A new Apple TV series, Twisted Yoga, investigates allegations of rape and trafficking linked to a network of yoga camps run by a self-professed guru. The three-part documentary explores how followers of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA) were allegedly manipulated into sex work and orgies after being lured to secret locations.
The guru, Gregorian Bivolaru, was already wanted by Interpol for sexual exploitation charges in Romania dating back to 2016. He was detained in France in 2023 and charged with organised kidnapping, organised abuse of weakness by members of a sect, human trafficking and rape. He is currently awaiting trial.
Former followers, including a woman named Miranda who previously shared her story with the Guardian, describe their slow indoctrination into what appears to be a cult. They attended yoga schools in cities like London and Paris before being taken to secret locations, their sim cards and IDs confiscated. Miranda says she did not see herself as a victim, even when she was lured into tantric sex with Bivolaru as part of a 'transfiguration ritual'.
Director Rowan Deacon says the series aims to be empathetic, explaining the women's stories from their point of view. 'The question that we grappled with is how come this hasn't come to the fore sooner?' she says. 'How come people haven't spoken out sooner? Why is it happening now, when this man has been in Paris doing this for 20 years?'
Executive producer Suzanne Lavery notes that the women entered the situation as a spiritual exercise, but the terminology used to describe it changed their perspective. 'If you take away that terminology, and then you're looking at it from a legal perspective, or as a therapist, or in the cold light of day … it's challenging the belief system that they had built up,' she says.
Deacon adds that the indoctrination changed the women's view of what had happened to them. 'It takes a long time to disentangle the narratives that you've told yourself or that you've been told,' she says. 'In many women's cases, it took other women speaking to them about their experiences that kind of unlocked something for them.'
