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Romania on the Black
Sea coast in late summer 2021.
Nathalie remembered it.
She sits on the back
seat of a silver minivan.
It’s close here, because with
her there are five other women
in the car.
Everyone is young in their
twenties, everyone is pretty
and everyone is excited.
Some other girls also
went with me.
This group dynamic helped
her not to completely out.
You are on the way to Paris
or somewhere nearby.
Nathalie does not know it.
She only knows that they
will go to him, where
he stops.
Grieg, your spiritual teacher, your
guru.
I was in the car for two days, without
a break.
Not a hotel, but two
days in the car.
Somehow six girls.
They cross the French border.
And then, just before Paris,
the car slows down, bends
into a supermarket
parking lot and stops.
Everybody goes up.
Nathalie stretches through,
breathes in fresh air, looks
into the noon sun and the
everyday hustle around her.
People who drive shopping
cars.
There were other cars, there
were other people.
It wasn’t super cuddly somewhere
in the corner.
It was pretty in the middle.
It will be really
blunt in a few minutes.
Now a man comes straight
to Natalis group.
He is about 40, speaks Romanian
and gives them handwriting.
Let them get into his car.
Change of vehicle.
What is happening now, Natalie
knows only from television,
from Crimis.
The Romanian gives women in the
car hats, fisherman hats with
wide cramps.
That was for me then,
so when they put on these
glasses with the hat and
so on, then it was real,
that was difficult.
That was the first time
I really thought so,
boah, now I really fear.
When everyone takes off their
hats, they get sunglasses.
Nathalie puts her on, then everything
around her becomes black,
because the glasses are glued
inside.
Women should not be
recognized and not see
themselves where they
are taken.
It was really so
traffic-standard, as you see
it in the movie.
So that was angry.
That was angry.
Because I felt like that
then, now it’s so real.
It continues to Paris.
Or go out to the districts?
Nathalie does not know.
Behind her glasses she can’t see
anything.
What does Nathalie
remember?
To a flat in Paris, to many
naked women in a small
room, to the smell of perfume
and sweaty bodies.
She still remembers
that moment very well.
Somewhere
else, in his apartment.
As she stands there, in a narrow
corridor and waiting
at his door.
Nathalie is naked and she is trembling.
Not from cold, but from fear,
but then, I stopped so
by the motto, no, that’s now
because I’m excited, because
it’s my guru and
so on.
So then it really went off that
you really keep yourself somehow
hypnotized so
a little, so that you
don’t completely out of
that way.
Then he opens her door.
Natha Guru, Grieg
Over his naked body
he threw a swimsuit.
With Lila.
Otherwise, much is known about him.
His skin, his chest hair, his
head hair, his full beard.
I didn’t really
expect him to look
so old.
This is really a real
man somehow.
Grieg is old. almost 70.
He has thick tear bags under
his eyes.
A few hair strips fall over
his curly forehead.
Grieg smiles at Nathalie and
Nathalie smiles back.
Okay, yes, this is my guru,
this is my guru, yay.
And it’s so right, yes, it’
s just that pressure that’s being
inflated into you, so
that’s your guru.
And this is a mega event
now, so, that’s yours, that’
s changing your life here
right now.
Grieg opens Nathalie’s door
to his bedroom and
wraps Nathalie in.
Nathalie looks at him.
Does she really do it?
Should she go in and sleep
with her guru?
And so to be introduced
to the greatest mysteries
of Tantra?
Or should she say I
thought differently?
Just to reverse?
This is a soul captain.
Season 4 – Toxic Tantra.
A podcast by Christiane Havranek
and me, Katja
Peisen-Petersen.
Follow one. Yoga for beginners.
What Natalie has experienced
there in Paris, the traffic bonding
with her eyes to her guru who
asks her naked into his room,
that sounds like thriller.
It
sounds like it has
nothing to do with yoga.
But does it, because there How
can it lead here in Natalis
Yoga movement?
This visit to her guru is
supposedly the summit of
tantric yoga.
At least it was sold to Natalie.
It all started off
in a yoga school.
At first, it is really
normal and very interesting.
It’s all new and it’s a
completely different
view of the world.
At some point, women like Nathalie
do not only yoga in this
school, but also
Tantra rituals.
You learn to see the body
and mind as a unity.
Be very different with your
fellow people.
More intimate, they say.
You feel like you are shining
from within.
And that light shines outward.
The others see it.
But the thing is simple,
that stops so misleading
and then you are in and
then it starts to get
you as you do practically
just dress in.
We tell you the
story of Nathalie and Liz.
They have been part
of an international yoga movement,
the Atman Federation
of Yoga and Meditation.
Many say it is a sect.
Members of the
Atman movement say we are not.
We do traditional,
original yoga.
Atman’s followers, men and women,
practice yoga in schools
in 30 different countries.
They are organized independently
and are called almost everywhere
differently, but they follow
the same teaching.
It is estimated that
the group has up to
30,000 supporters
worldwide.
The oldest school, Misa, in
Romania, calls itself
the largest yoga school
in Europe.
There is also a yoga school
in Germany that is part
of this movement.
German Academy of Traditional
Yoga.
It currently has nine locations.
In Berlin, for
example, in Munich, Freiburg and
Stuttgart.
For my colleague Christiane Havranek
and me, everything will begin
in the spring of 2023.
We received a message
from a psychiatrist.
The listener. She told us that she
was at the German Academy
of Traditional
Yoga, did just yoga
and ended up sleeping
with her guru without really
wanting to do it.
Talking about it is still quite
uncomfortable for her
years later, but she wants
to warn others of
the machinery of the yoga movement,
she says.
She would be happy if
we could follow that.
We do this and we first
watch an official video
of the German Academy for
Traditional Yoga, shortly
Dati, on YouTube.
Yogis from the Berlin
Yoga Centre tell us what is
so special about their school.
Basically, yoga has affected
every area of my life,
making it somehow
more intense and
better.
I see this in the fact that
I struggled for example
for 10 years to quit
smoking and suddenly
it fell somehow easy.
Anyone who practices yoga
can shape his body, can
live his sexuality, can increase
his social competence
and self-esteem, can open
his heart and live emotions
happily, can perfect his
inspiration and
intelligence until he
is truly happy.
All this is completely harmless.
But if you don’t go to the
official websites on the
Internet, you’ll read all
and all about the schools
of the Atman Yoga movement
as a whole.
But be careful, I’ve
seen a few things.
Now here on Facebook.
Wow, that’s really the matter here.
Tantra, not trauma
There is constant sexual
abuse.
The charges of outgoing women from the yoga
movement from
various countries are being read
fiercely.
It is about sexual abuse,
sex work, human trafficking,
psychoterrorism.
We also find an anonymous
warning in front of the
German Yoga School in Berlin.
On a website that means free
in Berlin.
There are also several entries
from this yoga school.
But there is a commentary.
Beware of the big letters.
This is a sex cult.
This is a sex sect.
What is really going on in
this yoga movement?
Christiane and I want
to find out.
We will be taking
a yoga class at
the German Academy of
Traditional Yoga in
Berlin.
And there we go now.
It is May 2023 and it is
a sunny spring afternoon.
Berlin is blooming.
We can’t really enjoy
the cheerful mood because we’
re a little nervous about
the accusations that are
in the room against the
school we’re going to attend.
And there is that other thing.
Today is
a Tantra Yoga day.
We both do it for the first
time.
I am slowly excited
about what is going to
happen.
How all this goes.
I am also a little
scared that I will have
to sneeze or something.
I don’t know, because Tantra
Yoga is not necessarily the subject
I’ve been dealing
with in private.
Yes, I am admitting it. On
the way to school, I still
have the predominant image
of tantra in my head. You should
do some exercise to have sex
as long and intense as
possible.
I know better, because of
course we have been investigating.
Tantra is a philosophy
of life, about 5,000 years
old, from India. There are
several definitions of
it, but basically it is
a spiritual technique
to develop yourself.
I know everything, but somehow
I also wonder what exactly
do those practising at school
and what is
expected of us there?
Christiane also thinks
so.
I have also had various
yoga experiences.
I was also in a time, for example,
when it was common to
do such partner exercises
with sweaty men I didn’
t know.
I felt so awful, so
I didn’t go there
anymore.
If there were to be partner
exercises there, dear Katja,
I would love to do them
with you.
The German Academy for
Traditional Yoga is located
in a busy neighborhood of
Berlin.
In a series with hipster
cafes and restaurants.
Then let’s look at that.
Just before the yoga school, we
take our microphone and put it away.
We do not want to be recognized
as journalists, because
we want to get a as authentic
and unfalsed impression
as possible.
We will not take it in secret,
because it would be illegal.
Three hours later.
Our snoring hour is over.
It is dark in Berlin.
We turn the microphone back on.
So so.
Have you made? already engaged.
So is.
Okay, so is Katja.
We can finally talk about it.
We sit in a park near
the yoga school.
We are pretty flat.
It is 22.36 hours.
We just approved
the Dennis.
We had to because we were
so hungry after this experience,
because you were not allowed
to eat for two hours before and
it was also very important
that the stomach was empty.
Did she tell me again
in the meantime?
Yes, she has it.
In this belly exercise. Oh okay.
So how was it?
I knew God had thought
in advance.
All my prejudices about
Tantra have not been confirmed.
No one touched the other.
I don’t think it’s even
the word Yoni, meaning female
genitalia.
Totally unspectacular in this respect.
So, for me, it was a
mixture of pilates.
I knew a few exercises, such
as a little more sporty things,
more stressful things.
I thought it was a 2-0 sport.
I didn’t think it was
really sporty.
I found it totally lax.
So nothing that I found completely
gone or new or turned
away now.
I did not find it so normal.
You know what I noticed that there
was something in
this direction of healing.
Christiane talks about the
yoga exercises and how they were
sold to us.
For example, we lie on our
back and stretch our legs
upwards, with our arms
stretching parallel to them.
Like a sit-up,
only with stretched legs.
This only works if you strain
the stomach.
Here in the yoga school, however,
it is not a simple abdominal training,
but the exercise is meant to
activate the Manipura chakra.
This will give you
more willpower, self-control
and harmonious
expression.
It is relatively unspectacular
in yoga.
But here, a little
more is promised.
Do this exercise and you will
be like this.
Do this and that asana.
And then you will have this and
that ability for intelligence
or self-awareness, or with this you
will have more awareness, or
with this you will have more of
that and that.
So many different, what is
that, feelings, qualities.
Characteristics, positive
qualities and, honestly, that’
s also something that somehow has
what it needs, somehow looks for.
What are we looking for?
We are looking for confidence.
We are looking for radiation.
Exactly and that is a little,
I say it now in introduction,
the promise of salvation
that you will improve
your whole life in
principle.
We will hear more
and more of promises of salvation.
They are central to the
teaching of these yoga movements.
It seems
that many people are entering
this school.
There were eight women and eight men.
It was occupied until
the last place.
There were a lot of young
women, I found.
I would say
students, right?
Yes, and all pretty attractive, young
attractive.
The yoga teacher.
It is very interesting to see
that this young
woman is able to get that
with this yoga class, to
have such a status that
you can ask her questions
for her whole life.
This is exactly what happens
in this time of the day.
After one and a half hours of yoga,
we will be presented with
another one and a half hours of theory.
This is quite unusual, we
don’t know of it from other
yoga schools.
The content also makes
us clear.
The yoga teacher talks about
the tests that you must pass
in life.
It’s like Super Mario,
always on the
next level.
You will have a test before
you get to the next
level.
Then you have to pass this test
and there are more and more life
tasks coming and you are never finished,
so to speak.
You are responsible
for being
happy.
If you really want
something, you
can it.
It sounds simple, but can
become toxic.
Not all people have the
same conditions in
life.
Because there are factors such
as chance, health, social status.
Often the will alone
cannot do anything.
The tests that are being discussed are
passed after school teaching
apparently with yoga.
And of course, you
get the help
of teachers at the school.
She was taken up with questions
like a therapist.
These people were asked
primarily.
Again and again, yes, what
do I do if I have this
problem but don’t go on?
One of them even had a specific
problem.
He had somehow a project,
and he thought I
could make a lot
of money.
What should I do?
Yes, many people who are on
the search for meaning are somehow in their
lives and who are now somehow looking
for such a kind of coaching
and find that in this yoga.
Coaching and life support.
This is what the German
Academy of Traditional
Yoga is doing
here.
They promote by being able to provide
people with practical help
in their work and everyday life.
It does not even need
a big crisis.
Everyone can really
feel it.
But it is not only that.
In our hour of snoring,
we learn that in this course,
if we continue, we
will also be initiated
into mysteries.
It has a sacred
aura in itself.
The first slide,
there was, those who
are initiated, initiate this
word, initiated, where I
think initiation, you
may remember.
This will be fully concerned
later on.
He said that this will
happen at the next
meetings.
A magical promise that
can only be fulfilled
later.
And she said, in such
a thing, you will learn
it only in two years.
In several years.
We understand that it is best
to do this school as long as
possible.
Almost to the illumination.
Christiane and I, we feel
like we are being
struck with mysterious promises
in this theory hour.
And after three hours, at
the end, there is a sugar
for us.
Teaching materials for
rework, several DIN
A4 pages of paper.
Then we look here in the
park and see, all of a sudden,
it is a lot about sensual
sexual partner
exercises.
Esoteric, Tantra Yoga, Lesson 1
We still have to get into that.
A man and a woman are
sitting together in a photo.
in the grass.
We just have to go
together...
Here is another picture.
There are sex in a lake,
so it looks, or in the pond.
Oh my dear, here...
Attention to! Secret information!
The structure of godly power.
Christiane could go through
this paper forever.
I turn off.
I am tired, my voice is cracking
so slowly.
I am ready for today.
Yes, we have to go now. It
is cold.
And now I think we
have talked a lot,
a lot of confusion.
Full of confusion. We can sit
down again tomorrow.
Let it squeeze a little, right?
Yes is full. We didn’t have
so much time to sack.
The next day we have
a meeting with a
former member.
We know that she,
like so many other people,
was looking for
meaning, improvement, a fulfilled
life.
She thought she had finally
found all this,
right at the German Academy
of Traditional Yoga.
That’s what she wants to
tell us today, maybe.
Before she tells us anything,
she wants to get to know us.
We know nothing about you.
We only know that she is
a outsider.
So she has written something
like, she’s just learning how to
deal with other people, she needs
a lot of gentleness.
She wants to remain anonymous.
In this podcast, we’ll call
it Lyrics.
It has a condition for
our meeting.
It should be done on
neutral soil.
Not in her house, not in her,
but in a park.
So we are now on the pond.
There is a woman standing,
walking from one leg to the other,
wearing a red hat.
Has a yoga mat under your arm?
She has a yoga mat under her arm.
Yes, it could be you.
She looks around.
But I think that is she.
Okay, we are looking forward.
The yogamatte is revealed as a
red flowing ceiling.
We welcome each other.
Read is restrained, cautious,
almost shy.
We are nervous too.
Can she tell us what she
experienced at the yoga school?
We sit on their ceiling.
Liz is large and sits with
a candlestick back on our side.
Just like Natalie, Liz
is strikingly beautiful,
has a flat face and
big eyes.
We are not telling you this because
we are superficial, but because
it seems to have a system.
The women we met
who continue to
rise in the yoga movement
are obviously
very attractive.
Christiane and I
talk for a while.
Sometimes we ask
if we can record.
And she says yes.
I just put it here like this.
Then we have, exactly.
Because we don’t want to be
intrusive, we
put the smartphone a little
further away from it.
You can hear it
a little in the background.
I really took everything
they offered me because
I was very
curious and I was
shocked myself.
I think many still said
I need to detox myself
properly.
When did you go out?
I am still there.
So emotionally, mentally and
mentally, I am still on the
way to escalate.
I’t say I’m
finished.
We are of course interested
in how Liz enrolled
in a yoga course
at the German Academy
of Traditional Yoga.
She says she had a problem with
so many topics being
clamped out in school
and in life at all.
Body, sensuality and desire.
Who teaches us this in school?
Who brings consciousness
into the body?
Who talks about the body?
Even in sports, it’
s just about throwing
balls or something.
It is never really about
your body.
So there was that gap.
She finally wanted to talk about
all these issues.
But before we learn how it
started with her and the
yoga school, she goes on
to the next topic, using
terms that are foreign to us.
The real world, the dualistic
worldview.
I feel like I need
more basics about
your story.
That is why I read this
question here.
Can you take us from
the beginning, if it
is not so rough for you,
as it really started,
describe your way
to this school and
how you have experienced
it?
A bad question.
Liz suddenly shakes
his arms and turns back.
She says nothing at all.
This silence, this silence,
this silence, that is hard
for us to endure.
This is very personal.
Then I would take
a step back.
You just say what you are
ready for.
Read only vague suggestions.
What fascinated her at
this yoga school.
The teachers there, she says,
have repeatedly taught her.
We have so much knowledge that
we can finally show you how to become
the most desirable version
of yourself.
And that is what you eat immediately.
And we can show you it
in every area of your life, in your
sexuality, in your profession,
in your vocation, in
your spirituality, in your contribution
to the world.
And if you are really
rough, you can even get
enlightenment through us.
And ultimate spiritual enlightening
uplifting sexuality, right?
The Golden Ticket.
Do you take it or do you take it?
We, Liz, Christiane and I,
laughed a lot in this
conversation.
What I am talking about here
is not laughing at all.
Christiane and I are
not sure.
We often don’t know how to
respond to the statements
of lies.
With laughter we overcome
our tension.
I don’t know why Liz laughs.
Maybe it is similar to her.
The golden ticket she
just told us about,
that soon turned
into a bad luck for her.
I was constantly exposed
to my own
weaknesses.
Yes, physically, and really
physically.
Women should be like that,
women should have thick
breasts, women
should have thick doctors,
so rightly sexist.
Okay stop it.
Are we really doing
Tantra Yoga?
Or is it about something completely different?
Liz’s thoughts are now jumping
a little.
So everything was always
a sign, a divine sign,
angels, beings.
This is not really
the case in classical
yoga teaching.
From morning to evening, you think
that you are being watched
by God, whether you are being deemed
worthy to reach the
next level through your daily
actions.
The next level is from
our snack class,
Super Mario.
The one who receives the gift,
the initiation, the initiation.
Initiation, we also heard
this in our snopper hour
and we wonder again
what this means.
So it’s very exciting, it’s
very exciting, but it’s also
completely crazy.
You are losing contact with
reality.
We tell Liz that we have
heard of all these terms,
initiation, initiation,
at our Tantra
Yoga snupper
class at Dati.
I was very happy
to have tried
Tantra Yoga myself.
We feel like we are getting
closer to reading.
But then comes this here.
What was also very extreme, it
was like a kind of
place-giving to the gubu.
He believes that the Gubu
is a servant of God.
What kind of gubu?
Actually we already know.
Many from the Yoga movement
of Liz admire a kind of
guru, a spiritual teacher.
The data itself does not call
him a guru.
We know that he is called Gregorian
Bivolaru.
Christiane, a wild but very
investigative reporter, does
not put read in her mouth
if she should say it herself.
But these two words, which guru,
are enough and readings
sound with the phrase.
From one moment to the
next, she sits there
like stoned and seems to
be in a very different world.
But I realize that is very
much.
I need to get you back slowly.
We go a step back.
I think we just have
to keep the clutches.
From the yoga tantra perspective,
I would say, go more into
your female energy and
go out of that prepressing
male energy that is also
super important, but
chill your bails, age.
Even after our meeting in
the park, we still cannot
grasp Liz entirely.
We prefer to be even
slower, even more cautious.
But we are also insecure.
What can we ask at all?
Apparently, a wrong word
on this topic is enough,
as do the Guru
and our interlocutors.
Shortly after our meeting,
Liz sends us another language
message, again with
hints on her time
at the German Academy
for Traditional Yoga.
I feel like they
have raped me deeply
inside.
They really raped
me in all my being and
I feel like they
are still inside me.
So they are
still in my thoughts, they
are still in my feelings.
I am always in these worlds.
While Liz is still busy
with leaving the
yoga movement, Natalie
has recently made
the leap.
She signed up for
a search in an
affected network.
You heard Natalie at the beginning
of this episode.
She is the one who opened the
door with Gregorian Bivoularu
in a purple bathtub.
But that comes later.
Natalies story in this yoga
movement, which she will
tell us right away,
is quite adventurous.
And she’s about much more
than just her guru.
We have been meeting with her by teams.
Does it work with your recording?
Yes, it’s running here in
the background on my laptop.
For a personal meeting, Natalie
is too far away.
She lives and works just where
others are on vacation, surrounded
by palm trees and kilometers
of white sandy beaches.
On an island in Thailand.
Natalie fits well in the picture.
She is 27 years old, has
long brown hair and facial
traits like a model.
I want to start with
the first thing before
you get to know the
yoga school.
Natalie takes us back to
a time when she is about 16.
She grows up in a small
town somewhere in Germany
and comes from a good
home.
She doesn’t have to worry
about money.
Her parents raised her atheistically.
Nothing about religion, nothing
about spirituality.
Natalie has nothing to do
with yoga.
She often goes to the gym.
So I was so really angry, so
bodybuilderwise somehow
on the way.
So that was full the subject for me.
It was two hours every day
somehow.
It has taken up a lot
of space in my life.
Natalie also focuses
on psychology.
She will study it later.
I was always super
interested in understanding
a little deeper
why we work the
way we work.
Now, when you look back,
it’s very interesting that
I’m the one who is
so sliding in.
In addition to her studies, Natalie
already works for a
luxury car manufacturer
in the human resources department.
She enjoys her job, she meets
interesting people and is
on a lot of travel.
Now just look at
the paper.
Nathalie is attractive and
intelligent, she has a
hobby that fills her,
she has money and a good job.
But she is not so satisfied.
Is that really what I want
to do for the rest of my
life now, not really, I
can mean somewhere, find
something that matters
to me.
She tries to come to different
thoughts with travel, seeing
the world.
Then comes India.
And suddenly everything becomes different.
pretty good and pretty bad.
It all starts in 2019.
Natalie is there in Rishikesh,
a small town on the Ganges.
The Beatles meditated
in the Maharishi Ashram.
Yoga is pretty big here.
Guides even talk about the
yoga capital of the world.
Nathalie gets a flyer in
her hand on the street
in Rishikesh.
From a school called Mahasasi,
which offers Tantra Yoga.
The Tantra would be cool to look at.
I called and then
Jasper ran.
and Jasper.
The story of Nathalie at the
yoga school is
also the story of Nathalie
and Jasper at this school.
Did you meet by phone?
Yes is.
Do you remember
the first phone call?
Yes, indeed, the thing I had in mind was, it was, it is, it is, it
is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is,
it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is,
it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is,
it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is,
it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is,
it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is
But Jasper is 29 and he comes
from Australia.
Natalie meets him when
she first visits
the yoga hall.
Jasper is a phenomenon
for Nathalie.
Muscular, brown-burned, the
hair fall wildly into his face.
Everything is attracted by Nathalie.
Immediately after I
got back from the hall,
I sent a voice message
to my best friend.
I was like that, oh my God.
Because I was so completely blown.
So total, oh wow, he’s so great.
This great Jasper belongs to the teaching
team of the yoga school.
The first thing I
went to is such an intro.
They have an intro night.
It is free, so you don’
t have to pay for this
introduction.
And that was stopped, so
where you are now in retrospect,
yes, you stop to pull
people in some way.
There are about 30 people
in the yoga hall. They sit on
the floor, cries, laughs
and then their eyes turn
to a TV.
It now features testimonials,
videos of people who are
already in school
and telling how great
yoga is there.
Yes, then they put it
out, then made the music
and then it stopped coming in.
This is the yoga teacher.
She comes, no, she is going in.
And everyone who
sits there is now looking at her.
That is what Natalie still remembers.
In itself, she is also
a real phenomenon because she
is a super beautiful Eastern
European woman.
So it falls off somehow
and then it’s opened
up and so on.
Not as hippie as everyone
else who is there.
The yoga teacher speaks to
the participants in English.
She talks about the basics
of yoga, the learning
content and...
What Tantra is and how
great it is and that school
is the only school that
offers such a true
Tantra in some way
and so on.
Then there is another exercise at the end.
We did such an
angel walk.
What is the name of the angel? Angel Walk is.
For the Angel Walk, all
Tantra students stand
in a row side by side.
And then you run past them.
You run with your eyes closed
and everyone is somehow
struggling with you.
Natalie is taking a Tantra course.
She lives in a hostel in Rishikesh, but
her whole life is now taking
place in the yoga school.
It opens its chakras, meditates,
releases energies.
For four months, every day two
hours in the morning, six
hours in the afternoon.
It pulls them into this school
like the sand.
This made you super tight
with all the people
in the group.
Then I went out to
eat with them or
something.
It was really super,
super close.
Only the one with whom Nathalie
would prefer to spend time is more
likely to stand away.
Jasper from the Teacher’s Team.
So they were a bit, yes,
so they were a bit special,
you know?
At a higher level because
they were. Yes exactly.
Okay is. You didn’t
get to him like
that, right?
No, no no
Natalie wins Jasper relatively
quickly for a date.
The two are together, they meet, they
get together.
But one thing annoys Nathan.
Because he really did a
lot at the beginning, so somehow
he has let the teacher
hang out, so according to
the motto, I will tell you
now how it works. And I
was, yes, but I don’
t want to know.
Cool that you are doing Tantra
here, but that’s not
you now.
Natalie doesn’t know yet,
but Jasper lives and breathes
Tantra and the teachings of the school.
And he follows the advice of
the founder of the
yoga movement, his guru.
Natalie gets nothing from this
guru in the Tantra classes,
although she sees
him every day, on
a picture in the yoga
school.
So that was a photo,
relatively small too, so now
not so mega, here is the Guru-
Kerl, so not at all.
He was younger, so
he had black hair.
His name is Gregorian Bivolaru.
They all speak Grieg, with G.
Nathalie learns about this
months after her first
visit to school, in March 2020.
Yes, this was the first
time I got such a wind,
from all this
Guru story.
It is Bivolarus’s birthday.
He celebrates it somewhere else,
not in Rishikesh.
But there in school, a
meditation takes place on him,
Natalie tells me.
There was six hours of
music.
And then you just sit there
with your eyes closed and
connect with the Guru.
Because it is supposed that
the thing is stopping, that
he then meditates in that moment
and somehow connects with
us and whatever.
Nathalie feels no connection with
Grieg during these six hours,
but with the people around
her.
I know I thought
at the moment, so wow,
it’s nice that
he has formed
such a community.
This type, which the Yogis in
this Indian school celebrate
so much, who Nathalie is supposed
to connect with for hours, is confronted
by a long planned operation
in France three
and a half years later.
On a Tuesday in November
2023, 175 French police officers
are dispatched.
They are dressed in dark,
wearing guns and storm caps.
They have various places in Paris
and surroundings, but also in
Southern France on their list.
Let them do the raids.
Among them is an apartment complex in
Ivry-sur-Seine, southeast of Paris.
Here, in an apartment
on the ground floor, he
should hide.
Gregorian Bivolaru, the Guru
of Nathalie, the Guru of
Jasper and Liz.
The police have been
ordered to arrest him.
This is yoga for beginners.
The first episode
of Toxic Tantra.
You can find all the results in
the ARD audiothek.
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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 Veronika Wawacek,
Lena Wahlbrunn, Anne-Kathrin
Wetter and Maja Chernobylskaja.
Graphic design by Anna Hunger.
Sound design by Christoph Brandner.
Sound and Technique, Robin Ault.
Directed by Ron Schickler.
The author is Johannes
Badaro-Willmann.
Editorial, Pia
Dangelmayer, Till Ottlitz and
Sabine Winter.
Toxic Tantra is a production
of the editorial office Religion
and Orientation, the investigative
team BR Recherche and the
BR-Story team for the Bavarian
broadcaster 2024.
We recommend ARD
Crime Time.
This podcast is about
why a businessman
in Frankfurt
was shot.
The murder of the Yugoslav secret
service was suspected
44 years ago.
The investigation also concerns
the exchange of RAF terrorists
in the late 1970s.
This trail search is heard in
the ARD Crime Time.