Dahn Yoga: scamming folks in NYC, Boston, and beyond

Over at Gawker, writer Cat Ferguson has added a new installment to the Cult Rush Week series, titled "I Punched Myself at Dahn Yoga." A snippet:

On its face, Dahn yoga is not very scary. It is a vague combination of yoga and tai chi that promises practitioners they will "experience the transformative power of energy." But the cult is championed by shady "Grand Master" Ilchi Lee, who is described as "a global educator, mentor, and innovator devoted to teaching energy principles and developing the full capability of the human brain," but was also the target of a 2010 lawsuit that accused him of preying on young recruits, brainwashing members, and fraud.

Ferguson was dipping into Dahn down in NYC, but we've got our own Dahn locations here in the Boston area: Arlington, Cambridge, Brookline. If you keep your eyes peeled, you'll see Dahn brochures occupying choice street-facing locations in store windows all over town.

Here's what I do when I see one of their stand-up brochure holders: I duck into the establishment -- nail salon, grocery store, what have you -- and breezily tell the clerk that I'm "here to pick these up." Then pick them up I do, leave, and then and, just like I do with Maum flyers, I throw them away in the first trash receptacle I see. Lest you think I'm on the dole for Scientology, let me set the record straight: I'm not favoring one scam cult over another. It's just that Scientology is more about palm-cards than brochures. I simply can't conscience the marketing of yet another pseudo-scientific, pseudo-spiritual extractive industry in our fair city, so, sorry Dahn yoga, they've got to go.

Read Ferguson's full post over at Gawker to learn more about the Dahn experience (tldr; they want your money), or check out these informative links:

• My Story: Dahn Yoga is a Cult (blog)
• Dahn Yoga: Body, Brain and Wallet (Forces)
• Lawsuit calls yoga chain a cult (CNN)
• The Yoga Cult (Rolling Stone)

Boston Nonsense Watch is a free service of the Boston Atheists.

Foreigners: "American religion is weirdly prominent."

Over at Thought Catalog, Michael Koh's scraped together a list of responses by Quora.com contributors answering the question, "What couldn't you believe about America before moving here?" What's interesting is how many of the respondents were surprised by the prominence of American religiousity. Here are some of the responses having to do with religion:

• Triya Bhattacharya, India, writes: "I always thought that America must be very laid-back about religion, like Europe, but that was not true. And one of the weirdest things I encountered was a Jewish person (in the black suit) preaching to us on the subway to believe in God, and Apocalypse or something, and giving us “Trillion dollar” notes with this stuff written on it."
• Riona MacNarmara, Ireland, writes: "[I was surprised by] Religion being an actual thing. Prayer breakfasts in the White House. Educated people believing in creationism. The number of churches and denominations. People actually going to church." 
• Olof Åkerlund, Sweden, writes: "The role of religion is much stronger here than in other Western nations. Things like creationism are usually believed by a handful of people in other places, but here it seems to be at least a force to be reckoned with." 

 For more perspectives on life in these United States from newcomers to America, visit the original thread on Quora.com.

Blogger skeptical & compassionate, if unfair toward antitheists. Also, dragons.

Blogger Lindy West, responding to a creationist's argument that dragons were literally real:

Now, I don't personally believe in Satan (or dragons, or demons, or resurrection, or underground pits of eternally burning gay people, or that a guy can build a campfire in a whale's colon), but I don't mind if people do as long as their commitment to literalism remains wholly separate from my country's legislation and scientific progress. I recognize that religious beliefs, institutions, and structured rituals—even ones that seem arbitrary to an outsider—can be extremely fortifying for people, especially communities of people that have been abandoned or demonized by the status quo.

On the one hand, this is a great succinct example of sound and healthy skepticism. On the other hand, West is implicitly throwing critics of religion under the bus (specifically, those critics who do mind if people believe in supernatural entities, and who think that such belief helps to normalize certain undesirable and dangerous attitudes and behaviors).

On the other other hand, she acknowledges the benevolent role religious participation can play in believers' lives, without endorsing said supernaturalism. Two out of three ain't bad! (via Jezebel)

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And, how could we deprive you of the opportunity to watch a guy argue for the existence of dragons on theological grounds? Here's the video from the Jezebel post: