Posted: 10/31/2012 8:18 am EDT Updated: 12/30/2012 5:12 am EST
It calls itself the "Movement for Spiritual Integration in Absolute" -- or MISA -- and is reputedly the largest "yoga" movement in Europe,
claiming some 40,000 members in more than a dozen countries. But it's
actually a dangerous personality cult whose "supreme spiritual leader," Gregorian Bivolaru, has been accused of coercing or seducing hundreds of vulnerable women into producing hard-core porn videos,
abandoning their spouses, and in some cases, becoming strippers and
prostitutes -- all in the name of "liberating" the female body and
bringing MISA members into intimate communion with the "Divine Goddess."
On
its face, the group might sound like an obvious fraud, even a criminal
one. But it has escaped prosecution to date, in part because Bivolaru,
who first founded MISA in his native Romania in 1990, was persecuted
under communist rule. For years many of his countrymen, including
influential members of the Romanian elite, as well as human rights
groups like Amnesty International, have treated Bivolaru
as a "victim" worth defending. Thousands of Romanians have marched and
protested on MISA's behalf, and after the communist regime fell, and the
new authorities still decided to arrest him -- this time, on sex crime
charges -- Bivolaru somehow escaped from prison and wound up in Sweden.
There, after what most independent observers consider a sham investigation, the Swedish government granted him political asylum.
The full extent of MISA's alleged criminal activities may never be known. However, based
on testimony from group defectors -- first presented on the website,
exmisa.org -- MISA's development parallels that of other, more notorious
yoga cults. One obvious forerunner is the movement surrounding
the Indian mystic Bhagwan Rajneesh (aka "Osho") that flourished in the
late 1980s, just as MISA was getting started. Bivolaru, like Rajneesh,
has claimed a special channel to the Divine Source that endows him with
God-like powers, including the ability to channel spiritual energy and
telepathic insights to his followers via mass gatherings and virtual
"hook ups" that appear intended to induce MISA followers to surrender
their will and identity -- and in some cases, their life savings -- to
their beloved "guru."
But
Bivolaru is no mere Osho copycat. While his forerunner often created an
environment of sexual licentiousness, Bivolaru is unique, perhaps, in
placing a self-styled "Tantric" eroticism at the center of his group's
theology, suggesting that all human, especially female, sexual
inhibitions must be removed to allow the Divine spirit to flourish.
Defectors
who have shared their testimonies, which form the basis of the criminal
case that is still pending in Romania, say that MISA typically recruits
young women, often still in their teens, with the promise of a better
spiritual life. The initial pitch suggests that the women will learn
"esoteric yoga" and begin to live in a larger "movement" setting that
will nurture them in ways that their families alone cannot. Once
separated from their loved ones, however, members become more
susceptible to peer pressure from older MISA members and are slowly
drawn into a series of deepening and more compromising personal
commitments, frequently backed up by written contracts that the members
are led to believe have the force of law. Sometimes the pressure -- and
the threats -- are far more overt, but despite their growing doubts and
discontent, many feel too vulnerable to "escape," defectors say.
In the early days of MISA, according
to charges filed with Romanian prosecutors, Bivolaru and his chief
lieutenants were known to engage in sex with underage girls, some in
their early teens. (In fact, Bivolaru himself took one of
those teenage girls as a lover and ersatz spouse, and she still
accompanies him). However, as the group expanded to Scandanavia and the
UK, and became better known -- and more notorious -- it appears to have
grown more cautious about respecting traditional age limits. Still,
MISA's goal and modus operandi apparently continues to be the
recruitment and active sexualization of its female members, both for the
personal pleasure of Bivolaru and his inner circle, and even more
important, as a means of generating additional large-scale financing for
the group, defectors say.
For
example, one prominent MISA activity -- which the group describes
euphemistically as "karma yoga," or service -- involves young female
MISA members being sent to Japan and other countries to work as pole
dancers and strippers. The women are usually housed in confined,
overcrowded quarters and their movements strictly controlled, defectors
say. MISA leaders are said to generally confiscate their passports,
leaving them without any practical means of escape. Under the terms of
their contracts, all of the funds garnered from these activities must be
surrendered to MISA. The women dance, and receive tips, but according
to a 2004 Romanian indictment, are also expected to perform sexual
favors for clients that request them. According to public testimonies,
some women have performed as strippers again and again, often returning
to Japan for repeat stays lasting months, or even years.
Another,
even more prominent and public MISA activity, consists of the two
annual spring and summer retreats held on the Romanian coast, on the
edge of the Black Sea. These activities are open to regular MISA
members, but are also one way the group recruits new members. Newcomers
to the gatherings must provide photos of themselves in bikinis as well
as proof that they are free of sexual diseases before being allowed to
attend. According to testimonies, MISA leaders use these "applications"
to size up potential sexual conquests, and also to make decisions about
who to approach to get more involved in MISA's less publicly known
activities, including a nude "Miss Shakti" beauty contest that in past
years has featured live sex on stage, as well as the shooting of
hard-core porn videos, for sale in selected European markets, often
without the knowledge of the participants, and in most cases, without
compensation.
One
of MISA's better-known porn videos, "Water Ecstasy," showcases
Bivolaru's rather bizarre view that women -- and their male lovers --
can achieve heightened states of spiritual consciousness through what
amounts to pornographic "watersports" or what MISA calls "urinary
orgasm." The videos typically feature voluptuous and heavily made-up
naked women dressed up in the likeness of the Hindu goddess Shakti,
surrounded by one or more men, playfully engaged in various form of
sexual foreplay. In some of the videos, a male lover gently induces the
"goddess" to urinate into his mouth. In others, pairs of lovers engage
in ritualistic sex overseen by a spiritual guardian -- Bivolaru himself,
it seems -- who prophesies about the Divine "purpose" and meaning of
their acts.
Thanks
to past exposés, including the work of high profile defectors like
Cecilia Tiz, as well as a 2009 Finnish documentary, The Dark Side of a
Tantric Cult, activities like these have increased the pressure on
Romanian authorities to move more aggressively against Bivolaru and his
top lieutenants, many of whom are women. However, MISA, with support
from high-level friends in Europe, has shown remarkable staying power.
In 2008, the European Yoga Alliance and the International Yoga
Federation expelled MISA, calling it an illicit "business front." MISA's
response? It set up a separate and competing European yoga federation
comprised of its member organizations in countries like Denmark and the
UK, and began sponsoring its own international conferences to refurbish
its image. And earlier this year, Bivolaru managed to get part of its
original indictment by Romanian authorities dropped, even as MISA
members, including a group of well-known European porn stars, led by
Mihai Stoian, a top Bivolaru aide, were being expelled from South India
for illicitly filming graphic sex videos.
In
fact, even as public criticism has grown elsewhere, long-time MISA
members have managed to set up shop in several cities in the United
States in the hopes of taking advantage of America's sprawling and
unregulated yoga industry. Just as Osho did in Oregon in the 1980s, with
disastrous results, MISA's operatives have deliberately chosen small-
and mid-sized cities (Glendale, Arizona and Des Moines, Iowa) and
regional metropolises (Las Vegas, Nevada and Atlanta, Georgia) away from
crowded yoga industry centers like Los Angeles and New York, presumably
where they can slowly, and without much scrutiny, recreate the kind of
cultish "Tantric" communities they first fashioned in Romania, and in a
host of other European countries where MISA operates under a variety of
names (for example, NATHA in Denmark, and TARA in the UK, to name just
two).
According
to my own field investigations, conducted just three months ago, MISA
has already begun recruiting American women to participate in the same
kinds of shady activities that have led to criminal charges against
Bivolaru and his top lieutenants in Romania. And they have done so
without the knowledge of U.S. federal authorities and with the tacit
blessing of the Virginia-based Yoga Alliance, which has granted several
top MISA "teachers" a formal "certification" to teach "yoga." Two of the
better-known American MISA teachers, Ileana Stefanescu and Ofelia Mohr,
make no secret of their close ties to Bivolaru and to other senior MISA
leaders responsible for recruiting and supervising women to participate
in MISA's sex activities in Romania, and Stefanescu, at least, is a
former active participant herself. And yet both women appear to come and
go as they please, and to operate on U.S. soil without scrutiny -- and
indeed, like MISA elsewhere, with relative impunity.
Are
any of MISA's "yogis" actually guilty of a crime? That remains to be
proven legally, of course. But MISA's existence -- and the tolerance and
even favor it continues to enjoy -- is suggestive of how, in today's
yoga world, the boundary line between authentic spiritual and sexual
exploration, on the one hand, and pornographic sexual exhibitionism and
crass sexual exploitation has broken down. MISA continues to engage in
unsavory and illicit sexual activities, some of which clearly resemble
global sex trafficking. But with Bivolaru safely ensconced in Sweden,
and Romanian authorities clearly divided, it's unclear who if anyone is
authorized to stop or constrain it from spreading.
And
what of the United States? Right now, there's no discernible yoga
constituency, or set of constituencies, that might serve as a front of
advocacy on these issues. American yogis, including the women who
overwhelmingly dominate its teacher corps, have steadfastly resisted
attempts by public authorities to intervene in yoga teacher training or
to impose guidelines on how yoga might be regulated or taxed. The
unregulated anarchy of the yoga movement may be guaranteeing it freedom
from excessive state control. But as the MISA case demonstrates, it may
also be providing the kind of loose "cover" that weakens public
accountability and oversight of the yoga industry and that could end up
allowing hundreds and perhaps thousands of vulnerable women to be placed
at greater risk for abuse and exploitation. Surely there's more to yoga
sisterhood than this.
Correction:
An earlier version of the post incorrectly stated that Ofelia Mohr is a
"well-known participant" in MISA's summer sex-related activities in
Romania.
