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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
She was a popular yoga guru. Then she embraced QAnon conspiracy1 theories
QAnon — the baseless conspiracy theory that claims that a cabal3 of Satan-worshipping, blood-drinking elites4 control politics and media — is closely identified in political circles with some supporters of former President Donald Trump5. But it also has a toehold in yoga and wellness circles.
Themes like everything is connected, nothing happens without a purpose, and nothing is what it seems are central to both yoga philosophy and conspiratorial6 thinking.
"If you've been practicing yoga, these are going to be very familiar ideas to you," said Matthew Remski, a former yoga teacher and journalist who hosts a podcast about conspiracies7, wellness and cults8 called Conspirituality.
During the pandemic, many yoga teachers began to speak more openly about their belief in conspiracies, to the point that there is now a term to describe this phenomenon: the "wellness to QAnon pipeline9."
To understand what wellness and conspiracy theories have in common, I decided10 to follow the radicalization journey of a Los Angeles-based Kundalini yoga teacher named Guru Jagat (to hear the full story, subscribe11 to the LAist Studios podcast Imperfect Paradise: Yoga's "Queen of Conspiracy Theories," which publishes on Jan. 3).
An LA yoga teacher with celebrity12 followers14
Guru Jagat was born as Katie Griggs but used her "spiritual name" professionally.
She ran a Kundalini yoga studio in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles called the RA MA Institute for Applied15 Yogic Science and Technology, where she taught celebrities16 like Alicia Keys and Kate Hudson. Part of why she was so popular was that she was something of a contradiction: She wore white flowing clothes, wrapped her hair in a turban, and could chant in Sanskrit, but she also swore profusely17 and talked about sex and fashion in class.
Jaclyn Gelb first took a class with Guru Jagat in 2013 and was immediately drawn18 in.
"A yoga teacher that talked like that, that was real. That was grounded," she recalled. "I knew instantly. This is my teacher."
Soon, Gelb was practicing four to six hours a day, taking cold showers (which is a Kundalini yoga thing), and trying to get friends and family to join.
Gelb always liked that Guru Jagat was an edgy19 disruptor, unafraid of speaking her mind. Before the pandemic, she spoke20 about conspiracies occasionally, but that seemed like part of her schtick. But after the pandemic started, Gelb noticed her teacher beginning to speak more openly in class and in her podcast, Reality Riffing.
Guru Jagat shared her belief that the government wanted everyone at home for reasons other than public health. She suggested that the coronavirus was being sprayed in airplane chemtrails. She said that artificial intelligence was controlling our minds and suggested meditation21 as a way to take back control.
"And she said, 'This is what you get for spending the weekend on YouTube, watching alien videos,'" Gelb recalled. "That caught my attention, because it was like, 'Oh, she's, she's falling into rabbit holes.'"
Soon, Guru Jagat was defying local stay-at-home orders to practice maskless and in-person. On her podcast, she began to interview controversial people with fringe beliefs, like Arthur Firstenberg, a New Mexico-based writer and activist22 who believes 5G wireless23 internet caused the coronavirus pandemic.
Gelb said it was hard for her to watch her teacher change, but she also couldn't look away. She began to wish someone close to Guru Jagat would "figure out a way to wake her up, a way to snap her out of it."
But in December 2020, Gelb reached her limit. That's when Guru Jagat invited David Icke to speak at the studio and on her podcast.
"That just was not something that the woman I knew before would do," Gelb said. "That was so deeply offensive."
Icke is a well-known conspiracy theorist and antisemite who claims that reptilian24 extraterrestrials control the world. By the time Guru Jagat interviewed him in January 2021, he'd been banned from Twitter for spreading falsehoods about COVID.
Their conversation ranged from the lockdown to other far-right talking points.
"The wellness industry, it's been hijacked25 by all of this, this kind of woke agenda," she said.
Guru Jagat wasn't the only yoga teacher to plunge26 down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole during the pandemic.
From yoga philosophy to conspiratorial thinking
Remski, the host of Conspirituality, noticed a number of yoga teachers flirting27 with QAnon during the early months of the pandemic. At first, he suspected it was a marketing28 ploy29. With yoga studios around the country suddenly closed, teachers were forced to compete for the same online audience. But as the pandemic progressed, some teachers, like Guru Jagat, did not walk back their rhetoric30.
Of course, many people practice yoga without believing in conspiracy theories. However, yoga philosophy and conspiratorial thinking have a lot in common, Remski said, making it easy to slide from the former into the latter.
In both circles, there is an emphasis on "doing your own research" and "finding your own truth." And many people who practice and teach yoga distrust Western medicine, preferring to find alternative solutions or try to let their body heal itself.
"The relativism around truth, which has so long been a part of wellness culture, really reared its head in the pandemic," said Natalia Petrzela, an author and historian at The New School. "This idea that 'truth is just in the eye of the beholder31' is something which can feel kind of empowering when you're sitting in yoga class, but when it's the pandemic, and that kind of language is being deployed32 to kind of foment33, like, vaccine34 denial or COVID denialism, it has the same power, because we're all steeped in this culture ... it can be used for real harm."
QAnon, in particular, may have a particular resonance35 for yoga practitioners36, according to Ben Lorber, a researcher at Political Research Associates, a think tank that monitors right-wing movements, because both communities share the idea of a higher truth accessible to a select few.
The secret truth that QAnon followers believe is that the world is controlled by "the Deep State," an evil cabal of elites who worship Satan and sexually assault children. In yoga, it's more nuanced, but could include ideas like enlightenment or spiritual awakening37.
One follower13 leaves, but others remain
Jaclyn Gelb stopped taking classes with Guru Jagat; she was angry with her former teacher.
"She was so intelligent. She had so much power," she said. "She could have done so much good."
But as Guru Jagat radicalized, she kept many of her followers.
Nancy Lucas is another one of Guru Jagat's long-time students who said she liked hearing what she called "every side of the story" in her class and on her podcast.
"I think she was giving people from all walks of life that opportunity to come there and speak and give their point of view," she said. "I do think she felt that the press was being biased38, and I think I do too. I mean, if you're banning people's comments from Twitter and Facebook, we don't have an open forum39 for dialogue."
Guru Jagat's story came to a sudden, unexpected end on Aug. 1, 2021, when she died of a pulmonary embolism. She was 41.
Since her death, her yoga studio, the RA MA Institute, initiated40 an elaborate period of mourning, including two weeks of continuous chanting, a gong ceremony, and a 13-day-long "Mayan ceremony for clarity and direction."
Since then, Guru Jagat has become a saint-like figure to many of her followers.
In a YouTube tribute, student Angela Sumner described her this way: "Even if you think that she's a scam artist, even if you think she's a conspiracy theorist, you can't look at her eloquence41 and her teachings and deny that she is one of the greatest teachers that's ever lived during our time."
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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cabal
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| n.政治阴谋小集团 | |
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elites
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| 精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物 | |
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trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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conspiratorial
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| adj.阴谋的，阴谋者的 | |
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conspiracies
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| n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 ) | |
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cults
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| n.迷信( cult的名词复数 )；狂热的崇拜；（有极端宗教信仰的）异教团体 | |
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pipeline
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| n.管道，管线 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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celebrities
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| n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉 | |
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profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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edgy
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| adj.不安的；易怒的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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activist
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| n.活动分子，积极分子 | |
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wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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reptilian
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| adj.（像）爬行动物的；（像）爬虫的；卑躬屈节的；卑鄙的n.两栖动物；卑劣的人 | |
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hijacked
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| 劫持( hijack的过去式和过去分词 )； 绑架； 拦路抢劫； 操纵（会议等，以推销自己的意图） | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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ploy
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| n.花招，手段 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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deployed
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| （尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用 | |
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foment
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| v.煽动，助长 | |
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vaccine
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| n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的 | |
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resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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biased
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| a.有偏见的 | |
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forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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