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THE YOGA WORLD’S “OH SHIT” MOMENTIt was humbling to have my writing be the center of attention within the global wellness/yoga community, at first. Then I asked the important question of why.
1.Why is this the first piece from the wellness and yoga world about the importance of vaccination? 2.Why did it take so long for my essay to get published? 3.Why is it causing so much “controversy,” within wellness/yoga spaces? And most importantly: 4.Why have none of the celebrity yoga teachers stepped into this conversation, before my piece went public, and especially now? I started with the last question first, and decided that the answer was: they didn’t want to lose followers or money. They also identified as “Highly Sensitive,” which is white-woman code for “I don’t like to be uncomfortable or cause disagreement” (being a Highly Sensitive Person is a real thing, but I think that white women in particular tend to lean on this term in order to avoid growth/change/discomfort). I made a post calling all white yoga teachers with large followings of 10K or more to open up conversation about the importance of vaccination within their respective communities. I made sure to state that I should not be the only voice on this matter, and that it was their duty to help protect their communities from harm by dispelling misinformation and pseudoscience within their far-reaching platforms. A few responded as expected; they virtually patted me on the head and told me how brave I was, shared my post/article, and then moved on to their trendy, instagrammable lives. One--who happens to be one of the most famous yoga teachers alive, with a bestselling memoir, speaking engagements all over the media, etc., snapped back at me, claiming in her direct message that she’s done enough work and posted a picture of herself getting vaccinated only to receive threats from cyber-bullies and get her Facebook account hacked. She continued on her rant saying that she and her business lost so much money and how dare I even bring her into this conversation in such a public way. She said that she felt attacked by me, that if I had wanted her help so badly I should have reached out to her, instead of tagging her in my “offensive,” post and “calling her out,” publicly. This was also someone who was considered a revolutionary socio-political activist within the Yoga world; she spoke out against racism, cultural appropriation, Republican policies, and even wrote an article featured in NYT about how the Yoga Industry rejects Qanon culture after the Jan 6 attack on the US capitol. So why was she so touchy about me asking her to share the load and use her platform to de-platform misinformation within the wellness community? It was right there in the erratic jumble of words she threw at me: she had lost money for sharing a singular picture of herself getting vaccinated. How did she lose money through something as simple and innocent as a post on Instagram? Followers who had been consumed by alternative health rhetoric intersected with her social and professional community in such a way that a large enough percentage cancelled memberships, created facebook groups against her, and even went as far as hacking into her Facebook page and posting blatant misinformation which confused her pro-vaxx followers enough for them to also unfollow, block, and report her accounts across social media. Large platforms like hers don't exist as fun tools to connect with friends and family; they stimulate business growth and bring in a sizable paycheck. While many yoga celebrities openly share things about their lives, they exist as a personality to entertain the masses attracted to their respective niche. They literally feed themselves through the algorithm of clickbait and heart shaped likes and comments, especially over the course of this pandemic, which has eliminated/minimized in-person gatherings, workshops, and retreats, which account for the majority of their income. Social media masks itself as a tool for connection--which in many ways it is--but it’s true purpose is to mine profit off of friendly faces and business moguls. This woman felt attacked by me because the industry which had once supported her comfortable lifestyle in the limelight was now wreaking havoc on her bottom line. She was hurting, and I almost felt bad for her. Then I remembered how many lives had been lost to COVID because people with immense platforms and social responsibility dropped the ball and let misinformation permeate within their communities in order to avoid conflict or personal discomfort, and I felt less bad. The more I pondered on the actual question at hand--the “why aren’t more yoga celebrities talking about this,” question, the more I realized that not only were they not talking about it, they were inadvertently promoting misinformation, pseudoscience, and anti-vaxx sentiment, and had been for years by contributing to each and every trend within the industry in order to stay relevant. Their moral compass wasn’t just all over the map--it was shattered. And, for people who loved sitting in the seat of the teacher in order to bask in the limelight of popularity, they certainly did not want to do the unpopular thing amongst their followers by following what is supposed to be the true North of Yoga: to do no harm. That’s right, Ahimsa. Weren’t these people supposed to be all about oneness? Weren’t these leaders supposed to be a “guiding light,” within their communities? Weren’t these people against alt-right groups like Qanon and All Lives Matter weirdos? Yes, but… There is always a but. BUT… This topic isn’t in my “scope of practice” This topic will offend people This topic is too controversial This topic is too nuanced There are so many other topics that deserve to be centered This isn’t my responsibility I support bodily autonomy, I am pro-choice I will rant for hours about why racism is bad and how I am an enlightened white lady, but I won’t tell my white woo friends who post misinformation online that they are wrong because they actually are “good people”. It was much deeper than them not wanting to talk about the division within their respective communities, it was them not being able to grasp their role in all of it. We all have those “Oh shit,” moments, but imagine realizing that 50% of your yoga friends, followers, students, and patrons have been indoctrinated into harmful belief systems and, for lack of a better word, cults. Imagine having 120K-2M people whom you influence daily and knowing that you contributed to their rapid progression into whatever the fuck has become of that half of the yoga community? It would almost be too much to bear, wouldn’t it? Most people would shut down, but white women often have the knee jerk reaction which names any constructive criticism as an attack. For me, my “Oh Shit,” moment came in the wake of my brother’s suicide. That loss hit me so hard, it catapulted me into a realization that the wellness world was not all I had thought it to be. It opened my eyes to the massive harm this industry does to young women. I had been drawn to the allure of women who looked like me being these beautiful, bendy, spiritual beings. I put them all on a pedestal. If they chanted, I learned how to chant and read sanskrit. If they wore Alo yoga clothing, so did I. If they steamed their vaginas, I did too. For years I swallowed the well-calculated lies of alternative health, I sought the Divine through ancient cultural practices that were not of my own ancestry, and celebrated trendy celebrity yogis whose names and faces were all over festivals, workshops, trainings, books, social media, and articles profiting their brand of fucked-up kool-aid which they shamelessly continue to peddle to the masses. What’s more? I strove to be like them. I chanted in sanskrit and read all of the books and philosophy, not to understand, but to sell to my students. I practiced diligently, not for mind-body-breath connection, but to sell my bendy body for likes on Instagram. I did not understand that this was not wellness, that what I was practicing was not yoga, and that I was causing blatant harm to myself and others. I allowed a franchised studio to control my life, my health, my relationships, and my success as a yoga teacher, because I had been trained to believe that one must put work before all else--sacrificing the Self for the benefit of someone else’s bank account. I went from cleaning toilets at a flagship studio to hiring new teachers for franchisees in a matter of months. I was likable. I led a well-structured and creatively sequenced yoga class, and I had a beautiful singing-voice to captivate customers with during savasana. I could sell memberships instantaneously, with the flash of a smile and a hint of mystery which led to the consumer craving more; more spirituality, more exotic philosophy, more flexibility, more “community”. I did this for years. I did this even after having my dream job of studio manager ripped away from me after I miscarried my first planned pregnancy, citing my “failure to perform at adequate levels” as a “threat to the success of the business owner and the safety and security of her family.” I did this after being shunted off the top rung of the ladder, anxiously clinging to somewhere in the middle for coveted class times and styles while 20 weeks pregnant with my first-born. I did this after being asked not to talk about the Parkland High Shootings and encouraging my students to vote for gun control in the upcoming local elections because it is our sacred yogic duty to protect our community from harm. I did this while balancing motherhood and leading YTT groups through fast-paced 8-week certification programs. I did it even after I woke up to the fact that I spent years of my life suffocating myself and propagating harm to benefit the large monster of this spandex-clad industry. I was trying to cope with my past trauma with methods of spiritual bypassing. I collected all of the crystals and cleansed them in the moonlight, and I swore they connected me to God and the Angels--that they had healing powers that would somehow cure me. I fell into the spiral of orthorexic “purity culture” trends--eating specific vegetables and fruits, making strange herbal concoctions, drinking alkaline water and celery juice every morning in order to “cleanse” my system of impurities that would block my connection with Spirit and fix my gut. I knew that all of this was silly, and as a yoga teacher, most of it was a performance to keep my students on the hook. I wanted so badly to be perceived as “inspirational,” not only for my perspective, but for my looks. I modeled my behavior after teachers whom I admired, I used similar cues as theirs in my classes until I found my own style. I bought the same yoga clothing and I pushed my body to extremes. Throughout all of this I knew that right under the surface of my actions, was self-scorn and ridicule. In other words, I knew I was full of shit. I was grounded in reality, but as someone who believes in magic, I wanted to be admired for the persona I was creating. I shared deep, personal things about myself on Instagram and I watched my followers and class numbers grow. I was politically active and vocal. I was a cocktail of white feminism and new age spirituality. And, boy was the attention glorious. When Tucker died by suicide soon after the birth of my son, all of these methods and tactics came crashing down around me, and though I was shattered I was also raw. That rawness left me with nothing but the true essence of myself; a person who was not afraid to talk about hard things. I started getting real with my students. I stopped trying to physically challenge or impress them with fancy sequencing, and I started to tap into their ability to connect to themselves. I challenged their critical thinking skills by questioning trends in the yoga and wellness circles that so many other people were teaching. I stopped chanting OM. I stopped saying “Namaste”. While I knew that wasn’t enough, it seemed revolutionary. Revolutionary enough for me to ask “What else? How else have I been causing harm?” I stopped pretending that all of it was OK. I was able to listen to marginalized people–many of whom have ancestral claims to spiritual practices which the wellness industry has stolen–and see clearly that I was the problem. My response was not to automatically withdraw myself from the continuation of harm, but rather to get unreasonably frustrated by it without the necessary clarity which allows for change and growth. I started to get more abrasive at the studio and with my students. I decided in late 2019 to pitch an advice column to Yoga Journal, and it took off. I answered difficult questions and the letters were published. I decided to quit teaching yoga by the end of 2020. A month after the pandemic hit I was done. My writing became more of a gut-punch to my readers than a soothing balm in times of turmoil. I became even more vocal, blunt, and honest than I had ever been before. My editors at Yoga Journal softened the hard edges where they could, and often questioned if I should even be writing the things I was writing because I was a white woman. Their preference was to seek out BIPOC voices for these topics--something which I wholeheartedly agree with. The problem which inevitably unfolds from this, however, is that white women within wellness and yoga communities tend to gravitate to teachers and writers who look like them--writers like me. They are often the types who fall silent and dismissive of uncomfortable truths due to their conditioning, and for that reason avoid listening to and learning from BIPOC. They will seek alternative facts that feel “nicer,” regardless of who is holding the mic--even if that person looks like them--but if enough people who look like them are talking about these hard topics and issues, they might start to shift their perspectives and choose differently than before. They will start to acknowledge our involvement in this shitshow. And when I say “our involvement,” I mean everyone and anyone who partakes in Westernized Yoga and Wellness. The industry itself feeds off of our preferences. It tracks trends and expands on them, squeezing every morsel of dignity out of an already appropriated practice, as well as those who gobble it up. The social conditioning to be accepting of what’s in style can only be defined by capitalism and it’s cruel manipulations of our reality. It makes us not only want something, but need it. We click the links, we stop drop and shop, we scratch the itch for more more more. But, how has eastern spirituality, yoga, indigenous culture, astrology, veganism etc transformed to fit what’s in fashion throughout history, and how have White women been a driving force in the perpetuation of this booming industry since its birth? Throw a stone and you’ll hit white women of all different ages claiming to be “magical thinkers,” But what does that mean, really? Magical thinking is the gaslighting big sister of spiritual bypassing. It is the idea that if you keep your thoughts positive and keep a clarity of mind, body, spirit, etc. then you are “protected.” Protected from what? Who the fuck knows. As it applies to a pandemic; a deadly virus which does not discriminate and will show up whether or not you have an onyx stone stashed in your bra. As I continued to write my way into unpopularity, my column was reformatted, and I kept speaking up about the problematic practices of the white-wellness industry and how it has led us to this ugly moment in history. I saw the response from angry white “yogis” who refused to wear a mask and opposed COVID-19 vaccines even before they went into active trials. I wrote about yoga and politics, and I mapped a Venn-diagram between Q-anon, White Wellness, and the intersectional group that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. I lost friends, family members, and *GASP* followers on social media. And that’s where I found my answer to my first, second, and third “Why?” Why is this the first piece from the wellness and yoga world about the importance of vaccination? Because publications, teachers, and even yoga alliance were too afraid to openly speak about it, especially when they were all bleeding from the “White Awakening,” of summer 2020 as it related to the stolen practice of Yoga in the Westernized world. The last thing anyone wanted was to acknowledge the harm White Wellness promoting when it came to anti-vaxx rhetoric, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Why did it take so long for my essay to get published? Because Yoga Journal didn’t want to cause an outrage amongst the anti-vaxxers they both profit off of (cover stories and features of yoga/wellness “gurus” trending on social media, wellness authors, etc.), but they also didn’t want to lose subscribers by the dozens during a time reckoning (see above). Why is it causing so much “controversy,” within wellness/yoga spaces? Because for far too long, we have been allowing every white, sage-clad, yogi to choose their own adventure in the name of spirituality and sovereignty, and it’s all come back to bite us all in the ass. Oh shit is right. Q:What is the history and reason why supplements and vitamins are not regulated by the FDA like food and medicines? What are the consequences for this lack of oversight? A: In 1994, all “health supplements” fell under protection of the DSHEA (Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act) which allows all dietary supplemental products (powders, gels, capsules, etc) to go directly to market, most proliferating unfounded claims of what the product does (the miracles it supposedly performs for your health), with the responsibility of proving the product is unsafe rests with the FDA, after the fact. This is problematic because there are so many supplemental products on the market (as of 2021 Dietary Supplements is $151.85 billion industry), that it would be nearly impossible for the FDA to monitor every new product that rolls into public spaces. This is not a mere oversight, but actual politics. DSHEA was backed by Senator Orrin Hatch with a huge sum of money by the supplement industry, which was already booming at the time. It wasn’t just something that the FDA (David Kessler, the director at that time, has ridiculed DSHEA time and time again) merely let slide, it was a ghastly political loophole which set up an entire industry to go unregulated. The consequences are obvious: Anyone can create a supplement and put it on the market, boasting of it’s healing properties and benefits which are often dubious. The ingredients themselves are unregulated–from sourcing onward–and even those rare brands/companies known for their transparency do not rely on actual science, but on holistic claims equivalent to wives’ tales. The FDA technically does have the ability to take anything they have proven unsafe off the market, yet it has to exist on the market before being regulated, recalled, or prohibited. Many supplements have been removed from shelves because of tireless work by the FDA. How they got onto shelves to begin with is the real issue, as private companies are supposed to monitor and report adverse effects found before moving to market. However, if they use common ingredients, they can skip multiple steps in the private trial process, regardless of where or how those ingredients were sourced. For instance; they could buy their ingredients off of multiple third party sources who had mixed ingredients with different agents to improve coloring, shelf life, or fillers. There could be an additive that is contaminated, thus contaminating thousands of different products. MLM’s like Shakeology, doTerra, and JuicePlus have run rampant and created entire lifestyles for their followers (who populate their entire salesforce), sucking innocent middle class housewives into pyramid schemes who move on to spew false claims, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and the like. In short, it's all just a slippery slope into anti-vaxx cults. A great article (though published in 2016) which documents the frustration of multiple FDA board members and former directors over this issue can be found below. Why Vitamins and Other Dietary Supplements Can Contain Anything, by James Hamblin Q: Please explain the reasoning behind the following claims: 1.Fish pose will cure all diseases. 2.One must rotate to the Right first before rotating to the Left due to the way the transverse colon empties. 3.You can't go upside down while menstruating. A: For those of you who do not/have never practiced yoga asana, I am going to give you a brief rundown of why pseudoscience exists in the yoga world: All of these claims above were written as statements by one BKS Iyengar in his book Light on Yoga. As it happens, I know a great deal about the contents of this book because it was required reading in my first YTT. While I loved all of the Hindu mythology Iyengar would slip into descriptions and origins of the postures, I was slightly skeptical of the medical claims made on nearly every single page. When I inquired with the lead teacher of the program I was in, she laughed and said “It took you long enough!” She then proceeded to lecture the entire group on the pseudoscience of yoga. I kid you not, this super woo, ayurvedic obsessed, tall, mysterious white lady crashed through the facade we had all created for her and opened up about power dynamics, critical thinking, and knowledge over nonsense. Over the next few months, I dove into almost every claim Iyengar made, and found the vast majority of them to be false at the worst, and a stretching of the truth at the very best. Years later, when I began leading teacher trainings, I required my students to read Iyengar and talked about pseudoscience, power dynamics, and misleading “facts,” within the yoga world. It was an open discussion, which encouraged their critical thinking skills. I didn’t wait for people to question Iyengar, I required them to. I was never the perfect yogi, I was never the most conscious, but I did at least try to combat the cycle of harm where I knew how. You see, when we are enamored by any system wherein there is teacher and student, our brains tend to romanticize, glorify, and put the thoughts, musings, preferences, styles, and beliefs of said teachers on a pedestal. Those teachers grow a following. These followings develop a cult-like mentality, and the teachings of these teachers are passed down through generations of new teachers–often further muddying false claims like those listed in the question above. So if you have ever heard any of these claims in the middle of a yoga asana class, chances are that your teacher was exposed to a “master teacher,” who came up in a certain yoga lineage known as Ashhtanga. They likely recycled cues, mythology, and pseudoscience in order to make their classes seem intoxicatingly “factual,” thus lighting a spark around intellectually minded people who enjoy philosophical discussion over topics within which they have no training; like medicine. So let’s go through each of these pseudoscientific claims one by one to clear up any confusion:
Q: Hot yoga detoxifies. (your kidney and liver detoxify - when I looked into this claim sweating may help release some toxins but not as many as Hot Yoga peeps like to claim). A: YES! I love that nurses and doctors are part of our Pack! Let’s expand on what you’ve uncovered with your expertise, shall we? First, YES, your kidney and liver are responsible for detoxifying the body. Maybe you do release some topical toxins when you sweat, but I promise you that Hot Yoga in and of itself is a hoax. Don’t believe me? Bikram–the dude who “invented” Hot Yoga–was a sketchy, sexually abusive, ethically unsound, egotistical asshole who lied about many things and captivated thousands of students in the 90’s and early 2000’s with his ludicrous teacher training programs that caused mass harm. Hot Yoga used to be called “Bikram Yoga.” People call it “Hot Yoga” now as a way to distance this still very fucked-up practice from the guy responsible for causing so much harm. Watch the documentary “BIKRAM: YOGI, GURU, PREDATOR” on Netflix for further education on this topic. Q: Yoga cures depression and anxiety. A: Hey, nope. Here I am both depressed and anxious* after consistently practicing yoga for almost two decades. Mindfulness–ie: meditation, breathwork, etc.--can help manage anxiety. Moving your body releases endorphins, which can be very helpful for temporarily alleviating depressive thoughts/moods. This qualifies as toxic positivity and gaslighting, which we see much of in westernized wellness and yoga. This idea of mind over matter/live laugh love/magical thinking is harmful because it leaves the practitioner feeling like there is something innately wrong with them and their practice for not being able to banish anxiety and depression. This has become a huge selling point within this industry, both for yoga studio franchises, MLMs who feed off of new age yogis, and white men and women who label themselves as “leaders” in yoga and wellness while appropriating ancient cultural practices and misusing them by making them part of their brand–ie: ”I am a shamanic healer who helps you overcome self-doubt.” *I am medicated and I attend regular therapy sessions via Zoom. These paired with yoga and meditation help me immensely, but my chronic anxiety still has an affect on my ability to function in the world. Last words… Pseudoscience has blended magical thinking with ancient healing practices in the worst way. Not only has it created marketable schemes, but it perpetuates the idea that western medicine is a harmful evil. I utilize many eastern medicinal practices alongside modern western medicine because there is no need for an “either/or” circumstance in my life. I am not part of a cult, I do not have a spiritual guru or coach or wellness organization to answer to. Those who do are put in the difficult position of selling a product, an ideology, or being a “good student” by adhering to the cultural code they were sucked into at the beginning of their yogic/spiritual/wellness journey. For this reason, the lines are blurry as to who we blame. Do we blame the teachers and their students, or the system of Whate Supremacist Capitalism for selling ancient spiritual practices to fuel their massive, manipulative greed machine. If politicians within certain political parties (the GOP) are on board to not only back and support a free market for supplements, oils, and powders, without certified approval from the FDA from the get-go, then imagine how unregulated and irresponsible the pseudoscience within yoga studios and teacher training can be? Many teachers were trained in what I refer to as a “puppy mill program”--a training course which lasts less than 8 weeks and teaches people to spit out cues at a fast pace without much knowledge attached to them. I have led these programs and tried to add as much philosophy and science as I could, but admittedly fell short. I did it for the money and the status. I was part of the problem, and I know first hand how much harm I caused and am now doing my best to be more mindful in my own life and practice. Younger yoga teachers are often enamored with the magic of their teachers and mentors, and therefore repeat common cues without question, because they sound cool or make them feel like they’ve leveled up as a teacher. These cues are often pseudoscience mixed with word vomit, and lead student within those 60 minute classes down rabbit holes of mystery and enchantment, landing some in a fast-paced teacher training program which promises to elevate their minds, bodies, and spirits. Once they have a teaching certificate in hand, they begin mimicking their current teachers while exploring new methodologies. Some dabble in private coaching and within a span of months, market themselves as a brand on Instagram and lend to Pastel-Q rhetoric unknowingly. They pay for a coach, learn how to sell to clients, build spiritual mentorship programs, become influencers, sell products like essential oils and nutritional powders and supplements, and create an echo chamber of misinformation for themselves and others. That is how and why the Wellness/Yoga industry accounts for 65% of the COVID/Vaccine misinformation floating around the internet, infiltrating the minds of the young and old; conservative and liberal;wealthy and those on the poverty line, alike. Q&A 12/8/2021: Variants and Myths
Q: Explain and debunk the myth “The vaccines/the vaccinated are causing the variants.” A: Those of us in science communication refer to this as “moving the goal post.” What does that mean? That means that as soon as one narrative is proven false, the misinformationists move the goal posts further down the pseudoscientific field to provide a convenient narrative, otherwise known as “alternative facts,” which relieves them of responsibility not only for the existing circumstances, but for admitting they were mislead/were misleading others and causing harm in the first place. Now, let's unpack the science: Vaccination actually decreases variant evolution. So...the opposite of the myth in question. “Mutations occur during replication of a virus. Viral replication can only occur when the virus has infected a host. Therefore, reason stands that when our vaccination percentages increase, we are reducing the opportunity for the virus to mutate! Just another reason vaccination is positive for humanity. No body, no host.” Annicka Evans, PhD Virology. So, plainly put, not enough people got vaccinated, and at the same time the CDC gave the greenlight to remove public health mask mandates (back in May 2021). This meant that there was absolutely nothing to stop the virus from spreading and mutating, and when a mutation occurs the genome sequence is altered in order to be more resilient and carry a higher viral load. Why don’t people spreading misinformation want to take the time to learn any of this? Because it would mean admitting that they were wrong, which would induce deep feelings of guilt and shame. The easiest way to avoid the truth is to move the goalposts, create your own truth, and rely on not enough people having access to science education and trustworthy news sources due to social media algorithms and hair-raising headlines. Q: Explain and debunk the myth “Variants are manufactured by the media/the liberal government body to scare people.” A: This myth stems from the alt-right/GOP party’s mistrust of the news. The radical term “fake news” was delivered and encouraged by the Trump Administration during his 2016 run, and was an evolution of his whack-a-doodle “birther,” claims against Obama in 2008. This is how fascist police states are born, through the demonization of journalism, science, and social justice. We need look no further than every single uprising against oppressive political parties and governments in all of history. We know that variants are not manufactured by the news cycle, nor are variants a scare tactic by Democrats to get people jabbed with “poison” (as proliferated through anti-vaxx groups/alt-right supporters). They are manufactured by low or non-existent vaccination rates within our global community. The news cycle latches onto any and all new information revolving around this pandemic and tries incredibly hard to produce click-bait-worthy headlines--sometimes these headlines can be misleading, but trustworthy sources like NPR deliver factual information without high emotional stakes. As a writer who has worked in journalism, I can tell you that some of my best pieces of writing have been disgraced by truly shitty headlines based on what the editors think will attract more readers. My original title for the essay I wrote for Yoga Journal--the one that landed me in the field of science communication--was “Vaccination and Ahimsa: The Importance of Herd Immunity in the Midst of a Global Pandemic.” It was of course changed to “Getting Vaxxed was My Act of Ahimsa,” because the term “Vaxxed,” offers a platform for speculation and anti-science commenters, as proven in the comments section of the teaser post YJ put out on Instagram. The variant myth in question is an argument put in place by far right camps-- many of whom have infiltrated the wellness and yoga community by way of spiritual assimilation, supplement promotion, and cult-like rhetoric masked as “alternative health,”--in order to detract their followers and community leaders from actual science. The real conspiracy is how White Supremacy has so succinctly morphed itself into any and every type of spiritual, holistic, and “natural,” community throughout history, and how it continues to promote harmful disinformation--once from the shadows, and now in the broad daylight of the GOP stage and news outlets like FOX News. Patreon Pack Q&A #2
Topic: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and “Wellness,” Q: How do we combat misinformation and conspiracy theories that are expressed by our friends and family members? A: This question sends me straight back to when I found out that my youngest sister wasn’t going to get vaccinated because of the myth that it affects fertility. This was back in April, when I had already made my appointment for my first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. My reaction was not great. I remember jumping right into scrutinizing her choices, yelling at my mother for “taking her side,” and refusing to listen to science, and jumping straight into technical explanations of data and risk-benefit factors, along with trying to angrily educate my mother about how vaccines actually work. My mom and youngest sister live in a small rural town in Maine, and neither have higher than a high school education. While their level of formal education has absolutely nothing to do with how intelligent they are, they tend to follow the crowd of popular opinion within their community. They roll their eyes at me and my other sister for being “know-it-alls,” quite frequently, and don’t like to make a big deal about illness because they have a Puritainistic mentality around work ethic. We disagree a lot. I am also an incredibly passionate person who reads everything and likes to know as much as possible about all of the things *just in case*. My trauma response is often to do research and solve the problem or find the prognosis immediately. It’s terribly stressful and nerdy. I am a great teacher to everyone except members of my immediate family. I have the most amount of patience with everyone except for my mother and siblings. The whole conversation led to a rift which was not easily resolved (my sister still remains unvaccinated, and is now pregnant). But what I learned from it are two things:
Creating trust and reassuring the person you are in conversation with about vaccination is key. If we are unwilling to hear their reasoning, then we are alienating them and making them feel like they are stupid. That sucks. Asking questions is clutch; not in an intimidating, rapid-fire way, but from a place of genuine curiosity. It creates a bond and you get to learn something about that person--their interests, where they get their news, and their vulnerabilities. This is huge for the relationship. When your loved ones feel seen and heard without judgement, you become a safe place for them to go, and they are more likely to listen to you. Explaining your reasoning once you have given them the space to speak theirs shows them that you trust them--which strengthens their chances of hearing you out and using the factual information you passed on to them in their decision, rather than information spewed from random sources of misinformation. This is all that I do with vaccine hesitant individuals, now. I ask them questions, curiously, and I am understanding of their fears. Then I give them my own experience as a template, reassure them that I care for their health and wellness, ask them if they have any specific questions for me, or if they would like me to share my sources with them, and about 8/10 times they end up scheduling their vaccination appointment right then and there. I learned the hard way. Due to my steep learning curve, I am now much more mindful in my approach to speaking with those who are vaccine hesitant because of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Ultimately, hard conversations are worth the initial discomfort--especially if it means a life, or many lives, will be saved in the process. Q:What are some historical pseudoscience/guru/conspiracy theory situations that have been debunked in the past? A: As we learned last week, opposition to vaccination started out in puritanistic religious groups. When vaccination was mandated in England in the mid 19th century, it fueled riots and politicized the public health tool of vaccination against deadly diseases. False claims among these original anti-vax groups became the norm. Most recently, however, claims that MMR vaccines cause autism have spread far and wide. First starting in the UK, and spreading through parts of Western Europe and North America where vaccination rates among children dropped from 92% to as low as 60% in some areas during the early 2000’s. This was all fueled by a paper published by former doctor Andrew Wakefield via The Lancet in 1998--all of which was flawed and incorrect. He was later barred from practicing medicine in the UK, even after admitting the paper was “utterly false”. For many people who consider themselves “Freedom Fighters,” (AKA White Supremacists) this, along with other single issue voter topics like Pro-Gun and Pro-Life movements, have been grouped into the same circle to form alt-right Republican ideals which have grown ripe in our current political climate. Over the course of the past 5 years, specifically, they have bled into holistic white wellness and alternative health practices in the form of “coaching,” and MLM schemes, entrenched in the same methodology as purity culture, just wrapped in trendier packaging and proliferated through social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. This has created a “choose your own adventure,” landscape in the time of COVID, as white people who lean more toward holistic health and reject westernized medicine intersect drastically with white people who practice, teach, and profit off of the yoga industry.
Q:How are people in the wellness/yoga space are financially profiting off of the counter narrative? A: Here is an NYT piece about the leader of the “disinformation dozen.” Check out my previous list in the glossary section of my first post to learn more names of the disinformation dozen, as well. I plan to include a full chapter on Christiane Northrup and her direct involvement in vaccine misinformation and pseudoscience as well as how both she and HAY HOUSE PUBLISHING continue to profit off of her published works and anti-vaxx rhetoric, specifically in this book (it is already being drafted and will be a feature for December!) Q: Are there good ways to teach and encourage critical thinking skills within the wellness/yoga world? A:There are, and to get to the root of it, I would like to introduce you all to my friend Julian Walker of the Conspirituality Podcast in this video. This will also be a prevalent chapter in this book. I plan to share the detailed outline of the entire book within the next few weeks. For now, I would like to emphasize what my friend Julian brought up: The best way to encourage critical thinking skills in yoga is to make sure yoga teachers are educated in ethical and philosophical yoga--not just asana (the physical practice of yoga). My essay that started this whole journey “Getting Vaxxed Was My Act of Ahimsa,” outlines the ethical and critical thinking tools which yoga emphasizes. Unfortunately, the Westernized Yoga Industry and the White Wellness Industry have fast-tracked yoga education and training programs, sacrificing the most crucial pillars of Yogic Philosophy and watering down methods of instruction into fast-paced, digestible workout alternatives for the cash cow of capitalism. Patreon Pack Q&A 11.10.2021 A Brief History of Smallpox and Global Vaccination Q: How do you think that the medical and scientific community were able to accomplish global vaccination over many years? A: Smallpox has been tracked back to ancient Egypt, Turkey, and other parts of Europe. The recorded history of it’s steps toward vaccination are dubious at best, and it is often glossed over in the Western world that an enslaved black man in Boston introduced the first method of inoculation to his owner. Onesimus was owned by one Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, who unlike many of his fellow slave owners sought to educate his enslaved people in order to rid them of the Devil and indoctrinate them in the Christian faith. While he was undoubtedly not an ally of Black people, and believed that enslaved people would eventually rebel, he trusted Onesimus whom he deemed “very intelligent.” Onesimus approached Mather with a solution to ending death by smallpox to his owner in the midst of the epidemic in Boston in 1721. He recounted how one of the physicians in his homeland on the continent of Africa had inoculated himself and others by exposing the pus from smallpox pustules to open wounds on the arms of those in the community (this procedure was referred to as variolation). From there, the idea of inoculation grew in the West, with some pushback from those who were distrustful of enslaved Black people, particularly other ministers and devout Christians who wholeheartedly believed that Black people were a product of Satan. One singular physician named Zabdiel Boylston attempted variolation after hearing of it’s success in both China and Turkey. Variolation was met with some success in the surviving population of Boston. In 1796, English doctor Edward Jenner developed an effective vaccine using cowpox to provoke smallpox immunity after noticing several of his milkmaids who had developed cowpox were unaffected by smallpox exposure. He tested his theory that cowpox was a preventative for smallpox by taking the pus of a cowpox sore from his milkmaid Sarah Nelmes and inoculating it on the arm of his gardener’s 9 year old son, James Phipps. He used James Phipps further in his experiments which led to the modern practice of vaccination. This led to smallpox being wiped out globally by 1980. In over two centuries, vaccination replaced other methods of inoculation and became a globally accepted and respected practice, though multiple extremist religious groups from all corners of the globe, but especially those in Western Anglo-Saxon societies, have continued to stand in opposition of vaccination due to the longstanding belief that it is a satanic practice--the original origins of this belief are rooted in White Supremacy based on Onesimus and Mather’s original conversation about variolation. To me, this proves that anti-vaxx conspiracy theories and rhetoric are inherently racist. It also proves that the history we are taught has been told through a white lens. Inoculation was invented by a black man. Not Onesimus--he was the messenger, and the reason why global vaccination exists--but one of the elders in his community on the continent of Africa, from where he was stolen by White men and sold into enslavement. It is highly probable that those in both China and Turkey who met success with inoculation before Westerners were influenced by traditional medicine practices of Africa. That’s the history, and it serves as a precursor to my answer: I think it took over 300 years to reach global immunity via vaccination to smallpox simply because of racism and enslavement. White people and our cruel, violent, and dominant culture not only spread smallpox globally via slave ships and colonization, but many Puritanistic beliefs prevented scientific methods from being developed over hundreds of years. Fast forward to today and ask yourself this rhetorical question: What group(s) do we see as the leaders of misinformation and anti-vax rhetoric? (I will give you a hint: White Supremacists who use the bible as a prop for pseudoscience, propaganda, and mass harm.) Sources: https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-onesimus-slave-cotton-mather https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html Childhood Vaccination Q: I often hear mothers say “There are just too many vaccines!” I never thought about how we got to this point--and how necessary vaccination is. I would love to tease out the nuance of knowing we haven’t “gone too far.” A: From birth to 18 years of age there is a list of 16 FDA approved and regulated childhood vaccinations. This list is as follows:
Influenza: Otherwise known as “the Flu” and previously referred to as the “Spanish Flu,” during the pandemic of the early 20th century, this illness claimed the lives of nearly 100 million people--many of whom were children. Parents had multiple children die of the flu at a young age, and recycled the names of said dead children for their siblings born after their death, only for those kids to die. For many families, the graves of their young children held a successive collection of multiple graves whose gravestones read the same name (the main reason being that the children were the namesake of a grandparent or great grandparent). An annual flu shot has been top priority in every pediatrician’s practice for half a century since the development of the influenza vaccines. I used to not understand the importance of getting an annual flu shot, and I believed my mother who thought that it gave you a worse flu infection than just getting the virus itself. That all changed after I had my son. Understanding not only the importance, but the immense privilege of having access to a vaccine that protects millions and prevents thousands upon thousands of deaths specifically among young children and the elderly is something that is not widely taught. Because of how far removed we were from a pandemic like the flu, we grew complacent and misunderstood the assignment when COVID-19 hit us in the face. Here we are, and boy does it suck to be here. Get your flu shot. It’s widely available and incredibly necessary. DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis): Diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis are potentially serious bacterial diseases that can be safely prevented in adults and children with vaccines. Diphtheria causes a thick membrane-like covering in the back of the throat. It can lead to breathing problems, paralysis, heart failure, and even death. Tetanus (also known as lockjaw) is a serious disease that causes painful tightening of the muscles, usually all over the body. It can lead to “locking” of the jaw so the person cannot open their mouth or swallow. Tetanus leads to death in about 1 in 10 cases. Pertussis (also known as whooping cough) is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. Although it initially resembles an ordinary cold, whooping cough may eventually turn more serious, particularly in infants. Vaccines are available that can help prevent these diseases. CDC recommends:
Polio: The first Polio epidemic in the U.S. was accounted for in 1894 in Rutland County, Vermont, where 18 deaths and 132 permanent cases of paralysis were reported. At first it was not assumed that the disease could be spread from person to person, but the contagious nature of polio was established in 1905 through the research of Swedish Doctor, Ivar Wickman, and it’s virus was identified in 1908 in Vienna by Karl Landstiener and Erwin Popper. In 1910 Doctor Simon Flexner of New York investigated poliovirus immunity through germicidal substances present in the blood of monkeys who had been exposed to poliovirus and survived. These substances were neutralizing antibodies to polio. In 1929 the Iron Lung was introduced by Dr. Philip Drinker and Dr. Charles McKhan at Boston Children's hospital for patients suffering from paralytic polio (I personally know a woman who survived polio in the early 1950’s, and she suffered permanent paralyzation from the waist down because of it, and was dependent on an iron lung for two decades). It wasn’t until 1935 that the start of trials for the polio vaccine began, conducted by Dr. Maurice Brodie with a trial group of 11,000 individuals, meanwhile, John Kolmer, MD, of Temple University in Philadelphia developed an attenuated poliovirus vaccine, which he tested in about 10,000 children. The tests proved a disaster. Several subjects died of polio, and many were paralyzed, made ill, or suffered allergic reactions to the vaccines.. At that point, Polio was the most feared of any childhood illness. In 1936 researchers Peter Olitsky and Albert Sabin demonstrated a new cultivation method for poliovirus. They were able to grow the virus in human embryonic brain tissue. Though their finding was interesting to researchers, it would not lead to immediate practical application. Researchers had long known that making a vaccine from virus bred in nervous system tissues presented challenges. The risk came from possible damage to the vaccine recipient’s nervous system. In 1941 it was discovered that poliovirus entered through the mouth and into the digestive system rather than through the nose and into the respiratory system. This led to hope that the virus could be mitigated through the bloodstream before it even reached the nervous system, which led to research in oral poliovirus vaccines (some of which were controlled studies and others which directly tested on small groups of institutionalized or intellectually disabled children). It wasn’t ultimately until 1954 that a massive national vaccine trial within the U.S. went into effect by Dr. Jonas Salk. Over 1.3 million children participated in these randomized, double-blinded tests. This was far different to former research conducted in any other polio vaccine. On April 12 1955 results from the trials were announced and the U.S. Government licensed Dr. Salk’s vaccine the same day. A month later, the U.S. Surgeon General, suspended the polio vaccination program in order to investigate the safety of all six manufacturers’ vaccine. The full review concluded that 11 people died from the vaccine and hundreds were paralyzed. Though the cause of the disaster was never proven, it is likely that certain production methods (which, it turns out, did not follow Salk’s instructions) resulted in a failure to completely kill the Type 1 (Mahoney) poliovirus in the vaccine. In 1959 researcher Dr. Albert Sabin formed a bond with Soviet health officials who wanted a cheaper alternative to Salk’s vaccine. Through his development of the live (IPV vs. OPV--a dead virus) virus vaccine, by 1960 the US Surgeon General permitted licensing of the IPV vaccine. In 1985 a goal was set to eliminate Polio in the Americas and by 1994 that goal was reached. You may be wondering why I went into such lengthy historical detail on this virus and the development of it’s vaccines. I wanted to demonstrate the major scientific gains that evolved within an era wrought with many other dangerous diseases, illnesses, and societal circumstances. I also wanted to show that there are historical reasons behind vaccine hesitancy and distrust of medical science, research methods, and vaccination. Some of the dudes testing out their ineffective vaccines did some sketchy shit! They are the reason why randomized, controlled, double-blinded studies became the law of the scientific land. However, the scientific method, trial standards, and licensing procedures, did not wipe away the historical harm that was caused. The breadth of research which culminated into the eradication of a virus which literally paralyzed it’s victims at best and devastated whole populations at worst with death, fear, and developmental setbacks should not be merely glanced over. Plus, there are still people to this day who rely on an iron lung to survive because they lived in a time and place where such a monumental vaccine was not available. There is a reason why we don’t have active Polio cases anymore. It’s vaccination. Measles: The first recorded description of Measles was written by a Persian doctor in the 9th century. For centuries measles persisted through a virus called morbillivirus, which spread primarily via coughing and sneezing, and is recognizable by its well-known rash, which spreads to cover most of the body. The virus is extremely contagious: on average, 90% of those exposed to someone with the measles will get the disease themselves unless they’ve been vaccinated, or have had measles before. Patients who survive a case of the measles retain immunity to it for life. However, even now in developing areas of the world with limited access to treatment, it is estimated that up to 5% of children who contract measles die from the disease. In the decade prior to the introduction of the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) combination vaccine in the United States, it’s estimated that more than three million people were infected with the measles each year. Since MMR reached widespread use, measles cases in the country have been reduced by more than 99%. In the United States, ongoing measles transmission was declared eliminated in 2000. In 2016, some cases were reported amongst a community full of anti-vaxxers who refused to vaccinate their children. Fun. Mumps: In the United States, cases of mumps have dropped by 99% since the introduction of a vaccine in 1967. Unlike measles and rubella, however, mumps has not yet been eliminated in the United States. Recent large outbreaks have occurred among college students (2006, more than 6,500 cases) and in a tradition-observant Jewish community, sparked by a boy who returned from a trip to the United Kingdom and began showing mumps symptoms while at a summer camp (2009-2010, more than 3,400 cases). While mumps can be mild, it is highly contagious. Before vaccination it was one of the leading causes for deafness in children. Rubella: Rubella is similar to mumps, yet more dangerous to adults than children. The chief concern with this virus is the development of Congenital Rubella Syndrome. Now let’s understand that these three may not seem like *that* big of a deal, but an outbreak of measles in 2016 due to anti-vaxxers is terrifying, and it exists because we as a collective generation who has benefitted from the technology of vaccination has grown complacent and allowed misinformation and disinformation, propaganda and pseudoscience to circulate and deemed it as “harmless nonsense put out by weirdos.” It is nonsense and it is causing harm. Kids don't have to and should not develop, spread, and die from measles, mumps, or rubella in this day and age. Varicella (Chickenpox): The vaccine for chickenpox is relatively new, and the main concern from this virus is development of shingles later in life. In a few years I will be due for my first shingles vaccine as I fall into the age group of those who got immunized the old-fashioned way. Pneumococcal: Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, also called pneumococcal bacteria, pneumococci (plural), and pneumococcus (singular), are one of the leading causes of illness in young children. At least 90 types of pneumococcal bacteria are known to exist. As the name implies, they can cause pneumonia; however, these bacteria can also cause bloodstream infections (bacteremia), meningitis, sinusitis, and middle ear infection, among other illnesses. Collectively, the different illnesses caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae are referred to as pneumococcal disease. Individuals with sickle cell disease, certain immune deficiencies, or chronic renal disease, and those taking immunosuppressive drugs or using cochlear implants, are at an increased risk for pneumococcal infection. A pneumococcal vaccine that protected against 14 different strains was licensed in 1977, and expanded to protect against 23 strains in 1983. That’s a lot of bacteria that could potentially develop into life-threatening diseases! To know that we have protection against a laundry list of illnesses is pretty cool, and pretty necessary for kiddos who develop things like ear infections and meningitis relatively easily. Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib): Meningitis (an infection which spreads throughout the brain) is the most common Hib induced invasive disease.This has been greatly decreased since the introduction of an effective vaccine in 1985. There is a reason why you have to get this vaccine if you want to live in a college dorm. You straight up don’t want meningitis. Rotavirus: Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhea in children and infants worldwide. Before a vaccine was introduced in the United States, the disease caused more than 400,000 doctor visits and 200,000 emergency room visits each year, resulting in as many as 60 deaths annually in children younger than five. Globally, rotavirus kills about 450,000 children under age 5 each year, with most of these deaths occurring in developing countries. The first vaccine for Rotavirus, RotaSheild, was licensed in 1998, yet was quickly withdrawn due to severe health concerns. In 2006 and 2008 RotaTeq and Rotatrix became widely available for infant immunization via oral drops. Now, diarrhea might not seem like a huge issue in the “first-world,” but in areas where bacterial infections spread rapidly and in places in the Southern hemisphere with little access to healthcare, it is very serious. Especially among children. Have you met children? They basically spend the whole day licking floors. I have a resident floor-licker I am responsible for, and if not for a vaccine against Rotavirus, I would be dealing with way more poop than I am currently, and his health could be majorly impacted from it. Since it’s availability, the vaccine for Rotavirus greatly reduced widespread hospitalization in children from birth--5 years old. Diarrhea is the leading cause of death in children under 5 in some areas of the world, so access to a vaccine that prevents a disease like Rotavirus is crucial to the health and wellness of young children. Hep A and Hep B: While these viruses are unrelated to each other, they infect and replicate cells within the liver, causing life-threatening circumstances. The symptoms of acute hepatitis A infection are identical to those of hepatitis B infection. Early symptoms are headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever, rash, body aches and pains, and dark colored urine. Following this phase, jaundice (yellow-colored skin and whites of the eyes), light stools, and liver pain may appear. Hep b is spread through bodily fluids, while Hep a is spread through fecal-oral route. Both hepatitis A and hepatitis B infection can have immediate, deadly consequences. Approximately 1% of people with acute HBV infections will suffer fulminant hepatitis, or acute liver failure. Up to 90% of patients with fulminant hepatitis will die. Up to 95% of adults infected with acute HBV infection recover and do not become chronically (permanently) infected, although they can infect other people during the acute phase via transmission of body secretions. The FDA has licensed several hepatitis B vaccines for use in the United States, including several combination vaccines. It has been part of the routine childhood immunization schedule since 1994. Some parents object to vaccinating their newborns against a disease they mistakenly think is spread only via sexual contact and IV drug use. However, newborns and young children are at risk for hepatitis B infection: apart from maternal transmission of hepatitis B to a newborn, hepatitis B transmission has been reported in school and daycare settings among children. The vaccine contains no live virus and is safe even for people with reduced immune function. The liver is a pretty important organ. Any vaccine that shields it from eruption due to viral infection is pretty important, too. Conclusion All in all, the benefits outweigh the risks. “Have we gone too far?” is a pretty uninformed, privileged question from groups who propagate anti-vaxx rhetoric. I will answer it simply: No. Vaccinate your kids. Sources:
Q: Have there been revolutionary improvements to reduce risk and increase performance? (Would that include the mRNA?) A: From smallpox and variolation, to the entire history of polio vaccines we see a trend: a start and stop and hodge-podge efforts when it comes to testing/trials and regulated safety. The development of the polio vaccine within the span of an entire century was proof of this. Everyone wanted some sort of preventative, but because there was no verifiable system in place for researchers to follow, there were a lot of mixed results. It wasn’t until a government regulated vaccine trial in the 50’s that anything really happened. Fast forward to today, and we have multiple steps in place in terms of checkpoints for medical researchers to match all the way through to the completion of randomized, controlled trials. We also have technology on our side, and the mRNA vaccines have proven to be worth the nearly 40 year wait. We live in a society based on instant gratification, as well as complacency owed to medical technology we have had access to for most of our lives. The risk factor is always relevant, but if we take history into account, there is no denying that public health has been greatly supported because of access to medical science technologies like vaccines. 80 years ago, we did not have access to most of the preventatives we have now, nor did we have the technological advancements. As it stands, vaccines are the most successful and cost effective health investments in history. Vaccination saves between 2-3 million lives each year. These public health tools have eradicated smallpox and contained polio to 3 endemic countries with an indisputable track record. The revolutionary improvements we have seen because of vaccines are a stand alone factor. The revolutionary improvements in vaccine development is due to science and science alone. The developmental process of all vaccines is relatively similar, with the common method of modification, killing or breaking apart of the germs that cause disease. This produces the key ingredient of all vaccines: the vaccine antigen. Several other substances – adjuvants, stabilisers and preservatives – are then added to make the new vaccines as effective and safe as possible. Adjuvants increase the immune response to the antigen, stabilisers increase the vaccine’s storage life, while preservatives prevent contamination of vaccines by fungi or bacteria. In terms of testing, all new vaccines go through a series of tests and trials to make sure they are effective and safe to use. Researchers carry out vaccine trials in large groups of people, not only to be confident that a given vaccine provides a high level of protection but also to be able to detect even rare side effects. My sister in law works in medical research for Children’s hospital. Her work is mainly in developmental testing for treatments in rare diseases which affect childhood growth and development. Recently, she has been working on the Pfizer trails for children of all ages, on top of managing cases with her regular patients--many of whom she has known since they were babies. Some medical/vaccine trials take years, but with mRNA they had so much data from the SARS outbreak in parts of Asia, as well as 35 solid years of tech development, that they were able to patent and launch trials close to the beginning of the current pandemic we are living in. This is HUGE. While it may seem like we have been waiting for a long time for the COVID vaccines, we have waited a miniscule amount of time in comparison to our predecessors for a vaccine that is not only more effective than any other vaccine to date, but has also presented a smaller number of extreme adverse reactions than the vast majority of vaccines in their earliest days on the market. The mRNA vaccines are a win for science and for humanity, and are as close to perfect as we could ever hope for. How revolutionary is that? Very. Sources: GLOSSARY/
WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY… Ahimsa: Ahimsa is an ethical principle of Yoga as outlined in the Yamas(moral disciplines of yoga). It is the Sanskrit term for “Non-Harm” or “Non-Violence”. Sanskrit is the ancient, vibrational language in which original yogic texts and teachings known as the Vedas were written. It is the language in which ancient Hindu mantras are chanted. Anti-Vax: Those opposed to vaccination. Pro-Vax: Those who support vaccination. Vaccine Hesitant: Those with a delay in acceptance of vaccines due to misinformation and skepticism or uncertainty about vaccine efficacy, the science behind vaccines, and acceptance of some vaccines but refusal of others. “Wait and See”: Those who are uncertain about the potential side effects and have been misinformed about the scientific timeline of the relatively “new,” mRNA vaccines. Yoga Asana: The physical practice of yoga. Yogic Philosophy: The philosophical study and practice of Yoga and all of its eight limbs. Yoga Ethics: Ethical practices of yoga as outlined in the Yamas, Niyamas, and Sutras. Wellness: Practice of healthy habits to attain better physical and mental health outcomes. New Age Spirituality: a buzzword made popular in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s referring to spiritual beliefs and practices that have existed for centuries (like Tarot, Reiki, Meditation, Pagan and Eastern religions etc.) but have been co-opted for the convenience of those who wish to create their own false reality. Holistic Health: an approach to life that considers multidimensional aspects of wellness. It encourages individuals to recognize the whole person: physical, mental, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual. Alternative Lifestyles: a diverse lifestyle in defiance of the “mainstream.” A lifestyle generally perceived to be outside the cultural norm. Pseudoscience: a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method. Misinformation: false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive. Disinformation: false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media. Disinformation Dozen: According to the CCDH, the twelve anti-vaxxers responsible for nearly ⅔ of mis and disinformation regarding COVID vaccines. They are as follows: Joseph Mercola Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Ty and Charlene Bollinger Sherri Tenpenny Rizza Islam Rashid Buttar Erin Elizabeth Sayer Ji Kelly Brogan Christiane Northrup Ben Tapper Kevin Jenkins “Sovereignty”: The original meaning of the word Sovereignty is: supreme power or authority. Many New Age and Holistic practitioners have warped this term into fitting the anti-science narrative, using phrases like “my body my choice,”(a profound and necessary rallying cry for the human rights of reproductive autonomy against oppressive anti-abortion laws and legislators) as a tool of defiance against vaccination, “oppressive” government control, masking mandates, and anything that inconveniences their personal opinions and preferences. White Supremacy: the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups, in particular Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people. Qanon: a far-right conspiracy theory and movement centered on false claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals, known by the name "Q", that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles operate a global child sex trafficking ring and conspired against former president Donald Trump during his term in office. QAnon has been described as a cult with roots in antisemitism and Nazism. Alt-Right: a right-wing ideological movement characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate provocative content, often expressing opposition to racial, religious, or gender equality. Pastel Q: is a collection of techniques and strategies of using feminine-coded aesthetics to indoctrinate predominantly women into the QAnon conspiracy theory, mainly on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube and TikTok.It co-opts the aesthetics (including a pastel colour palette, which is where it gets its name) and language of communities and activities popular with women and uses gateway messaging to frame the conspiracies as reasonable concerns. The trend was identified by Marc-André Argentino, a researcher at Concordia University, Canada. BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Cultural Appropriation:the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. White Guru: Guru is the Sanskrit term for “mentor,” or “guide,” in Hindu religion and spirituality. Many White, New Age spiritual moguls have adopted the term “guru,” as a way to describe their appropriated mentorship in cultural practices outside of their own ancestry and culture. Cisgender: denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex. Conspirituality: The term was coined for the 2011 study "The Emergence of Conspirituality" by sociologists Charlotte Ward and David Voas published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion. They characterize the movement as follows: "It offers a broad politico-spiritual philosophy based on two core convictions, the first traditional to conspiracy theory, the second rooted in the New Age: 1) a secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and social order, and 2) humanity is undergoing a 'paradigm shift' in consciousness. Proponents believe that the best strategy for dealing with the threat of a totalitarian 'new world order' is to act in accordance with an awakened 'new paradigm' worldview." Science Deniers: Those who reject basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a subject, in favor of radical and controversial ideas. “Divine Feminine”: the original term refers to a face of the divine spirit that is connected with the body, with nature, and with the cycles of creation and transformation. Female New Age leaders have adopted the Divine Feminine as a tool of indoctrination into their alternative medical, spiritual, and lifestyle practices. Indoctrination: the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. INTRODUCTION “The Wellness Industry is sick. It's sick with radicalized ideologies that levitate around pieces of cryptic misinformation labeled as “Sovereignty.” The harm—the Ahimsa—is not in the fact that cult-like mentality within this industry exists, it’s in the fact that others who observe the harm being done and are able to link it to a spiraling movement of White Supremacist colonization and oligarchy refuse to confront and counter what is happening before their very eyes. Sovereignty is not about doing whatever the fuck you want regardless of millions of deaths worldwide. Sovereignty is about trusting the will of the collective to do what is right and necessary for the Wellness of all beings, everywhere.” I wrote the above caption mere days after publishing an essay for Yoga Journal: “Getting Vaxxed Was My Act Of Ahimsa,” which went viral the second YJ posted a teaser excerpt on Instagram. Alex Auder coined the term “Sovereign Mob,” in relationship to those whose Anti-Vax, purity culture lifestyles intersect with the wellness and yoga communities, and their harsh, obscene, and very much predictable reaction to the scientific facts and historical research outlined in said article. I was prepared for the backlash from the Pastel Q and white guru groups brainwashed to believe that new age yoga, wellness, and spirituality revolves around individual “freedom,” cultivated by spiritual bypassing and indoctrination. These groups have built an effective business model convincing the masses of white people who seek alternative lifestyles rooted in White Supremacist capitalism that consumerism is community. For decades they have placed wealth before true wellness, profit before people, and caused serious harm to the collective that they so righteously aim to “protect” with pseudoscientific “facts” and misinformation. What I was not prepared for was the amount of people who rallied not only in support of vaccination against COVID-19, but now viewed me as a leader in a movement I never intended to create. In the chaotic aftermath of my essay’s release, people from all walks of life, all over the globe: the crew at Conspirituality Podcast and all of their listeners; other journalists, authors, yoga practitioners, wellness leaders; even Doctors, scientific, and medical science experts, were messaging me, emailing me, calling my editors and trying to get in touch with me. I was ushered into conversations, given the label of “controversial,” applauded, asked to be a guest on dozens of podcasts, etc. I had never banked on any of that. Truthfully, my sole purpose of writing that article was to reach those who identify as “vaccine hesitant,” or “on the fence,” about the importance of getting vaccinated. People like my youngest sister who were decidedly part of the “wait and see,” group. People like my mom, whose friends in rural Maine have been swallowed up by Alt-right ideologies (read: fans of Tucker Carlson and Fox News). People like my former yoga students who had been sucked into alternative health and spirituality practices as a way to bypass their conditioning--using whitewashed indigenous practices as methods of “healing,” while forgoing things like therapy, seeing a doctor about worsening physical health conditions, and, yes, getting vaccinated or even wearing masks. I wanted for people within the yoga and wellness world who were hesitant to get their shot to understand not only the importance of vaccination under “normal,” circumstances, but to also recognize the absolute necessity of mass vaccination as a way to prevent further suffering and death by COVID. Judging by the comments section of the infamous Instagram post made by Yoga Journal, I was not wrong in my guesswork of knowing that many people within the yoga and wellness sphere were hesitant due to pseudoscience, misinformation, and disinformation created, propagated, and spread throughout the industry with help from people like Christiane Northrup and Kelly Brogan, who draw white women into “New Age Spirituality,” and “Holistic Healing,” with alternative medical advice; touting sovereignty and praising the “Divine Feminine,” and all of the tropes of purity culture repackaged into GOOP trends, wearing the shimmering garb of neo-feminism, and intersecting with the same warped conspiratorial rhetoric as Qanon. While I may have been aware of the glaring polarization within wellness and yoga--especially as it pertains to yogic philosophy and ethics--many other White, pro-vax yogis were at a loss for the division they were seeing within their own wellness/yoga communities and their broader online affiliations. Suddenly, I found myself answering messages of both pro-vax individuals who had been ostracized from their yoga shalas, families, women’s circles, and long-time spiritual communities simply because they got vaxxed, as well as fielding questions and concerns of vaccine hesitant individuals who were confused and afraid of getting vaccinated against COVID due to the rampant fear-mongering of their “enlightened” peers. What some “woke,” white women like to label this as “infiltration,” of the yoga and wellness community, I have long seen as an industry standard. What some like to call Westernization of yoga, I understand as the bloodthirsty cash-cow imprinted in the foundation of colonization. As a white woman within wellness and yoga spaces, I was admittedly intrigued by and drawn to the instant gratification of white-centric, new-age spirituality and the culturally appropriative practices stolen and disfigured within Westernized yoga. For nearly two years I allowed myself to be gobbled up by the industry. It was all enticing, magical, and falsely empowering. The deceptiveness of the Wellness industry is nothing but Puritanistic Indoctrination repackaged to fit the cravings and yearnings of the alternative seeker--a bandaid for processing the collective grief, trauma, and conditioning inflicted upon all people who are not cisgendered, heterosexual, white males. I swallowed the well-calculated lies of alternative health, I sought the Divine through ancient cultural practices that were not of my own ancestry, and celebrated trendy celebrity yogis whose names were all over festivals, workshops, trainings, books, and articles profiting their brand of fucked-up kool-aid which they shamelessly peddled to the masses. What’s more? I strove to be like them. I chanted in Sanskrit and read all of the books and philosophy, not to understand, but to sell to my own students. I practiced diligently, not for mind-body-breath connection, but to sell my bendy body for likes on Instagram. I did not understand that this was not wellness, that what I was practicing was not yoga, and that I was causing blatant harm to myself and others. I allowed a franchised studio to control my life, my health, my relationships, and my success as a yoga teacher, because I had been trained to believe that one must put work before all else--sacrificing the Self for the benefit of someone else’s bank account. I went from cleaning toilets at a flagship studio to hiring new teachers for franchisees in a matter of months. I was likable. I led a well-structured and creatively sequenced yoga class, and I had a beautiful singing-voice. I could sell memberships instantaneously, with the flash of a smile and a hint of mystery which led the consumer craving more; more spirituality, more exotic philosophy, more flexibility, more “community”. I did this for years. I did this even after having my dream job of studio manager ripped away from me after I miscarried my first planned pregnancy, citing my “failure to perform at adequate levels” as a “threat to the success of the business owner and the safety and security of her family.” I did this after being shunted off the top rung of the ladder, anxiously clinging to somewhere in the middle for coveted class times and styles while 20 weeks pregnant with my first-born. I did this after being asked not to talk about the Parkland High Shootings and encouraging my students to vote for gun control in the upcoming elections because it is our sacred yogic duty to protect our community from harm. I did this while balancing motherhood and leading YTT groups through fast-paced 8 week certification programs. I did it even after I woke up to the fact that I spent years of my life suffocating myself and propagating harm to benefit the large monster of this spandex-clad industry. I started to get more abrasive. I stopped chanting OM and saying Namaste, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I snagged my own centerfold advice column in Yoga Journal in October of 2019 with a plan to quit teaching yoga asana altogether by the end of 2020. The pandemic hit and I quit in a one-sentence email to the owner of the studio--whom I had stood by for half a decade, regardless of their abysmal treatment of me--after being forced to choose between teaching in-person at the beginning of a pandemic or keeping my job. My writing became more of a gut-punch to my readers than a soothing balm in times of turmoil. I became even more vocal, blunt, and honest than I had ever been before. My editors at Yoga Journal softened the hard edges where they could, and often questioned if I should even be writing the things I was writing because I was a white woman. Their preference was to seek out BIPOC voices for these topics--something which I wholeheartedly agreed with. The problem which inevitably unfolds from this, however is that white women within wellness and yoga communities tend to gravitate to teachers and writers who look like them--writers like me. They are often the types who fall silent and dismissive of uncomfortable truths due to their conditioning, and for that reason avoid listening to and learning from BIPOC. They will seek alternative facts that feel “nicer,” regardless of who is holding the mic--even if that person looks like them--but if enough people who look like them are talking about these hard topics and issues, they might start to shift their perspectives and choose differently than before. My column was reformatted, and I continued to confront the problematic practices of the white-wellness industry. I saw the response from angry white “yogis” who refused to wear a mask and opposed COVID-19 vaccines even before they went into active trials. I wrote about yoga and politics, and I mapped a Venn-diagram between Q-anon, White Wellness, and the intersectional group that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. I lost friends, family members, and *GASP* followers on social media. So you see, the essay I wrote about vaccination was not my first time confronting the cognitive dissonance within the wellness and yoga industry. It was my main topic of conversation and a lifelong practice of learning, re-learning, and unlearning with my teachers, readers, students, friends, and family members. After months of researching the history of pandemics and life-threatening diseases--from the plague to smallpox, influenza to polio--and learning about the phenomenon of vaccination, the brand director of YJ finally agreed to publish my findings through the lens of yogic philosophy. I was already used to people not liking what I had to say, and I was very used to holding myself accountable for missteps I experienced first-hand. I only hoped to be relatable, to inspire other white people who had been sucked into conspirituality, yoga, and “wellness,” to consider that they had been misled into believing that science was somehow the opposite of sovereignty. I didn’t want to have to be doing this work, at first. I believed that someone else with a larger platform, more expertise, and broader likeability deserved this stage far more than myself. I didn’t seek to lead, and I still don’t. So, I began reaching out to science communication stars on social media--people like Dr. Stacy De-lin, Dr. Jamie Rutland, Dr. Anita Patel, Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Annicka Evans and many more--in order to help my new friends and “followers” on Instagram access experts via Live conversations about the science behind the vaccines, debunking misinformation and falsities surrounding vaccination and COVID, and humanizing the so-called “experiment,” of getting vaccinated in the middle of a global pandemic and mass death. This work led to even more conversations with vaccine hesitant people, which led to even more vaccination, mask-wearing, and following of public health protocol within wellness communities. And the continuation of this work has evolved into a book. A book full of facts over fiction. A book to serve the collective and to hopefully help counter, dispel, and untangle the harmful ideologies prominent in White Wellness. A book to help you as a reader connect the dots as to what went wrong along the path of self-discovery within Westernized Wellness and Yoga and how to reconcile with the harm caused. A book to bridge the gap between science and spirituality, to uncover deep truths which have gone overlooked and purposely ignored for far too long, and to truly create wellness and oneness for all. |