The Bad Guru: 2. The Technique

Summary

World of Secrets: Season 6, Episode 2 – The Technique

Release Date: December 16, 2024

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Introduction

In the second episode of Season 6, titled "The Technique," BBC's investigative podcast World of Secrets delves deeper into the enigmatic world of Gregorian Bivolaru, a controversial yoga guru whose international movement has been marred by serious allegations. Hosted by Kat McShane, this episode explores the intricate mechanisms that draw individuals into Bivolaru's influence, focusing particularly on the experiences of Miranda, an English teacher from Oxfordshire.

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Background: Gregorian Bivolaru and the Misa Organization

Gregorian Bivolaru, the central figure of this investigation, is portrayed as a charismatic leader whose teachings blend elements of Indian spirituality, astrology, and Christianity. Born in Romania in 1952, Bivolaru's journey from defying communist regimes to establishing a global yoga movement is both fascinating and troubling.

Quote:

"Bivalaru was a young man interested in telepathy, parapsychology, and yoga." – [15:04]

During the communist era, Bivolaru defied Nicolae Ceausescu's ban on yoga by teaching in secret, leading to his imprisonment and brutal treatment. Post-communism, he capitalized on newfound freedoms to expand his influence, founding the Misa organization and establishing the Tara Yoga Centre in London in 2001. Today, his movement spans 29 countries under the Atman Federation umbrella.

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Miranda's Journey into the Yoga Movement

Miranda, a university tutor from London, becomes the focal point of this episode. Initially attracted to Tara Yoga Centre for its sense of community and spiritual growth, Miranda's involvement escalates from regular classes to immersive retreats.

Quote:

"It felt amazing in a city where it's easy to feel lost... there was this sense that these people cared." – Miranda [03:36]

Despite her mother's, Penny's, reservations about the movement, Miranda remains steadfast, drawn by the promise of spiritual enlightenment and community belonging.

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The Romanian Yoga Festival: A Deep Dive

In the summer of 2018, Miranda attends a two-week yoga festival at the Black Sea resort of Ko Dinesh in Southeast Romania. The event, orchestrated by Misa, promises intense spiritual experiences but unfolds into a disturbing exploration of manipulation and exploitation.

Quote:

"Nobody joins a cult. You just get sucked in." – Penny [Time stamp not provided]

Miranda is required to hand over her passport and adhere to strict rules, including surrendering her phone. The festival's environment is artificially constructed to feel communal and spiritual, with events like the "Miss Shakti" competition blurring the lines between spirituality and sexualization.

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Miss Shakti Competition: Crossing Boundaries

One of the most controversial aspects of the festival is the Miss Shakti competition, a highly sexualized event that ostensibly celebrates feminine divinity but devolves into explicit displays.

Quote:

"Of hyper sexualized Miss World." – Miranda [09:25]

Participants perform increasingly sexual acts, culminating in simulated sex and even nudity. The winner is promised a personal connection with Bivolaru, further binding participants to the movement.

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Ecstatic Joy Temple: A Nexus of Exploitation

Upon returning to London, Miranda's commitment to spiritual growth leads her to the Ecstatic Joy Temple, a topless massage parlor affiliated with Tara Yoga Centre. Here, she and others are engaged in what amounts to sex work under the guise of spiritual evolution.

Quote:

"There was a kind of ecstatic sense of overcoming something..." – Miranda [28:19]

Miranda's experiences at the temple reveal a systematic pattern of exploitation, where participants are coerced into compromising their boundaries for perceived spiritual benefits.

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Control and Manipulation: The Inner Workings of the Movement

The podcast sheds light on the psychological manipulation employed by the movement's leaders. By positioning themselves as spiritual guides, they create an environment where questioning becomes taboo, and dissent is met with ostracization.

Quote:

"I would become an outsider and I would stand to lose the community that I was now so heavily invested in..." – Miranda [29:04]

This control extends to monitoring participants' lives, isolating them from external support systems, and enforcing rigid adherence to the group's practices.

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Misa's Denial and Official Responses

In response to these allegations, Misa, the organization running the camp, vehemently denies any wrongdoing. They claim that nude photos were never solicited and frame their practices as elevated, spiritual expressions of eroticism.

Quote:

"They promote, quote, refined, elevated, uplifting, spiritualising eroticism." – Misa Representative [Time stamp not provided]

Despite these denials, inconsistencies in testimonies and evidence suggest a different narrative, highlighting the challenges in holding such organizations accountable.

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Conclusion and Implications

The Technique paints a grim picture of how spiritual movements can be weaponized to exploit vulnerable individuals. Through Miranda's story, listeners witness the gradual erosion of personal boundaries and the insidious nature of manipulation within seemingly benign communities.

As the episode concludes, it sets the stage for further investigations into the ramifications of Bivolaru's teachings and the widespread impact of his movement.

Quote:

"In less than a year, I have gone from a high street yoga studio in London to an orgy and drinking urine in a holiday resort in Romania." – Miranda [22:34]

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Notable Quotes and Timestamps

• Penny (Miranda’s Mother):

  "Nobody joins a cult. You just get sucked in." [Time stamp not provided]

• Miranda on Yoga Classes:

  "It felt amazing in a city where it's easy to feel lost... there was this sense that these people cared." [03:36]

• Miranda on Boundary-Pushing Practices:

  "Doing, even if it seemed gross to me at the time and inappropriate and hypersexualized, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand." [03:21]

• Bec on the Miss Shakti Competition:

  "It's super intense every day, just doing hours of rehearsal... it's just a kind of bikini stage show... stand there with a fan." [10:11]

• Harriet on Ecstatic Joy Temple:

  "It's down here." [24:35] "You'd go topless and there wouldn't be any negotiating on that." [24:18]

• Miranda on Spiritual Practices:

  "Liquid has a memory and that after a certain amount of time of making love in a tantric way, the liquid in your body gets transformed..." [19:05]

• Miranda on Community and Isolation:

  "I was seeing my friends less and less frequently... I wasn't seeing friends in other parts of the country or my family as frequently." [22:34]

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Final Thoughts

This episode of World of Secrets serves as a compelling exposé on the dark underbelly of spiritual movements. It raises critical questions about the vulnerability of individuals seeking meaning and the ethical responsibilities of those in positions of influence. As the investigation unfolds, it promises to uncover more layers of manipulation and control within Gregorian Bivolaru's international yoga movement.

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Note: This summary is crafted to provide an in-depth understanding of the episode for those who haven't listened to it, highlighting the key narratives, evidence, and testimonies that shed light on the complexities of the situation surrounding the Bad Guru.

Transcript

[Nicola Coughlan]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Nicola Coughlan and for BBC Radio 4, this is History's Youngest Heroes. Rebellion, risk and the radical power of youth.

[Ryan Seacrest]

She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than herself.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Twelve stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted. It has to be mounted now. Follow History's Youngest Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

[Glenn Patterson]

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[Nicola Coughlan]

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 explicit sexual content.

[Miranda]

They said, you know we're going to keep everyone's passport and when you leave you get it back.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda's an English teacher from Oxfordshire. She's standing at a reception desk at holiday complex in a Romanian seaside town. She hands a passport over and then the receptionist tells her, you're also not.

[Miranda]

Allowed to use your phone inside. You could only take your phone when.

[Nicola Coughlan]

You left, miranda says. The woman behind the reception desk pulls out a bible and it's as if they're in a courtroom rather than a holiday resort.

[Miranda]

Placing my hand on the Bible and reading out the words that were given to me on a piece of paper at the time, vowing that I wouldn't tell anyone about what happened inside this villa and that if I did, then I would face the spiritual and health consequences of my demonic action.

[Nicola Coughlan]

What is going to happen at this villa to warrant such a vow? This is World of Secrets, the bad guru, season six of BBC Radio 4 Investigation. I'm Kat McShane. Episode two the technique it's summer 2018 when Miranda arrives at the Black Sea holiday resort of Ko Dinesh in Southeast Romania. She's here for a two week stay at a yoga festival and the reason she doesn't immediately turn back when asked to give up her phone and swear on the Bible is. The event has been recommended by one of the yoga teachers at a place she's been attending for the last few months, Tara Yoga center in London. Miranda's had a few misgivings about Tara. Some of the teachers have pushed her to interact with other members in a sexual way that doesn't always feel comfortable. But she tells herself whatever they were.

[Miranda]

Doing, even if it seemed gross to me at the time and inappropriate and hypersexualized, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand.

[Nicola Coughlan]

And on the whole attending classes has been a really positive experience.

[Miranda]

It felt amazing in a city where.

[Nicola Coughlan]

It'S easy to feel lost. Miranda thought that in this very cool central London yoga center she'd found her tribe.

[Miranda]

It was a friendly and community minded place. All of these nice, smiley, shiny, happy, good looking people and there was this sense that these people cared and that they had this love and affection for you.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda's mum Penny has her misgivings about the yoga movement, but she keeps her thoughts to herself. She doesn't ask questions when her daughter, then in her early 30s, gives her only vague details about her trip to Romania. As a parent, you ask your grown up offspring what they're doing but you don't expect them to give you chapter and verse and you sort of leave a space in the conversation for them to tell you if they want to tell you more and if they don't, that's fine, you move on to the next thing. And besides, in Romania, Miranda won't be on her own. She'll be among her new community.

[Miranda]

I knew that my teachers were all going and they had told me that a lot of wonderful spiritual things happened there, that it was at the seaside. It came highly recommended.

[Nicola Coughlan]

The camp is run by Misa. It is the Romanian affiliate of a UK registered organization called atman, the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation. Tara Yoga Centre in London is also an Atman affiliate. Its belief system is eclectic. Indian spiritual teachings, astrology, Christianity. Like the swearing of a vow on the Bible. And like other schools in the Atman Federation, it practices what's called Tantric yoga, a form of yoga that promotes the use of sexual energy in spiritual practices. Now that Miranda is finally inside the Romanian holiday complex, she takes in her surroundings. Bunk beds, a hall for yoga. She's staying in a female only villa for the festival. The men are staying elsewhere. The atmosphere in the women's half of the compound is great. We've used sound effects to help you picture the scene.

[Miranda]

There was this sense of it Being kind of a girl's holiday. There were a lot of people around, probably at least 150 women there, if not more. It made me feel part of something international and really pretty huge.

[Nicola Coughlan]

It's 25 degrees outside as Miranda explores the rest of the site. Up to 6,000 people have descended on this Black Sea tourist resort for the yoga festival. In the centre of the complex, there's a huge marquee which is pumping out dance music. Miranda joins the long queue which snakes around the tent. As she enters, a security guard checks Miranda's id. The music is deafening, but the crowd inside is sitting on rows of wooden benches, silently meditating.

[Miranda]

And the music involved certain sexual noises and moans. And they had this music set as a background to a compilation of soft porn.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda says that at the camp in Romania, women were shown pornographic videos as part of a program they're expected to attend. The camp is an extended to the sexual boundary pushing the women had been exposed to back in the uk or whichever country they'd been attending a yoga center inspired by Guru Gregorian Bivalaru. People like Bec, an Australian who'd come across Bivalaru's teachings while living in India.

[Bec]

And beautiful things happen. They had lots of stage productions and they're very beautiful and they're full of like semi naked women in bikinis and that's very beautiful. And thousand people meditating together is a really nice feeling, you know, it's beautiful.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Bec attended this annual yoga festival on four separate occasions. Like many of the women I've spoken with, Beck was at a crossroads in her life when she got involved with this yoga movement. She was recently divorced and left Australia behind to look for a new meaning in her life. And this festival in Romania made her think that these people had the answers.

[Bec]

Hanging out with people who are high on God love is kind of great. It's a little weird, but it's like, yay for you, man.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Woo.

[Bec]

Maybe I want to feel like that. I don't know.

[Nicola Coughlan]

This isn't what you'd expect at a normal yoga festival. And I think if most of us encountered this, we'd get straight on the next plane home. According to Miranda, in the preceding months at the Tara Yoga Centre in London, she's been told she has to push her boundaries if she wants spiritual awakening. Experts I've spoken to say that there's a cultural assumption that yoga and the wellness industry in general is a healthy and safe activity. So you let your guard down a bit. It's only a bit of yoga. How bad can it be. And because yoga encourages you to experience your body in a new way, you might be getting in touch with your sexuality in different ways. In short, if you're exercising more, getting fitter and healthier, you'll probably also feel sexier. And those are benefits that keep people hooked. And we're most susceptible, most likely to miss the red flags. When we're seeking self development because we want someone to tell us what to do and push us in a new direction. It's all about breaking down boundaries. Evenings at the camp are given up to a Miss Shakti competition. Shakti is a tantric word for femininity. This competition is, in Miranda's words, kind.

[Miranda]

Of hyper sexualized Miss World. But the judging criteria being a woman's state of Shakti, as they would say, an embodiment of the divine feminine, the goddess. These shows went on for hours. At the beginning, there were probably at least 100 to 150 women in the competition. 30 plus performances of 5 minutes plus commentary.

[Nicola Coughlan]

The first time she came to this festival, Miranda just watched the Miss Shakti competition. But Beck from Australia actually took part as a contestant. Each stage, some women would be eliminated by the judges. And as the rounds went on, they got more and more sexual.

[Bec]

It's super intense every day, just doing hours of rehearsal, the group rehearsal and then your mini group rehearsal. Some of the stages are just, they're just a kind of bikini stage show, you know, stand there with a fan.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Apart from Becca Miranda, I've spoken to two other people who have attended stages of the Miss Shakti competition. And I've read accounts from four others. Accounts vary as to what happens at each stage, but it seems to get progressively more sexually explicit. Two people told me they'd seen women parading naked on stage. And two people told me that people simulated sex at the end of the competition. Out of more than 100 entrants, one is crowned as Miss Shakti. The winner that year was given the opportunity to live with the guru of this huge international movement, Gregorian Bivalaru. The guru himself isn't at the camp in body, but followers are told he is there in spirit.

[Miranda]

So they said that he is an omniscient being and that he can connect to different locations telepathically. So there was this sense of him being a non physical presence in the house, a kind of supernatural support from this spiritual guide figure.

[Nicola Coughlan]

I don't know how many followers Grigorian Bevilaru has, but if his network can attract 6,000 people to the festival, Miranda's attending in 2018. He must be quite a big deal. So when Miranda is asked if she'd like to meet him at some point in the future, she says, of course. And at the women's villa, she's handed 30 testimonial videos of women who've already met him. The women speaking to the camera are naked. That doesn't shock Miranda. I didn't mention this earlier, but to attend her first weekend retreat with Tara Yoga in England, Miranda says she was asked to supply them with a photograph of herself semi naked. To attend this holiday camp, she says she had to supply a photo of herself fully naked. The reason given is that the guru Gregorian Bivalaru needs it to read her aura. And since she's been here, she has been filmed naked. In one of the first testimonies that she watches of women who visited Gregorian Bivalaru, or gb, she recognizes a woman she knows from the Tara Yoga center in London.

[Miranda]

She was saying that, you know, she'd had this amazing experience and that GB had helped her to overcome these traumas from her past. And it had been difficult, but she felt this deep sense of a level of healing in her soul.

[Nicola Coughlan]

But there was also something that struck Miranda as odd about this woman's testimony.

[Miranda]

She looked very sad, very distressed. What she was saying was completely in conflict with what she was clearly experiencing and feeling in the moment.

[Nicola Coughlan]

The video testimonies all end the same way. The women read out a statement.

[Miranda]

I will show that I'm a stupid, superficial, fluctuating woman if I ever forget all of these spiritual states.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda still wants to meet the guru Gregorian Bivalaru. It seems surprising that rather than be concerned that something horrible might have happened to these women, she thinks they've all been through a wonderful spiritual experience. So who is Gregorian Bivlaru? I'm Nicola Coughlan, and for BBC Radio 4, this is History's Youngest Heroes. Rebellion, risk, and the radical power of youth.

[Ryan Seacrest]

She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than ourselves.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Twelve stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted. It has to be mounted now. Follow history's Youngest heroes wherever you get.

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[Nicola Coughlan]

This is Grigorian Bivalaru speaking at a conference in 1999. Bivalaru was born in Romania in 1952. He has shoulder length steel grey hair and wears aviator glasses and a buttoned up peach shirt. It's 10 years after the collapse of communism in Romania and in the post Soviet era. The yoga organization he has founded called Misa, is a big hit.

[Glenn Patterson]

It filled a void in people's hearts or lives.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Michael grew up in Romania. He's a former member of Tara Yoga who in Episode one told us about his experience at the Polarity Retreat. Michael was just a boy when communism fell, but can see why Gregorian Bivalari's yoga movement became popular. The promise was quite beautiful, like spiritual.

[Glenn Patterson]

Path and opening the heart and creating community, giving back like really good values and attracted lots of people that were either spiritual seekers and they felt, oh.

[Miranda]

This is great and could be wonderful, or people who were psychologically wounded or.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Had past trauma and they found something.

[Glenn Patterson]

Here that felt safe and promising.

[Nicola Coughlan]

When Bivlari was a young man, he was interested in telepathy, parapsychology and yoga. The communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu wanted to suppress alternative belief Systems and in 1982 he banned yoga in Romania. Bivalaru defied the ban by teaching classes in secret, but he was caught and sent to a psychiatric prison. He tried to escape but failed and was in jail for almost a year. Former associates say he was treated with extreme brutality and his ill treatment made them revere him all the more. But after the collapse of communism, Bivalaru was able to run his yoga organization openly and his popularity spread beyond Romania. In the uk, a group of his followers set up Tara Yoga Centre in London in 2001. Today there are Gregorian Bivolaru following organisations in 29 different countries, all operating under the umbrella of the Atman Federation. And followers from these organisations come together at festivals like the one Miranda attending. As the yoga festival in Romania draws to a close, according to Miranda, there is a final ceremony for the guests staying at the women's villa, an organized lovemaking ritual.

[Miranda]

We were told that it was optional, but if you didn't want to participate, you had to leave and you had to stay out for the whole day.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda doesn't want to be ostracized for not taking part and she reminds herself that a core Part of the teachings at the Tara School are that to achieve spiritual growth, she must push her boundaries. So she's in.

[Miranda]

The windows were closed, all of the curtains were drawn. They'd put down a lot of kind of black tarp, tarpaulin essentially. And then there were mattresses on top of that. Three women stood there naked. They were painted gold and they were playing this kind of very evocative trance like meditation music. And then we began the ritual.

[Nicola Coughlan]

The ritual is a highly choreographed form of group sex between the women. After 45 minutes, a timer sounds. It's announced. Now is the first time doing the technique. This is something Miranda was taught about in her women's group in London just before coming to Romania.

[Miranda]

They spoke about the technique and these amazing spiritual states that they'd had from partaking in the technique with their partner. And they would speak about physical transformations, people whose breasts are grown by doing the technique. That through doing this technique, you can also assimilate the qualities of different zodiac signs. And speaking also about the health benefits sounds amazing, right?

[Nicola Coughlan]

But you might be less keen when you hear what the technique involves. There's no easy way of saying this, and I hope it doesn't gross you out too much. It's drinking other people's urine. Followers are told it's a practice which has its origins in ancient yogic practices. This was the dubious sounding explanation Miranda was given of how it works.

[Miranda]

Liquid has a memory and that after a certain amount of time of making love in a tantric way, the liquid in your body gets transformed and holds the memory of not just the spiritual states that you've had, but also holds the imprint of you as a human being and of your personal qualities, your zodiac sign, your physical qualities. And that by drinking your partner's urine, or elixir, as they called it, at this stage of lovemaking, you can absorb and assimilate physically into your body, into your cells, and somehow use this to become a cosmic man or woman.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Apart from that, fantasizing about unusual uses of human urine is also a well known sexual kink. Miranda notices that the senior women appear to be in a very intense spiritual state of orgasm after drinking urine.

[Miranda]

And I remember at the end of the ritual, it was, you know, it was a really intense atmosphere and one of the senior women just kind of smiling and saying to me, you know, this is heaven. I think that we're in heaven here. This is paradise, this is bliss.

[Nicola Coughlan]

We wrote to Misa, the organisation that ran the camp. They told us we never asked for nude photos. This is A lie. They denied that the camp created a sexualised atmosphere and told us they promote, quote, refined, elevated, uplifting, spiritualising eroticism, which is the exact opposite of raw, instinctual, even degrading sexuality. They told us that although many of the people attending considered Gregorian Bivalaro to be their spiritual guide, he was not the spiritual guide of the camp. As for nakedness and simulated sex on stage, they said they believe that, like many famous painters and sculptors, that the nudity of a harmonious female body is something marvelous, something to be admired, an expression of beauty that is present in the whole creation. Most people who go to a Tara Yoga class in London don't end up at events like this camp. They just go along to their weekly yoga class and have no idea what else is happening elsewhere in the movement. Some don't even know that Gregorian Bivalaro is the school's spiritual guide, even though there's a whole page dedicated to him on the school's website. It's entitled A Remarkable Modern Yogi. Things have moved incredibly quickly for Miranda. She says in less than a year, she has gone from a high street yoga studio in London to an orgy and drinking urine in a holiday resort in Romania. And there's still more boundary pushing to come. On her return to London, Miranda continues to go to her classes at Tara Yoga. Instead of rejecting the group, she decides to become more deeply involved. Believing and doing things that other people don't makes her feel special, part of a community of believers who understand things most ordinary people don't.

[Miranda]

I was seeing my friends less and less frequently. I'd effectively stopped going dancing. I wasn't seeing friends in other parts of the country or my family as frequently.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Miranda also decides to start a job she believes will help her spiritual growth. It's at a place where some of the teachers at Tara work. It's called the Ecstatic Joy Temple. Ecstatic Joy Temple. A world of intimacy, beauty and bliss. When you receive a massage from us, you will immediately notice there is something unique, beautiful and even mysterious about our therapists and the massage they offer. The Ecstatic Joy Temple is a topless massage parlor. It's just a 10 minute walk away from the city of London. Tantric massage performed in this way naturally heals the sexual function of both men and women. It's just around the corner from Tara Yoga. The Ecstatic Joy Temple website states they don't offer sexual service, but the female therapists are all very sweet and feminine. They will make every effort to relax you, pleasure you and to stimulate your sensuality. In September 2018, Miranda begins working there, getting paid to give massages.

[Miranda]

I didn't like using body parts, especially breasts, to massage the guests.

[Nicola Coughlan]

On the Ecstatic Joy Temples website. The faces of the naked and semi naked men and women are familiar to me, not because I've ever been there, but because they are the faces of some of the teachers on the Tara Yoga website. Miranda isn't the only former member of Tara Yoga Center I've spoken to who worked at the Ecstatic Joy Temple.

[Bec]

You'd go topless and there wouldn't be any negotiating on that.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Harriet worked at the Ecstatic Joy Temple until she left Tora Yoga center in 2021. The ecstatic joy Temple doesn't give an address on its website, but Harriet agrees to show me where it was.

[Bec]

It's down here.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Okay. Harriet's young, just 26, and has a kind of London look. Hoop earring, sleek hair, fashionable clothes. She was only 22 when she joined Tara Yoga, a third year university student. In a story that now sounds quite familiar, Harriet had taken a gap year in India and on her return she wanted to continue yoga. So she googled around and found Tara.

[Bec]

And it just sounded cool. It sounded really right up my alley.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Tara wasn't just a yoga school, it was a community and that was a big attraction.

[Bec]

It mattered so much for me to feel connection with people outside of what I knew as my family. That was part of what I was looking for.

[Nicola Coughlan]

According to Harriet, within a couple of weeks she starts dating one of the male teachers, someone who is over twice her age. And then only a couple of weeks after that. He encourages Harriet to work at the Ecstatic Joy Temple giving topless massages. Harriet says he told her it would be good for her spiritual evolution. Can you describe to me who were the clients that you had to see here?

[Bec]

Just businessmen, sort of 40s, some even older. They look like they worked around here.

[Nicola Coughlan]

And what did you have to wear when you were giving these massages?

[Bec]

Just some pants that they give you, like sort of luxurious, sort of style, Silky, somewhat like provocative. Some would even say, like if you can just go absolutely, like no pants, all as well. So just naked when you're giving the massage, it's even better, which I didn't do.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Harriet got paid around 30 pounds a massage, but the clients paid between 150 and 300 pounds. To Harriet, that sounds as if the temple is making a hefty profit. Despite the romantic sounding name, the Ecstatic Joy Temple operates out of a rather mundane looking converted office block. It's Just a six minute walk away from the Tara Yoga Center. To operate legally, massage parlours are required to have a license. The local authority told me the flat where the Ecstatic Joy Temple was based didn't have one. Harriet told me that two teachers from Tara Yoga center were involved in running it. Clients paid them in cash and that's how she got paid too.

[Bec]

I think back to it now, it was literally like, looks like a little broth almost this fancy place. Red walls, low lighting, candles.

[Nicola Coughlan]

So do you consider what you were doing here sex work now?

[Bec]

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Why?

[Bec]

Just the way I was sort of controlled to perform a certain way. And it was very much to do with my looks and how I presented and my desirability and the fact that it was a lot of these men who were obviously quite well off.

[Nicola Coughlan]

And the fact that you didn't have any control really over who you were massaging.

[Bec]

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

[Nicola Coughlan]

The Tara Yoga center is a separate business from the Ecstatic Joy Temple, but it was a recruiting ground for staff. Both Harriet and Miranda knew about it through teachers at Tara Yoga Centre. Both organizations declined to answer our questions about their relationship. The Ecstatic Joy Temple also didn't respond to our questions about its lack of a license. Miranda worked at the Ecstatic Joy Temple for a few months. Even though she didn't enjoy giving the massages, she thought it was another boundary she should break in order to become a more spiritual person.

[Miranda]

There was a kind of ecstatic sense of overcoming something, something that you were nervous about that you were told was good for you and was spiritual once you then did it. I often experienced a feeling of euphoria, was more than a feeling of achievement, sometimes dissociation, but often quite euphoric once you've gone through the thing that you were nervous about.

[Nicola Coughlan]

And then in June 2019, Miranda gets word that her guru, Gregorian Bivalaru is ready to meet her. And there will also be something called an initiation. Did you consider rejecting the invitation?

[Miranda]

It didn't feel like an option to reject the invitation. I'd heard people talking about women who had failed the initiation. I knew that it was very bad and that they were considered to have fallen spiritually. If I said no, I would become an outsider and I would stand to lose the community that I was now so heavily invested in that I had now devoted my whole life to.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Next time on World of Secrets. The bad guru.

[Miranda]

We would need to send our kind of final text messages to family, Etc.

[Nicola Coughlan]

This was when we became really concerned.

[Miranda]

We should put on one of these pairs of dark glasses which had masking tape on the inside.

[Nicola Coughlan]

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 Wetherell. The Executive Producer is Inez Bowen. Subscribe to World of Secrets Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts, but if you're in the U.K. you can listen to the full series right now. First on BBC Sounds.

[Ryan Seacrest]

In 1984, an IRA bomb planted under a bath in Brighton's Grand Hotel came close to killing Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet. It was the biggest direct assault on a British government since the gunpowder plot. From BBC Radio 4, I'm Glenn Patterson and in the Brighton Bomb I tell the story of the deadly attack, unraveling the threads that brought all involved, often by heartbreaking chants to that place and time. 2:54am on the morning of the 12th of October and I reveal how the police only just averted a follow up bombing campaign aimed at England's beaches. To hear the Brighton Bomb and many other great history documentaries, search for the history podcast on BBC Sounds.

[Nicola Coughlan]

Buried in the depths of the Internet is the Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing hundreds of names, photos, addresses and specific instructions for their murders. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. Binge Part one of Kill List Episodes one through six ad free right now.

[Glenn Patterson]

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