On Tuesday, November 28, 2023, the French police carried out a large raid against an international tantric yoga sect, the Atman federation, and arrested dozens of its executives for human trafficking, indoctrination and kidnapping. Among them is his guru, Gregorian Bivolaru, a Romanian who pushed female followers to sleep with him for supposed spiritual elevation. Our correspondent in India, Sébastien Farcis, investigated for two months and spoke with several victims. He reveals how this sect operates.

From our correspondent in India, 

The music is soft and soaring. Sunset light radiates the room, located on top of a hotel in Rishikesh, a holy city in northern India. In the center of the room, around fifty young people in casual clothes advance with their eyes closed, one after the other, in an aisle formed by their companions. With a hesitant step, everyone then lets themselves be caressed by the hands of the other practitioners. “  Connect with your feelings, disconnect your mind and feel the loving energies of others  ,” encourages the teacher, Purusha Ananda, dressed in a red tunic. This “  angel walk  ” represents the first exercise of a tantric yoga class, offered by the Mahasiddha school. An introductory session to encourage these young people to follow a three-day course, which begins the next morning: “  erotic energy is the source of our inner power ,” explains the teacher in a suave voice. And I will teach you how to control this energy to make love better, and to purify your emotions to transcendence and communion with God  .” 

The master's sexual gratification

This proposition seems tempting. But it hides a darker face: that of a sect of tantrism, the Atman federation, which pushes hundreds of young women towards unbridled sexual relations. 

French authorities arrest Misa leader in major raid over claims of organised kidnapping, rape and abuse

French authorities have arrested the leader of a multinational tantric yoga organisation on suspicion of indoctrinating women for sexual exploitation.

The Romanian guru was detained on Tuesday morning during a major police operation across the Paris region, according to a French judicial official, who was not authorised to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.

The French official identified the man as Gregorian B, whom French media identified as Gregorian Bivolaru, 71, an internationally known yoga teacher and author.

The investigation into Bivolaru and his yoga federation, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (Misa), began after reports of psychological manipulation and sexual exploitation within the organisation, according to the official. Former Misa members alerted authorities to the alleged abuses.

NAIROBI — At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when up to 12 million people were infected across sub-Saharan Africa, Nyumbani Children’s Home offered a refuge to Kenya’s dying children. Later, the institute, run by a Catholic charity, fought for the first batches of retroviral drugs for its sick toddlers.

Contributions poured in from American politicians, media personalities and celebrities. Former vice president Mike Pence praised the nun who ran it by name on World Aids Day in 2018 and hosted her at the White House. Congressional tours were frequent.

But behind the smiles and promotional tours, the privately funded orphanage allegedly concealed terrible secrets. In previously unreported claims, six former residents told The Washington Post there were multiple incidents of rape and other abuses of children by volunteers, caregivers and even other children. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s own previous investigation, following a whistleblower’s complaint, found abuse claims at the orphanage “credible,” according to court documents submitted by the orphanage’s Kenyan board in its efforts to oust its director. USAID did not directly support the orphanage, but funded two other associated programs.

One woman sent to Nyumbani when she was three years old said she was abused by a “brother” volunteering from a Catholic religious order when she was just hitting puberty. Like almost all the abuse victims who spoke to The Post, she spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy.

“He was touching my private body parts,” she said. “He told me: ‘You don’t know how to kiss? Let me teach you. … You are a child, you do not know what to do.'”

CHENNAI: A European cult that mixes yoga with sex and pornography has been found to be operating out of Chennai.
Training nearly 100 youngsters in yoga and ‘tantric love' at a rented house in Chokalingam Nagar, Teynampet, for more than two years now, the Movement for Spiritual Integration in Absolute (Misa) is trying to spread across the country, investigations by TOI have revealed.
 

A team of seven Misa teachers, nationals of Denmark and Romania, is now in the city for a special camp, titled 'Tantra — The Path of Love'. A majority of them, including the lead couple Mihai Stoian and Adina Stoian, have starred in porn movies produced by Copenhagen-based production house Sublime Erotica, which the Misa group has close ties with. Misa operates under different names in different countries. It is Natha in Denmark, Tara in the US and Satya in India.
TOI is in possession of videos that show the yoga teachers, now in India, in explicit sexual acts. Misa's supreme guru, a Romanian called Gregorian Bivolaru, has been jailed on several charges, including pornography, and is now said to have taken political asylum in Sweden.

When asked about the videos, Mihai, the 42-year-old Romanian national who heads Misa activities in the absence of Bivolaru, said it was an experiment in spreading the group's philosophy and practice. "For many, sexuality stems from desire. We want to spread the message that it is a divine integration of masculinity and femininity to attain spirituality," he told TOI at the camp being organised at a private club in Nungambakkam.
Other Misa teachers who figure in porn videos and now in Chennai are Ulrik Lishoj (Denmark), Simona Colesniuc (Romania) and Nicole Markus (Romania).

The foreigners' regional registration office said that as these people were on visit visas, they are not allowed to teach yoga or do any such job, but the 'teachers' have an argument. "We are only volunteers. The yoga centre is registered under a trust represented by Indians," said Angela Oestergaard, a 35-year-old Danish woman who manages Chennai Satya Esoteric Integral Yoga at Teynampet.

'Tantra', as an ancient philosophy and practice, has different definitions. The blurb of MISA's controversial guru Bivolaru's unpublished book The Secret Tantric Path of Love has this to say: Have you ever dreamed of or aspired to make love intensely, profoundly and frantically with your beloved woman for even ten hours in a row? This book reveals a host of such secret methods in a clear and accessible language, if you allow yourself to be guided by the personal experience of the author.

Mihai, with a salt-pepper beard and dressed in a yellow cotton shirt and trousers, doesn't quite look a yogi. But, for his disciples — he claims there are 40,000 of them in 30 countries — he is much more than that. He is a scientist (a nuclear scientist-turned-researcher in artificial intelligence, he says), philosopher and guru who teaches sexual continence as the panacea for all relationship problems. Don't mistake this continence for abstention-Misa believes sexual continence is the ability to have orgasms at will, minus the ejaculation. "It's perfect for India." Stoian says, "You can bring down the population growth without any contraceptive!"

But that's not what he teaches at the Satya Yoga centre. It's about the coming together of the masculine and the feminine, Siva and Sakthi to attain supreme spirituality.

Do their Indian students know about their other life? Yes and no. "I don't know if they have done such videos, but what they do in their country doesn't bother me," says Rajesh Shah (45), a manager with an engineering firm in Chennai. "Two years of learning here has made me more energetic, creative and innovative in all spheres of life." Another student, Sanjai Jain (42), a jeweller, says he has heard of the videos, but not viewed them. "Every famous person faces such allegations," he says.

With such confidence in their students, Satya Yoga has ambitious plans in India. "We are blending ancient knowledge with modern science. The Indian potential is big. There is a big need for such a comprehensive approach on spirituality. In five years, there will be hundreds of thousands of our students in India," says Mihai, who will be flying out of the country next week. His team of seven teachers will accompany him abroad, while a few other foreigners would stay back to train Indian students.

A few days ago, the prosecutor's office in Florence ordered the search of 25 locations of MISA branches in Bologna, Florence, Milan, San Benedetto del Tronto and Bari. The police descended not only on the yoga centers, but also on the homes of those involved, seizing computers, diaries and video recordings. The investigation would have been triggered by the complaints made by at least two possible victims of Bivolaru's disciples, following the experiences they had within the organization.

"Il secolo XIX" recorded (December 10, 2012) that the investigators interviewed 10 witnesses - possible injured parties. They are women and men between 20-30 years old who, according to the indictment, would have been brought into a state of psychological submission and then convinced to indulge in violent sexual practices, filmed without their knowledge. According to the teachings of the MISA courses, sexual practices are "necessary for spiritual evolution".

Although initially there were 18 suspects, the same source mentions that at the moment there are 20 people investigated in the investigation, students and instructors of the searched centers. Investigations are ongoing to determine the destination of the video recordings made without the knowledge or consent of the participants. Among the hypotheses is the fact that the respective films would have followed the same path as those from Miss Shakti 2001 and 2002, namely the circuit of films for adults.

Roberto Zambrenti who, together with Daniela Trogu, coordinates the Atman Yoga Center in Genoa, did not want to comment either on the articles that appeared recently in the Italian press, or on the complaints and criticisms brought to MISA on the www.exmisa.org forum. But he told the Italian press that he considered the investigation by the prosecutor's office in Florence to be unfounded: "It is the faithful copy of other judicial attacks that this school endures in different countries: it happened recently in Finland, and now it is happening here in Italy."  

The MISA press office stated as early as Friday, December 7, 2012, in a statement published on the sect's official website, that the investigations in Italy would be based on the complaints of "a chef of Romanian origin who lives in Italy and who wanted to take revenge because he was expelled from the Romanian yoga school".

From: Nigel Cantwell [mailto:cantabene@gmail.com]

Sent: Mittwoch, 17. Juni 2015 19:20

To: Arun Dohle

Subject: Re: CRC - Hague

Arun

On Nov 7, 2015, at 5:26 PM, Arun Dohle wrote:

Dear Susan Bissell,

i m still eagerly awaiting a reply from you.

Given the fact, that I as a European taxpayer contribute to the funding UNICEF receives from the European Commission, I wonder how my taxpayers money is being used.

Meanwhile a serious dutch TV Program has exposed the devastating effect of polices which are in line with the Hague Adoption Convention approach of the subsidiarity principle, which is conflicting with the CRC and at odds with the opinion of the independent panel.

In 1997 the European Council decided that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was to be
considered inseparable of the EU Treaty and thus was placed on the acquis list as legal basis for the accession
monitoring and negotiations under the Copenhagen Criteria. Article 24 - The rights of the child - of the EU
Charter on Fundamental Rights is also based on the UNCRC.

There is also another international convention, the Hague Adoption Convention (1993). This private law
convention, however, is not part of the acquis. Although it was meant to prevent child trafficking, in practice, in
Romania, it created a demand-driven market in children. Behind this legal market, all kind of abuses are hidden,
such as corruption, abuse of power and the infiltration of pedophiles.
The European Commission and the European Parliament, at the time (2000), spoke with one voice in
condemning this market, and requested from Romania the full respect of the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child. Especially as concerns article 21b of the UNCRC, which limits intercountry adoption as a last resort
– after all local care options such as foster care, adoption, residential care and any other suitable manner of care
(the so-called subsidiarity principle).

It then appeared that those with vested interests in intercountry adoption (United States, Israel, France, Italy,
Spain and the Scandinavian countries) interpreted children’s rights in a different manner. While these countries
respect the UNCRC, article 21b, for their own children (except the US which did not ratify the UNCRC), they
apply the Hague adoption Convention’s version of subsidiarity for countries from where they adopt children.
The Hague Adoption Convention’s interpretation of subsidiarity conflicts with article 21b of the UNCRC, as it
does not consider foster care and residential care as suitable care, but only as short term temporary options.
Instead the adoption proponents see three options: return of the child to the children’s family, national adoption,
intercountry adoption. Strict time limits for the first two options then automatically lead to the availability of
children for intercountry adoption. If families cannot take back their children from residential care or foster care
timely, their parental rights are terminated and children become “adoptable”.

see attachment

drafted by Iara de Witte, DCI

Last modified: Jolijn van Haaren (Unicef)

Unicef NL = Unicef Committee (fundraising)

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