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According to the man who want’s to be Virginia’s next lieutenant governor, people who like to exercise or relax by contorting their bodies into therapeutic, muscle-building poses aren’t just getting a good workout, they’re also exposing themselves to eternal damnation.

E.W. Jackson, the Republican Party’s nominee for the state’s No. 2 job, wrote in a 2008 book that the practice of meditation conjures images of yoga, the purpose of which, he claimed, “is to empty oneself.” That, in turn, Jackson continued, opens the yoga practitioner to an unsuspected takeover by the Devil. National Review writer Betsy Woodruff dug through Jackson’s book, Ten Commandments To An Extraordinary Life, and found the following passage:

[Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want.

So, there you have it. Strike a downward-facing dog pose, and you might as well be staring directly into the eyes of Lucifer. It might not be so bad. People possessed by the Devil often become quite limber during their spells.

If Jackson wants to be sure to avoid potential Hellmouths while he tours Virginia with his running mate, Attorney General Ken “The Cooch” Cuccinelli, he should consult Yoga Journal’s directory. The satanic tomemagazine lists 120 studios across the commonwealth.

Jackson sure is turning out to be quite the candidate. Previously, he compared Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan, and said that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people have “perverted minds.” He also destroyed a watermelon on camera.