The amazing story of how yoga came to America-and the charming rogue who made it possible

In Jazz Age New York, there was no place hotter than the Clarkstown Country Club, where celebrities such as Leopold Stokowski mingled with Vanderbilts, Goodriches, and Great War spies. They came for the club's circuses and burlesques but especially for the lectures on the subject at the heart of the club's mission: yoga. Their guru was the notorious Pierre Bernard, who trained with an Indian master and instructed his wealthy followers in the asanas and the modern yogic lifestyle.

Robert Love traces this American obsession from moonlit Tantric rituals in San Francisco to its arrival in New York, where Bernard's teachings were adopted by Wall Streeters and Gilded Age heiresses, who then bankrolled a luxurious ashram on the Hudson River-the first in the nation. Though today's practitioners know little of Bernard, they can thank his salesman's persistence for sustaining our interest in yoga despite generations of naysayers.

In this surprising, sometimes comic story, Love uncovers the forgotten life and times of the colorful, enigmatic character who brought us hatha yoga. The Great Oom delves into the murky intersection of mysticism, money, and celebrity that gave rise to the creation of one of America's most popular practices and a five billion-dollar industry.

This is just stunning. I started practicing and reading about yoga in 1978. Soon enough I came across Theos Bernard's Hatha Yoga book, which remains fundamental even today. I found most of his other books gradually, then became aware of his Uncle Pierre. Mysterious, scandalous. Who was Pierre Bernard? I have been poking around here and there to try to uncover any real answers, with no luck. Imagine how my jaw dropped when I stumbled on this book - thanks, Oblong Books in Millerton, NY!

And this book really doesn't disappoint. It is an outer biography. It barely attempts to cover what Bernard taught. That is sketched out in bare outline. But what Bernard did, that we are shown in extensive detail. Awesome. I could never imagine any of this. Ida Rolf, Pete Seeger, Humphrey Bogart. How about seven or eight circus elephants?

How would the world look today if Pierre Bernard had stayed on the farm in Iowa? Such speculation is always impossible but infinitely more so here. Surely Pierre Bernard is obscure today. It is abundantly clear from this biography that Bernard was famous in the 1930, the extravaganzas at his country club in the newspapers across the country. Bernard did not build a lasting institution. But the ripples and waves he set in motion - his biographer shows how these have become pervasive.

It would be so precious to have a transcript of one of Bernard's lectures or perhaps some literary analysis of the sources of the yoga text he compiled. But Bernard was clearly a man of action. This book is greatly inspiring. Look at what a person can do! To bring new light to his ideas doesn't seem like the proper way to cherish this pioneering spirit. To throw oneself into living with that passion and commitment, yes! ( )