Twisted Yoga (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

1
[woman singing a mantric chant]
[woman] The book, Yoni Shakti,
I wrote between 2010 and 2012.
And Yoni Shakti is a women's guide
to power and freedom,
through yoga and tantra.
It's about bringing people
back into a respectful reconnection
with the rhythms of Earth
and the vitality of life.
Om
I was interested to see who else
is connecting to these practices.
[bell ringing]
And that is how I found out
about the school in Denmark.
And I was, like, "That is interesting."
So I put a two-line reference,
almost like a footnote.
And I didn't think anymore
about it until 2020,
when I was contacted
by a reader and she expressed horror.
Because she had been
studying at that school,
and knew about the terrible things
that had happened.
And then from that,
I connected with other people
who'd had similar experiences.
So they all were saying
the same kind of thing.
So, I found their website
and this little Danish yoga studio
was actually part of this
Atman International Federation.
There are members across the world.
And when you look on each one,
each one has got a different name.
In Romania, it's called MISA.
In Sweden, it's also called Natha Yoga.
So when you get to England… Tara.
So you wouldn't know
that's anything to do with it.
And at this point I was, like,
"Oh… my… God.
It's everywhere."
It was my life.
[Bonnie] Okay,
this is ten years ago for me,
but there are still women
going through this now.
[Miranda] They claimed
that it was consensual,
and framed me as a liar.
[in Romanian] Have you had sex
with any of the followers of MISA?
[Paula] I wanted to move,
to leave from this position I was,
and he grabbed both my wrists
and put them on the bed.
Like, "Be quiet."
[Ziggy] Just felt like,
"I gotta get outta here."
I couldn't take any more at that point.
[people shouting]
[Pocotilă] He is…
portrayed as sexually obsessed.
This is what we see from the files.
[man in English, with French accent]
Paris. Romania. Guru. Cult.
The testimony of Ashleigh.
He's the missing piece that I needed.
Just watch them squirm.
[rhythmic whispering]
[Andrea] It started and ended…
with him.
[percussions reach crescendo]
[chanting reverberates]
[Ash] July 2019, when I left Paris…
I guess I knew that there was
sexual abuse happening, but I didn't…
at that point, piece together trafficking.
But I was just on this, kind of,
constant reading rampage.
Becoming really, kind of, obsessed
with understanding it more and more.
[typing]
The school was still operating,
everything was fine.
And I just knew that every single day
more and more women
were going through those same experiences
and being sent to Paris.
[birds chirping]
[Ziggy] So Ashleigh got in contact with me
and basically revealed
why she had left the school.
I was just, like, "The fuck is going on?"
So I confronted
the main coordinators from Sweden,
and they're just, like, "It's all lies."
[Ash] I think he, sort of, thought
he could make some change from within,
and that perhaps people would understand
and they could break free from Bivolaru
and continue all the good parts
of the school.
And he wasn't able to recognize
that Bivolaru was the school.
[Ziggy] The response was,
"Our belief is so strong
that we will do whatever it takes
and we will support him no matter what."
And in that moment
I just felt, like, this shudder,
and this coldness come over me,
and just thinking, like,
"That's the, sort of… indoctrination
that leads people to drink Kool-Aid.
That's their Jonestown,
sort of, ideology of…
'You're so aligned with this individual
that you will do whatever it takes
at whatever cost to protect him?'"
And I just got so scared, I thought,
"Holy shit. These… They're gone."
[Ash] So, it was around May, 2020,
that I first spoke out.
Hi, everyone, I'm Ashleigh,
and I run the cult awareness page.
This is the first story
I think that I'm…
There was a lot of fear
of being judged or misunderstood.
At the time there was so much fear in me
and I was still trying
to understand what had happened
and I still wasn't sure
where I sat and how I felt about it.
And I was, kind of, oscillating between
being really certain that something
was wrong, and that I'd left a cult.
And then also at other times
wondering if I was wrong to leave,
and that perhaps
I'd fallen off a spiritual path.
But I just, kind of,
had this need that I needed…
I just needed to say something.
Ask the teachers. Actually ask them,
"Are you sending women
to be initiated by the guru?
Is that happening?"
Just watch them squirm.
They'll either deny it…
I thought that I would feel really silly
if I just went to my local police station,
and said,
"Hey, I had this experience
in France. Can you help me?"
I just felt really silly.
I didn't know where to go.
[birds vocalizing]
[woman] So when I first heard
about the experience of the people
in the first school, in Scandinavia,
they put me in touch
with Ashleigh, Ashleigh Freckleton.
And what she sent me…
I've never forgotten it.
I received it here.
I remember it coming through on the email,
and it was her testimony.
[camera clicks]
"The photo was taken the night before
I was trafficked to a foreign country
for want of a better of a word, a cult."
People don't show up at yoga classes,
'cause, you know,
they wanna do bad in the world.
They're, like,
looking for self-improvement.
To be a better human, to…
That's why she's there.
And there she is in the middle of London
looking like, really vibrant young woman,
who's totally destroyed
by this experience.
It's just wickedness to do that, isn't it?
[Ash] Uma wanted to publish
my testimony anonymously in the book.
That was the first time
I felt like she gave a voice.
Sort of, on a larger scale.
But then they came after her.
In April of 2021,
I got a letter of claim, a legal letter.
It basically says that all
the allegations that I've made are,
"false, defamatory, severe."
And it's going to cause their client,
"Loss of potential students.
Serious financial losses."
Is their main concern.
Initially, I think I felt disbelief,
and then I was just terrified.
They want me to tell them,
"the identity and whereabouts
of all the parties who provided me
with the information for you
to make the defamatory allegations."
They wanna go after the survivors.
That's what this is about, isn't it?
[birds singing]
[Dinsmore-Tuli] The whole process ended up
with me going to court three times,
and it took about two years to complete.
And in the end, the judge decided
that they had been out of time,
and that there were
so many procedural errors
that I won the court…
to get it thrown out of court,
and it couldn't go any further.
It was a disaster.
Financially disastrous, yeah.
But I kept thinking, you know?
The stress I was under
was nothing compared to the deep suffering
that those young women had gone through.
What I felt was a kind of sickening sense
that these really,
essentially good teachings
had been twisted up to serve…
the greed for power…
of the person who was…
in charge, who was teaching them.
[ominous whoosh]
People didn't really speak
about him as a human being,
more of a spiritual being.
We were really encouraged to look at him
as somebody who was
enlightened and elevated
and whatever he taught was the truth.
Almost as if he was Jesus.
[Miranda] I knew that the school
had originated in Romania.
And I was told,
"Don't bother looking him up
because there's
this long history with Romania
and religious persecution.
And he started teaching yoga
when it was illegal.
And he's been persecuted,
and demonized by the Romanian authorities.
And that's all that you'll find.
So, don't bother."
[dog barking]
[Pocotilă] This is a neighborhood
in the outskirts of Bucharest.
It's called Ferentari.
And this is known because the houses
that are used as ashrams
by the group, MISA,
most of them were around these streets.
You can see there are
no windows or very small windows,
very high fences.
Many of them
have very large satellite antennas.
And in 2004,
police got information
that there was much more going on
inside these houses
than some normal yoga classes.
[in Romanian] Back then, I was the case
prosecutor assigned to handle
the investigation into Bivolaru.
[Pocotilă] The police had received
a lot of complaints coming from parents,
who, uh, told the authorities
that their children were missing
because they had joined
this movement, MISA.
[Delcea] They were concerned
that their children
all of a sudden
were part of a movement, part of a cult
and ended up breaking away from the family
without a very clear explanation.
[loud thudding]
[Pocotilă] Besides the fact
that a lot of minors
were believed to live in those ashrams,
the police told the media
that they had information
that there might be
human trafficking going on.
That there might be
organized crime activities.
[muffled footsteps approaching]
[door breaks open]
[policeman shouting]
There were some surprises
once we got inside.
[footsteps ascending]
[policemen talking in Romanian]
I was expecting to encounter people
from the criminal underworld.
Some big muscular guys.
But no.
[police radio beeping]
[policeman talking in Romanian]
[muffled response over radio]
The women responded with silence
to every question.
[Delcea continues speaking]
I didn't feel that they were free.
I can honestly say I was shocked.
There were about 20 beds.
Fifteen of them, if not more,
had, at the end of each bed,
a picture of Bivolaru.
[police converse in Romanian]
[woman, in Romanian] I was born
in Transylvania, a magical place.
I got into yoga
through people my mother knew,
who were seeking spirituality.
It was a more alluring world
that Romanians
didn't have access to before,
because under Communism
there was a more closed mentality,
and we didn't have access
to such information.
After Communism,
people needed something to cling onto,
something to believe in.
To put their hopes,
their illusions in someone else.
[people whistling and chanting]
[Agnes] I was about 11 or 12
when my mum started attending classes.
I wanted to attend, I was curious.
[camera clicks]
It was so captivating to discover
that there was this spiritual guru,
who had created this school of yoga.
Someone with the answers
to all of our questions.
[camera clicks]
Simply finding myself there,
close to the great master,
it felt sacred
to experience something so intimate.
The girls saw Grieg
as the supreme being Shiva,
the symbol of masculinity and male energy.
As a 15-year old girl,
I also began to see him as a god.
[people talking indistinctly]
[Agnes] Even later,
when the investigation started,
we were still indoctrinated with this idea
that those on the outside
wanted to harm us.
[indistinct conversation continues]
That there was a conspiracy against us
because we were too spiritual.
[people jeering and shouting]
[Pocotilă] Right after the raids
that were taking place,
MISA started building up a defense
and organizing protests.
[shouting and whistling]
And then, exactly when all the heat
was going on and all eyes were on MISA…
[people chanting protests in Romanian]
…Gregorian Bivolaru decided to appear
on this very popular
TV show, Marius Tucă…
[show's jingle playing]
…just a few days
after the raids had happened.
[show's intro jingle fades out]
[in Romanian] Good evening.
I would like to say
from the very beginning
that I am not the leader of MISA,
but merely the mentor of this movement.
Why are you called Guru?
I am only called a guru by the press
and those who seek to discredit me.
I have always considered myself
to be the yoga teacher,
Gregorian Bivolaru.
Have you had sex
with any of the followers of MISA?
I never have sex with anyone,
because having sex is something degrading.
Have you made love
to any of the followers of MISA?
Did I make love? Yes, I did make love.
Not sexually degrading,
but natural loving relationships,
as we all know them,
based on love and mutual respect.
I was initiated at the beginning of 2000.
[camera clicks]
I was a virgin.
I won't go into too much detail
but it wasn't very special.
I didn't feel any pleasure,
quite the contrary.
I remember that the bed
was full of blood, but he wasn't upset.
I remember that tears
were running down my face.
I was 15 years and 6 months old.
[makes an emphasizing sound in Romanian]
[ominous whoosh]
[Bivolaru] Everything is manifested,
everything is harmony.
God is the supreme creator
of all that exists.
We must come to know Him
as deeply as possible
through the practice of yoga,
in order to reach the divine state.
[Agnes] He had a certain charisma.
But it was not a physical charisma.
He was never an attractive man.
We constantly transfigured him
and put him on a pedestal.
[Bivolaru] Okay, I'm going to do this for
everyone who follows me, for one minute.
I will create a state of happiness
for those who are open to receiving it.
Through my connection
to infinite spheres of beneficial force
that exist in the macrocosm.
So, I will begin now.
He said that he's going to, kind of,
transmit a state of absolute happiness,
to the viewers who are open
to believing in his philosophy.
[ticking sound playing]
[Bivolaru makes a faint guttural sound]
[ticking continues]
We burst out laughing when we saw this.
[low guttural sound continues]
You would start to wonder if that man
is okay from a mental point of view.
[violin playing]
[man in English, with French accent]
I've been involved in fighting
against types of movements
and cults for many years.
So that's how I became
to be interested in MISA.
[music stops]
I wanted to understand the modus operandi.
What was going on with MISA in France.
And I started to read
and to slowly investigate.
It was something
very well organized and always the same.
So they organized a, kind of, strategy
where they ask women
from everywhere around the world,
except from France,
to come to France for initiation
to improve
their personal development and so on.
[dog barking]
[Gascan] After that they go back
to their original country.
And when you are 1,000 km away,
what can you do? Just nothing.
It's difficult to accept
that somebody is completely
under the control of someone else.
First of all, you absolutely need to have
testimonies from the victims.
And it was a, kind of,
protection for Bivolaru
to not have complaints
in France from French victims.
I had reported
to the Royal Charity Commission in the UK.
Nothing had come of that.
Like, I put something on
Crime Stoppers International.
And I followed that up,
maybe once or twice,
and it never came to fruition.
No one ever got back to me,
no one ever seemed
to want to take my testimony.
I put some alerts on my computer.
Paris. Romania. Guru. Cult.
And I quickly found
this article in an Australian newspaper.
Paris. Romania. Guru. Cult.
The testimony of Ashleigh.
"Hello, Ashleigh,
allow me to introduce myself…"
It actually is… Yeah, it's pretty
wild, because from where I was sitting
at that point he was just
some random guy in France. [laughs]
And yet,
he's the missing piece that I needed
to connect in with the foreign police.
[Gascan] So I was in touch with Ashleigh,
and transmitted this testimony
to the department of police
in charge of what is going on
in terms of cults in France.
[horns blaring]
[Franck Dannerolle, in French] We knew
there were some problems
with this movement, but before 2021
we hadn't really started investigating.
The crucial first step,
is to hear from the victims.
[Ash] Caimades, which is a very
specialized anti-cult unit,
did reach out and said that they wanted
to receive my testimony verbally.
Then they asked me
if I wanted to make a formal complaint.
And I said yes.
[Dannerolle] We realized
there was a clear possibility
that Gregorian Bivolaru
was on French soil.
But it was very delicate,
because there was a risk
that Gregorian Bivolaru would escape.
And with the network he had in place,
he would have vanished.
[bell chimes]
[reporter, in Romanian] Gregorian Bivolaru
is on trial for five counts.
These include multiple sexual offenses
sexual corruption, trafficking of minors,
engaging in sexual relations with minors,
and attempted illegal border crossings.
After the raids, Gregorian Bivolaru
denied all of the charges.
[in Romanian] What do you plan to do now?
Will you try to hide?
No, I will not try to hide,
I have no reason to hide.
[Pocotilă] But then a trial had begun,
and he was nowhere to be found.
He didn't show up in court.
[tires screeching]
And the next thing we found out
was that Gregorian Bivolaru
appears somewhere in Sweden.
[in Romanian] Captured!
Gregorian Bivolaru,
the most wanted Romanian in recent times,
has been caught and detained in Sweden.
[Pocotilă] There had only been,
like, 15 years
since the fall of the communist regime.
So MISA was using this argument
that was still, um, sensitive in Romania.
Saying that Romania
is still a corrupt country,
is still a country where police use force.
Everything in order to convince
the Swedish authorities
to refuse extradition request.
[reporter, in Romanian] A body blow
for the Romanian justice system.
Gregorian Bivolaru cannot be extradited.
That's what the Supreme Court
of Justice in Stockholm ruled today.
Swedish judges feared
that the spiritual leader of MISA
would be persecuted in Romania.
In 2004 he escaped Romania
to go to Sweden.
So officially he was living in Sweden.
But there is evidence
that since at least 2007,
he went to France and stayed in France.
- [birds chirping]
- [woodpecker drumming]
[Andrea] Everything I did
was very much connected with the school.
It was my life for quite a few years.
[camera clicks]
And then I started to date
people outside of the school,
and met somebody
and had a child, so my focus shifted.
[camera clicks]
I was quite disappointed, because
there wasn't so much understanding,
that life with a small child requires
huge amounts of dedication and energy.
And I felt very much left behind.
[camera clicks]
I was dedicating myself
wholeheartedly to motherhood.
And a friend of mine called me and said,
"Look, you know, there are some things
that I would like to share with you."
[camera clicks]
So my friend came one evening
and sat on the sofa,
and began to give me accounts
of women having really awful experiences.
[camera clicks]
For me, I went in because I wanted to.
Like, I really, really wanted it.
So I never felt that I had
to do anything against my own will.
It was 100% my choice.
[camera clicks]
But at the same time,
there was a huge underlying pressure
for a lot of people to do things
against themselves, and against their will
and against their boundaries.
Because there wasn't really that safety
to say,
"Actually I don't want to do this."
[man speaking indistinctly in Romanian]
[in Romanian] Webcams
were quite a recent business
when I got to the core of MISA.
Officially, I wasn't allowed
to do webcam work because I was underage.
But it was considered completely normal
to make a few appearances
using other girls' passports.
As long as you looked similar
you could do whatever.
That was when I understood the scale.
You saw that they had 40 ashrams.
Entire buildings were purchased,
their HQ and hotels in Costinești.
I understood that all the prosperity
of this "not for profit" organization
came from the websites and the webcams.
I signed a contract, they took a photo.
And they said one of the reasons why
this place is so special
is because the profit
from the site goes to him.
Goes to Grieg.
[Andrea] In terms of our growth
and our development in the school,
it started and ended with Grieg.
There were very many teachers
in the school
who were
incredibly intelligent and charismatic.
And all of them were just so devoted
to this human being.
[dog barking]
But anybody familiar
with the yin and yang symbol,
we know that in each light
there's always a speck of darkness.
Just like in each darkness
there's always a speck of light.
I guess I made an assumption
that the speck of darkness
in him was really small.
But from everything that's been uncovered,
maybe the speck of darkness
is much bigger than what we assumed.
[Pocotilă] MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru
have always presented Bivolaru
as both a victim and a hero.
- [battering ram impacting]
- [door breaks open]
That he has always been
oppressed, attacked, harassed,
jailed, tortured, beaten…
[muffled shouting]
…by the hands
of the former secret police of Romania.
It's called the Securitate.
[whirring]
[fanfare playing]
During the communist regime
we indeed lived
in a closed and totalitarian society.
That is true.
[projector whirring]
But now, years after,
we can actually look up in these files
and see what really happened.
The first mention…
of the Securitate
surveilling Gregorian Bivolaru
dates back from 1971.
Back then
Gregorian Bivolaru was 19 years old,
and he was in his last high school year.
They discover that he was in contact
with foreign citizens
whom he was asking
for pornographic materials,
such as, like, photos, uh, magazines.
So we have one of those letters.
I think it was '72.
"I know a lot of things
about your sexual freedom in Sweden,
and I want to obtain pictures."
"Do you want to send me sexy photos
and sexy slides from Sweden?"
Another letter,
"I have a great sympathy
for the German people,
and in your sexy photos
I can see the emancipated comprehension
of the sexuality in Germany."
Later on, he was actually
convicted to prison
because he owned
and distributed pornographic materials.
He was not jailed
because he was a yoga practitioner.
This is what we see from the files.
In the summer of 1989,
raids were organized by Securitate
in several cities in Romania
to dismantle groups
that were practicing yoga.
[man talking over radio in Romanian]
[Pocotilă] Yoga had been forbidden
since 1982.
Bivolaru was leading such a group,
so he was, again, detained.
But this time the Securitate decided
that his place was not in a prison,
but in a psychiatric medical unit.
[projector whirring]
He is basically portrayed as, um…
sexually obsessed.
So in his own words, back from 1989,
he tells the Securitate agents
that, "One day somewhere in 1986 or 1987,
I met near my house
a young 12-year-old brunette girl,
I think she was a gypsy.
And I asked this close friend of mine
to have intimate relations with the girl.
And afterwards to present her to me
in order for me
to initiate her in sexual tantras."
This shows a potential interest
in very young women
since so many, many years ago.
And also it goes on saying
that Bivolaru, over the years,
has asked his women friends
to recruit other women for him.
[rhythmic drumming playing]
He was subject to psychiatric exam,
which says that he lacks
the mental capacity
to assess his own actions, his own needs.
And then just a few months later…
[faint chanting]
…the communist regime in Romania fell.
And soon after, special commission
of this psychiatric unit
decided to release Gregorian Bivolaru.
And soon after that, in 1990
the group called MISA took birth.
[Miranda] So after Prague,
I travelled back to the UK,
and I started to realize
how extremist the teachings
and practices of the school were.
[soothing chanting playing]
And there was this website
that was made by people
who were enemies of the school.
We were told that it was demonic
and it was better not to look at it.
So New Year's Eve, '21-'22,
at home on my own, I did look at it…
and it was like a mirror.
It just confirmed
what I was already feeling.
All of those moments of doubt
or incongruence, now made sense.
And this word "cult", that before
I hadn't been willing to accept.
I thought that it was a term
that was used to denigrate
religion and spirituality
and keep people away from it.
[rhythmic drumming playing]
At that point, on that New Year's Eve,
I realized for the first time
that I had to leave.
And I had to leave completely.
And I had to do something about it
and I had to speak out.
And then… it became really clear,
their true colors
and what they were actually capable of.
So, they claimed that everything
was consensual and framed me as a liar.
And people who I thought
were my friends were…
lying about me and saying, you know,
how I'd fallen from the path.
It made me feel sad that
that whole… foundation of community,
which had been such an important part
of me remaining in there for those years,
was completely inauthentic.
Wasn't a real community,
those weren't real friendships.
And there was no opportunity
for you to truly be yourself.
[rhythmic drumming fades out]
[Ziggy] I got a phone call from
my first relationship at the time, Paula.
Initially, she wasn't prepared
to discuss any of it,
but she revealed everything
and it was just…
the final confirmation that I realized,
like, this was the last straw.
[echoing musical notes playing]
[Paula] The fourth and last visit
was in October of 2019.
I wanted to move, to kind of,
leave from this position I was,
and he grabbed both my… my wrists
and put them on the bed.
Like, "Be quiet." And then, eventually,
a little bit more after that,
he didn't keep them, but he put them,
you know, and then took his hands off.
And then a few minutes afterwards
I started crying
so that he will just get off me.
And then he was screaming
at me for, like, three hours.
Saying that I was never
gonna be invited there again.
Uh, 'cause I didn't deserve it,
'cause I didn't love him.
Then after I left his room
and I went to a room with the girls,
he came into the room and he continued
saying horrible things to me.
Like, he just repeated everything
he said in his room to me alone,
in front of the girls.
At that point I said,
"I'm never again coming here."
I had a really clear,
like, "This is just…
This is the opposite
of what I ever thought it would be."
You know?
Like, this is super traumatic,
like, it's not enjoyable at all.
Like, I'm being forced to pretend
that I wanna do something I don't want to.
And I'm being humiliated
because I don't want to. You know?
[Ziggy] That was the straw
that broke the camel's back.
I just…
I couldn't take any more at that point.
Just felt like, "I gotta get outta here.
I can't do this anymore."
[Paula] This investigator
from France contacted me.
So I did agree to give my testimony.
[Dannerolle] It's not easy
for victims of cult crimes to testify.
These victims
are under someone else's control.
This psychological control prevents them
from considering themselves as victims.
They have to trust the investigators
to tell us what happened.
They have to feel
that we listen and understand.
[speaking French indistinctly]
[Miranda] I was contacted
by this special unit.
And through the questioning techniques,
and the use of language
of this French unit,
I could tell that they understood.
I gave them my testimony.
I just knew that that's what I had to do.
There was no other choice for me.
[thumping drumbeats playing]
[Bonnie] By the time they spoke to me,
they'd already taken statements
from a few others.
And I really felt that,
"Okay, this is ten years ago for me,
but there are still women
going through this now."
I mean, I knew that I was a victim
of sex trafficking and rape,
and that was clear from, like,
even the therapy that I'd done,
and some of the things
that I had read until that point.
But it was something about having
the police actually say it back to me,
after hearing all of my
very personal details from multiple days,
having them say,
"Yes, this is what happened.
And it's a very serious crime
under French law,
and we will be absolutely
pursuing this as far as we can."
[elevator dings]
[Dannerolle] At the right moment,
with the magistrate's permission,
we launched a large scale operation.
We had almost 170 officers on the ground.
Right before the operation,
we still had some doubts.
What were we going to find
behind those doors,
behind which no one had ever
managed to catch a glimpse?
[in French] 175 police officers mobilized.
40 simultaneous arrests.
All linked to a sectarian yoga cult.
[Ash] "Tantric yoga guru arrested
over accusations of sexual abuse
and exploitation in France."
He is suspected
of abusing dozens of women.
Just elated. [laughing] I don't know.
It's just… I don't…
Like, I honestly when Ziggy called me,
I didn't really have…
I don't… I can't really find the words.
[newscaster, in French] The guru lived
in this small apartment near Paris
where he was arrested yesterday.
It just feels like
the start of the reckoning
that we all wanted to see happen.
[Gascan, in French] He would choose
a certain number of women
from all over the world to be initiated.
Sexual initiation
under the pretext of personal development.
[Bonnie] At first
I wasn't sure if it was real.
It was, like… [exhales] just a lot of
shock and awe, and gratitude, and relief.
[loud knocking on door]
[Ziggy] Come in.
[reporter, in French] Suspected
of being the head of a cult.
Accused of rape,
human trafficking and organized crime.
[Ziggy] We're not there yet.
This is just the first step
in what will be a pretty lengthy process.
But at least we know
he can't be doing this any longer.
[vocalizing chanting playing]
[Dannerolle] At the time of the operation,
the charges against the movement
were as follows:
Abuse of weakness
using psychological control.
Human trafficking and rape.
[reverberating chanting stops]
[producer] Do you think he's a criminal
guilty of those crimes?
[Miranda] Once I took my experiences
and the events that had happened to me
out of the context of their dogma,
and applied it to the context
of other normal people's reactions,
my own feelings and experiences,
legal definitions,
then I understood that what had happened
was trafficking and rape.
This a… Yes, in my system.
And also the story's complicated.
Mm.
But ultimately the responsibility lies…
with him.
To me it was just like
a bad experience until then.
And then talking to my therapist,
she was like,
"You know, let's just put the name
for the things that happened."
"When you were kidnapped…"
She started to use all of these words
in therapy. It was really conflicting.
It was like…
"Mm, I don't wanna hear that."
[laughing] "That's not what happened."
And she was like…
She really helped me
to start putting names
on the things that really, like…
To really name properly
the things that happened.
And then when I saw the charges
that we were accusing him of,
and then it said "rape".
And then it was an explanation
of what rape means for the French law.
Any type of sexual interaction
that you had,
that was done through
manipulation or coercion,
it's also called rape.
[horns blaring]
We don't have to talk a lot.
We just have to read
after your declaration,
to check that there are no mistakes…
I do worry about the fact
that I ultimately resisted,
and I ultimately did say no.
And I left and I wasn't initiated.
I didn't endure
the same horrors that others did.
Therefore is that an indication
that their consent was valid,
because I was able to say no?
[thumping drumbeats playing]
[Miranda] So this is the beginning
of the shops on the Cowley Road.
So you can see the sign from here.
You see it?
They're not going to say
that this didn't happen,
they're going to say
that everybody consented.
And therefore no crime occurred.
[in French] That's the whole debate
in this case.
That is what the accused maintain:
that everybody was free.
Every branch that was open
when I left is still open.
They target students particularly.
So it's really upsetting to think that
a young impressionable person,
but potentially anyone,
could just walk into that yoga studio
and have a yoga class, just like I did.
Without knowing that it's connected
to Bivolaru, and MISA and that man.
I can see, as a lawyer
dealing in these kind of cases,
that all of these women
were under psychological control
when they experienced
the acts they have reported.
What is illegal in France,
is when you're part of a group
and through a certain number
of conditioning techniques,
you are stripped of your free will.
I think that if it makes it to trial,
it certainly won't happen
within the next year,
and possibly not for two or three years.
We wait.
We wait proactively.
We have a saying in France. I don't know
if the translator will get this:
"We wait like soldiers,
weapons by our side,
ready for… action."
[soothing vocalizing playing]
[Ziggy] It's been crazy actually.
[laughs] You know…
I'm just still
trying to make sense of it all.
Just finding myself again.
[birds chirping]
[Andrea] I miss the community,
I miss the teaching.
I miss being so incredibly inspired.
And I've also learned that we can't
just keep a gaze up to the light,
when we're standing in a pile of shit.
[Ziggy] The time that I spent actually
in there and working alongside
the other community members,
I still feel like there's a sense
of accomplishment behind all of that.
[Bonnie] I have often wondered
what my life would be like
if I hadn't been
in this organization for seven years.
Maybe I would have had children.
I don't know.
Like, maybe I'd have been in a long term,
monogamous relationship for that time.
It's just really hard to know
what would have happened,
and how life would have been.
I think it's good to be curious about
why we're here in this incredible planet.
[inaudible conversation]
But life is hard.
Life is painful. Life is confusing.
A lot of really horrible things happen,
and we don't have the explanation for why,
and maybe we're not supposed to.
Some of my childhood dreams
were shattered
by this cult and this way of life.
I think it's our moral duty
to take a stand. To have a voice
and to not let ourselves be intimidated.
We have no reason to be ashamed.
As I like to say in English,
[in English] Only if you lose your fear,
you have the power to take their power.
[Ash] I'm still trying to figure out
where I sit
on the spiritual spectrum. [chuckles]
- Good boy, Gill.
- [dog pants]
[Ash] There is a sense of spirituality
there, but I don't know
what I believe in anymore, and I'm
still trying to make sense of that.
[Andrea] Since then, I realized
that I have this really deep connection
with the spirituality, if we want
to call it god, or the universe or source,
that I have such a deep experience
that-that I don't need a guru.
I don't need anybody else.
All of this exists within me.
- [insect buzzing]
- [birds singing]