While browsing for information on a particular Barbie, I was surprised to see Google recommend appending the word "controversy" to my search. The Barbie in question?
Breathe With Me Barbie. Breathe With Me Barbie is part of a range of self-care and wellness Barbies and depicts Barbie in a sukhasana pose, promising "5 guided meditations".
Unsure of where the controversy around this could be going, I clicked through. This seemed to be the root of it.
Various websites from Business Insider to The Christian Post to Newsweek cite Christian influencer (or, in the words of Business Insider, micro-influencer) Yasmeen Suri as being the origin of the claim that this doll is an agent of Satanism.
This would not be the first person to associate yoga with Satanism or possession - exorcist Gabriele Amorth also associated the practice of yoga with increased chance of demonic possession.
I can't find a screenshot of this, though, and all links back to the Facebook post are dead. What I did find though is a Patheos satire article dated shortly before the rest of these articles citing "Jasmine Blades" from Christians Against Eastern Religions as the source of the same quote.
Neither Christians Against Eastern Religions or Jasmine Blades are real, of course, hence their inclusion in a clearly marked satire piece. But I don't know where this leaves real Christian influencer Yasmeen Suri and her alleged (re)posting of the same quote picking up steam a week later. I don't know whether she saw the satire post and reposted the quote, to take it down later once she realised, or whether these articles quoting her as the source are misattributions. I'm leaning to the former, but I'm not actually sure.
There's a Truth or Fiction page debunking this, but what it is debunking is a) whether Breathe With Me Barbie depicts the practice of yoga (it depicts meditation, not yoga), b) whether this was a new doll in 2022 (it was not, it was released in 2020), c) whether yoga is synonymous with Hinduism and d) whether Catholicism or Christianity more generally prohibit or warn against the practice of yoga as a matter of doctrine.
For the record, by the way, there are Barbies that are explicitly depicted as practicing yoga, such as I Can Be... Yoga Teacher Barbie.
Or that appear to depict the practice of yoga on the box art, such as the Made to Move series.
Or dolls such as this Fitness Barbie who is depicted with various fitness equipment such as weights and a hula hoop, as well as a yoga mat.
