“Wily con man, yogi, athelete, bank president, founder of the Tantrik Order in America and the Clarkstown Country Club in Nyack, New York, the remarkable “Doctor” Bernard was all of these. He was also the Omnipotent Oom, whose devoted followers included some of the most famous names in America.”

Pierre Bernard, Oom the Omnipotent, Promoter and Self-Styled Swami, Dies
New York Times, September 28, 1955

Pierre Arnold Bernard, once widely known as Oom the Omipotent, who established the Clarkstown Country Club in Nyack, N.Y., thirty-seven years ago, died yesterday in the French Hospital. He was 80 years old. Mr. Bernard brought many prominent people to his Nyack club and members bought estates near there once valued at more than $2,000,000. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Blanche deVries Bernard, and three brothers, Glenn, Jeb and Jarvis of Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Mr. Bernard began his heyday as “Oom the Omnipotent” — “O.O.” to his close friends — in 1910. A police inquiry in that year disclosed charges of that he was runing a love cult touched up with Hindu philosophy in a “Temple of Mystery” on the West Side. The next year he was back in business, this time as the operator of the “New York Sanskrit College,”specializing in yogi exercises, health and religious talks to classes of girls and tired business men. He claimed to be a guru — a Hindu teacher –on the basis of a long residence in India. He also described himself as a swami of India, great dispenser of Hindu mysticism and Yogi of the Tantrik Order.

The sardonic “Oom,” who was said to have begun his unusual career in Chicago as a barber and acrobat, subsequently transferred his activities to Nyack. He opened the Brae Burn Country Club, attracting a clientele that included New York Society women and securities brokers. Police raided his place in 1919, and state troopers found his followers doing simple exercises.

A drive was initiated by local citizens to rid Nyack of the club. “Oom,” his fortunes prospering, responded by buying seventy-six acres for more than $100,000 and became well liked in the section. His new acreage which he named the Clarkstown Country Club, was soon the site of an annual circus. One of his prize exhibits was “Mom,” said to be one of the largest female elephants in the Western Hemisphere. “Mom,” died in 1933 in her ninety-second year, embarassing twenty veterinarians who had tried to save her.

He later became a leading citizen of Rockland County, holding a variety of posts in financial institutions. In his later years he became pretty much of the conservative dresser, swapping his toga-like robe for expensive English tweeds. Once, when asked if he wasn’t more concerned with money than with metaphysics, he supposedly said with a smile, “I wouldn’t care to say.”