Vern here. A lotta crazy OC people heeded President Trump’s call last year and went out to DC on January 6 to try and overthrow our election; we wrote about several of them in our “Insane Coup Posse.” Some were weirder and more flamboyant than others, and of those you may remember Alan Hostetter – a former infantryman and La Habra Police Chief who moved down to San Clemente and became a YOGA INSTRUCTOR, until the stresses of 2020 and Covid drove him to rightwing extremism and the creation of the anti-lockdown (but profitable) American Phoenix Project.
Here is Alan in DC on January 5, whipping up the crowd the day before the insurrection, and calling for the execution of Democrats, with HB’s nutty former Congressman Dana Rohrabacher nodding along:
You can watch here:pic.twitter.com/ICpVwbo5xC
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 29, 2021
Well, some of the January 6 insurrectionists have gotten off with misdemeanor slaps on the wrists but not Alan – our south County guru is in HOT WATER, looking at a possible FORTY YEARS IN PRISON. The authorities claim he is one of six members of a Three-Percenters militia group who conspired to bring HATCHETS AND BODY ARMOR to DC on January 6. On top of that he’s in trouble for using his tax-exempt “charitable organization” APP to oppose COVID restrictions and spread The Big Lie of a Stolen 2020 Presidential Election.
So the latest: Alan is one of several insurrectionists who’s insisting on representing himself, against the advice of the Federal Judge as well as his former attorney, who he felt would eventually bankrupt him. Alan WILL accept a legal ADVISOR, with the caveat that this advisor must have no association with Skull & Bones, the Freemasons, “or any other organizations that require oaths or vows of secrecy.”
Aside from that, Alan says he’s being framed by corrupt FBI agents and informants, and he has demanded a swift jury trial. As he crowed in a recent video, “I have never been more SANE, more HAPPY, more OPTIMISTIC and more EXCITED about what I’m about embark on defending myself and exposing these crimes against me and those crimes against this country.”
All of this you may have read in recent news reports, but that’s not why you come to the Orange Juice Blog. You come here because you’re puzzled about how this unhinged guy coulda been a very popular south County Yoga instructor for a decade, and maybe you also heard through the grapevine that we have a new commentator who knows a shitload about yoga (and prefers not to be named for now.) So without further ado, behold:
Bad Yogi, Alan Hostetter.
“The so called enlightened gurus who don’t abide by the scriptures are more dangerous to humanity. The people following scriptures can never damage you. But the so called enlightened masters who don’t abide by the scriptures are more dangerous than the pundits and parrots, who repeat from the scriptures directly.”
Paramahamsa Nithyananda, International Yoga Day, Varanasi, 21 Jun 2016
Alan Hostetter is back in the news and drawing national attention to the SoCal yoga and spirituality community due to the seemingly incongruous mash-up of how a yoga-teaching, sound-healing, Reiki-practicing ‘guru’ could end up advocating for violence and radicalizing his supporters to attack his perceived enemies.
In every way Alan is the “Boghi Yogi”, a yoga teacher with knowledge of yoga practices, but not a living embodiment, aka a fake, a phony, a huckster. (Boghi translates as ‘snake’ in Hindi. Other famous Boghi Yogi’s have included Bikram and K. Pattabhi Jois but their transgressions fall heavily on the sexual abuse side.)
The fact that Alan was welcomed into the SoCal yoga ‘community’ with open arms is indicative of the ‘scene’ here: The OC Yoga scene is completely whitewashed, stripped of its spiritual underpinnings, a place where suburban moms are radicalized to Qanon.
Yoga without intention and adherence to the 8-fold path is just exercise or, worse, cultural appropriation. The Yoga in SoCal is almost always stripped of intention: see “Holy” yoga, Buns of Steel yoga etc. The local studios are a joke and reflect a broader movement in SoCal toward corrupting yoga, Reiki, sound healing… just look at the people who flocked to Alan Hostetter’s classes.
Alan represents the pinnacle of our society’s desire to cherry-pick spiritual practices like Yoga and Reiki, while ignoring the foundations which were put in place to stop people from hurting themselves with these practices.
Like any good Boghi Yogi teacher, there is a compelling origin story: the teacher was successful to use Yoga for self-healing. He found quick, powerful results, and believes that his trauma and physical improvements found in his practice qualifies him to teach yoga. Being ‘good’ at Yoga means nothing. Of course, the Boghi yogi is unaware of their danger to self and others and believes they are qualified to teach.
Instead of helping his mental illness, Alan’s path to becoming a “Reiki Master,” yoga teacher and sound healing practitioner no doubt exacerbated his already well-known mental health issues that preceded his medical retirement from La Habra Police Chief.
Reiki, Yoga, sound healing, meditation now become the agents of disturbance in the untrained and impure of heart. Stripped of intention and the rules put in place for thousands of year to prevent illness, yoga and associated energy healing can be absolutely destabilizing…especially to the schizoid character.
Let’s step back and state the obvious: Alan Hostetter is a very disturbed individual. His ‘dead behind the eyes” empty stare that evokes the shell-shocked warrior or PTSD trauma victim, definitely does not signal someone you should look to for spiritual guidance and healing.
That most of the OC yoga community embraced Hostetter is an indictment of that very community. Flocks of Boghi-yogis-in-training being radicalized by a dangerous man. This should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of sentience.
That ‘look’ in Alan’s eye is a manifestation of some very real disturbance and the famous healer Barbara Ann Brennan gives us the structure and framework to understand the schizoid character:
“The low energy in the frontal area can be seen as the blank, gone look often seen in the schizoid. He usually directs his energy up the spine and out the back of his head in the occipital region, creating the energy bulge towards the back of the head. This is the way of avoiding contact with the here-and-now in the physical plane.”
from “Hands of Light” by Barbara Brennan
It is without question that Hostetter’s practice of these mystical healing arts made his condition worse. Yoga, Sound Healing, Reiki…can all be harmful when practiced wrong. But the ‘right’ way to do these things is not hard, you just need a good teacher, the proper intention and an open heart.
If Alan really wanted to find healing, he should have started with the lowest chakras and worked his way up only when ready. Kinda like strengthening the core to help your neck pain. As opposed to Alan’s no-doubt top-down practice which forces the body’s natural energy flow into a counter-flow that manifests in the “dead behind the eyes” look.
Evan scarier would be anyone that received Reiki from Alan. Reiki is perhaps the simplest form of energy healing, in which the healer channels pure white light and does not mingle their own energy with that flow into the recipient. But the schizoid character will not be content to allow this stillness, so will interject and intermingle their own discordant energy into the session. The idea of a true Reiki master calling for violence against others is patently absurd.
As Alan continues his descent into madness, the best we can hope for is a lengthy sentence before the man snaps. Yes, the SoCal yoga scene has a Q-anon problem, and a lot more, because the people paying for these classes are ignorant of the real practice.
Let this be a cautionary tale for anyone seeking to heal from mental illness with yoga and energy healing. Beware the Boghi Yogi.
Postscript
It should be recognized that there are some good Orange County studios out there that have pushed back on the rise of white supremacy in the local yoga scene.
Reference:
Hands of Light, A Guide to Healing through the Human Energy Field, Barbara Ann Brennan
Is it possible to doubt the spiritual and healing practices mentioned above and still abhor Alan Hofstadter and his violent white supremacist wackrty? Because that’s where I am. But despite our differences in philosophy, we can peacefully co-exist — so welcome here!
A Wannabe Steven Seagal.
Very informative, had no idea!
It’s time some of these fuckers gets a real prison sentence – as in years.
With enhancement for misuse of yoga!
Ah – THIS is why we’re getting lots of hits today on our Hostetter story!
https://www.ocregister.com/2023/07/13/ex-la-habra-police-chief-alan-hostetter-found-guilty-for-role-in-jan-6-insurrection/
Alan Hostetter, former La Habra police chief-turned yoga instructor, was convicted on Thursday, July 13 of joining the riot at the U.S. Capitol with a hatchet in his backpack and plotting to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
A judge in Washington’s federal court heard testimony without a jury before convicting Alan Hostetter, a right-wing activist and vocal critic of COVID-19 restrictions who defended himself at his bench trial with help from a standby attorney.
Hostetter used his closing arguments to spin conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. He falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, portrayed himself as a victim of FBI corruption and referred to the mob’s attack as a “federal setup” involving “crisis actors wearing costumes.” He downplayed violence at the Capitol, referring to the riot as “basically the equivalent of a three-hour hissy fit.”
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth told Hostetter that no reasonable person — let alone a veteran police officer — would believe that it was legal to use mob violence to obstruct Congress.
“Belief that your actions are for a greater good does not negate consciousness of wrongdoing,” Lamberth said.
Hostetter was convicted on all four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and entering a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon. The judge scheduled sentencing for Oct. 13, and denied a Justice Department request to have Hostetter jailed immediately… more on the Register link…
I’m a new reader here because of the recent article (linked above) regarding Hostetter’s conviction and decided to read up some more on the how and why of the story. I’d like to know more about his yoga background and training, it’s interesting the cherry picking as mentioned in the article above. I completely agree, it is not yoga without incorporating the 8 Fold Path of Raja Yoga/Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras into the practice.
How can one still be referred to as a “yoga teacher” when abandoning the yogic principles, (first and foremost we will mention ahimsa.) The white supremacy ideology and gross cultural appropriation need to be removed from any association with this practice. Let’s begin by referring to him as a disgraced, former yoga instructor. Bhogi yogi is right. Drohi seems even more accurate.
Thanks for your comment. For those who don’t know, “ahimsa” is “respect for and avoidance of violence towards all living things.” Yeah, you nailed him on that lack.
I’m sure that you know more about this than I do, but I want to understand why those of us not in the yoga practice community are unlike to judge beyond the obvious problems. My understanding is that Yoga practitioners are split into many schools or sects (there’s probably a better word than that); while the 8-Fold Path is (as I understand it) central to spiritual practice (though not the mere practice of yoga poses for exercise and meditation, as taught by many teachers whom you presumably reject), I don’t know if you may be putting a greater restriction on the term than other self-proclaimed “spiritual” yoga practitioners would accept. It would be like me, as a non-Christian, attacking someone for emphasis or neglect of points of doctrine. I can do it — and in fact I have — but I can’t do it with the authority of those who are immersed in the religious tradition.
Hostetter warranted being called a “yoga teacher” because he taught the practice of yoga poses tied to vague and insincere promises of enlightenment. So I’m all for calling him “disgraced” (he’s more than earned that) and I don’t know about “former” (as I expect that there’s a call for his leadership in prison), but I don’t get the difference you suggest between “instructor” and “teacher.” There can be “good” and “bad” — and even “wayward” and “evil,” as comes with the incorporation of white supremacy ideology — practitioners and teachers, but Hostetter still taught the physical practice even if you and we think that he debased the spiritual practice.
I mention this because I want to fend off those with slightly different understandings and practices of Hinduism or Buddhism and coming here and asking us why we’re promoting the specific teaching of Raja Patanjali. I don’t know them, I don’t know the alternatives to them, and I suspect that this is not a great venue for people to debate them.
As I was taught to say at this point 45 or so years ago at one of our community colleges, Namaste. Thanks again for visiting us.
The last (pre-incarceration) chip has fallen. Hofstetter has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. Frankly, I hope he stays in longer: teaching bored and angry prisoners yoga is a good way for him to give back to the world — so long as he doesn’t editorialize.
One thing he keeps spouting is that Jan 6 was a false-flag “inside job.” Unfortunately he was able to (accurately) point out that glib asshole Vivek R said the same thing on the Presidential debate stage.
Also, he claims Ashli Babbitt was a “crisis actor” who didn’t really die. That REALLY pissed off Ashli’s mom who yelled at him after the sentencing.
“I assure you she is dead,” she said. “What the fuck is it you’re trying to say?”
“Was she cremated?” Hostetter asked.
“You need help,” she replied. “Arrogant shit.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/ex-police-chief-spread-conspiracy-theories-sentenced-jan-6-case-rcna128559
My solution is: find a place where we need a hole dug for a well or pylons, put him in leg irons connected something sturdy, give him a spoon, and tell him that Babbitt is buries 20 feet below and when he finds her body he can bring it up and examine it. Repeat for as long as he remains gullible.