Toxic Tantra

Episode 9: Update

A short update on “Soul Catcher – Toxic Tantra” – and a request: Do you have any tips for us, about the Atman yoga movement or other groups? If you think you should research this, please contact christiane.hawranek@br.de or katja.paysen-petersen@br.de. We treat your information confidentially.

Episode 8: Therapy

Liz therapist tells how she encouraged her to leave. Nathalie meets Gregorian Bivolaru again – things escalate. Other dropouts contact us and report on their experiences in the Atman movement. And we get answers to our questions for the German Academy for Traditional Yoga.

Episode 7: Expensive herbs

We are looking for a woman’s grave in Bucharest. Her story and other reports make it clear how dangerous it can be to get stuck in the mindset of the yoga movement. Liz shows us a letter that will change everything for her. We confront the Romanian yoga school MISA, where Nathalie was active, with allegations.

Episode 6:  Initiation

Nathalie and Eva describe the meetings with Gregorian Bivolaru. The “tantric initiation” is very long sex with your guru. They participate voluntarily, but in retrospect they perceive it as sex without consent.

Episode 5: Trapped

Nathalie tells us about her trip to Paris, where she soon feels like she’s in a crime thriller. She doesn’t know exactly where she is being taken and ends up in her guru’s “waiting room”. Eva also remembers being there. The two women’s accounts are similar, even in details.

Episode 4: Lucky Love

Undercover research in the Lucky Love strip club in Bucharest: Will we be able to confirm our suspicion that women from the yoga school here dance on the pole for karma? On the Black Sea coast we learn disturbing things about the school’s yoga summer camps.

Episode 3: Shakti State

We fly to Romania, the founding country of the yoga movement. In a lecture we have our aura measured and get a strange video presentation about Gregorian Bivolaru. His former lawyer tells us about a sex business with women from the yoga school. Liz remembers how she wanted to become the perfect Shakti, a sex goddess.

Episode 2: Holy Guru

November 2023: Gregorian Bivolaru, the founder of the yoga movement, is arrested in France. The allegations: human trafficking, rape, kidnapping. Atman believes he is innocent and the investigation is still ongoing. We learn why the man wanted by Interpol for years is still revered by people in the movement. Liz talks about her everyday life in her yoga school.

Episode 1: Yoga for Beginners

We get a tip from a “Soul Catcher” listener: She felt like she was in a sex cult in the Atman yoga movement. We do a trial lesson undercover at the “Deutsche Akademie für Traditionelles Yoga”, a member school of Atman. Dropout Nathalie reports on how she ended up in the movement. And we meet Liz. When we ask her about her guru, she reacts negatively.