#ShitToo: The Experience of MISA Women (1)



ROMANIAN

There is great agitation on the pages of MISA's NGO supporters: a lot of "new" articles about "abuses by French authorities" against

"new religious minorities", humanitarian appeals for the release of those detained, in which they are presented as martyrs and heroes

of humanity. This is another embarrassing attempt to divert attention from recent revelations in the French newspaper Libération 🔗 🔗,

as well as from the BBC podcast series entitled ”The Bad Guru” 🔗 which (finally!) talks about the evidence in the possession of French

investigators regarding the illegal actions of MISA, revelations that the organization and its supporters pretend did not exist.

After Willy Fautré was recently "on duty", now it is the turn of activist Susan Palmer, who ”traveled to Romania to let the women of MISA

tell their stories in their own words.”. The researcher's latest series of posts is titled

”#SheToo: The Experience of MISA Women” and will consist of 6 parts.  

 In the first part 🔗, the author provides an overview of the MISA students whose statements she recorded:

But who are these women? What is their role in MISA? And what is their relationship with Bivolaru, their spiritual master?

And how do they apply his teachings on Tantra in their everyday relationships and lives?

To find the answers to these questions, I traveled to Romania. Between July 3 to 16, 2024, I conducted interviews with 39 women

at the MISA yoga school in Bucharest. I approached MISA’s administrative leaders who accepted my proposal.

They arranged my schedule and found an interpreter for those few women who did not speak English or French. They also set up

a video recorder, presumably to ensure that no one could distort the information that was being communicated. 

It is in vain that these reports were videotaped ”to ensure that no one could distort the information”, since the statements themselves

are a distortion of reality! The idea presented by the Canadian activist, that she personally traveled to Romania to allow the MISA

women “to tell their stories in their own words”, is naive and at the same time manipulative.

Having known and observed MISA for a long time, I know that not only Susana Palmer’s schedule was arranged by the administrative

leaders of MISA, but they also “arranged” who the women interviewed would be and especially what they would declare!

I have not forgotten the report "arranged" by MISA for the Romanian newspaper "Libertatea", regarding life in MISA ashrams

(shared housing for yoga practitioners) (see MISA website - article), as well as the "arranged" interview in the same newspaper

(MISA website - article), which were exposed by MISA's former lawyer, Mihai Rapcea, on his blog (article, Romanian only), I quote:

I can almost see the long approval process for the proposal for the operation entitled “a day with a journalist in the ashram”:

sending the note to Grieg, through all sorts of anonymous hands, with mouths sewn shut by the secrecy of their vows on their lives

and spiritual evolution; sending messages to the Master’s secret location, his “YES” answer, with specific advice on how to direct.

Then the meeting of the ashram leaders, in the middle of the night, in which the relocation of people was decided, in the model ashram

that the journalist was supposed to visit: namely, which yoga students to place around her. They moved, to other buildings, the sad ones,

the strange, the poor without teeth, the weak ones and others who could have raised questions. They surrounded the journalist

in question only with people emblematic of the story, as the Supreme Leader wanted the story to be told.

I can almost see the training session of those in question, in which the note from Grieg was read directly to them, with instructions.

How they were assigned tasks, how to behave, what each person should say and, above all, what topics to avoid discussing in the presence

of the journalist. Those who have lived or live in the ashram know that this is the truth: at MISA, double language, double system of values

​​and thinking is practiced. The two-faced image, specific to totalitarian systems: "outside, the facade is painted, inside everything is tainted".

And this is evident from the care with which the interview of the MISA president was "edited", with the same journalist from Libertatea,

just one day after the publication of the story about the ashram. Of course, that interview is also part of the campaign to wash MISA's public

image, because it is published one day after the article about the idyllic ashram life.

The interview questions were probably also set in advance and went through the same approval procedure from the Supreme Leader.

Along with the answers. Hence the air of artificiality, of cheap staging that has nothing to do with real journalism, because no difficult,

indiscreet questions, specific to investigative journalism, were asked.

There was no need for those who direct affairs in MISA to make great efforts, because the author approached the "investigation"

with a biased attitude from the beginning, like a true sales agent for MISA, as she herself admits, I quote:

One criticism of this research project might be that it did not follow the random sampling process.

All my informants expressed a highly favorable view of MISA and of its spiritual mentor, “Grieg” (Gregorian Bivolaru). 

What a surprise! Well, if they have been MISA students for decades and have remained followers of Bivolaru despite everything that

has been revealed about the cult, facts that many of them took part in or were even part of, what chances were there that they

would declare something like: "I have been a MISA student for 35 years and I have seen a lot of villainy in this organization,

but I follow and will follow Grieg to the end, even if he behaves as if he were the devil himself"?

Susan Palmer shows her real face, because she clearly admits that she had no intention of applying a correct research method, which

would have assumed collecting statements from women selected in such a way as to constitute a random and representative sample

for MISA. At the same time, however, it is true that it made no sense to do this anyway, since the current students are fervent followers

and have developed a reflex to lie. The result would have been the same no matter what she did:

In defense of this method, it might be noted that the mass media and French procureur (prosecuting judge) involved in the case against

Bivolaru have focused narrowly on the testimonies of seven women who reported negative experiences and have chosen to ignore

the majority of Bivolaru’s female yoga students, who number around 60% of the estimated 20,000 students in MISA and the

international federation ATMAN of which it is part.  

In dismantling this biased method of "research" and in defense of the French prosecutor, it must be shown that the said prosecutor

did not start accusing those at MISA immediately after seeing the statements of the 7 victims who filed complaints against them,

but sent police officers to the field who, for over 13 months, secretly supervised the MISA locations in France, where they witnessed

firsthand the operation of clandestinely bringing female students to Bivolaru for "sexual initiation", their eyes covered with opaque

glasses and their faces hidden under large hats, exactly as so many other former victims had publicly declared, LONG BEFORE!

The police even counted them ("5-10 students per week"), resulting in thousands of victims over time! 

Let's not forget that Bivolaru was forced to admit before the French court that he had sexual acts with female students who came to him,

precisely in the face of such overwhelming evidence! (see Bivolaru's statements before the French court in this press article).

Then, the devastating question for Susan Palmer's "investigation": were those interviewed at Bivolaru in Paris? And even if they were,

what relevance does this have for the trial? Because if it was "wonderful" for them, does it automatically mean that it had to be the same

for the 7 victims? In fact, it is much more likely that the statements of the 7 victims are objective, because they went to Paris to see Bivolaru

precisely because they initially had the hope that "it would be wonderful", but everything later turned into a horrible experience for them.

Before moving on, let's note that the number of students at MISA has halved: from those 40,000 students who seemed unwavering,

(MISA article) to just 20,000. Did half of the students leave... or did they die?

On the occasion of the Global Consciousness Project experiment carried out on the night of August 27/28 2003, MISA communicated

to the Princeton collective that it was "the largest yoga group in the world, with the number of active members in Romania being about

30,000." (see event presentation)

After a decade, in an “Important Announcement from the MISA Leadership” from August 2013, it is written:

“...We challenge him for all the years he has left to live in this world, that instead of aiming to do ONLY AND ONLY so much harm,

to aim (if of course he can ever succeed in this!) to found his own yoga school which would be the minimum necessary to have,

not over 40,000 students and sympathizers (as much as the MISA yoga school has), but at least 250.” 

(MISA website announcement)

If you ask a statistician, he will tell you that if you survey groups of people made up of random samples on the most diverse issues,

there will be various answers, often opposing, and a small percentage will be extreme opinions. But at MISA, as you can see,

statistics do not work! At MISA, in relation to any issue, there is a "godly" unanimity! The problem is that their actions are not

exactly godlike, as they always claim...

But here is how the group of MISA students interviewed presents themselves, in a way that shatters the science of statistics, I quote:

The Romanian women I interviewed were beautiful, the majority pale-skinned with oval brown eyes and long black hair.

As yoga practitioners, their bodies were fit and flexible. As MISA members I assumed they were vegetarians, non-smokers,

abstaining from alcohol. They wore revealing, ultra-feminine clothing that was comfortable and flowing.

The majority were professional women with a university education. Among them were four psychologists, four teachers,

five managers, three masseuses, two translators, two economists, two journalists, and one medical doctor.

It's as if they were hand-selected! None of them are unemployed because, as is well known, there are no unemployed people at MISA,

especially in the yogic ashrams...

Is the researcher so stupid that she doesn't notice that, if she were to apply statistical methods to random samples - which she refused to do! -

it would result that 10% of the female MISA students (4 out of 39) are psychologists (probably with degrees from "private universities"),

another 13% are managers (I assume at MISA companies), and 7.7% are masseuses! But it doesn't say what kind of masseuses:

in recuperative medicine offices or from those for recovering the "vigor of youth" at the Lucky Love erotic massage parlor in Bucharest

(see this video from min8:sec00 and listen this podcast) or from the Tantra Temples in the West? (BBC podcast min20:sec38)

But none of them - not even one - works on video chat! What are the chances that this is the case with MISA?

The presentation of the "random sample" ends like this:

Their ages ranged from 26 to 55. Eighteen of the women were in their 40s, ten were in their 50s, four were in their 30s, and three

in their 20s. Many had been practicing yoga since the early 1990s, when Bivolaru launched his yoga school. And each woman

was an experienced practitioner in MISA’s sacred and ethical path of “amorous erotic continence” (AEC).

In short, 28 out of 39 (72%, almost three quarters) are in their advanced years of yoga course at MISA, old and devoted followers

of Bivolaru and who, precisely because of their age, could not have been invited in recent years to Daddy's apartment in Paris...

So their stories have no relevance to Bivolaru's trial in France. Susan Palmer herself admits this, I quote:

It is beyond the scope of this article to address the allegations against Gregorian Bivolaru and his core group, or to challenge the claims

of abuse by former members. Rather, my purpose is simply to investigate and describe women’s roles and experiences in MISA,

based on data collected during my research project, and to analyze MISA’s culture of sacred eroticism within the dual context of previous

“gendered” studies of NRMs and studies of spiritual trends in the feminist movement.

It is clear that this series of articles has no direct connection to the case in France, but is merely a maneuver to wash MISA's

public image, as well as to mentally prepare for the expected sentence: "if he is convicted, know that he is not guilty!"

I quote further from Susan Palmer:

MISA is both a yoga school and a religion. But it might also be described as a spiritual “subculture” with its own unique gender roles,

based on Bivolaru’s sacred approach to sexuality.

What efforts have the people at MISA made to prove that MISA is not a religion and here even their most fervent supporters have

the impression that it is a religion! Moreover, they characterize it as a "spiritual subculture" so, instead of considering MISA as

the mother of planetary spirituality as MISA considers itself to be, they consider it a branch (a twig or a stump!) from the lower part!

Ouch!

In an announcement on the MISA website promoting the course via email, it says:

"All forms of yoga are not absolutely connected to any religion." An old report states that:

”Yoga practitioners do not consider MISA a religion, or a mass of beliefs, there is no religious core common to all yoga practitioners”.

But in the same time MISA leader Bivolaru announced the coming of the supreme religion, ”God-ism”, at MISA:

”In a close correlation with the prophecies, this spiritual school will be the most important school on this planet, and with the direct

guidance of GOD and the direct guidance of the angels will prepare a new, fast, easy and efficient path to discover GOD and to become

one with Him, each of us will no longer need any intermediary.” (quote source)

More details about the relationship between MISA and religion can be found here.

another quote:

And after a week of back-to-back interviews, I began to detect in these women’s narratives the configurations of a kind of

“feminist spirituality.” But it should be noted that my informants certainly did not self-identity as “feminists.”

They evinced very little interest in this important cultural movement. Several dismissed the feminist movement as “man-hating”

or “women trying to be men.” Nevertheless, many of them claimed they had found strength, meaning and self-determination as women

- what feminist scholars call “empowerment” - through their affiliation with MISA, following the Tantric path of AEC.

Certainly, the women of MISA do not hate men and do not want to be LIKE men. On the contrary, they want to be WITH men

- as many as possible in the same time (MISA announcement on the selection and hearing of conferences on Polyamory) -

and also with other women (Bivolaru statement, audio), even during group sex encounters (audio 1, audio 2).

They feel how their feminine power is amplified by following Bivolaru's "sacred approach" to sexuality, but the question arises

to what extent Susan Palmer knows the "power-ideas" emanating from Bivolaru towards women, I quote him:

"stupid, demonic, superficial and changeable". 

There is the fickle, fluctuating, capricious, fickle, unstable, moody woman, who is unfaithful in her little, often anemic love, which most

often fades away before it has really begun. Such a woman is selfish, petty, profiteering, possessive, superficial, insensitive, jealous,

does not really know what she wants and easily makes various compromises that demean her.

Such fickle women are quite numerous and most often they deny with great stubbornness that they are like this. Because of them,

all other women are unjustly considered to be like this and that is why men are quick to say that ALL WOMEN ARE CHANGING,

which is not true. Fickle, superficial and stupid women are characterized by weakness. (source - Bivolaru's aphorisms, Romanian)

And nothing makes a woman stronger than the threat of having her head shaved if she does not bend down enough (literally!) in front of

Bivolaru, but with her bottom turned towards him! (german podcast min11:sec00)

(to be continued)