Former yoga instructor warns of yoga’s spiritual dangers in new book

Linda Carl told a Washington audience that the practice she spent nearly 20 years teaching, promoting and living was never just exercise. At a May 11 talk at the Catholic Information Center, the former yoga instructor and former Reiki master argued that yoga can open the door to chakras, mantras and other spiritual claims she now sees as dangerous.

The event, held at 1501 K Street NW and offered both in person and by livestream from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., centered on her new book, Yoga Unveiled: My Spiritual Journey from Darkness to Light. Carl used her own life story to make a point that reaches beyond one book launch: people often assume yoga is neutral, but she says the postures, breathing practices and devotional language carry beliefs of their own.

Her biography gives the argument extra weight for Catholic readers and for yoga practitioners deciding what kind of class they are walking into. Sophia Institute Press says Carl spent ten years as a vice president in banking before becoming a stay-at-home mother and entering the world of yoga. The publisher also says she has been married for almost 40 years and has two children and one grandchild. That personal arc, from banking to motherhood to yoga to a new religious commitment, is the backbone of the book talk.

Carl’s warning lands in a culture where yoga is mainstream. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 16.9% of U.S. adults practiced yoga in the past 12 months in 2022, with participation highest among women, adults ages 18 to 44, Asian non-Hispanic adults and higher-income households. That means the question Carl raised was not theoretical. It was aimed at the millions of people signing up for studio classes, trying app-based flows at home, or choosing between a purely fitness-oriented class and one that includes chanting, breathwork or spiritual framing.

The Catholic backdrop matters too. In its 1989 Letter on Christian Meditation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned that some Eastern techniques can obscure Christian prayer and can degenerate into a cult of the body, while also saying the Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in non-Christian religions. That tension helps explain why Carl’s message will comfort some Catholics and unsettle others.

Yoga’s global identity remains just as complicated. The United Nations says yoga originated in India and later became the basis for International Day of Yoga after a 2014 resolution endorsed by 175 member states. Carl’s book taps directly into that long-running debate over whether yoga is best understood as fitness, philosophy, spirituality, or all three at once. For anyone choosing a class this week, her answer is simple enough to change the decision: check what your teacher is asking you to believe, not just what your body is doing on the mat.