Here Comes the Yogiman 107
attend the Swami’s lecture. Yogananda, for his part, denied that he had given any
private lessons in Miami, said that the woman who had been hospitalized had
been suffering for twenty years and came to him with the consent of her husband,
and specified that, besides, he charged only twenty- five dollars for his lectures.
Yogananda was nevertheless blocked by the police department from delivering
any subsequent presentations. The Miami police chief, Leslie Quigg, claimed
that his prohibiting Yogananda from holding any further events was due to no
personal grudge against the Swami but rather in the interest of public order and
Yogananda’s own safety. Quigg reportedly had received multiple phone calls
containing veiled threats against Yogananda and promising that if the police did
not ensure that the “cult leader” left town, others would take matters into their
own hands.
Unwilling to concede defeat, Yogananda attempted to obtain a restraining
order that would stop the police from further interfering with his scheduled
lectures. It was then explicitly “suggested” that Yogananda leave Miami. The lec-
ture hall was surrounded by police armed with tear gas to prevent any person
from entering, whether to deliver a lecture or to observe one. Police Chief Quigg
expressed concerns about riots. After a lengthy and sensationalized appeals pro-
cess, Yogananda was nevertheless unable to deliver his lectures as planned. As the
news reports of these proceedings suggest, Yogananda appeared to have left quite
an impression on Miami’s female population.
The reports especially honed in on the unfortunate progress of one woman—
name not provided— who had apparently experienced a total mental break and
been confined to a sanitarium following Yogananda’s lecture, described by her
family physician as “violently insane.” Sanitarium director Charles A. Reed fur-
ther testified:
She talks about the Swami constantly and imagines she is a lion, attempt-
ing to roar and conduct herself as she thinks a lion does... . She says the
Swami told her he was a lion and that he had Miami in his grasp. She refuses
food until attendants assure her it has been in contact with the Swami and
she insists it must be of the proper color and proper vibrations.^39The woman’s husband testified that although she had previously been a Spiritualist
and trance medium, she had been mentally and physically sound until she attended
Yogananda’s lectures. Numerous witnesses testified in defense of Yogananda, claim-
ing that his lectures had in fact been highly spiritual in character and had contained
no objectionable elements. A Presbyterian minister who had come all the way
from Philadelphia even declared that Yogananda’s explanations of the sayings of
Jesus were the purest and best he had ever heard. However, on cross- examination