For most of those who practice it, yoga offers a huge amount more than fitness alone. It is also about community, discipline and harmony between body and soul. “Grieg”, as his devotees referred to their (supposedly) wise guru, used tantric yoga as a smokescreen to create a sect-like system enabling him to abuse young women. Former female students of his describe unsettling experiences at yoga retreats, brainwashing, sect-like structures and abuse.
Life by the guru’s rules
Gregorian Bivolaru, founder of the movement, which is known by the name MISA in Romania, is now in custody. His schools continue to operate, however – under a variety of different aliases. In Germany, the movement is known as the “Deutsche Akademie für traditionelles Yoga“ (“German Academy of Traditional Yoga”), while the international umbrella organisation calls itself “Atman”.
German radio station Bayrischer Rundfunk spoke to 20 women about Bivolaru’s yoga schools. Examples included Eva and Nathalie, whose experiences are very similar. The prospect of community, a greater feeling of self-worth, and spiritual sexuality motivated them to join the yoga school and implement whatever was demanded of them in a disciplined way. To achieve a higher level of spirituality, members were required to practice yoga for hours on end, and follow the guru’s strict rules. Yoga features a hierarchical structure in general. Those practising it are expected to submit to the teacher, and never supposed to contradict him or her. Grieg is treated as a veritable god by his followers; even when the first serious accusations against him emerged, they continued to insist he was innocent.
Annika, too, experienced belonging and pleasant intimacy at Atman Yoga to begin with. Grieg became a godlike figure for her, capable of seeing and knowing everything. To begin with, it was a relief for her to finally find orientation in life, something for her to cling onto. At some point, however, Annika began to live only for his wishes and ideas. He began to define her thoughts and life, until it became too much for her. Getting out of such a sect-like community is extremely arduous and difficult. Most cannot do so without psychological help.
A naked picture to read your aura
Very few yogis are honoured with getting a highly personal yoga unit with the guru, and this is communicated to them from the very beginning – which meant Eva and Nathalie were all the happier to be amongst those selected. This “audience” with Bivolaru bore the name “tantric initiation”. After this, those at the yoga school held that the participants had been “enlightened”.
First of all, however, the women had to send their guru a picture of themselves in their underwear, so he could “read their aura”. As well as this, all the women taken to Bivaloru’s secret hideaway refer to having their eyes bound and their wallet and mobile phone taken away from them. Before the meeting could actually take place, however, the women had to sit in a cramped Paris flat for weeks at a time and view erotic films for hours on end.
Private lesson with the guru
The “tantric initiation” required the women to have sex with Bivolaru for hours at a time. Even if the women knew in part what they were letting themselves in for, they feel they were abused to this day, and with good reason. They were systematically manipulated over many years. Saying “No” to a meeting with the guru was only an option under certain circumstances. After all, they had had it drummed into them for years on end that a meeting with the guru was the greatest gift, and would provide spiritual enlightenment – and that if it didn’t do so, it meant they were possessed by demons and would have to cast these out.
Even women who did not have the “honour” of meeting Bivolaru struggle with the consequences of his absurd ideas of what a good yoga student should be to this day. Bivolaru’s tantric yoga was designed to enable women to become the perfect “shakti”. A shakti is an idealised image of a woman as Atman understands it – the perfect seductress and lover. A shakti moves in a certain way, and has large breasts. If a woman’s breasts are deemed to be too small, they perform special yoga exercises supposed to make them larger.
Stripping for karma
Bivolaru’s former lawyer describes how women from the yoga school were manipulated with absurd stories. For the Atman School, tantric sex is not just about sex – it is something supernatural, even holy. This argument was used to convince young women to offer sex chats online and perform as pole-dancers at strip clubs. This was about converting all the unknowing outside the school, who had to be introduced to the sensual world of the Tantra. Participants had to display their femininity, and pass on the concept of holy sexuality.
“Lucky Love” in Bucharest, a strip club with a “spiritual touch”, offers striptease and tantric massages. The club is said to belong to Atman, and to have young women recruited through Bivaloru’s yoga school working there. There is no evidence of this, however.
Boot camp for the perfect shakti
Once a year, MISA organises a summer camp in Kostinez, a holiday resort on the Romanian Black Sea coast. The town is completely desolate during low season, while hundreds of yogis bustle about here in summer. One condition for attending, according to former participants, is having to send in a photo of your face and body in a swimming costume, and have a negative HIV and syphilis test. Some refer to a secret villa, “Veluca”, where women are trained to become the perfect shakti – in other words, sexual training sessions. If you refuse to take part in these “exercises”, then you are “blocked” and have to reflect further. To make matters worse, a “Miss Shakti” is crowned during the camp.
The guru is arrested, and the scandal reappraised
Interpol had actually been looking for Gregorian Bivolaru for many years. This game of cat-and-mouse eventually came to an end at the end of 2023, when the guru was arrested in France. Witness statements had been gathered over the years, and he was sued for human trafficking, kidnapping, abuse and rape. He is viewed as innocent until proven guilty, however. Many of his followers continue to believe strongly in the innocence of their guru. The “German Academy of Traditional Yoga” disputes any connection to the offences. All Bivolaru’s yoga schools were excluded from the international yoga association in 2008.
The findings and witness statements cast a highly disturbing light on the Atman School’s practices. The Bivolaru case shows just how quickly, and deeply, one can be drawn into a sect-like construct. These constructs, unfortunately, very often form the backdrop to extreme manipulation and abuse, without those involved even being aware of it. It is important that we provide support for the people in our surroundings, and help them escape such organisations. If you know someone you think may be at risk, or have been affected yourself, then you can contact the Österreichische Bundesstelle Für Sektenfragen.
Translated by Tim Lywood
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