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Tuesday on the 28.
November 2023, early in the morning
in Yverie-sur-Seine, very
close to Paris.
Dark-dressed police officers with
guns and storm caps steer
into an apartment on the ground floor
of an apartment complex.
White rolling rods over
terrace windows and doors block
the view into the interior.
Police are storming the apartment.
They are looking for Gregorian Vivolaro,
the so-called guru of the
Atman yoga movement.
Approximately so it should
have been.
A few hours later,
my colleague Christiane
Havranek and I got
news on the phones.
of the outgoing women.
We are currently in contact
with over a dozen
women and men.
Some people give us the information.
Grigorian Bivolaru
wasly arrested in France.
You know it from trusted sources.
We try to check the news, contact
the police and prosecutors
in Paris, get as much
information as possible.
And then, later in the
day, the news suddenly
spreads all over the
French media.
Also in the main news.
The operation was successful.
Police arrested Gregorian
Bivolaru.
On television images, instead
of a door, you can see only
lock-out boards that close
the entrance.
sealed by the police.
It is written on French
apartment GB and a list
of crimes.
The Paris prosecutor’s office
is investigating rape, human
trafficking, abuse
of trust of protection
officers and abduction
within an organized
gang.
In addition to Bivolaru, 40 other
suspects are still
in police custody.
All with Romanian citizenship,
we will learn later
from the Paris prosecutor’
s office.
58 women were found in the
house searches, most of them from
Romania, but also from other
countries, for example.
One from Germany, one from Argentina
and one from America.
Media reports say the women
were released and that they
had previously been imprisoned
under tight conditions
and regrettable
hygiene conditions.
In the main news show of the
major French television
channel TFA, a neighbor
of Bivolaru speaks
in an interview, anonymous.
The man says, once we saw
a woman with connected eyes,
but we never
suspected that it was
something bad.
Interesting neighborhood.
We also report on the
Bavarian radio about
the arrest of the so-
called yoga guru.
The outbound women
we have contacted
keep us up to
date.
For example, Nathalie via
language message.
She has received information from insiders
that Bivolaru is in detention.
Hello, so, so Bivolaru is now
in pre-trial detentions.
So he doesn’t come out now.
This is Megagut.
I was a little scared
that he would get out there.
But now... yes, it’
s somehow very relieving.
Someday it will be official.
The court ordered the arrest
of Gregorian Bivolaru
and five other people.
Leaders of the movement,
it is said in some
reports.
Bivolaru is facing up to 30 years
in prison.
So, if the investigators can
confirm the allegations
and he is convicted.
First of all, the presumption
of innocence.
The Romanian yoga school MISA,
which Bivolaru founded,
published a press release
shortly afterwards.
The allegations are unfounded.
The women who were released
were not victims at
all, at most victims
of a alleged brutal
action by the
French police.
None of them considered
themselves exploited,
abused, dealt with or
victim of rape.
At the end of our research we
will interview
the MISA press spokeswoman.
She will say in English that
she has no doubt that Bivolaru
is innocent.
Christiane and I have been asking
each other over and over again these
days, what does this arrest do to
the outgoing women?
What do you feel about Nathalie
and Liz?
What about Bivolaru?
This is Soulfanger, Season
4, Toxic Tantra.
A podcast by Christiane Havranek
and me, Katja
Peisen-Petersen.
Episode 2 – Holy Guru.
In this episode of Soulfighters,
we want to find out what drew
Nathalie and Liz into
the yoga movement.
How it could happen that
at first they just wanted
to do yoga and tantra and
eventually did not know
each other.
Nathalie, who is on the island
in Thailand, she tells us
her story by teams.
Nathalie takes us where
we left her story
in Episode 1.
Rishikesh in India.
Here she has fallen
into the yoga movement,
which goes back to Gregorian Bivolaru.
Here she did yoga and tantra,
attended the Angelwalk and
meditated on her Guru.
And here she also met
the well-looking Australian
Jasper and fell in love with him.
But now, in April 2020,
everything is over at a hit.
Suddenly there was a corona.
Natalie sits alone in her hostel
and takes the yoga
lessons online.
But at some point she can’t
stand it anymore and her parents
are stressed.
She is then returning
to Germany, to her
mother.
So I know the first
day I came home,
we had such a huge
quarrel.
First, Nathalie’s mother
must get out of all the worries
she made about her daughter
when she was sitting
somewhere in India and
Corona was grinding around her.
And now that Nathalie is
finally back, her mom becomes
aware that this
yoga group in India has
changed her daughter.
Suddenly I am completely different
than I was before.
Before, there was no spiritual,
not even in the direction.
And suddenly I was stopping,
wow, completely turned to
the left somehow.
For example, the matter
of meat.
Her daughter, who previously
had been eating chicken because
she was doing bodybuilding, is
now suddenly on a vegetarian
journey.
This is not dramatic,
on the contrary.
But there are more changes.
And the wondering Nathalie’
s mother not only, no, they
alarm her.
Instead of going out and
immersing her in her normal
daily life, her daughter
retreats to her room.
She does yoga for hours.
And in addition online lessons
at the school in Rishikesh.
She also fasted every
Sunday to clean
her body and
soul.
Once in a day, she
eats only grains.
It was a bit like that
for my mom, is it okay?
Ohh...
Yes, so it was difficult.
It was difficult for her to...
and understand.
In fact, Nathalie is in her
minds especially
at the yoga school and
at her friend Jasper.
He has also left India.
He and a few other students
from the yoga school
flew to Romania.
There, in Romania, the origins
of the yoga movement Atman lie.
This is the school where it
all started.
She packed her bags
and waited for
the flights to
start again.
Then I was the first plane
that stopped, and
then I stopped for
Romania.
Nathalie will fly to Romania
to live there.
This decision will
prove fatal.
Your guru will play
a central role.
The Guru. The Guru again.
This is a YouTube video from
a kind of MISA fan channel by Mr.
and Leone.
We see kitschy images of
waves in which
the sunlight is reflected.
Women holding hands
and turning around.
There are also
Catholic
saints paintings.
And above all, there is
Gregorian Bivolaru, his voice.
He praises the blessings of
blessings.
The Art of Blessing by
Gregorian Bivolaru.
The effects that occur
after a blessing
and intensify over
time are complex and
diverse.
Some of them last days, weeks,
months, or even years.
When Christiane and I
started our investigation,
we knew he was on the
Interpol list for serious
cases of human
trafficking.
This is 10 years
imprisonment.
And for sexual abuse.
However, this accusation
is outdated.
But we also know that he
is still admired by his
followers.
Photos of him, framed,
hanging in several yoga schools,
tell us outgoers.
At our first visit
to Berlin, we saw it.
A framed photo of Gregorian
Bivolaru was hanging there, surrounded
by the images of other
spiritual teachers,
such as Jesus Christ.
What is wrong with this
man, as many call him?
Why is he so revered
by his followers, even
though he has been
internationally spotted
for years?
Gregorian Bivolaru grew
up in Romania in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, Nicola Ceausescu
came to power.
A ruthless dictator who builds
huge magnificent buildings
for himself while his people
are starving.
Ceausescus’s secret service, the
Securitate, brutally persecutes
all who think differently.
Gregorian Bivolaru is one
of those unadapted, so we read
it on the Internet.
He is already doing yoga, as in
Romania hardly anyone knows what it is.
At the age of 15, he read
books in English and French on
parapsychology, sex
sciences and esoteric
traditions.
This is written by a yoga
teacher.
He practiced yoga
for 8 to 9 hours a day.
At 18 years old, he taught me that.
But someday he must do it in
secret, because
yoga was banned in Romania
in 1982.
Bivolaru is arrested several
times and even placed in a
psychiatric hospital.
Like many other critics
of the regime.
In a television interview,
he talks about how he was being
persecuted.
He says that he has always
told the security that the accusations
against him are not
true.
A real find for us is a
documentary about Gregorian
Bivolaru from 1995.
Also posted by mr.
and Leone. Like Volaro, he tells a
truly adventurous story
of how he managed
to escape from the captivity
of the Securitate.
The fact is that I organized
my escape from the prison
of the Securitate by
myself, from which,
as I was told later,
no one had ever escaped.
The yoga procedures
have helped me
a lot.
And by combining certain
telepathic and hypnotic
procedures, I was
able to accomplish
this performance.
This is his version.
This is the 1989 revolution.
People in Bucharest are crying out
on the streets for freedom, freedom.
The Ceaușescus regime collapsed.
And Bivolaru is now celebrated
by his followers.
As one who is committed to
spirituality and free thinking.
Shortly after, in 1990, he founded
MISA, which, as it is officially
called, is a movement for spiritual integration
into the Absolute.
This is the first school of the yoga
movement, the one with which
it all begins.
In the 1990s, the ashram
in Romania was quite large,
40 ashrams were said to have been in Romania
alone and it is expanding
to other countries.
In a YouTube video from a
Romanian local newspaper from 2017, Bivolaru
praises himself and his school.
It is a sort of press statement.
I am very pleased with the progress of the
activities at the yoga school Misa.
It is the largest yoga school in
Europe and is constantly expanding.
Bivolaru is still considered
by his followers today as a wise
man, an enlightened
man, a spiritual teacher,
and because of his past,
he has always been wrongly
persecuted for political
or religious reasons.
His supporters still think so
in 2004.
Someone
points to Bivolaru because he
is alleged to have a sexual relationship
with a minor yoga student.
Bivolaru is briefly imprisoned,
but is released, settles
abroad and submerges.
He even received political asylum
from Sweden.
The authorities have talked
to some of his followers
and are of the opinion that yes,
Bivolaru is being persecuted
for his religious
beliefs.
In 2013, he was sentenced
to six years in prison
for having sex with
a minor.
He is not in the country.
When investigated against
Bivolaru, he has a lawyer,
of whom we read on the
internet.
His name is Mihai Raptcha.
The interesting thing about
him, he was apparently himself
a supporter of the movement, but has
now resigned and posted warnings
on his blog before the school.
He is a lawyer and lives
in Bucharest.
We write him.
Maybe he has documents
from then, notes, something
that can help us.
While we are waiting for a
response from him, we talk
to Nathalie, who lives
on the Thai island.
We want to know more about
your time in Romania.
We are back in team
with her.
Nathalie tells us that no
one in school has done
a big thing, from the
Interpol list with Bivolaru
on it.
Everyone knows he is
being hide, being pursued.
That is so common
knowledge.
Nathalie is told, just like
other yoga students, that Bivolaru
is being persecuted for political
reasons, just like it
was during Communism.
There are some evil forces
in the game.
Because of course he wants
to bring a lot of good to this earth.
And then all the demons
go back somehow
and then pursue him.
And then the demons of course
also infiltrate all people
somehow and then start chasing
him. The Demons.
This is why the school
justifies so much.
He must hide half
now.
It’s not because he
did something wrong or so, but because
all of this is just the
demons who want
to keep him from doing
good.
Okay is.
The devil story can not really
get away from
Nathalie from the beginning.
It is simply too clarified for that.
In fact, when Nathalie arrived
in Bucharest, the whole
Guru thing doesn’t matter.
She just wants to be with
her friend and do yoga, in this
wonderful community.
People are now speaking
Grieg more and more often.
And then I was told,
yes, stop somehow with a daily
meditation with his
picture.
Nathalie gets pictures pressed
into her hand, with Bivolaru on it.
She puts it down and looks
at the first photo.
Bivolaru, a man wholly
strange to her, looks
at you with a
gentle smile.
Nathalie tries to connect
with him in peace.
That was where I think now,
so, boah, it didn’t go at all.
In the man in whom others
see her guru, Nathalie
sees only an unattractive
old guy with bedroom
view and white
hair.
I actually had such
problems when I did this
meditation.
I was like that, boah, I
don’t have a buck at all.
And that’s all, so where
I actually got really angry.
So right, Boah, I don’t
want to do that.
Nathalie’s yoga teachers are trying
to convince her of this meditation
on Bivolaru, she says.
Of course, this was told
to me.
So, yes, this is all just
a spiritual test.
If you have any problems
with it, give it to all
this Guru and with
him, spiritual test.
These are the demons who
want to prevent you from
getting in touch with your guru.
For sect experts, this is
a red flag, a feature that
should be watched out for.
People with power manipulate
others so that they no
longer trust themselves, their
own intuition.
This is also called gaslighting.
Nathalie still doesn’t
believe in demons, but
at the spiritual tests she
bites.
This theory is known to her from
her Tantra courses.
So, life holds various tests
ready for one.
Either you master them and
go up a ladder or you
don’t and you fall down.
Is the meditation on Bivolaru
for Nathalie also a test
at the end?
Where I am now in retrospect,
that was full of my intuition,
so that’s all bullshit and then I
stopped giving it up at some point.
So I was like that
then, boah, I don’t have a buck at
that now, that doesn’t work.
Nathalie puts Bivolaru
aside and does
what she came
to Bucharest for.
She does yoga, she does tantra,
she meditates, she is traveling
with the people from the yoga school
and she meets her friend
Jasper.
For a while it goes well.
But then Nathalie finds out.
Something that will change everything
for you.
She learns, Jasper, he
is not just with her.
He has had another girlfriend
for a long time.
One from school.
When I then found out that
he was with someone
else all the time, that
was my spiritual test.
So then not to say, okay,
that was, Hase, see you
never, so. That was my test.
Another test again.
Where I was then told all
the time, yes, and if you
have any problem, there
are only the demons.
You just have to let go of it.
When Nathalie talks about
teams, Christiane has to follow.
And who said that?
I am mine, he is.
also also. Jasper was in it,
and then he justified everything.
According to the motto, yes, that’
s all your bite.
Our teachers too all the time,
and then the boundaries
are a bit weird.
That you go to your
yoga teachers with
your relationship
problems and say yes, and
now that and that is happening.
And then... yes, their input
is always that, yes,
it’s all demonic
and divine and blablabla,
so hardcore.
Yes, Natalie also goes with
her relationship problems to
her yoga teachers.
They represent the doctrine that
the freedom of an open relationship
is good for spiritual
development.
Jealousy has nothing to look for.
So Natalies yoga teachers advise
her to overcome jealousy
with various exercises.
Yoga, meditation and so on.
No matter how much she tries,
Nathalie doesn’t get
to share Jasper with
another.
Jealousy eats them.
When it really went
down with Jasper, I was
told of course again, because
I had so many problems
now that he could
help me so.
He is Bivolaru, the spiritual
teacher, her guru, the type on
the Interpol list,
the type on which she cannot
meditate, no matter how much
she tries, because everything
in her is swirling against
him.
Is it he who is going to help her now?
Nathalie is desperate.
She wants to save her relationship.
And then I actually
came to the trail,
so, okay, now
I'm writing him
a letter.
She sits down and writes
Bivolaru.
I hope he can help her
overcome her jealousy.
He has some tips for you.
To this letter she also added
a photo of herself.
A selfie of her face.
That, she heard, needs
Vivolaro to read her aura.
We will be stumbling on the aura
reading even more often.
The best way to do this
is if women
are naked or only wearing
bikinis.
When Nathalie finishes her
letter to her guru, she hands
it over to women in the
yoga school, she tells us.
She hopes he will answer her.
You have heard it yourself.
Nathalie on the island in
Thailand takes us very deeply into
her experiences from the yoga school.
She even tells us about
her diary posts.
She seems completely cleared,
as if she had already
left behind what was.
With Liz it is different.
We met them one after another.
She is the one with a straight
back on the red stream
roof in the park.
We will go into an exchange
with her right away,
at the end of which
we really care about her.
Liz has so far only
made hints about her time
at school.
But when we wanted to
ask her about the Guru,
she stopped.
Shortly after we met her
in May 2023,
she sent us language messages.
And she explains to us in
what she holds from speaking to us.
So what goes away with me
is the normal media, the media
of Satan, the media of the
general people, so that
all vibrates somehow.
So you are part of the
division and you should
be careful of them somehow.
I took it somehow.
Christiane tries to gain
access to Liz and move
them back to a meeting.
I admit it openly, it is now
the fifth language
message, I think, that I begin
with you, because
I am very angry thinking
about how to find the
right words, without saying
so to speak, yes,
something wrong or so.
Maybe we can talk
again, because then,
yes, I just see more
on your face, even
if I might get something
stupid.
But Liz doesn’t want to
meet us personally anymore.
Not even on video.
She also does not want to call.
The only thing that is okay for
them is language messages.
She says she can respond to
them at any time and in peace.
Some of me believe
it is sacred.
And when I connect with
you now and speak to you,
it also feels in part as if I
would also introduce
you to a certain
knowledge.
I feel like a totally
miserable
traitor.
We are only now checking
so properly, which means
that Liz is still on the
way to exit.
She is still walking between
the worlds, she says.
So between the world
of yoga and our normal world.
She still believes in things that
seem to have been inserted
into her at school.
The more I integrated
into this community,
the more I adopted
its way of thinking,
its way of speaking, its
slang, the words used there,
the habits, the attitude,
the inner attitude
and a worldview.
And whatever was told
me, it was such
a certain call for
secrecy.
and secrecy.
And now she is talking to Christiane,
a media representative of Satan.
I definitely have an inner
voice saying that this
is your last test now.
And now you are being tested, so to
speak, whether you really
do this call for secrecy,
if you really obey it.
You do not do that degree.
Per that is why she wants
to point out from this bad
conscience that she has also
experienced good things
in the yoga school.
I have also received a lot
of beautiful and positive
views, especially on femininity.
I got a very nice
look at myself.
I also got a lot of courage
to allow a certain
sense and female sexuality
to be lived
out and radiated.
I also feel in contact
with other women.
They know I have a spark
or something.
And I know they want to have
that too.
This ambivalent that you
have experienced good,
many have already
told us.
But what I am trying to work
out so ultimately is, so to speak,
what are the points where
it is sliding?
Where people just don’t feel
good anymore?
Christiane gets more and more
language messages from Liz.
Sometimes 20 in a day,
then a week at all.
The times are only very short,
quickly taken on the way to the bus or
in the train, then again really
long, 20 minutes, intensive.
Reading is almost talking
to itself.
A walk in the park or
at home.
It looks like an audio journal.
I went to this young school
with the intention that I
wanted to be even healthier,
even stronger, even more
stable, and ultimately, it
really created such a
sharp pile of shit.
And I am completely confused
and I feel like after
a car accident and I am completely
crushed inside and also deep
into mine that everyone
is so hurt and disappointed,
but above all really
so deep confusion.
We realize that Liz really has
a lot to say, wants to say.
But it remains with these indications.
Is she in the fight between me,
I break my oath and
my silence?
Can I really trust the media?
We are now also very
aware of this.
Reading is scary.
Fear of the people from the
yoga school.
Because they have a
lot of power now.
They have schools all over the world.
They are really
professional in their work.
And I am alone.
I am bound to nothing
and no one.
I don’t have a employer
or something that is behind
me and supports me, but
I’m alone.
Read the v.a. No money for
a lawyer.
This is also about here.
She is afraid to be charged
for slander.
The fear of reading is justified.
In 2018, our colleagues
sent a short TV report about
Gregorian Bivolaru and
the Yoga Movement.
And there was Zack,
a lawyer’s letter.
But the court request
was rejected.
The Bavarian radio had not
made a mistake.
It only showed us that even
now members of the yoga
movement could press us to prevent
us from reporting with
threats of lawsuits.
and the women who speak,
as the lyrics.
And then I’m silent and
then I’m left alone with that giant
bump and shit I’ve experienced.
Nothing happens and it even
happens again.
Reading is not just about yourself.
She also worries about all those
who are still attending these
yoga schools.
The doors are wide open.
They are spreading and
more and more young people
are entering.
And this is not sustainable
in my opinion. It is impossible.
And I see an urgent need
to act to stop this.
But what exactly did Liz experience
in this school, which is part
of the German Academy
for Traditional Yoga?
The longer Liz and Christiane
send voice messages, the more familiar
they become with each other,
the more we become aware of what
she experienced, that
hurt her deeply inside.
So my path since I haven’
t gone there has been really
rough.
Actually, I just need a
safe space where I can
cry, where I can rest
and where someone
deprograms me and tells
me listen to this and
that and that and what
you have been in
the box for years now is absolute
nonsense.
That is not the truth.
Read has someone trying
to help.
She goes to therapy.
But she really
needed much more help.
Help in all possible
areas of life.
And I need that every
day someone tells
me that someone is around me
all the time, somehow
helping me out of these
fucking fucking movies,
but I can’t because
I’m busy with having
to pay my rent, pay my
bills, have something
to eat. I have not
had money for
food for
a long time.
I have been hungry for ever.
And it’s always
a shit wonder that I’m
still alive and that
I’ve survived all this
shit.
It may even be a small
wonder that Liz is not
simply back to their
yoga movement, as many
other outgoers of
sectarian groups do.
They go back to their
group because they simply
have too many difficulties
getting back on their
new life.
Because they lack a social
network, work or
places to turn to.
But then, after all the
language messages between Liz
and Christiane, it is finally
over.
Read almost trust us.
She wants to meet again.
and personal.
We want to learn as much as
possible about
this yoga movement.
Talk to as many people as possible
about their experiences.
So we contact the
practitioners.
We search for them on the affected
forums, through social media groups,
through reports in other
media, and worldwide.
What is really rough is
how many locations
they have worldwide.
And I think that in Europe
is right, really much.
Spain, France, Italy and Hungary.
Britain, Iceland, Scandinavia,
in Oslo, in Stockholm,
even Athens.
And what’s more, in almost every
country the movement is called
differently, it
is organized independently.
What they all have in common is
that they rely on the same teaching,
use the same course material.
So they chose against the McDonald’
s strategy, where you have the
same name everywhere in the
world, but they are called
different everywhere, and
that, of course, makes
it so hard to know that
all of this is together
ultimately.
We spent weeks browsing through
the websites and videos of the
yoga school.
We talk to outgoing
women from Finland, Romania
and Germany.
Women who don’t know each other
and whose experiences in
yoga school sound very similar.
We try to understand their
stories better.
Ask them if they
have any documents.
Some send us, for example,
the secret teaching
material, bills, such as Volaro
meditation cards or their
flight tickets to Paris.
Others have nothing but
memories and nightmares.
And then, as we research
the background and search
the sources, we suddenly
get an email from
Bucharest.
The email is from Mihai Rabca,
the one we addressed.
He knows Bivolaru personally.
He was his lawyer and
he wanted to meet us.
This was Holy Guru, the 2nd.
The sequence of Toxic Tantra.
You can find all the results in
the ARD audiothek.
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If you want to leave
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or help others, we
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We put the link into
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There you will also
find further information about this.
Toxic Tantra is a podcast
by me, Katja Peisen-
Petersen and Christiane
Havranek.
Thank you to Lena Wahlbrun,
Ann-Kathrin Wetter and Anke Richter.
Graphic design Anna
Hunger, sound design Christoph
Brandner, sound and technology
Robin Ault, directed by Ron Schickler,
legal advice Johannes Badaro-
Willmann, editorial Pia Dangelmeier,
Till Ottlitz and Sabine
Winter.
Toxic Tantra is a production
of the editorial office Religion
and Orientation of the investigative
team BR Recherche and the BR
Story team for the Bavarian
broadcaster 2024.
Another podcast from me.
In the night cafe podcast
The True Life, Michael Steinbrecher
takes us on the journey
of his guests.
Often, it is about issues
that are present in our society,
but deserve more attention.
Whether
it’s from living with Tourette,
the dream trip with the dementia-
affected mother, the love relationship
with a third party or
the assisted suicide.
Always authentic, honest and in the
middle of life. All the episodes of the The
Night Cafe podcast can be found
in the ARD audio library and
everywhere there are podcasts.