The Tyranny of Tradition

Here we go again!  In the hopes of cashing in on a trend that seems to never go away, Florida death metal legends have become the 318^th band to record an album focusing on the obvious connection between Satanism and yoga.  The album, tentatively titled “Hellward Facing Dog”, is scheduled for release in September in an attempt to not coincide with the hundreds of satanic yoga albums due out this summer.

Since the release of Virginia Republican Lieutenant Gubernatorial candidate E.W. Jackson’s 2008 book Ten Commandments To An Extraordinary Life:  Making Your Dreams Come True, which claims that yoga opens the soul to tampering by the devil, a nearly endless stream of Satan-themed yoga metal albums have come and gone.  “The connection is so obvious it seems passé at this point,” said lifetime yoga practitioner and devil worshiper Billy “Gore Tornado” Yee, “it’s obvious that if you engage in a spiritual practice that in any way steps outside the Western religious tradition or that seems, well, weird, you are bound to have your soul turned into Swiss cheese by the Dark Lord himself.  It was just a matter of time before the metal world caught up.”

Boy, have they ever caught up!  Satanic yoga metal classes have moved from fringe exercises performed by a legion of hate mongering savages to a regular activity taught at your local YMCA.  Morbid Angel’s yoga video “Sweatin’ With Satan” was the number 3 workout video in the country in 2009. The classic “horns-up” metal salute has been jettisoned in favor of a Buddhist hand mudra.  Moshing, once common at metal shows, has been replaced by groups of angry, tee shirt clad metalheads reciting mantras while seated in lotus position.

Deicide frontman Glen Benton, a “satanic purist” who had previously claimed to have no interest in the yogafying the band’s sound, has recently embraced the ancient art and even appeared on the television show “The View” to do poses with host Elizabeth Hasselbeck.  During the show, Benton admitted he was wrong about yoga and had never really taken the time to consider how sitting quietly in meditation and reconnecting with his body would allow him to unlock the “Satan within” that he had been seeking most of his adult life.  Benton went on to say that Deicide was considering using the next tour to promote even more controversial satanic practices like playing soccer and eating yogurt.