Did Nazis love yoga?
That is the provocative title of one chapter in the recently published book Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. As the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic crashed into North America in March 2020, three long-time yoga teachers and writers noticed a shift in their community’s discourse online. A certain paranoia had exploded on social media, with accusations that the crisis was actually a secret plan to bring about world domination. Messages of health boiled over on these platforms, but they were not endorsements for mask wearing or physical distancing. They were a fetishization of personal health. The way to protect yourself from whatever was really happening, they read, was by keeping your body fat low and embracing downward-facing dog on your yoga mat.
