski.com]
Some Thoughts for Satyananda Yoga Outsiders
For ten years, I’ve carried around a little blue book called Yoga Nidra, written by (or transcribed from talks by) Swami Satyananda. It was produced by the Yoga Publications Trust. At home, it sits on my shelf beside at least twenty other YPT volumes, with their primary-colour spines flashing like a row of crayons. Yoga Nidra details a technique I first learned and fell in love with during a yoga therapy training in California. The practice has been profound for me in many ways.
But I don’t know how I can continue to use this method, much less teach it to my students, now that this testimony against Satyananda has accumulated. The notion of leading people into a vulnerable, trance-like state by using a technique that was invented by an alleged rapist who then validated it by correlation with obscure medieval sources is intolerable to me. The power and utility of the methods emerging from Satyananda’s legacy rest on an implicit appreciation of the man’s integrity, which is now under serious attack.
Fatal attack, actually. The widely supported finding that only 2% of rape accusations are false should compel anyone interested in this story to presume that Shishy, Bhakti Manning, APR and Janaki are extremely likely to be telling the truth about their encounters with Satyananda. Dismissing this presumption is a failure of critical thinking complicitous with global rape culture.