The Bad Guru: 1. The Retreat

Summary

World Of Secrets: The Bad Guru – Episode 1: The Retreat

Introduction

In the gripping first episode of BBC's World Of Secrets Season 6, titled The Bad Guru: The Retreat, journalist Kat McShane delves deep into the sinister underbelly of an international yoga movement led by the enigmatic Gregorian Bivolaru. This episode unpacks the harrowing experience of Miranda, a university tutor from Oxfordshire, who becomes entangled in a web of abuse and manipulation within the Tara Yoga Centre, a prominent branch of the Atman Federation of Yoga and Meditation.

Unraveling Tara Yoga Centre

Tara Yoga Centre, based in London with multiple branches across the UK and Ireland, presents itself as a sanctuary for spiritual growth through various forms of yoga, including the mainstream Hatha Yoga and the more controversial Tantric Yoga. Maria Porzveld, one of the centre’s leaders, emphasizes the spiritual integration of love and relationships in their practices. However, beneath the surface, disturbing allegations begin to emerge.

Miranda’s Entrapment

Miranda's journey into Tara Yoga Centre begins in 2017 when she joins the yoga charity seeking healing and community. At first, the classes provide her with a sense of well-being and belonging. “There was this sense that these people cared,” Miranda recalls (07:07). Her mother, Penny, however, grows increasingly concerned as Miranda becomes more involved, noting the secretive nature of her calls (03:09).

Kat McShane interviews Miranda six years later, uncovering the depths of her ordeal. Miranda describes how she was coerced into participating in highly sexualized activities under the guise of spiritual development. “We were encouraged to dance very sexually to a song, to kind of interact with each other in a sexual way while dancing,” she explains (16:24). Despite the distressing experiences, Miranda felt compelled to stay, believing in the spiritual benefits promised by the gurus.

The Polarity Retreat

The pivotal moment in Miranda's story occurs during the Polarity Retreat in Somerset, a luxurious weekend getaway organized by Tara Yoga Centre. Here, participants engage in intense rituals meant to balance masculine and feminine energies. During these retreats, women were instructed to participate in sexually charged dances and rituals, often feeling pressured to comply. Miranda recounts feeling shocked when a teacher made overtly sexual advances: “I was very shocked and surprised in the moment” (20:09).

Other participants, like Elise and Michael, provide corroborative accounts of coercion masked as consent. Elise describes a ritual where women were encouraged to engage in intimate acts with men, leaving her feeling violated and distressed: “I found it really difficult... I just kind of went and hid myself away,” she shares (18:26). Michael, on the other hand, reflects on a fellow participant who appeared to consent but was later deeply traumatized: “She felt very coerced into doing so... she really pushed herself way beyond her boundaries” (22:29).

Witness Accounts and Psychological Manipulation

The episode highlights the psychological manipulation employed by the Tara Yoga Centre to maintain control over its followers. Miranda and other whistleblowers describe how the organization fosters dependency by continuously offering “the next big thing” in spiritual development, ensuring members remain engaged and less likely to question authority. Elise articulates this cycle: “There's always, like, a thing that's just around the corner that you really need to know about” (25:37).

Miranda also speaks about her growing loyalty to the group, even as she recognizes the red flags: “I wanted to believe that whatever they were doing... was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand” (26:24). This internal conflict underscores the complex nature of leaving a manipulative environment where emotional and spiritual investments have been deeply ingrained.

Confrontation and Silence

The culmination of Miranda's struggle is portrayed in a clandestine meeting where she is publicly denounced by the guru, Bogdan Radhasanu. The hostile environment and the guru’s aggressive slander tactics signify the organization's efforts to silence dissenters and protect its leadership. When confronted, Tara Yoga Centre declined to comment, and Bogdan Radhasanu did not respond to inquiries, leaving many questions unanswered.

Current Status and Reflection

As the episode draws to a close, Miranda stands as a symbol of resistance against the oppressive practices of the Tara Yoga Centre. Despite facing ostracization and ongoing threats, she remains determined to seek justice and expose the truth behind the alluring façade of the yoga movement. Kat McShane leaves listeners contemplating the thin line between spiritual seeking and exploitation, urging vigilance in communities that promise enlightenment.

Notable Quotes

• Miranda on feeling trapped: “I feel that I have no other choice... I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt” (07:07)
• Penny on the movement’s origins: “I knew that the whole movement had started in Romania” (03:27)
• Elise on emotional aftermath: “I cried the whole way through, and afterwards I just kind of went and hid myself away” (17:40)
• Michael on perceived consent vs. coercion: “Like nobody actually put handcuffs on someone and forced them into something” (24:22)

Conclusion

World Of Secrets: The Bad Guru – The Retreat is a compelling exposé on the dark side of spiritual movements cloaked in benevolence. Through Miranda's harrowing experience and the testimonies of others, Kat McShane sheds light on the mechanisms of control and abuse within what was once considered a haven for personal growth. This episode serves as a stark reminder of the importance of critical thinking and the courage required to confront and dismantle manipulative organizations.

Transcript

[Kat McShane]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Narrator]

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 on Wandriplus.

[Leesa]

Good sleep should come naturally and with a new natural hybrid mattress, it can. A collaboration between Leesa and West Elm, the natural hybrid is expertly crafted from natural latex, natural wool and certified safe foams to elevate your sleep sanctuary and support a greener tomorrow. Breathable organic cotton and moisture wicking Joma wool consistently provide cool and comfortable slumber. Every purchase helps fuel Lisa's work with shelters and those in need. Visit Lisa.com to learn more. That's L E E S A.com.

[Kat McShane]

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 series contains explicit sexual content, some strong language and allegations of sexual exploitation. This episode includes explicit sexual content Inside a yoga studio in London, neat rows of women and men are sitting on their mats with perfect postures. The teachers here usually talk a lot about love, but not today. Today the teacher won't be guiding them through sun salutations. Instead he's gathered the group to denounce a former student, Miranda, a 30something university tutor from Oxfordshire. So we will start now with a presentation about Miranda. A man relays a message from the yoga school's guru. This is a secret recording from the meeting. It's hard in places to make out what he's saying, so I'll explain it. The former student, Miranda, has cleverly taken advantage of the virtual naivety. He says the former student has taken advantage of their naivety. The message is that Miranda is a liar who has spread obviously false, tendentious pieces of information. Obviously false, tendentious pieces of information. The sensation of cunning slander is insidiously whispered in a way here and sensational cunning slander. Miranda has made some serious allegations against what he calls this esoteric spiritual school. It's a worldwide yoga movement and this place in London, Tara Yoga Centre is part of it. This is a potential crisis not just for this yoga center in London, but the entire international movement because the accusations this former student has made about the guru and his movement are jaw dropping.

[Miranda]

My phone and my passport were taken from and wrapped in foil. Him being on Interposed wanted less dark glasses which had masking tape on the inside. We couldn't see where we were going to hide behind.

[Penny]

Yoga is particularly reprehensible.

[Miranda]

I have nothing. I have a bag with some knickers in it and a toothbrush.

[Penny]

I knew that the whole movement had started in Romania.

[Kat McShane]

It's already a cult. Can I ask you, while I've got you on the phone, why you encourage students from the yoga school to work in a cash in hand, unlicensed topless? I'm sorry, I've taken advice. This is World of Secrets, season six, the Bad Guru, a BBC Radio 4 investigation. I'm Kat McShane. This is episode one, the Retreat. This story starts for me in January 2021, on that first rainy day of the third pandemic lockdown in England. And I'm wishing I wasn't stuck inside these four walls. Perhaps it's boredom that makes me agree to do a call with a yoga teacher in Oxford called Laura Hancock. They can't believe this is happening in.

[Miranda]

The yoga industry because this is supposed to be a place of healing, of care, of support of all of that stuff.

[Kat McShane]

Laura is a friend of a friend and she's been put in touch with me because she's looking for a journalist to help her expose what she says is a scandal.

[Elise]

It can feel really overwhelming and unbelievable and sometimes I wake up and I think, you know, am I making this up?

[Kat McShane]

It's the start of a series of conversations we have over the coming months about the role of one yoga network with a base in London and also her hometown of Oxford.

[Elise]

In terms of like, chatter in Oxford, I mean, it is like everyone knows about it.

[Kat McShane]

She's read an article online about the man she says is their spiritual guide who lives in hiding abroad.

[Miranda]

A very, very horrible person.

[Kat McShane]

As the months go by, Laura and I both investigate the guru. We hear a series of increasingly outrageous sounding allegations about him and the international network he's insp about grooming, coercion, you.

[Miranda]

Know, passport being taken, the disguise and then being, you know, in a house.

[Kat McShane]

And not feeling like they can leave. And Laura suspects some of the women who started by attending classes in Oxford might have ended up being trafficked as victims of modern slavery. Could an innocent looking yoga school in Oxford be linked to this stuff? The place Laura is talking about is the branch of a registered charity called Tara Yoga Centre. It has run classes throughout the British Isles London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester, Plymouth, Bertanor, Trent, Woking and Dublin, as well as Oxford. And most people who've attended their classes won't have a clue about the sort of accusations Laura and I are investigating. It's clear we're going to need to speak to many more alleged victims. And we need someone who says they've lived through this and is willing to speak on the record. That isn't easy. And we both have a sense that people who have been deeply involved feel duty bound to remain loyal. So when three years later, I sit down with a whistleblower in a studio, it's quite a moment.

[Miranda]

A large group of people will be very unhappy about the fact that this is happening.

[Kat McShane]

Meet Miranda from Oxfordshire. She's the woman who has been talked about at that yoga meeting in London at the beginning of this episode. She's decided to sue Tara Yoga center and to go public.

[Miranda]

I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. But I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda's now in her late 30s and has long, curly, unswept hair. She wears bright, bold prints that give you the impression she's just stopping by to see you before going to her next music festival. I sit opposite her in the recording studio. So are you happy to. You need to start. Okay. And she tells me her story over four days. Miranda is a well educated, intelligent woman from a privileged background. In fact, all the women I've spoken to while investigating this story have been bright, impressive types who do that. Oh, so middle class thing, trying to find themselves through yoga. Miranda wants to tell her story, but she doesn't want to be forever known for it. So I'm just going to use her first name.

[Miranda]

I had a very happy childhood.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda grew up with her dad, two brothers and her mum, Penny.

[Penny]

Well, we started out in London in a house in Clapham. And then when Miranda was eight, we moved to Oxfordshire, about six miles outside of Oxford, a sort of overgrown cottage. I always describe it as. We were middle of the road parents, really, in the sense that we wanted to be more liberal than our own parents had been. But we didn't set out to be our children's best friends.

[Kat McShane]

There was money for exotic foreign holidays.

[Penny]

We had a lot of fun together.

[Kat McShane]

A lot of laughs, and Miranda seemed to thrive.

[Penny]

She has always had a terrific sense of humour and has always been great fun. She had, you know, a mischievous side, but just normal mischief really.

[Kat McShane]

So this is a privileged family growing up in an idyllic setting. But life wasn't always easy. There are some deeply private matters that I can't go into. But suffice it to say that this family also had more than its fair share of bad luck.

[Miranda]

Yeah, you know, challenges arose over the past 15 or so years in our family, so that hasn't always been easy. But I think it's been another motivating factor for all of us to seek therapy and different ways of living with in the most kind of positive and life enhancing way.

[Kat McShane]

A family dealing with life's challenges while looking for something more profound. Where do you think Miranda's search for more spiritual meaning came from?

[Miranda]

Well.

[Penny]

I think I would put my hands up and say that there's a certain inheritance aspect here because I've always been a seeker. I've always wanted to find out more about what lies behind human existence.

[Kat McShane]

When Miranda graduates, she moves to London and gets a job as an English teacher. It's stressful, so she decides to take a year off travelling. She ends up in India at an ashram and yoga just seems to work for her somehow.

[Miranda]

I overcame things, a lot of things in a shorter period of time than I had done with other types of development.

[Kat McShane]

After India, Miranda comes back to London and she searches online for classes. And the first yoga group she comes across seems perfect.

[Miranda]

It felt a really safe and welcoming space. I noticed from the beginning that the people on reception were always very, very smiley friendly, welcoming.

[Kat McShane]

It's the London branch of Tara Yoga Centre, an affiliate of atman, the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation. There are endless different types of yoga popular across the globe, an industry worth nearly a billion pounds. In the UK alone, there are nearly 5,000 British yoga studios where each week half a million of us bend our bodies into downward dogs, breathe deeply, meditate and try and find a way to clear our minds and stronger bodies. In common with other affiliates of the Atman Federation, Tara offers two types of yoga. One, the sort you might be familiar with. It's called Hatha Yoga. A lot of poses, stretches, all seemed quite normal. But Tara and Atman affiliates also offer a more niche version of yoga too. Tantric. When I first heard of Tantric, I thought of Sting and his fabled seven hour marathon sex sessions with his wife Trudy. But as Maria Porzveld, one of the leaders of the Tara Yoga center, explains in this talk entitled Open Couple relationships on Tara's YouTube channel, it's about spirituality too.

[Miranda]

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.

[Kat McShane]

Maria became one of the directors of tara yoga in 2016, a year before Miranda discovered it. Maria is a reassuring looking presence on the Tara Yoga website. She smiles sweetly, she talks softly in her Danish accent as she lectures about such topics as the importance of pleasure in happiness, the meaning of life and that talk on what she calls open couple relationships.

[Miranda]

In reality, the only relationship that really works is an open one. I was interested in there being a different way to interact sexually and for relationships and sexuality to be used for spiritual experiences and receiving teachings which I could then take into my personal life and use with a partner for weeks.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda attends a one hour tantric class. Miranda starts going to another class at Tara too, called the Shakti Group. It's just for women. Men have their own class. Miranda feels the classes are helping her to be more confident and sexy in the name of embracing her divine feminine power. Tara Yoga also has open days. Miranda's mum Penny goes to one, but she isn't impressed.

[Penny]

Let me come straight out with it. It was a bit icky. I guess what struck me was there was a lot of, shall I say, hugging and embracing and did you share.

[Kat McShane]

Any of that with Miranda?

[Penny]

Oh, no, I wouldn't have dreamt of it because that would have been ungracious and churlish. You know, she'd invited us to something that she was involved in and you know, to all intents and purposes it was a lovely, heartfelt event and Miranda.

[Kat McShane]

Is getting a lot out of this group.

[Miranda]

I felt really good after the yoga classes. I felt amazing.

[Kat McShane]

In the spring of 2018, Miranda wheels her suitcase up the long gravel drive of a beautiful country house in Somerset, southwest England. She's looking forward to a break from her new life in London teaching university students how to write academic English. She's here for a retreat weekend organised by the Tara Yoga Center.

[Miranda]

There was a romance to the house and the furnishings. There was an indoor pool with a sauna and a steam room, four poster beds.

[Kat McShane]

The weekend Kaushi's here for is called the Polarity Retreat.

[Miranda]

I thought it would be a good way to develop my friendships with the women in the group and I was excited to learn more, really.

[Kat McShane]

Polarity is one of Tara Yoga's tantric theories.

[Miranda]

There's this very binary concept that they adhere to that men and women have very different needs, qualities, energies and that by Separating them as much as possible, you increase the magnetism between them.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda unpacks her bag, changes into her yoga clothes and goes downstairs and joins the women's group. And in one of these beautiful rooms at the country house with floor to ceiling sash windows, women do yoga exercises that are similar to the ones she's been doing in London.

[Miranda]

You would keep your eyes closed and they would say, you now feel. And this would be followed by a series of statements. You now feel a sense of love without an object, a sense of connection to the universe, a sense of selfless devotion. They claim to know a lot about these things. This is what they say I should be feeling. Okay, I can start to feel that.

[Kat McShane]

After yoga, they learn about makeup, clothes, how to look sexy, even practicing dance routines.

[Miranda]

We were encouraged to dance very sexually to a song, to kind of interact with each other in a sexual way while dancing.

[Kat McShane]

While in a separate part of the building, the men are also at work.

[Miranda]

We were told, don't ask the men what they were doing. They're not going to ask you. Part of Polarity is that you keep these activities completely separate.

[Kat McShane]

The men were learning how to be what Tara calls a tantric man. But at various points over the retreat, the men and the women were encouraged to snap out of their seclusion to rejoin the opposite sex, perform a ritual together, and let the magnetism take over.

[Elise]

So you weren't told what was going to happen for the evening. They'd say, come downstairs and we're going to separate into separate genders and wear your nice clothes.

[Kat McShane]

Elise is a hairstylist who started going to tara yoga around 2010 after a flyer came through her door. She was looking for something to remedy the stress of running her own salon. She attended various Tara yoga retreats, including Polarity, some years before Miranda at Polarity, she had a bit of a surprise. One night.

[Elise]

I remember taking part in a ritual. There must have been about 60 people in the ritual. And we were like divided into separate genders.

[Kat McShane]

In one room. The women are told to disguise their identities from the men by wearing black veils over their faces and bodies.

[Elise]

All the women kind of laid in this formation and we all had our legs open and then men were coming into the room and they had feathers and various other bits and pieces that they were allowed to use to touch us. But it definitely felt like that event was quite out of control. Like the. There was definitely a lot of sexual acts happening. There was never a real, like, you don't have to do this. They do kind of say, you don't but if you decide you don't want to, there's a lot of persuasion. This will be good for your spiritual development. This is your block. This is your thing to overcome.

[Kat McShane]

The purpose of the ritual is to evoke a particular kind of goddess.

[Elise]

But Elise, I cried the whole way through, and afterwards I just kind of went and hid myself away.

[Kat McShane]

And what were your feelings while it was going on?

[Elise]

I found it really difficult, actually. I knew the whole idea of those camps is to kind of ramp up the energy between the men and the women, I think. And so I did know that I was going to be letting myself into something like that.

[Kat McShane]

Every retreat is different. Miranda's group didn't have the Feathers ritual at her retreat.

[Narrator]

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 on Wandary.

[Leesa]

Good sleep should come naturally, and with the new Natural Hybrid mattress, it can. A collaboration between Leesa and West Elm, the Natural Hybrid is expertly crafted from natural latex, natural wool and certified safe foam to elevate your sleep sanctuary and support a greener tomorrow. Breathable organic cotton and moisture wicking Joma wool consistently provide cool and comfortable slumber. Every purchase helps fuel Leesa's work with shelters and those in need. Visit Lisa.com to learn more. That's Leesa.com.

[Kat McShane]

The women were told to surprise all the men with a sexy dance they'd practiced earlier that day.

[Miranda]

We were told that we were going to offer them this selflessly and a nice kind of gift for them. And we were encouraged to dress up. And some of the women, especially the teachers, went in underwear or took their underwear off while they were in there. I wore a skirt, a short skirt and a top, and I remember that there was one woman who didn't feel comfortable, didn't want to participate, and she was made to feel pretty bad that this was her limitation she needed to overcome and this was her ego. And she ended up just kind of sitting on her own in the room while everyone else went in and did the dance. And so the men were meditating in the hall. We went in, they put on some music, we started dancing. And I remember dancing quite close to my first tantra teacher and him looking directly at my crotch. And I was very shocked and surprised in the moment largely because this action, this behavior, was so much in conflict with everything we'd been taught and told about Tantra and spiritual sexuality before. There was, you know, this idea that we'd been told that Tantric men, especially Tantra teachers, were this elevated type of masculinity that understood women, that adored women, that worshiped them, that didn't sexualize them, and that they would treat you impeccably.

[Kat McShane]

Were you surprised by how sexual this camp was?

[Miranda]

Yes.

[Kat McShane]

Had you had any preparation that this sort of thing was going to happen?

[Miranda]

No, I had no idea that these things would happen.

[Michael]

The overall atmosphere in the school was kind of great and was kind of friendly, aspirational, even loving. There was a good sense of community.

[Kat McShane]

Michael went to the Polarity Camp multiple times, including the same year Miranda went. The retreats followed a similar structure, including a ritual to honour Shakti, the female energy. Michael took part in the same type of veil and feathers exercise that Elise did.

[Michael]

They had a ball with rose petals which they could throw in the men's direction, which was a sign that they would be open to allow the man to touch them in different forms, including oral pleasure. The person I was with chose to go and have all stages. So from my end, it felt that she was in consent, and she seemed to actually really enjoy the ritual and expressed joy and pleasure.

[Kat McShane]

But after the ritual, this woman came.

[Michael]

Up to Michael and she was really, really distressed. And she cried for the whole evening and the night, and she could not sleep. She was not upset with me because she realized that she actually ran into the room and made her choice of a man, but she felt very coerced into doing so. The way the preliminary workshops in the women's quarters took place caused some sort of psychological pressure for her. At least if she wouldn't proceed with the ritual, then she would not be accepted. So she really pushed herself way beyond her boundaries. It was really distressing for me, and I felt really sad and guilty.

[Kat McShane]

This is the nub of it. From Michael's point of view. The women appear to be consenting, but some feel they've been coerced into consenting.

[Michael]

Like nobody actually put handcuffs on someone and forced them into something.

[Kat McShane]

But with hindsight, Michael thought I was.

[Michael]

Fooling myself into believing, okay, there is consent.

[Kat McShane]

And once Michael realized this, he wanted nothing to do with Tara. We are Sitara Yoga center to respond to the concerns you've just heard about consent at the Polarity Retreats. They didn't respond to the specific issues raised, but they told us they unequivocally condemn all forms of abuse. I've seen photographs of Miranda at the Polarity Retreat smiling broadly. She looks like she's glowing with happiness. It's smiling for the camera, of course, but not just that. She said she enjoyed most of the retreat. Both Miranda and Elise felt that, on balance, they were getting something good out of Tara and that it outweighed the shock and discomfort they felt about some of the activities. So Miranda and Elise stayed in the school.

[Elise]

I felt like I was less afraid of certain things. I got gross levels of confidence because I got used to getting outside of my comfort zone. And you just have so many people around you who just are so lovely.

[Kat McShane]

And Elise was also feeling something that, for me, explains a lot about why people find it so difficult to leave this organization even after they've started to have misgivings.

[Elise]

You always feel like the next thing you're going to get is going to be the thing that's going to completely change your life. And they'll be like, oh, this technique that you're going to get in this next year is going to be amazing. And, you know, and then the next. Then it's onto the next one. So there's always, like, a thing that's just around the corner that you really need to know about.

[Kat McShane]

If you just stick with the program, a spiritual breakthrough awaits. It's something that Maria, the leading teacher at Tara, alludes to in a video entitled the Transforming Power of Pleasure, published on the Tara Yoga Center's YouTube channel.

[Miranda]

Ecstasy is not so different. Difficult, with a little bit of training coming with many more benefits than you can anticipate.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda has reason to think there might be something in that.

[Miranda]

I could see that the techniques they were teaching me were working. I felt very good after the classes, after practicing some of their yoga and breathing techniques. I wanted to believe that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me at the time and inappropriate and hypersexualized, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand.

[Kat McShane]

Now, not everyone listening to this will relate to wanting a spiritual awakening. But we're all searching for something. A life partner, an amazing career, a healthy body, a cure for depression, and especially a better sex life. When someone tells you that they can help us get the thing we crave, we often ignore the red flags. The toxic workplace culture, the overpriced health supplement. We ignore the warning signs because we want the thing that we think they can give us. After the Polarity Retreat, Miranda starts dating one of the teachers at Tara Yoga. Miranda feels like she is now Kind of part of the inner circle. She's been promoted to the advanced women's group. The woman who leads it invites Miranda to another retreat, this time in a Romanian coastal resort. It will be a chance to meet people from around the world, members of other schools affiliated to the Atman Federation.

[Miranda]

All of your food will be included. That a lot of wonderful spiritual things happened there, that I would get to meet people from all the schools all around the world. It was at the seaside and having a two week holiday by the sea where I only paid for the flights. It sounded appealing.

[Kat McShane]

And she might even get the chance to find out more about the spiritual guide of the Tara Yoga School and the wider Atman Federation, a mysterious yoga mystic called Gregorian Vivilaru.

[Miranda]

This person was being more and more set up as a kind of God on earth figure with literally supernatural powers.

[Kat McShane]

Miranda will be sworn to secrecy about what happens at the Romanian holiday retreat.

[Miranda]

Vowing that I wouldn't tell anyone about what happened inside this villa.

[Kat McShane]

But six years on, she's ready to tell us the whole story. We asked Atara Yoga center to explain why Miranda was attacked as a liar at the meeting you heard a secret recording of at the start of this episode, the center declined to comment. The teacher who you heard delivering the accusations, Bogdan Radhasanu, did not respond to our letters and emails. Hi, is that Bogdan? So I telephoned him. Do you regret the way in which you led the denunciation of your former student Miranda? Next time on World of Secrets, the Bad Guru.

[Miranda]

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

[Kat McShane]

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 Weatherall. The executive producer is Innis 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.

[Narrator]

In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. Men and women accused of passing information to the police in the British Army.

[Miranda]

But the man who often found, tortured.

[Narrator]

And sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA was himself an informer. A secret British army agent with the code name Steak Knife.

[Leesa]

These were police agents attempt to find other agents.

[Narrator]

Just how was one man allowed to lead a double life for so long?

[Kat McShane]

It's not like James Bond. It's not a black and white situation.

[Narrator]

When lies are still being told to this day. Who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA Steak Knife. Listen now on BBC Sounds 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 it 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.

[Leesa]

On laundry Good sleep should come naturally, and with the new Natural Hybrid mattress, it can. A collaboration between Leesa and West Elm, the Natural Hybrid is expertly crafted from natural latex, natural wool and certified safe foams to elevate your sleep sanctuary and support a greener tomorrow. Breathable organic cotton and moisture wicking Joma wool consistently provide cool and comfortable slumber. Every purchase helps fuel Lisa's work with shelters and those in need. Visit Lisa.com to learn more. That's Leesa.com.