World Of Secrets - The Bad Guru: 3. The Transformation

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

“I don't have my passport. I don't have my phone. I don't have my bank card… I have nothing”. Miranda is driven through Paris with her eyes covered to meet the guru Gregorian Bivolaru at a secret location. Why is her spiritual guide in hiding? This episode contains sexual content. Host: Cat McShane Producers: Emma Weatherill and Cat McShane Sound design: Melvin Rickarby Production Coordinator: Juliette Harvey Unit Manager: Lucy Bannister Executive Producer: Innes Bowen Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. You're about to listen to the latest series of World of Secrets, The Bad Guru. Episodes will be released weekly, wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the full series right now, first on BBC Sounds. This episode contains sexual content. We were told to pack our bags for a couple of weeks and put them in the back of the car. We didn't stop, really.

We drove through the night, but we didn't stop to sleep. Miranda is being driven across Europe with three other women. They're all followers of the same international yoga movement. Through the car window, Miranda makes out some road signs in French. We were told that we could keep our phones, but when we got to the destination point, we would need to send our kind of final text messages to family, etc. After 16 hours, they pull into a service station on the outskirts of Paris.

A people carrier pulls up beside them and two Romanian men tell them to get in. They said, have you turned your phones off? And then we got into the car. We were told that there were dark glasses and hats in each of the seat pockets and that we should put on one of these pairs of dark glasses, which had masking tape on the inside, and put on a hat and pull it down over our eyes so that we couldn't see where we were going. We were told not to take these off under any circumstances unless we were stopped by the police.

The yoga movement these women are part of is called Atman, the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation. Its followers revere a guru called Gregorian Bivilaru. In England, the movement's affiliate is a registered charity called the Tara Yoga Centre. Miranda, an English tutor from London, became involved through their studio in Clerkenwell. I felt very good after the classes. And they make her feel special. The people on reception were always very, very smiley, friendly, welcoming.

Miranda's making this sleepless 16-hour journey in the hope that at the end of it, she'll get to meet the guru Gregorian Bivalaro himself. How has Miranda gone from attending some yoga classes in London to thinking it's OK to be driven around Paris by strange men while blindfolded. This is World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru, a BBC Radio 4 investigation. I'm Kat McShane. Episode 3, The Transformation.

Over the past 18 months, Miranda has been pushing her boundaries in the name of spiritual enlightenment. She's been on a country house weekend retreat run by Tara Yoga. Were you surprised by how sexual this camp was? Yes. Had you had any preparation that this sort of thing was going to happen? No, I had no idea that these things would happen. She's also had a free holiday at a yoga festival in Romania

run by the local Atman Federation affiliate. The festival was for followers of Guru Gregorian Bivilaru. He promotes something called tantric yoga, the use of sexual energy and spiritual practices. Women said they're naked, they were painted gold. And the reason she doesn't scream, I'm a nice girl from Oxfordshire, get me out of here, is because there's always the promise that if she just carries on, if she just keeps following the teachings,

something amazing is going to happen, a spiritual awakening. I wanted to believe whatever they were doing was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. were doing was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. So I should explain. Although Miranda has been attending the Tara Yoga Centre in London, this weird road trip to the outskirts of Paris started not in England, but Hungary. That's because Miranda has spent the last few months at a sort of commune there. This was when we became really concerned. Miranda kept up communication with her mum, Penny, when we became really concerned. Miranda kept up communication with her mum, Penny, when she was in Hungary. Miranda had been invited to the commune by a visiting

speaker at Tara Yoga Centre. It was meant to be an artistic camp and a short stay, but she was gone for months. When she rang us, she'd be speaking in very hushed tones, as though there was someone around the corner who might be listening or as though she wasn't supposed to be ringing her family. And at that point, we thought, this is not good. I thought, shall I say something? I thought, shall I say, you know, Miranda, why are you whispering? Miranda, why are you whispering? And then I thought, no, don't say that,

because any intimation I give her that we are worried, I was very aware that it could backfire and that it might well push her further into the arms of whoever it was that was controlling her life. So you were scared that she would retreat? Yes. Miranda was being evasive over the phone because, according to Miranda, at this commune in Hungary, she was living under a strict regime. She was constantly cooking and cleaning. She says she had to ask permission to leave the commune. She was writing articles for magazines and

being photographed. She says she articles for magazines and being photographed. She says she was even persuaded to perform in some explicit scenes for an erotic film. So when she's on the phone to her mum, Miranda didn't know what to say to her. I could see that this wasn't a normal life. So sometimes I struggled to think, you know, what can I send photos of to try and keep it normal and relatable. I was lying about my whole life. And that is one of the hardest and most painful things that I've ever had to do. Because how can you connect with anyone when you're lying about everything? can you connect with anyone when you're lying about everything?

It was while Miranda was in Hungary that she received the invitation to go to Paris for her initiation with the spiritual guide, Gregorian Bivolaru. Beauty, I got news for you. He's asking when you go to visit him. This is part of the exchange of text messages between Miranda and the woman who claims to be passing on an invitation to her from the spiritual leader. He was just telling me, okay beauty, I'm very happy for you. Looking at the messages, Miranda gives the impression of being keen to make it happen. But there's something very important that makes her apparent eagerness really worrying. Something that explains the bizarre security arrangements around her trip. Something that makes it very surprising that the guru is receiving visitors. There's an Interpol Red Notice

out for him. So this is what it says on the Interpol Red Notice. Gregorian Bivolaru, Romanian, born 1952, wanted by Finland on five charges of, quote, aggravated trafficking in human beings and four charges of sexual abuse. So in 2019, when these arrangements were being made for Miranda to travel to Paris to see this yoga movement spiritual leader, he was actually a fugitive from justice. And there's more. Bivalaru was sentenced to six years in prison for having sex with an underage girl. One of the things about the BBC is we try to be scrupulously fair. So, here goes. In fairness to Gregorian Bivolaru, I should say,

that conviction that the guru had in his native Romania for unlawful sex with a teenager, I've looked into this, and it's a conviction with a female yoga student. But the victim claimed that the Romanian police had pressurised her into making a false statement, saying she'd had sex with the guru. She now says she didn't. In 2005, the Swedish government refused to extradite the guru to face criminal charges in Romania. This was because the Swedish court believed he was in danger of persecution in Romania

for his beliefs. It wasn't until he went to France that he was eventually extradited. And even then, the Romanian state later had to pay €50,000 damages to Bivolaru for delays to his trial. So it's complicated. Miranda knew about Bivalari's conviction, but she believed what she'd been told by other members of the movement, that the guru was the victim of political persecution in Romania. We were advised, rather than googling him and looking at all of this fake propaganda,

to speak to people in the school and to ask them questions and to hear about their experiences with him. And so Miranda hadn't Googled him. Eventually, Miranda gets word while she's in Hungary that she'll be travelling by car with three other women to meet the guru. It's important that I emphasise that none of the people involved in arranging Miranda's visit to this spiritual guru on the run were, as far as I know,

teachers or leaders at Tara Yoga Centre in London. But it looks as if some of the Tara teachers were arranging visits to him for other students. I've spoken to four women who were encouraged by teachers at Tara Yoga Centre to visit Gregorian Bivalario while he was a fugitive, one teacher encouraged a student via email. He invited you, as you know, and said to be very attentive because there are possibilities for demonic influences to stop you meeting him by generating fear. Take the opportunity to go, even if it's only one week. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.

That woman, that email was sent to, tells me that she was also encouraged to go by Tara's top teacher and sometime director, Maria Pawsvelt. I've been on this tantric path for a bit over 20 years now. Maria is a softly spoken Dane who gives talks on the Tara Yoga Centre's YouTube channel, such as this one entitled Open Couple Relationships. One of the areas of our life that we aim to integrate in a tantric practice, which is a practice that encompasses and integrates all areas of our life in our spiritual practice, would be that of love and relationships. I've also heard a secret recording

where teachers talk positively about meeting the guru. One teacher describes her trip as a huge spiritual gift and a catalyst for a huge transformation in her life. And in the secret recording, I've heard Maria say she sees nothing wrong with organising a visit for a student to see the fugitive guru. As you'll hear later in the series, this is far from the most surprising thing I have discovered about this international movement, but I still find it astounding. Maria was a trustee of the Tara Yoga Centre registered charity at the time. In that position of trust, it appears that she was encouraging the people the charity was meant to serve

to visit a man who was subject to an Interpol Red Notice related to charges for aggravated human trafficking and sexual abuse. We asked individuals, who it's alleged encouraged students at Tara Yoga to visit Gregorian Bivalari while he was a fugitive, for a response. None of them replied. The current directors of Tara Yoga Center didn't address these allegations specifically, but told us due to legal proceedings, which Tara Yoga Center, quote, will vigorously defend, it would be inappropriate to provide any comment. They also told us they

condemn all forms of abuse. When Miranda agreed to go to Paris to meet the guru, she didn't know anything about the Interpol Red Notice on him. So when she arrives in Paris and she's told... We should put on one of these pairs of dark glasses which had masking tape on the inside. Miranda doesn't find it too suspicious. She's got used to weird things happening that push her boundaries beyond normal behaviours.

And Miranda's been told that wearing a disguise will protect Gregorian Bivolaru, who Miranda now calls GB. The explanation was that some women had been very ungrateful and after their initiation they had been possessed by demons. They had chosen to tell the police and that they had put GB and the school and the school's

mission in very grave danger. And in order to avoid that ever happening again and to protect GB and to protect the school's mission, they had to do that now. Miranda's not the only woman I've spoken with who had this experience. They put dark glasses on, a hat on your head, they drive you around in circles in the city. The second you get in the car, glasses on, hat over your head, duck down, you've got to sit down, down lower, lower. No, you're up too high, go down lower. No, pull those glasses, pull that hat back over your head. You've already done so many weird things, I guess. It's just like, okay, God, this is bizarre. Bec is Australian and became involved in Bivalari's network through a yoga school in India.

Bec made a similar journey to Miranda's through the Paris streets. You think, if I said, let me out of the car, they would let me out of the car. But the fact is, you wouldn't be let out of the car, because I've done it. I did it. I'm like, you've got to let me out of the car now. Now. No. Immediately. Now. I'm sick. I'm like, you got to let me out of the car now. Now. No, immediately. Now.

I'm sick. I'm going to vomit. I can't stand this anymore. You're going to let me out of the car now, now, now. And then they're like, just wait a minute. And I'm getting progressively more and more distressed, more and more distressed. Just in a minute. Yeah. In a minute. And then like 20 minutes has gone by. So yeah, they will not let you out of the car. And I was aware that we stopped and an automatic gate opened and someone opens the door takes you by the arm walks you you come inside the metal gate the gate closes behind you and then they take you by the arm with the thing over your head the women are being taken straight to see gregorian bivilaru instead they've arrived

at holding house where they'll wait until he's ready to call them for their initiation with him. The first thing that we had to do was to open our suitcases for them to be checked. We had to hand over our passports, mobile phones, credit cards, any other IDs. These were then foil-wra foil wrapped they told us that they were doing that and putting them away in a cupboard so that the electromagnetic frequencies of these

objects wouldn't interfere with the energy field of the house and in terms of the passport was that just something that you were used to? It was seen as a deficiency. If you questioned anything, whereas if you were open-minded, accepting, surrendered, this was seen as a proof of your existing level of spiritual advancement. Miranda doesn't know it yet, but she'll be living in Paris for almost three weeks. In fact, Miranda won't touch British soil for some time. common? Well, their lives and fortunes are all being discussed on Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring the minds, motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals. I'm Zing Zing and each week my co-presenter Simon Jack and I take a closer look at the world's mega rich and we try to decide whether they're good, bad or just another

billionaire. From celebs and CEOs to spot stars and tech titans. Find out how billionaires made their money and how they use it. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. All episodes of season one and two are available now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. And click follow or subscribe so you never miss a new episode. The house sprawls across three storeys. A courtyard surrounds the property, which has tall, gated entrances on both sides. Inside, on the basement floor, there was a yoga room.

Upstairs, you walked into a kind of red-carpeted, a kind of a landing area then there were a couple of bedrooms maybe three bedrooms on that floor then there was this kind of winding staircase with a lot of bookshelves according to miranda she's given an unrelenting series of bizarre tasks to complete before being deemed ready for the spiritual guide. First naked photos with her date of birth on it, then watching testimonials of women who had been initiated by him. We had to sign various questionnaires.

There was one about what different types of orgasm you'd had. There was one about what different types of orgasm you'd had. We were asked to record testimonies about all of the wonderful spiritual experiences we were having in the house and what a great time we were having. Watch mainstream porn and write reflections about the women and how we thought that they were exemplifying certain states of femininity. Pages and pages of non-disclosure forms are signed. Sometimes Miranda's after sign confusing declaration of consent late at night and a vow of secrecy is taken. I hereby solemnly swear that I will never tell anyone about all of the wonderful states and experiences I've had.

And if I do, I will face grave, even dire consequences on my future health and spiritual development. By the fact that you're hearing Miranda talk about this, you can infer that she later decides to break this vow. But back in Paris in 2019, she really believes bad things will happen to her if she tells anyone what happens in this house. And Miranda wants to follow their orders.

She was given rules to follow, lots of rules. You weren't allowed to open the windows. Or if the windows were cracked open, you weren't allowed to talk. I did sometimes. When I was alone in the toilet, I stood on top of the toilet and cracked open the window and looked outside. Because I missed seeing the outside, we were, you know, shut in that building.

And I guess it was on some level some small act of freedom or rebellion one day miranda spots someone she recognizes at the house the winner of what's called the miss shakti competition it's something miranda witnessed at the yoga festival she attended in romania kind of hyper sexualized miss world part of Miss World. Part of this winner's prize was to live with the spiritual guide. She was completely isolated and she had quite short hair from having shaved her head recently and she lived in a shed just outside the main house. And I noticed that she didn't really come in during the day. She would sleep during the day and come in to use the bathroom

and eat and do her yoga practice at night. And she was not thinking kind of normally or rationally. According to Miranda, the female leaders in the house give her a statement written by Gregorian Bivaloru that outline the deficiencies he sees in this woman. Here's a flavour of what Miranda says she remembers about what was in the letter. She was very chaotic.

She couldn't be trusted. She was a liar and basically telling everyone to stay away from her. And he had her on a tapas or a spiritual program of doing 10 days on the ashawa diet, which is just grains and water and salt and 10 days off. And also on a tapas of drinking her urine and I definitely witnessed the the staff you know the women who are volunteering their full-time being really abusive towards her really unkind so yeah you know she was the winner of Miss Shakti but she was completely unrecognizable to me compared with the woman that I had seen on the stage you know almost a year previously she was a yeah a completely different person and definitely not mentally stable.

Miranda has become used to increasingly strange situations over the year and a half since she joined Tara Yoga in London. But even so, the sheer scale of this strange house she's staying in in Paris takes her aback. The bedrooms contain multiple double mattress bunk beds. And people were constantly coming and going. So you might have been sharing a bed with one woman for two nights, another woman for a week, another woman you'd never met before might just turn up and be in the bed next to you at 3am.

So you just got used to this, to unexpected things just kind of fairly constantly happening and to nothing really being explained to you. Some have been here for days, some for months. Some seem to live here. And what sort of countries were people there from? Russia, Australia, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Iceland, Slovenia, Slovakia. The meeting Moran was expecting to have with the guru Gregorian Bivalaro

is described by everyone as an initiation. Miranda doesn't know exactly what will happen at the initiation, but she knows it will be a sexual encounter. She believes it will transform her in some way. So she sits in the holding house in Paris and awaits her fate. When Miranda tells me about her experiences, I find it hard to square the extreme things that Miranda is doing, without question, with the woman I see in front of me,

who is clearly such an intelligent, eloquent and reflective person. But the search for spiritual enlightenment has a unique way of clouding people's judgement that leaves them vulnerable to cults. A lot of these experiences that deeply affect someone, it takes a long time to sort out. They can be very profound and even spiritual as well as being abusive and damaging. And when only one side of that interpretation is being pushed by all those around you, it's hard to acknowledge the parts that are manipulative and traumatic.

Dr Suzanne Newcomb is an expert on new and minority religions and thinks yoga can leave students open to abuse. When you're in a situation where you think that people have your best interests at heart, that they know more than you, that they can lead you to some new experiences and understandings of yourself that you've never had before, you're in quite a vulnerable and self-doubting position. It was a friendly and community-minded place. All of these nice, smiley, shiny, happy, good-looking people, there was this sense that these people cared

and that they had this love and affection for you. There's a tendency for people who become very involved in an exotic new religious tradition to idealise their teachers and see them as having these unique insights and access to a interpretation of reality that will be free from pain and suffering if they just follow instructions, they'll get there. I'd been told if you want to have genuine spiritual progress for yourself with a genuine spiritual master, then you follow our teachings. And I did really want this. About two and a half weeks after arriving at the holding house in Paris,

Miranda is told it's time. Miranda and two other women are finally going to meet with Gori and Bivolaru, but they need to move one more time. You need to pack all of your things now into the suitcase because we're going to give your bed space to someone else. And you need to take a shower, shave all of your body hair, not use any deodorants, perfumes or creams. Pack a toothbrush and a couple of changes of underwear and that's it

and get ready to go. And how were you feeling about going? Very nervous. There was a lot of pressure. A lot was attached to this event. It felt extremely high stakes, but yet I had literally no idea of what was going to happen or where I was going to be. Beck remembers the journey she took to Gregorian Bivilari's apartment in Paris. You're not allowed your phone or passport. You're not allowed a piece of paper or a pen

or anything to write on or record anything in any way. You're allowed one clear plastic bag, not any perfumes, not any lip're allowed one clear plastic bag, not any perfumes, not any lipsticks, one clear plastic bag. We were just kind of silent there in the car and the coping mechanism, I guess, which came to me was to recite a kind of mantra, I suppose, internally. You're driven into a basement car park, blindfolded, walked through the basement car park to an elevator.

We were told to not walk together, to not talk, walk one behind the other. And going through this door, we came into a kind of communal garden space with a pathway you know there was greenery the apartment buildings look relatively modern and as we were walking through this garden with this plastic bag in my hand with my toothbrush and two or three pairs of underwear and we were all wearing dresses. I can remember thinking, what would I do if I changed my mind right now? We came to a door on the left-hand side.

We knocked on the door and waited. We contacted Gregorian Bivilaru through his lawyer to give him an opportunity to respond to the allegations in this episode. He did not reply. MISA, a yoga organisation associated with Mr Bivilaru, strongly defended him, stating that he has been the victim of political persecution and false allegations, and that his teachings are followed by more than 40,000 people around the world.

They point out that in the case of his conviction for a sex offence, the victim now claims she was coerced by the Romanian police into making a false statement. Next time on World of Secrets, The Bad Guru. She said, look, we do cam girl work and you need to pay for your passage here. World of Secrets, The Bad Guru is a BBC Studios audio production. It's presented by me, Kat McShane and produced by myself and Emma Weatherill. The executive producer is Inez Bowen. by myself and Emma Weatherall.

The executive producer is Innes Bowen. Subscribe to World of Secrets. Episodes will be released weekly, wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the full series right now, first on BBC Sounds. For years, a witness's evidence has been locked away.

I've seen the dark side. He warned a chemical is coming. It's a silent killer. And that he was a target. Forced into a witness protection programme. We're Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor, two investigative journalists, joined by the Hollywood star Michael Sheen. Do you think someone's going to try and kill us? From BBC Radio 4, an unsettling investigation into a chemical secret unravels.

They don't have any record of him. What? Listen now to Bury the Last Witness on BBC Sounds. Thank you. individuals. I'm Zing Zing and each week my co-presenter Simon Jack and I take a closer look at the world's mega rich and we try to decide whether they're good, bad or just another billionaire. From celebs and CEOs to sports stars and tech titans, find out how billionaires made their money and how they use it. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. All episodes of season one and two are available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. And click follow or subscribe so you never miss a new episode.