Jules Hartley: “Breath of Fire” and the Cult of Kundalini Yoga (Part 1)

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You may have heard of Kundalini yoga from its popularity with celebrities, but you might be less familiar with its culty history. Invented in the late 60s by a guru-turned-cult leader named Yogi Bhajan, Kundalini is an intensive form of yoga that weirdly uses breathing exercises to manipulate people. After its founder died in 2004, one of his followers, Guru Jagat, picked up where he left off. Jagat founded the Ra Ma Institute, which she ran more like a cult than a yoga studio.

Our guest today, Jules Hartley, escaped Ra Ma in 2017. She’s featured in the HBO docuseries “Breath of Fire” about the cult of Kundalini yoga. Jules is here to tell us about her experience with Guru Jagat, and we’ll also get into the media’s portrayal of cult survivors.

Kundalini has an incredibly dark history that includes child and sexual abuse, so trigger warning this week.

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Associate producers: Emma Diehl and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Transcript

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0:29.7	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical,
0:34.1	or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any
0:41.5	religion group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything.
1:00.4	I'm Sarah Edmondson. And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Calty.
1:05.3	Cults are commonplace now. From fandums to fads, we're examining them all. We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad. Every week we chat with survivors,
1:10.7	experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told
1:13.6	directly by the people who lived through them, because we want you to learn a few things
1:17.7	that we've had to learn the hard way.
1:20.1	For example, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might
1:23.9	be prime recruitment material, and who knows, you could already be in a cult.
1:28.3	If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed.
1:31.5	So keep listening to find out.
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1:36.7	This podcast might contain stories that could be alarming to some of our listeners.
1:40.5	So please check our show notes for more detailed descriptions and take care of yourself.
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