Things have been quiet on the Anusara front the past few weeks. So quiet that I was just about to delete my #Anusara Twitter stream. But there must be some kind of astrological action, because today (a Sunday, no less!) we get three new articles on the situation from the mainstream press. And they offer some surprising illuminations.

Inside the Wiccan sex coven via The Daily Beast

After noticing that “little has been revealed about Friend’s leadership of the all-female coven,” The Daily Beast tracked down some former members of the coven for spicy insider details of what went down.

Upcoming Apple Store events: yoga authors, iPhone 4S

So I get this email with a bewildering subject line: SOHO Apple Store Yoga Cures Launch April 3. I had no idea what this combination of words could possibly mean. But what they mean is that Tara Stiles will be launching her new book, Yoga Cures, at the Apple Store in SOHO, NYC on April 3. Another noted yoga author, William J. Broad, will be discussing his book, The Science of Yoga, and Jason Wachob, founder of MindBodyGreen.com will be moderating the conversation.

This should be an entertaining and unorthodox evening of yoga talk. At the Apple Store. Not a book store or a yoga studio, but the Apple Store.

Tara Stiles actually makes an appearance in The Science of Yoga, and she’s not presented in the best light. According to Broad, “Tara Stiles exemplified the durability” of one of the most pervasive yoga myths: that yoga speeds up the metabolism and aids in weight loss. Her book, Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, was based on this myth and even had a whole chapter devoted to “slenderizing.”

So let’s hope that WJB asks Tara some tough questions about the research she did for Yoga Cures, or at least discusses the myth on which she bases her marketing.

Meet the Authors: Tara Stiles and William J. Broad
April 3, 2012 6pm – 7pm
SOHO Apple Store
72 Greene Street
New York, NY

L’affair Anusara continues to get coverage beyond the yoga community, this time with a five page investigative and detailed article in The Washington Post. Titled “Scandal contorts future of John Friend, Anusara Yoga,” the article follows the narrative arc of the scandal since YogaDork broke the story on Feb 3. I’ve been following this story since day one, but this is the first time that it’s been laid out with most of the details and even further information from key players.

And you know what? It’s a crazy story. Which we’ve known all along, but it’s reinforced by reading a concise, linear outline of events, rather than the bits and chunks through blog posts and “letters.” As YogaDawg noted on Facebook: “[This] reads like a yoga satire. It would have been hard to make this stuff up.” It’s true.

The Washington Post breaks it down for us:

In conference calls, e-mails and hushed conversations, Friend has admitted to sexual relations with students and employees and married women. He has confessed to cheating on one girlfriend and smoking marijuana, according to senior Anusara instructors who have participated in conference calls with him. And he has acknowledged leading an otherwise all-female Wiccan coven whose members sometimes took off all their clothes for gatherings, according to senior Anusara instructors who detailed his admissions in a written summary provided to The Washington Post. The coven’s name was the Blazing Solar Flames, and Friend had Anusara’s graphics team design a logo for it, according to three former employees. Continue Reading