The two leaders of the movement founded by Gregorian Bivolaru are threatened with “life imprisonment” for the pseudo-crime of “psychological subjugation.”
by Massimo Introvigne
On August 22, 2024, Mihai and Adina Stoian, well-known yoga teachers of MISA, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute, were arrested when they entered in Georgia, as part of a tourist trip, through the border with Türkiye at Sarpi. Georgian media, obviously fed by the police and anti-cultists, reported that the Stoians are wanted in France and have also been prosecuted “in Finland and Romania for child prostitution and rape.” The latter information is false. As far as they know, the Stoians are not under any prosecution in Finland or Romania. Only when they were arrested in Georgia, they were notified of an international arrest warrant from the Court of Paris, France. Of what exactly are they accused?
As readers of “Bitter Winter” know, MISA is a new religious movement founded in Romania in 1990 by yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru. Pre-COVID, it had some 30,000 members throughout the world. Although his teachings encompass a large variety of matters, from postural yoga to meditation and the visual arts, what has led to controversy is its teachings on sacred eroticism, based on Indian Tantra. In particular, MISA teaches enlightenment through erotic continence (i.e., orgasm without ejaculation, accompanied by meditation and a broader attitude of love).
There are several religious movements teaching sacred eroticism throughout the world. They are controversial because they break the taboo that spirituality and eroticism should be kept separated. Those who oppose religious minorities with controversial teachings calling them “cults” (part of the so-called “anti-cult movement”) claim that no reasonable woman (or man) would freely accept such strange doctrines and rituals. Therefore, it is claimed, members of these groups should be the victim of “brainwashing,” “abuse of weakness,” or “psychological subjection.”
The position that “cults” are inherently different from real religions and use “brainwashing” has been rejected by academic scholars of new religious movements and by courts of law in the United States and in other countries, including the European Court of Human Rights. Differently from most other democratic countries, however, France, which has a tradition of secularism and hostility to religions in general, has embraced the ideology of the anti-cult movement and legislated against “abuse of weakness” or “psychological subjection” allegedly used by “cults,” receiving well-deserved international criticism, including by leaders of official agencies watching controversial religions in other countries. You can go to jail in France as the leader of a “cult” practicing “psychological subjection,” while most academic scholars of new religious movements regard these as imaginary crimes based on the discredited pseudo-scientific notion of “brainwashing.”
Accusations against “cults” are often supported by the testimonies of “apostate” ex-members. “Apostate” is not an insult but a technical term used by sociologists to designate the minority of ex-members who, for different reasons, turn into militant opponents of the groups they have left and support the anti-cult movements. A significant academic literature demonstrates that only a tiny minority of ex-members even of the most controversial groups become “apostates.”
MISA and its founder Gregorian Bivolaru have been accused of been “cults” using “brainwashing” in different countries. Courts of law, however, have ruled in favor of MISA and Bivolaru in most of the cases that reached a trial. Bivolaru has been sentenced only once, in Romania, for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student (the age of consent in Romania was 15 but the law punished relationships between teachers and students). That the prosecution of Bivolaru in this case was biased was acknowledged by the Swedish Supreme Court who denied extradition from Sweden to Romania in 2005, which led to Bivolaru being granted asylum in Sweden. The young student has consistently denied that she had any sexual relationship with Bivolaru to this very day.
Bivolaru has a pending case in Finland, for which an international arrest warrant was issued, and one in France, where he has been arrested in November 2023. Based on the testimonies of six “apostate” ex-members, some of whose alleged experiences date back to more than one decade ago, Bivolaru and other MISA leaders are accused of having induced through “brainwashing” female students from foreign countries (including Finland) to go to France, where they went through sacred eroticism rituals with Bivolaru that they now allege were not really consensual because of the previous “brainwashing.”
No doubt to impress foreign police and courts, the international arrest warrant against the Stoians also mention the ritual consumption of urine in some French rituals involving Bivolaru and female students. This may look shocking to those unaware of the context, but in fact the consumption of urine in a ritual context has a long and established tradition in Indian Tantrism and is present in other Western esoteric movements as well.
In the raids of November 2023, the French police and prosecutors reported that they had “liberated” more than 50 women (none of them French) that were “kept” in various locations by MISA in France and they said would be “raped” by Bivolaru. Eight months have passed since the raids, and not even oneof the women supposedly “liberated” has accepted to identify herself as a “victim.” All insist that they were in France out of their free will. They went to France for a variety of reason, and not all of them planned to meet Bivolaru or go through practices derived from MISA’s teachings on sacred eroticism. Those who in fact went there to participate in erotic rituals reported they perfectly understood what MISA’s sacred eroticism was all about, and were happy to be part of it. In fact, several of them filed complaints against the French police.
There is thus a conflict of narratives: six “apostate” ex-members reconstruct their old experiences in France as sexual abuse they did not resist because they were “brainwashed,” while more than fifty students unanimously claim they are not “victims” but have willingly embraced a non-conventional spiritual path. Distinguished scholars, including Canadian academic Susan Palmer, a specialist of both new religious movements and abuse of women in religious contexts, have interviewed the women “liberated” in 2023 and who deny being victims, and found them well-adjusted and believable witnesses.
The French case thus rests on (a) discredited theories of “brainwashing” rejected by academic scholars and by courts of law almost everywhere in democratic countries except France; (b) the post factum reconstruction of their experiences of MISA and Bivolaru by six apostate ex-members who have a personal vendetta against the movement (some have tried to form rival schools of yoga or have claimed significant damages through civil cases), which is contradicted by the position of all the women who were in France during the November 2023 raids.
Since the six “apostates” have repeatedly stated that their aim is to destroy MISA as a spiritual movement and put an end to its activities, it is not surprising that they also accuse the senior students who keep together the movement in absence of Bivolaru, including Mihai Stoian and his wife Adina. They are also accused of “abuse of weakness” and “psychological subjection,” i.e., “brainwashing,” for having allegedly induced women to participate to retreats and rituals in France. The threat, mentioned by Georgian media, that the Stoians will be sentenced to “life imprisonment” in France for having taught MISA doctrines to students, most of them happy about the teachings they received and some perhaps not, is both disturbing and ridiculous.
Whatever the real involvement of the Stoians in these trips to France, it is essential to reiterate that these accusations only come from six disgruntles “apostates,” while more than fifty women who were found by the police at MISA locations in France in November 2023 all stated that they went there freely and were happy to be part of an unusual (but not illegal) spiritual path that they have freely chosen and ask to be allowed to pursue as part of their and their teachers’ freedom of religion or belief.
Given the official campaigns against “cults” in general and MISA in particular in France, not to mention the position of the media, it is virtually impossible that, if extradited there, Mihai and Adina Stoian will have a fair trial respectful of their human rights and freedom of religion or belief. We do understand that it may be difficult for political and other reasons that the Georgian judges would oppose France, as the Swedish Supreme Court did when it refused to extradite Gregorian Bivolaru to Romania in 2005. However, we hope that they will consider the broader context and will not regard this one as a common criminal case, while it is something completely different.
