Manos Disciple To Manos Accuser: “If You Felt Assaulted, Please Try to Figure Out Why.”

An abuse crisis will often force a high-demand group to show outsiders what they inflict on insiders every day: loaded language, self-sealed reasoning, leader idealization, grandiose claims and image management techniques. If the group must admit abuse, it will show its unique harm calculus, and every emotional bargaining trick in the book.

Nowhere is it all more visible than in the abuse crisis statement. Though offered as evidence for the wholesomeness of the group, it often provides key confirmation to insiders that they are, in fact, embedded or complicit in toxic dynamics.

The abuse crisis statement I’ll examine below was posted on Facebook in response to allegations of in-class sexual grooming and assault brought by Certified Iyengar teacher Ann West against Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher Manouso Manos. The allegations were made public in a September 8th article published by KQED and echo similar allegations made in a 1991 investigative report published in the San Jose Mercury News.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Manos did not deny the allegations when asked by investigative journalist Bob Frost in 1991, but through a spokesman he is now denying all past and present allegations, according to the KQED report.

The statement below doesn’t come from an official Iyengar Yoga representative, but from a long-time Manos disciple.

On September 12th David Carpenter, president of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the U. S. (IYNAUS), issued an official statement. Carpenter noted that Manos was at the time being investigated by the IYNAUS Ethics Committee. He omitted mention of the fact that at least one of the committee members is a long-term student of Manos, and that Manos remains a member of the IYNAUS Senior Council. Manos is headlining an IYNAUS event on September 28th.

In a September 19th letter, the Ethics Committee informed West that they had unanimously cleared Manos of the allegations. Their ruling cited a lack of eyewitnesses to the alleged assault, which West described as having occurred while everyone in the class was upside down.

The name of the disciple has been redacted, along with some details that might be identifying.

It is important to note, however, that the disciple is a tenure-track humanities professor. High-demand groups strongly benefit when members with high social capital and credibility in the outside world can be mobilized to defend it. In this case the group benefits additionally from the use of feminist positionality to exonerate an accused assaulter.

That the disciple is a seemingly left-leaning academic shows two things:

1. The power of group propaganda to overwhelm seemingly any level of educational training and critical thinking.
2. The power of group dynamics to weaponize seemingly any type of discourse against victims. Typically yoga and Buddhist groups weaponize spiritual concepts against abuse victims. Here the concepts of social justice are weaponized to shame and silence. The weaponization can form a painful double bind. The victim may not only be silenced by the concept but by their own desire to endorse it.

The statement appeared in at least two places on Facebook on September 19th, the same day IYNAUS cleared Manos. The following text is copied from one of those appearances . It is presented with analysis in red.

NOTE: The analysis addresses the statement and its implications, not the writer and her intentions, or her present views. The purpose is to explore communication strategies at critical junctures in the life of a group.

Crisis abuse statements are often later regretted, as the writer gathers more information from outside of the group and the “bounded choice” (cf. Lalich) of the group loses it hold on them.

NOTE 2: Using the tools of analysis that are applied to high-demand groups does NOT label either “Iyengar Yoga” or IYNAUS as a high-demand group, but rather can help identify places where high-demand mechanisms may be at work.

The analysis includes a personal anecdote from a class I attended with Manos in February of 2017.

 

9/19/2018

To Ms. West and all in this community who are paying attention. Ms. West, Imagining what you have gone through with this weighing on your mind, I am sorry. I am sorry for what I have done as a community member to create an environment where this sort of stress could ever accumulate on you for any period of time.

This is a promising opening that suggests the disciple is familiar with listening and accountability practices such as those suggested by psychologist Jennifer Freyd in her research on “institutional courage”. 

The inviting and progressive tone positions the writer as an ally. It also, however, sets the stage for a betraying obfuscation of the power dynamics at play.

I have been a serious student of yoga since [over a decade]. I started taking classes with Manouso in [over a decade]. I have taken at least [many] of his tri-yearly intensives in San Francisco since [almost a decade ago]. As a woman, I have experienced sexism and forms of sexual assault throughout my life. I know what rape culture is, I know what institutionalized party rape is and I know what a rape apologist sounds like. As a woman, I question when and how much to #metoo. Especially in a climate where reporting comes with significant backlash.

Here the writer bravely discloses her position as an survivor of past sexual assault, expressing allyship with West. 

Ms. West, firstly, I care about your mental health. I do not wish to psychologically impact you in an unsafe way. Number two, white woman, learn how to be humble.

This incoherent paragraph, which betrays the proposed allyship, is key for understanding both the manipulative thrust of the statement and a common mechanism of high-demand group interactions.

Two sentences of presumed care — undercut by concern-trolling of West’s sanity — are followed immediately by an unexpected and improbable attack. As suggested in the anecdote below, this seems to mirror aspects of Manos’s own teaching style — and that of Iyengar’s before him — which can oscillate quickly between wrath and supposed care.

The juxtaposition and confusion of care and attack drive the formation of “disorganized attachment” bonds common within high-demand groups, through which members are caught up in a cycle of running towards the very person who harms them, in an anxious search for love. For more detail on this pioneering analysis from Alexandra Stein, see this recent article on Shambhala abuse crisis communications.

The attack sentence asks an alleged assault victim to be “humble”. Presented as advocacy for people of colour, it introduces the idea that by reporting the alleged assault to IYNAUS, West is using white privilege to grandiosely centre herself and minimize sexual assaults on women who are more marginalized. Is this what Christine Blasey Ford is doing?

West’s complaint to IYNAUS makes use of the stated purpose of the Ethics Committee. It is a paid member benefit, and does not inhibit anyone else from registering a complaint against Manos. Arguably, West might be using her privilege in such a way that inspires other IYNAUS members, of varying degrees of privilege, to also come forward. Whether this actually happens may have more to do with IYNAUS’s own inclusion policies and its valuation of whistleblowers (see Freyd, above) than whether individual women voluntarily refrain from reporting sexual assault because they are told they don’t have it that bad.

From my perspective, your position as a white American woman empowered you to construe a narrative that risks my health and wellbeing. I rely on Manouso for my life. He is my most steadfast and worthy anchor in human form. He holds a powerful lineage of healing and he has served as an honest and clear conduit for that information for thousands of students. As his student, you and I have been granted access to a very privileged space.

West is not American. She is from Britain and identifies as Roma, a marginalized ethnic minority in Europe. By email she says she “suffered from racial abuse from early childhood.”

Beyond this false assumption about West’s identity, the disciple deploys the first of many versions of Freyd’s DARVO (deny-attack-reverse-victim-and-offender). West’s allegation against Manos is positioned as an attack upon the health of the disciple.

However hyperbolic (no one relies on Manos for their life except perhaps his financial dependents) the disciple’s personal beliefs about the value of Manos’s teaching for her are a private matter.

Here however the beliefs cross over the private boundary to propagandize on behalf of the group, by repeating grandiose and deceptive claims about the method.

“Lineage” is a loaded-language term used throughout contemporary yoga marketing that implies an ancient heritage. This is a stretch in relation to the Iyengar method, which is at most only fifty years old and two generations deep. Usage of “lineage”, especially qualified by the phrase “honest and clear conduit” appropriates the South Asian concept of “paramparā” as a marker of legitimacy.

A subtext of paramparā is that “that information” it carries is presumed to be as stable and unchanging as Manos’s own devotion to Iyengar. Many senior students, however, acknowledge that the method is constantly changing. It may not be information that has been transmitted through Manos so much as the branded affect of charismatic authority, which can function by concealing as much or more information behind the veil of genius as it dispenses. The title of Manos’s current teaching tour implies that the guidance of a master is essential in this mysterious realm: “The Truth Is A Moving Target” (see poster below).

Claims of “healing” in Iyengar yoga are usually substantiated not by data but by the power of miracle or faith healing stories, such as the one Manos tells here (cue 24:00, video below) about the first time he saw Iyengar teach. Manos describes watching Iyengar treat the frozen shoulder of a woman by wrenching it repeatedly, causing her to scream. Because the woman gained shoulder mobility by the end of the class, he claims Iyengar healed her. He does not report on how she felt the next day, or six months later. 

That you felt compelled to risk my relationship with my teacher because you received confusing pressure on your form that was not to your liking and that you couldn’t figure out how to not come back to the studio is upsetting to me and the community. Manouso makes very clear that if you cannot handle the climate of the room you should leave. If you felt sexually assaulted by Manouso, please try to figure out why. You sexualized several experiences that were not intended to be sexualized and you are now centered in a conversation on “The Open Secret of Sexual Abuse.” My question to you is can you understand how your need for justice impacts my need for justice?

The construction of “you felt compelled to risk my relationship with my teacher” (emphasis added) deepens the DARVO pattern by suggesting that West’s intention in bringing the accusation was to harm the disciple, rather than to allege a sexual assault. 

The disciple then rephrases the report of the alleged assault to minimize it. The KQED article states: “Ann West was performing an advanced backbend at a yoga workshop when her teacher came over and stroked her breasts and nipples, she said. He did it, she said, in a way ‘that could only be described as a caress.'”

In the disciple’s statement, this becomes “confusing pressure on your form that was not to your liking.” 

“Confusing” infantilizes West as someone not capable of correctly interpreting the chaste genius of Manos. “Form” is a loaded-language substitute for “body” or “breasts and nipples” that vaguely appeals to yoga philosophy, suggesting something illusory or of only relative importance. If West were mature, the sentence implies, she would understand not only the mastery of Manos’s touch, but that her body was insignificant. 

Conflating the “climate of the room” with an allegation of sexual assault unwittingly sheds light upon the premises of coercion that have been normalized. Historically, the “climate” of such rooms has been one of vertical authority ascribed to the teacher, and implied consent ascribed to the student.

Despite the disciple’s opening claim of familiarity with rape culture, accusing West of not being able to figure out how not to come back to Manos’s class fails to account for  the power differential at play in the professional implications of severing ties with Manos, a Senior Council member of IYNAUS. It also fails to account for the possibility of the well-known phenomenon of trauma bonding.

Other victim-blaming statements are clear. West is accused of feeling assaulted, instead of being assaulted and reporting it. West is told to sort out that feeling. She is told she “sexualized” Manos’s actions. The disciple also claims to know Manos’s intentions.

Sexual assault is not defined by the assaulter’s intentions, nor even by the interpretation of the victim. It is, rather, defined by what actually occurs between two people: non-consensual sexual contact with or penetration of a victim’s body. Many experts emphasize that the power differential between the two people is a key factor in assault.

Similar arguments were used to deflect and minimize approximately 30 years of in-class assaults committed by Pattabhi Jois. 

Manouso is a very serious yoga student and teacher. Thank God, because he is often in charge of scores of people who have or have had serious physical injuries. Manouso guides entire classes to perform micro surgeries on their deepest injuries. In [more than a decade ago], I was told by my physical therapist that I should own to the fact that I might not ever do a backbend again. I met Manouso and have been doing backbends ever since. In 2011, my doctor said that he would not recommend a physical therapist to me since my spinal condition necessitated surgery. I did backbends this week…all because of Manouso. This is not purely a physical achievement. Manouso’s yogic technology is extensive. He manages emotional fields. Internationally, people in pain tell Manouso about their problems. Manouso consistently shows up to emotionally and physically manage more students than most people will ever consider managing. He is a dedicated and fearless leader and servant of yoga.

Again, the disciple’s personal reports of healing are matters of private belief. But the propaganda continues here with inflated generalizations and a conflation of personal anecdote with universal value.

“Manouso guides entire classes to perform micro surgeries on their deepest injuries.” Iyengar discourse is particularly fond of appropriating medical terminology. This goes back directly to Iyengar himself, whose Light on Yoga is filled with unsupported medical claims and who in later years taught “Medical Yoga” classes. 

Praising the value a member received from a group in order to invalidate the suffering another member experienced in the same group has been called “I Got Mine-ism“. 

“Manages emotional fields”. Anecdote: the one class I attended by Manos, and the only time I met him, was at his “Abode of Iyengar Yoga” in San Francisco. He personally invited me after I requested an interview. I was upfront about my interests, writing that I wanted to ask him his thoughts on how Iyengar and Jois reported suffering physical and emotional abuse at the hands of T. Krishnamacharya, and on the fact that Iyengar went on to verbally and physically assault many of his own students. I also said that I wanted to follow up on whether he had anything to say about the 1991 article about him.

Manos opened the class by introducing me and then verbally assaulting me for about five minutes in a loud shouting voice. His complaint centred on my exploration of somatic dominance in Iyengar’s teaching.

There were about fifty students in the room. Those I could see (I was near the back) sat bolt upright and absolutely silent. When he finished shouting, I began to respond. He cut me off and commanded the class to chant OM. Everyone complied. Then he put the class into savasana and led us through breathing techniques.

I had just been verbally assaulted and felt hyperaroused and paralyzed, but I wondered about the “emotional fields” of everyone else in that room, which Manos was willing to impact by venting personal vitriol on a stranger. It was afterwards, through the work of Stein, that I recognized the juxtaposition of fear and supposed care in the room, and its correlation with trauma bonding.

As I left the room at the end of class, a woman touched me on the arm. “I hope you had a great class,” she said, beaming and hopeful.

“Well, with a welcome like that…”. I started out sardonic, but trailed off as her face darkened. 

“It’s just that he is a hero to so many of us,” she said, moved. “And we want you to love him as much as we do.”

I understand you feel victimized and I hate that for you. I hope that you can try and understand that as a woman in America, you are surely victimized in many ways by a sexist system. However, I also need you to try to understand that as a white woman in America, your privilege allowed you not only to ruminate for years on the location and pressure of an incredibly wise and seasoned yoga instructor’s adjustments, but also to center your story without adequately assessing the impact it has on others. Manouso students all over the world are dealing with way bigger problems than those you have alleged against Manouso. Do you understand that your allegation of inappropriate groping risks my relationship with my teacher? He may now be less inclined to adjust me, a petite woman with large breasts. He may also decide the stress of teaching his American classes is more than he cares to handle. Do you understand the gravity of ramifications you have potentially set in motion by your inability to cope with your PTSD? You and I are now linked in ways we were not before. Any absence on his part as as a teacher that occurs because of you will land on me and other students who may be worse off than you. Can you acknowledge that? And the power you have here?

“Manouso students all over the world are dealing with way bigger problems than those you have alleged against Manouso” is meant to dismiss an allegation of sexual assault through harm calculus. 

The balance of the comment furthers the DARVO groove. West’s reporting of harm is framed as privileged, harmful, endangering to other students, potentially depriving them of health. West is made out as selfish for reporting her experience. In what might be the cruellest comment of all, West is castigated for not being able to “cope” with PTSD.

The open secret of sexual abuse happened to young men in the Catholic Church and men of color in prisons and women on college campuses across the nation. Women and women all over the world are being severely raped and beaten right now. Sexual abuse has also happened in the yoga community. However, there is not an “open secret of sexual abuse” in Manouso’s classroom. Rather, there is a caring and conscious community of healers and yoga nerds who are human. If what you found looked different than this to you, I invite you to explore that further by asking what in your history led to your current comfort with victimhood.

The fact that many Iyengar students have been unaware of the 1991 article means that there is by definition an “open secret of sexual abuse”.

Obviously her fellow disciples are human. The odd use of the word implies that the discussion concerns everyday foibles. High-demand groups have many caring and conscious members. This has nothing to do with how they constellate around power, or how they can be indoctrinated to normalize abuse.

The paragraph ends with a psychologization of “victimhood” as an attitude. This erases the legal meaning of “victim”, which in this case would apply to a person who had been assaulted.

I congratulate my community for having a platform for women to come forward and to discuss all the messiness that comes with a sexist society. I am upset how quickly people are to take sides on a topic where they do not have intimate knowledge one way or the other. I am honored to be a yogi among you and I am so glad that we can hold that the dynamics of power and sexism are very complex. Indeed we all need skillful action moving forward.

The statement ends as it began, with a veneer of openness, but this time larded with self-congratulation that extends to the group. It’s unclear what “platform” she’s referring to, as West was asked to keep her communications with the Ethics Committee confidential. 

After completely ignoring West’s side, labelling the allegation as “messiness”, and describing Manos in near-divine terms, she criticizes “taking sides”.

After completely shutting down West, she claims to be holding complexity along with the group, allowing her to identify as a “yogi”.

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