Gregorian Bivolaru

Early life Gregorian Bivolaru was born in 1952 in Tărtășești, Ilfov County, (now in Dâmbovița County), in the Muntenia region of Romania. He completed high school in Bucharest, and joined a predecessor to the Bucharest Metro company as an unskilled labourer in 1971. He began practicing yoga at the age of 17, and began to teach it at the age of 18. During the communist regime Bivolaru was kept under observation by the Department of State Security, since he was 19 years old, because he asked for pornography from foreign countries, and, later, because he was practicing and teaching yoga, He was jailed twice and forcibly hospitalized in a psychiatric ward once. On 17 April 1984, he was arrested again for distributing pornographic materials. Legal history In 2005, Bivolaru was charged in Romania on eight counts, including sexual exploitation, tax evasion, and illegally crossing the border to escape prosecution. In March 2005, he asked for asylum in Sweden, claiming that he feared persecution in Romania. On 15 April the Romanian Police issued a second warrant in his name, accusing him of "human trafficking and other charges related to organized crime" (related to an alleged sequestration of people in some ashrams and forcing them to work without being paid). The Swedish Immigration Authority granted Bivolaru political asylum from 2 January 2006. In 2008, Bivolaru and everyone linked to MISA or Natha were expelled from the European Yoga Council, where he had been an honorary member. In 2010, Bivolaru requested damages from the Romanian state for his sentencing to mandatory psychiatric treatment during the Communist regime. On 18 January 2011, Bivolaru's trial was, for the tenth time, postponed again until 23 March 2011, marking his case as one of the longest-running in the Cluj court. This trial for human trafficking is still pending, but the unconstitutionality exceptions invoked by the suspects have been rejected. On 1 July 2011, a Bucharest court issued a ruling recognizing the political nature of the sentences suffered by Bivolaru during the communist period and his internment. In another 2011 trial, at the Sibiu court, the charges were dropped, partly due to lack of evidence for some charges (evidence was dropped for failing to show that the interceptions were legally mandated), and partly due to exceeding the statute of limitations corresponding to the charges. In 2012, MISA faced allegations of procuring and forced prostitution. In 2013, the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania convicted and sentenced Bivolaru in absentia to six years in prison, without suspension, for sexual acts with a minor, who said she never had sexual relations with Bivolaru. On the same day, Court Judge Ionuț Matei received a letter threatening him and his family. In 2016, Bivolaru was arrested in France. After extradition from France, he was imprisoned in Romania. He requested a retrial. His six-year term was reduced by one year and three months, since he had already spent this time in detention. Alba Iulia Court of Appeals had rejected Bivolaru's demand for a retrial. In 2017, Bivolaru was released from prison on parole. Soon after being paroled, Bivolaru fled the country. He was wanted by the police in Finland and France for human trafficking between 2008 and 2013, for sexual abuse, and other crimes. In 2023 he was wanted by Interpol for aggravated trafficking in human beings and sexual assault at the request of Finland. He was arrested in France on 28 November 2023. Bivolaru and five other people belonging to MISA were placed under provisional arrest. They were accused of financial exploitation, under the guise of Tantra (sexual exploitation). Bivolaru thinks he is "the victim of a political conspiracy", This has long been the official creed of Bivolaru and MISA. In Finland the charges he faces are punishable with ten years imprisonment. In France he faces charges punishable with 30 years imprisonment. The other five persons still in prison at this time face charges punishable with 15 years imprisonment. He was imprisoned in France in 2023 for what was alleged to be a rape, human trafficking and kidnapping scheme. According to Le Monde, "At the eight locations they visited, the police found 58 women – 51 of Romanian nationality, none French – 'living in difficult conditions, with severe overcrowding and no privacy'". Each woman in the villa of Bivolaru's right-hand man from France had a room of three square meters, and the hygiene conditions were poor. They were malnourished. In 2024 German authorities opened an investigation regarding MISA/ATMAN. The authorities have expressed doubts about the success of such investigation, since Germany does not have the same laws as France. Bivolaru will receive payment for damages, for a 17-year trial in Romania, a duration which was ruled excessive in 2024. Two of his close associates from the EU were arrested in August or September 2024 (according to different reports) in Georgia. cult, Ashram Shambala from Russia. the investigation continued, finding brothels linked to Bivolaru/MISA in France, Monaco, and Italy. He faces accusations of organized crime. The trial is scheduled for 2026 or 2027. The head of the French CAIMADES police unit which investigates cult abuse stated that its task is to investigate crimes, not religious beliefs. The defense argues the sex was in relationships between freely consenting adults. == MISA ==

Official hostility to yoga ended with the Romanian Revolution of 1989. It is also known as the Atman Federation. no prosecutions had been brought. The lengthy trial of MISA members on charges of "Trafficking in human beings and conspiracy to commit crimes", which took place in Romania, was concluded after 17 years. Nobody was found guilty. MISA has been described as "a group reminiscent of the Mafia and pimping disguised as philosophy", It is organized compartmentally, according to a general operating principle of organized crime. Some MISA ashrams close to Bivolaru, hidden from the main teaching schools, are said to function as brothels, while the journalist Bogdan Comaroni stated that children born in ashrams are sometimes sold to pedophiles. Comaroni stated that many local politicians, policemen and prosecutors from Romania were clients of MISA prostitutes. In December 2023, MISA counted a hundred thousand adepts worldwide. A witness interviewed by RTL confirms such reports: in one year since joining MISA she had to perform sex work. A witness interviewed by the BBC reported the same treatment in Paris. A Vice article reports that "as a MISA female member, it was an honour to have sex with guru Gregorian, because it meant positive karma and spiritual progress". The BBC confirms that sex with Gregorian was held to "burn [bad] karma". underage virgins first had to submit to sex with women before having sex with Bivolaru. Before being deflowered by Bivolaru she was allegedly initiated through "lesbian acts with a dozen other women". A German witness described how Bivolaru raped a 16-year-old Hungarian girl. == Analysis ==

Validity of mental health diagnoses The validity of Bivolaru's mental health diagnoses has been debated. A psychologist friend of Bivolaru, when asked by a young girl in 1993 about attending Bivolaru's courses, advised her to stay clear of him because he was a "psychopath". In 2012 two courts acknowledged that Bivolaru was sentenced and jailed for political reasons during the communist regime. Cecilia Tiz, a yoga teacher formerly associated with MISA, stated in 2016 that "Bivolaru is a sick man who needs therapy". During his 2016 extradition procedures, Bivolaru pleaded irresponsible by reason of being legally insane, although the French court refused to pass judgment upon his being insane, since that was not germane to extradition procedures. However, the doctor at Poiana Mare in charge of Bivolaru, Leonard Hriscu, declared that "Gregorian Bivolaru was not a man in need of psychiatric treatment." Bivolaru has stated that he was unfairly persecuted, just as Jesus Christ was unjustly crucified. In 2023, he was acquitted after 17 years of trial. The name "Operation Christ" was given to the case by prosecutors. The French newspaper Libération took his comparison of himself with Jesus Christ as evidence of megalomania. In the media In the 1990s and the 2000s, there was a media campaign in Romania against Bivolaru and MISA, which Romanian journalist Ion Cristoiu and professor Gabriel Andreescu regarded as persecution; Andreescu said it was sensationalism to sell newspapers, while Cristoiu suspected that the Social Democratic Party was aiming to appease conservative voters. Bivolaru flirted with the purportedly Hindu myth of having sex with a thousand virgins, hoping to reach the heights of spiritual power. An article in Huffington Post called MISA a "dangerous personality cult", stating that Bivolaru had led "hundreds of vulnerable women" into making hard-core porn videos, leaving their husbands, or working as prostitutes and strippers. It stated that the purpose of this was to "liberat[e] the female body", allowing participants to commune with the "Divine Goddess." It further reported that Bivolaru and others in the MISA hierarchy had "sex with underage girls, some in their early teens", and that young women did "karma yoga", meaning that they were sent to countries such as Japan "to work as pole dancers and strippers." Bivolaru claims to have contact with extraterrestrials who have healing powers and they will help humanity during its "difficult moments". His publications have been described as "conspiracy theory writings having paranoid ideas". Bivolaru gained a bad reputation in Romania in the 1990s, through advising his adepts to drink urine, both as urine therapy and as paraphilia, while the scholar of religion Zdeněk Vojtíšek says that is a vanilla mystical ritual in some religions. Vojtíšek stated in 2018 that Bivolaru sexually initiates women in an atmosphere of secrecy and drinking urine, but concluded that the bad press which MISA had is due to an unavoidable misunderstanding. According to Crikey, "women were coerced into gaining weight to conform to Bivolaru's tastes." At the end of 2024, Andreescu condemned the 2023 Police raid from France. In 2006, Bivolaru was elected as the no. 20 of the 100 Greatest Romanians Ever, according to TVR (TV network). He is currently in custody in France awaiting trial and in March 2026 was the subject of the three-part Apple TV documentary, "Twisted Yoga." == See also ==