charlatans. After Sara Bull left the greater part of
her half-million-dollar estate to the Vedanta Soci-
ety, her daughter called for testimony of family
servants, who reported frequent visits of swamis,
a MEDITATION room, and séances. On the basis of
their testimony, the court overturned Bull’s will
and awarded the money to her daughter. A series
of articles in the press spewed forth, complaining
that Americans, particularly women, were duped
by Indian “holy men” and were forsaking the
true Christian faith. A recurring theme was that
Hinduism appealed to bored older women who
had sizable fortunes to bequeath to their teach-
ers. In 1914, Elizabeth Reed’s Hinduism in Europe
and America attacked alleged exploiters of naïve
Westerners and blamed the tenets of Hinduism
for their crimes.
Anti-Asian sentiment had direct political effect
as well. Following immigration exclusion acts in
1882 and 1914 directed primarily against Chinese
and Japanese immigrants, the Asian Exclusion Act
of 1917 specifically denied immigration to Asians
from India. By denying entry into the United
States from most Asian countries, including India,
the act effectively cut off immigration for several
generations and halted what would have been,
most probably, a significant growth of Hindu-
ism. Several years later, the Supreme Court of the
United States ruled that Indians were not eligible
for citizenship and that the citizenship granted to
previous Indian immigrants would be revoked. By
1921, a quota system allowed immigration from
countries in proportion to each nationality’s per-
centage in the United States. The quota for India
was approximately 100 annually. This federal act
of exclusion significantly curtailed the growth of
Hindu movements. Of the organizations formed
before 1917, only the Vedanta Society remained.
In 1927, Katherine Mayo’s best-selling MOTHER
INDIA damned all things Indian and heaped oppro-
brium on the worship of KALI. Mayo characterized
Indians as inert, helpless, and weak: in all, slaves
to superstition and oppressors of women and
minorities. Perhaps no other writing damaged
Indo-American understanding so severely and
so prejudiced an entire generation of Americans.
From the early 1920s until 1960, anti-Indian
feeling was strong, although Hinduism itself was
not perceived as a political threat. This period
includes two world wars, American isolation-
ism after World War I, intense hatred of things
Eastern because of Pearl Harbor, and the Korean
conflict. That attacks on India and Indian tradi-
tions occurred is hardly surprising. What may be
surprising are the viability and growth of interest
in Hinduism throughout this period.
The Hindu community grew very slowly after
the passage of the exclusion act. Teachers who
immigrated prior to the exclusion act continued
to lead and write. A Bengali playwright, Besudeb
Bhattacharya, took the name Pundit Acharya and
founded the Temple of Yoga, the Yoga Research
Institute, and Prana Press in New York. Paramah-
ansa YOGANANDA, charismatic teacher and author
of the still-popular Autobiography of a Yogi, arrived
in the United States in 1920 and organized the
Yogoda-Satsang in 1926. Now known as SELF-
REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP, Yogananda’s organization
has been extremely influential in disseminating
Hindu thought through home correspondence
courses and initiation into KRIYA YOGA disciplines.
Other teachers from India created organizations,
taught Hindu ideas and practices, and fostered
interfaith cooperation, including A. K. Mozumdar
(The Messianic World Message), Swami Omkar
(Shanti Ashrama), Sri DEVA RAM SUKUL (Dharma
Mandal), Kedarnath Das Gupta (Fellowship of
Faiths), Sant Ram Mandal (Universal Brotherhood
Temple and School of Eastern Philosophy), Rishi
Krishnananda (Para-Vidya Center), and Swami A.
P. Mukerji (Transcendent Science Society).
Theosophy continued to contribute to the
dissemination of Hindu ideas through its grow-
ing number of lodges and its reliable editions of
Hindu and Buddhist texts. Theosophy also gained
increasing popularity through its promotion of
Jiddu KRISHNAMURTI as the vehicle for the coming
world teacher, prophesied by spiritual adepts inK 468 United States