I just finished watching the HBO documentary "Breath of Fire" about the history of Kundalini yoga as promoted and practiced by Yogi Bhajan, Harijiwan Singh Khalsa, and Guru Jagat.
Beyond the stories of corruption and abuse, especially related to Yogi Bhajan and his MeToo reckoning and fallout, one big take away from the documentary is how Kundalini yoga, as practiced by these spiritual teachers/entrepreneurs/con-artists, created the yoga version of the prosperity gospel. Yoga would bring you health, happiness, and wealth.
Breath of Fire is also, in many ways, the story of how the entire wellness industry, especially when it fuses with New Age spirituality, traffics in the prosperity gospel. As a related example of this, last year I wrote about how witchcraft is the pagan version of the prosperity gospel. And if not witchcraft proper, then the adjacent New Age practice of "manifesting" abundance. The New Age prosperity gospel belief in the "law of attraction"-- think/manifest it, and it will happen--is a spiritual thread that runs through the entire wellness industry.
The point here is that the prosperity gospel haunts every spiritual tradition. Pagan, Western, and Eastern. Christians have their version of the prosperity gospel. Pagans have their version of the prosperity gospel. And as Breath of Fire recounts, yoga has its version. The prosperity gospel tempts the religious and spiritual-but-not-religious alike.
My wife caught me in the kitchen watching Joel Olsteen again the other day and asked me derisively; “Why in the he#$%!* are you listening to this guy?” So…. I launched into my best theological mansplain, which quickly generated a huge yawn on her face. “Isn’t this the guy who’s taking people’s money and liv’in the dream in a big fancy house with cars and the works?”, she retorted. I’ve always loved how she cuts right through the intellectual mirage and gets to the point. But this really is the Crux of the matter. Does the appearance of personal wealth and affluence circumvent his relentless and viciously positive message (?) After listening a few minutes, one feels like your being continuously fired at with some kind of ‘Happy Cannon’ with Norman Vincent Peal etched on the side of it. If one sees Olsteen and his ministry as the quintessential example of the “Prosperity Gospel”, then I suppose the "law of attraction"-- think/manifest it, and it will happen”, is his mission statement. But the truth is for me, that I am very attracted to it, enjoy the incessant reductive optimism and encouragement. He is able to take almost any passage or story found in scripture and magically twist it into a cheerful pretzel of sanguinity that is so sugary sweet with hope and positivity, you can choke on it. I’ve actually never heard him say a bad word about anybody or anything really. Another attractive element to his homily delivery system is that he almost never injects his messages with political or eschatological tensions. That alone makes it worth taking a bite of the toxically enthusiastic parfait. The steely-eyed habitual smile and perfectly tailored suits are ‘bewitching’ to see, and his materialistic appeal slots perfectly into 21st century Post-Modern models of success. As ‘Breath of Fire’ so adroitly exposes the grotesque hypocrisy often found in ‘one man/woman at the top’ ministries (both East & West), it also begs the question of culpability and susceptibility of young minds being pulled into nefarious organizations via the lure of drugs, sex and even economic power.