Francis Yeats-Brown and the Early Popularization

of YogaBradley W Hart

Assistant Professor California State University, Fresno

April 10, 2015 UC Berkeley

Francis Yeats-BrownBorn in 1886 in Genoa to the wife of the British Consul-General

Attended Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst before being sent to India at 20 years old

Was a member of the Bengal Lancers, subsequently joined the Royal Flying Corps and received the Distinguished Flying Cross (captured in Baghdad, 1915 - “Should I, I sometimes ask myself, have died fighting?… The rules of war gave me a chance to live, and I took advantage of them.”)

1919-24: Remained in the Indian Army

Ultimately the author of nearly a dozen books, hundreds of articles

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

1919: Captured by the Turks

1924-8: Assistant Editor of The Spectator

1930: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer released

Imperialist account focusing on experiences in India/Middle East in WWI, coupled with a love affair involving a “native”

1935: Made into a successful Hollywood film with Gary Cooper ($49 million at the box office/abt. $800 million today)

Yeats-Brown and YogaVarious other works published throughout the early 1930s, mostly focusing on military affairs and India

1936: Lancer at Large published

First full exposition of experiences with yoga in India in the form of a travel journal and spiritual journey

“But in some ways even more exciting than his pictures of changing India is the account of his private adventures with his gurus and his yogis. So much balderdash has been written about Hindu mysticism that it is a relief to encounter a thoroughly objective man who hunts facts and finds them. Yoga without the profit motive is a very different affair from the article that gets sold to ‘psychic’ Park Avenue hostesses.” - The Saturday Review, Jan. 1937

-F. Yeats-Brown, Lancer at Large, p. 276

“It is true that of late most of the easier practices of Hatha Yoga have been advocated, piecemeal, by various people — often cranks and swindlers — in the West, but, as far as I know, only in India is the physical system linked up with the mental and spiritual.”

Yoga Explained1937: Yoga Explained published as an illustrated guide to theory and practice in response to public interest

“Let me be clear at the outset that Yoga is not a religion… I still receive letters from more or less indignant people who tell me that they read what I write, and that the teachings of Christ are immeasurably superior to those of the Yogis. This is baffling. They might as well tell me that the Bible is better than the instruction-book of my car.” - Yoga Explained p. 7

-F. Yeats-Brown, Yoga Explained, p. 8

“Yoga sets up no God or gods, neither does it deny the existence of God. It is, I repeat, a

method of physical and psychic culture. You may be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Moslem, or a Hindu, and yet a student of Yoga. You may also be an atheist. If you are, and you follow the Yoga path seriously, you will probably be

impelled to establish a new religion.”

Yeats-Brown and The “Aryan Race”

Argument that Yoga was a ‘racial inheritance’ from ancient civilization

‘The system is not alien, but part of your racial inheritance and memory, that it is pleasant to study, and that it is rich in rewards.’ (14)

‘The blonde invaders [of the Indus Valley] — Aryans, as it is convenient to call them — were a beef-eating, beer-drinking, horse-loving, pastoral, and poetic folk… When the Vedas were first brought to Europe, educated Indians believed the British were barbarians, and we thought the same of them. Now, knowing each other better, we are beginning to find out how much we can learn from each other.’ (36-8)

The Far RightYeats-Brown joined the January Club, Anglo-German Fellowship, and may have been a member of the ultra-secret, anti-Semitic “Right Club”

1937: Attended the Nuremberg Rally as part of the British delegation, viewing Nazism as a form of ‘spiritual rebirth’

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer had not only become a popular film in the Anglophone world, but also Germany

Compulsory viewing for SS officers

-Ward Price, quoted in E. Wrench, Francis Yeats-Brown, p. 224

“Hitler would walk round the whole circle of his foreign visitors shaking hands with each of them in turn. I happened to be standing next to Y.B. [Yeats-Brown] and I had heard that ‘Bengal Lancer’ was the Führer’s favorite film, so that when Hitler’s A.D.C. introduced

‘Major Yeats- Brown’ I interjected ‘Verfasser von “Bengal Lancer.”’ [‘The author of “Bengal Lancer.”’] Hitler’s face, which had

hitherto worn a stiff and formal expression, became suddenly transformed. ‘Was!’ [‘What!’] ‘Bengal Lancer!’ He exclaimed. ‘I have seen that film five times. It is a splendid story. Has it been translated into German?’… It was evident that he [Yeats-Brown] was the only

Englishman present for whose achievements Hitler felt the slightest interest.”

World War II1939: Publication of European Jungle

“We are racially close to the Germans (in spite of our blend of Roman temper and tradition) and we can influence them more than any other people can, and they us, when they are reasonable. Unfortunately they are dreamers. Dangerous dreamers, because of their industry.” (11-12)

“As regards Germany, I must say clearly that I abhor the present treatment of the Jews by the Third Reich; it is horrible, and haunts my conscience whenever I praise the the achievements of the National Socialists, some of which are great and good. “ (185-6)

However: “It is incontestable that the Jews in pre-Hitler Germany occupied too many key positions, and used their power to further policies alien to the wishes of the majority of the German people.” (188-9)

ConclusionsYeats-Brown embarked on an overseas tour of defense facilities and died in 1944, prior to the end of the war, but wished that the “good in Nazism” would survive the conflict

Obituaries primarily noted his authorship of Bengal Lancer and journalistic pursuits

“At his best he had a great gift of making subjects, commonly regarded as dull, arresting.” - Evelyn Wrench, 1944

Represented an early attempt to disconnect yoga from pseudo-spiritual aspects, but with a racial bent (belief in ‘Aryan’ origins)