Twisted Yoga: Ashleigh Freckleton on Atman/MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru

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My name's Mackenzie and I started to go fund me for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal

autistic child.

The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic

child.

So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills.

So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis.

And we raised about $10,000 within just a couple of months.

I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being

very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who

were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.

GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people

Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com.

That's GoFundMe.com.

GoFundMe.com.

This podcast is supported by GoFundMe.

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business, individual, anyone or anything.

I'm Sarah Edminson.

And I'm Anthony Nippie Ames and this is a little bit culty.

We woke up from a cult and that journey was captured in the vow on HBO and in my memoir,

SCARD.

Now in this podcast we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so

destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the

cult of us and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you.

Each week we bring experts, survivors and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience

and even share a few laughs because sometimes you got to laugh.

Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad free listening, some live Q&A and exclusive

content at patreon.com slash a little bit culty.

Welcome to season 8 of a little bit culty.

Welcome back to a little bit culty, everybody.

Have you seen the doc twisted yoga on Apple TV, Sarah?

Yes, we have.

Yes, we watched all three episodes last night.

Many of you have been writing to us.

Are we going to cover it?

Yes, we did.

And I would highly recommend watching that before you listen to this episode.

It will make it that much more rich.

If you don't have a subscription to Apple, get it for the month.

It's worth it.

Totally fascinating, well-made docu-series.

Retrials.

I'm pretty sure you have free trials.

Retrials.

Get it for trial.

Okay, today we're talking with Ashley Freckleton, a provisional psychologist, ex-member

and whistleblower from the coercive cultic yoga organization featured in the docu-series.

Her lived experience with manipulation and control now fuels her advocacy and education

around coercive control.

In this episode, Ashley reflects on her experience in the high demand spiritual spaces when consent

gets murky.

Boundaries are slowly eroded, and power dynamics are stacked so heavily against the people

inside.

Similar to some of our other yoga episodes, but with a twist.

Parallels in this to our visitor.

Pretty evident.

There's even a vow and a master.

We also get into why it's so hard to recognize when you're actually in a culty group and

how systems of influence slowly rewire your sense of normal and why that classic, why

didn't you just leave question completely misses the reality of psychological control?

Notice, since Ashley is part of this doc and doing press, we also share some solicited

and unsolicited advice about navigating the media post cult.

Sarah does a little book plug slash references to our book, like she always does.

Can help it.

Most importantly, Ashley walks us through what it feels like on the inside.

How loyalty, hope, fear, isolation can all work together to keep smart, capable people

stuck.

Most importantly, Ashley walks us through what it feels like on the inside and how loyalty

and hope, fear, isolation, the cost fallacy can work together to keep smart, capable people

stuck, far longer than they ever imagined.

We also talk about what recovery looks like after leaving a group like this, rebuilding

trust in yourself, making sense of what happened, putting language to it, and taking back

your autonomy, one small grounded choice at a time.

For all the details, check out Twisted Yoga on Apple.

And at the heart of this conversation is Ashley's core message, course of control can happen

to anyone including you.

And recognizing that is the first step to either preventing it or beginning the long brave

process of getting your life back.

Please enjoy our episode with...

Ashley Freckleton

Ashley, welcome to Little But Coltty.

Thank you so much for having me here.

It's so great to finally chat with you.

I was telling Nippy that you and I connected years ago, but we didn't have you on the podcast

that I can't remember why.

But I'm guessing it was just the wrong time.

Years ago being like two, three years ago.

No, wasn't it like five years, like when I first came out of Dexium?

It was about four, four or five years ago.

It was twice actually.

We just never managed to get the times to line up, and the timing just wasn't right.

Was that it?

Was that it?

Yeah, it was twice.

It was the second time.

We still didn't get the times to...

We still didn't.

And then I think by that point, the project was already underway with the Docky series.

And I said, you know what?

It's wait.

Let's do it, but let's wait.

Okay.

I was going to go search back through my emails, and I was like, ah, she'll tell me.

I've been aware of your story.

You've been on my radar for years now, and you've had quite the...

Is there a first podcast in the dark?

Yes.

It's 7.30 in the morning here, 10.30 for you.

And I really appreciate it.

At night.

Not straight.

At night.

At night.

Anyway, here we are.

And we're finally ready to hear your story.

And our audience will be so excited because since Twisted Yoga was started being announced

and pushed on Apple through the publicity, you know, all of our audience is like, oh,

you better cover this.

You better cover it like I'm on it.

Ash is coming on.

It's like it's like they don't know we have a podcast on courts.

How are you doing in this push, press push, and all that and all coming up again?

It's a bit of a pretty interesting week.

I didn't think it would affect me as much as it did.

You know, I mean, a really good place overall in my life, and lots of great things are

happening.

I'm feeling really settled.

This has kind of just been sitting there for a really long time, just kind of waiting.

And now it's out.

The day that it came out, I felt pretty stressed.

Not going to lie.

It was a pretty stressful time.

That waiting and not knowing how it went, how we received, where people get it, where

they receive it in the intended way.

But the feedback's been so positive.

And then after that, I started to kind of relax a bit, but it's just been so busy and

kind of having to like dig up all of those memories is confronting, because they compartmentalized

in a healthy way.

They're sitting over there, they're not causing me any stress.

It's really processed, and it sort of feels like that happened a really long time ago

to that version of me back then.

And this is me now, and that's over there and everything's fine.

But now I really have to pull that out and open it up and look at it all and you kind

of go back there.

It's a little bit confronting, but it's been pretty good.

Yeah, it's a photo album.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Actually, I'm not sure if you saw that Nippie and I wrote a new book, so I cannot wait

to read it.

I can't wait to share it with you.

And there's a section at the back that is really specific.

It's a very niche section.

It's called How to Navigate in the Media, like post-cult.

So it's specifically for people like you.

And if I may give someone solicited by me, please do.

Are you doing live TV?

Yeah.

I'm just going to say like, yeah.

Are you doing live?

Do you have any live interviews?

I do.

I turn those down.

No, don't tell her that.

I do.

I do.

I do.

But like just to say, like, it's a different game, you know, it's a different experience.

And you know, just to protect yourself, my advice is if you are asked something live, and

at least for me, look at a number of times I was in a live interview and then like huge

pictures of Heathrow and Erie was like behind the interviewer, and it's can be or like

a big eight by ten of my scar, you know what I mean?

Gosh, yeah.

So we're stimulating.

They're not trauma-informed.

You know what I mean?

So just to pace yourself.

And like I said before we started recording it, they're big clicked informed.

If yeah, if you're a big click informed exactly, if you're ever asked something that you don't

want to talk about or you're just, if you're super triggered in the moment, which you

may or may not be, because it sounds like you're in a great place, just say, I'm so excited

that the series out.

So I don't have to keep talking about that.

You know what I mean?

Like, you don't have to talk about it.

That's my advice.

That's a really good piece of advice.

You can send it.

Send them to the series.

Yeah.

So that's why we wrote the book.

So it's all there.

Because you know what?

Like, protect yourself.

I feel like this book, I've been wanting this book to be written for a long time.

And now it's finally here.

And I'm like, I just can't wait to read it.

I think it's going to be great.

And I'd love for you to share it with your fellow survivors and of this experience because

I feel like that's what we want.

Like people come to us all the time and they're like, we just got out.

We're writing this thing.

It's for you.

Like this is like the A to Z of everything you need of how it happened, how to heal, how

to whistle blow.

So you're a whistleblower and that's amazing.

Like we actually like gone through so much and you really made a decision to blow the

lid off this thing.

It's not a easy decision.

It's not an easy decision.

Yeah.

Pace yourself.

My thing now is one a week.

Like, I don't do more than one interview a week because it's a lot.

It is.

So good for you for doing multiples, multiples, especially at 10.30 at night.

So let's get to it.

Whatever you feel comfortable saying we can do like the cliff notes, you know, and people

can watch the series.

But I think like, you know, you've been through it.

It was a while ago, like you said, what's important?

Do you think for people to know, to understand your journey?

Well, where were you when it happened?

I was overseas and I just moved overseas.

So I was in a new environment.

I didn't know anybody.

I was in a new job.

Everything was a bit exciting.

You know, I was reading the power of now.

Oh my God.

That's like a passage out of our book.

Yeah.

I just signed up to like an app on meditation.

I had recently gone through a breakup.

So I think that creates the perfect storm, you know, the blip or the natural changes that

we're going through in our lives that make us a little bit more open or a bit more vulnerable

or seeking out something a little bit transcendent or a relationship with a transcendent or something

bigger than ourselves or just looking for community and belonging, finding our identity, our

place in the world.

I was really in the crux of that.

Like, there was so much going on for me and I was so open.

I bet in our book and we didn't make, we didn't come up with this term.

It's the term in the cult space.

I'm sure you've heard it.

Situational vulnerability.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was our checklist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You put a new post post breakup, new city, all those things.

You hit like five of the ten.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

And then you heard about this yoga studio.

Yes.

Was that the first?

Yeah.

Through an old friend who's very briefly referred to in the series, who was actually very influential

on me and we got talking about the school, but then also about spiritual concepts and

spiritual ideas and then the community was also kind of marketed as this spiritual yoga

school.

So I was really excited at the prospect of connecting with people that were as spiritually

curious as eyeballs because it's kind of, it's kind of hard to find that sometimes.

I really hope that the message will get out there and to kind of help people to understand

is that this is not just in spiritual spaces.

It happens in political movements and political groups and social groups in workplaces, in sports,

communities.

It's everywhere.

You know, you don't have to be joining a yoga school, even though it's right within

the yoga world.

You can personal development courses.

It's everywhere.

Well, you're going to really love this book.

From the back, it's already keep talking about it, but it's just a lot.

So Coltie Shit is everywhere, and this book shows you how to spot it, escape it and heal

from it.

Okay.

So there it is.

I can't wait for you to read it.

I can't wait to read it.

It's a good talking point.

Yeah.

And feel free to take whatever you want because you're going to do all this press and people

who are going to look at this and some people will have empathy and some people will sit

back and judge.

And they need language, right?

And they'll interview you and say, so why do people join cults?

Oh, I have no business looking on Reddit.

I know I shouldn't, but here, you know, here I am, and I do, and that's where you find

the comments of the people where the message just didn't land.

And they're so much judgment and they go, well, I would have been out the second that

this happened or the second that happened.

And I was like, of course, from the outside looking in, you think that, but you don't have

the context around that specific piece or that specific moment because when you're making

a docu-series and you have a time limit to work within, and you have a very huge and

a very complex story to try and cram into that.

Like something's got to give, you know, you have to condense so much information, and

you lose nuance.

And you have to, in order to be able to tell a bigger story.

So I feel like that creates a bit of a vulnerability for people to, yeah, yeah.

Reddit is not your target audience.

And I call it the bathroom wall of social media.

What I will say to those people is the people that say that they can't fall for that

or wouldn't often in that moment are advertising and broadcasting their blind spot because

all they do is fortify it by saying that they're not vulnerable to it because everyone

is to a certain extent.

Yeah.

Right?

They just don't, they can go through life and not bump into it.

And if it wasn't for online communities, you probably would have been in the city and

it would have taken a lot more volume of contacts with people for you to bump into someone

to abuse you.

And you probably would have grown out of that face like most people do historically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just way more out there.

It's way more content.

It's way more opportunity for people to be coerced.

I actually feel free to take this as well for your interviews when you feel that.

Yeah.

I was just going to give a little, we should do a whole episode of like, listen, here's

the thing.

It's true that some people's red flags go off in different ways.

Like I did Bikram yoga before I joined next year.

I'm saying.

Yeah.

You did too.

Okay.

And I was like, this is too militant for me.

This is this.

I don't even know if I use the word Coltie.

I just didn't, I didn't like the militantness of it.

And like fact that you couldn't drink water.

I didn't like that.

And I didn't like that whatever.

I just was like, this isn't for me.

So I left, right?

So that was a red flag for me.

Maybe some of the douchebags on Reddit wouldn't have fallen for it.

But like, if a journalist is saying, well, that, you know, I would have left as soon as

they asked me for a photo or whatever, you can say, yeah, it's, you know, that maybe

you wouldn't have fallen for this, but you'd be surprised how many people have fallen

for other things.

You know, I'm almost guarantee you that you've been a part of something Coltie or maybe

even something Coltie now.

You don't even know it yet because it's just, it seems good, you know, everything seems

good at the start.

So cliff notes, you're doing yoga, it starts off as yoga.

When does the tantric teaching come into it?

How long into it are you, so you're learning about that stuff?

So fairly early, the friend that introduced me to the school was telling me that he was

part of his tantric yoga school, but there was tantric courses and there was yoga courses.

And I wasn't really interested in the tantra initially.

I was really just looking for the yoga and he kept telling me more about tantra.

And as I learned more about it and this kind of idea that's pitched towards you that tantra

is about love and it's about living from the heart and seeing the beauty in every moment

and that all of the yoga classes and the yoga postures that you're doing that are supposedly

aligning different energies and the shakras is the same as what you're essentially taught

in the tantric course.

It's just that it's got with the tantra lens on it.

So I was aware of it very early, but initially I just went for the yoga and then I sort

of viewed into the tantra when I realized that most people were there for the tantric

courses and the yoga courses were not as popular.

Interesting.

Question I had from the documentary, because I know there's a lot of reenactment sort

of B-roll stuff under interviews, is the yoga that was displayed, was it dense, was

it that kind of yoga or were I was just curious was that accurate or generally they do some

some salutations, which is that very movement based type of stuff, but most of it wasn't

it was very static and very rigid and I didn't I didn't particularly like the yoga the way

they did yoga because it would be like holding a posture for five minutes or three minutes

at a time and then you'd have to stand up and feel the effects of it and then do the

other side and it was really long holes in really sometimes uncomfortable and quite like

strenuous positions and I like to move.

So I didn't necessarily enjoy the particular method of yoga, but I did feel the benefits

of it.

And only just because we've covered so many different yoga lineages here, we did Ashchanga

last week, we've been Kundalini, we've talked touched on Aingar, was it a particular lineage

or was it his own made up thing or Bikram or whatever, like, oh no, it's Hatha, at least

that's what they say, it's Hatha yoga, sounds like Hatha if it's long holds.

Yeah.

Yeah, but there's some of the postures, the way they did them, like the way they do triangle

pose is different to anywhere else in the world that I've done triangle pose.

I hated it.

I was always like, this is not the way I wanted to be doing my triangle.

That would have been my red flag, no, this is something that wasn't really touched on

and the dark teaching tantra in a group, like, are you doing the exercises with your

clothes on or like, what does that actually look like?

It looks a lot like a yoga class.

So they have the first hour of lecture where they're giving you the content.

One of the biggest red flags for me was the handouts.

They have these handouts that you get every week in the yoga course and the tantric

course.

And the tantra handouts are really confronting images, lots of images of topless women

and lots of photoshopped, like overtly photoshopped women's breasts enlarged.

And it just lots of really explicit photos.

And I remember they were quite shocking and sometimes they were comment on them being

deliberately.

So I guess it's like a spiritual test or a challenge course.

And they didn't seem that spiritual to me.

But then the content within was still sometimes interesting and other times it was just a bit

weird and a bit, like, how long, during a day you're doing this?

Is it all day?

Like how many hours a day are you doing this and then what's the regular routine?

Well, I was working full time as a speech and language therapist.

So I was pretty busy with my work, which was on the other side of the city.

And then I would go from work to the yoga center twice a week.

And I'd have a two hour class and I'd be getting home very late at night.

And then I would have a Shakti group on the weekends, not every weekend.

But every other weekend on a Saturday.

And then I had my own personal practice that I would do in the evenings that could take

an hour or two.

So I mean, I was living, I was still out in the world.

I was still living a seemingly normal life on the outside.

So it wasn't as all-consuming at this point?

Not for me, but certainly for plenty of others.

But I was thinking about moving into an ashram and living with other people in the school

who their whole life is wrapped around the school.

And they're just practicing yoga for hours every day.

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Now let's resume our culty combo.

So you're taking classes, you're doing this tantra, you're doing this yoga that you're

not crazy about, but what was the main draw then for you at this point in the community,

the spiritual seeking, what was it giving you that kind of hooked you at the beginning?

It was the benefits of the yoga practice, because those benefits are real, you know,

there's so much research out there about how good yoga is for regulating our nervous system,

and you know, lots of somatic techniques for kind of getting back into our bodies and

feeling good again.

So I was going through a pretty difficult time in my life, and not much was helping, but

yoga helped.

And meditation, there was a lot of meditation as well.

You always do meditations and yoga in the classes, as well as the spiritual teachings.

And I guess the community of other people that were interested in that, but initially

I was just doing online classes.

So I was really connecting with the classes online, not necessarily with the community.

It was purely with the teachings and the school itself that I was connecting with initially

without that need for community, but the need for the community came later when I moved

to London after Romania and started going to the centre and having in-person classes.

Okay.

What was that school called?

Because I know there's all these different names for different schools.

What was that one?

The online branch was atman yoga federation, and the London branch was tower yoga centre.

Okay.

And these are all still in operation.

I saw some.

As far as I'm away, yeah.

Okay.

And they deny being a pipeline.

Yeah.

To classic dollop.

The leader.

Okay.

Can I call it classic?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll get into that.

Turn your homework.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've first been in touch.

Well done.

We'll do that.

We'll do that.

We've got the linger.

So you're doing all this in retrospect now that you know what you know, and you've done

all your healing, what were some of the red flags, other than the Photoshopped naked boobs?

What else were you seeing that knowing what you know now would have been like a time to

maybe leave?

I'd like to say that there was kind of like a moment in time where I saw the red flags

or that I, you know, so to say, oh yeah, I didn't see them until this point, but I saw

red flags all the way through, and I had a constant state of low grade anxiety, I think

about the school from a pretty early stage, and it's not that I didn't see them.

It's that I got really good at suppressing them and dismissing the red flags.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's not that they weren't there.

I still feel that constant state of anxiety, the constant doubts that were lurking

there and constantly squashing them because that's a spiritual test, isn't it?

That's a spiritual challenge to overcome.

Well, that was one of the things I was going to say when you were saying earlier, like,

oh, you know, it's not just in spiritual communities, it's in political, blah, blah.

I think the spiritual world is extra right for abuse because of what you just said.

There is a sort of tenant, right, that you're there to grow, and that challenge is a sign

of an opportunity to grow, and that really can override your instincts.

So your instincts might say, this isn't right, I want to go.

And then the voice comes up, but you're here to grow.

So you're going to step up to the plate and surrender and play full on and all this fucking

bullshit spiritual rhetoric that can just, just, I don't know what's the word now.

I don't know.

Tortoise.

I'm out in that head.

I guess my question is, with the red flags, like, I saw some red flags.

I dismissed them not for the reasons you're saying.

I just didn't think anything malevolent was going on.

I thought it was goofy and corny.

Yes.

Same.

You know, like, ultimate fear.

Did you have a fear of, like, there was something malevolent going on, like, something bad

going on, or sort of solid, or, like, what was the, what if it's this thing that was going

on with you?

Yeah.

I think the doubts that were always there was that what if this is a cult, and what if this

is an abusive leader?

Okay.

Yeah.

I think for a fairly early on, like, when the idea of the spiritual guide or the master

that was introduced to me by this old friend that introduced me to the school, he pitched

him as his master.

He sent me links or gave me his name.

He told me that he was in hiding, and he said, look what happened to Jesus.

And so I was like, oh, that's true.

You know, a lot of people persecuted Jesus.

So he's been persecuted, and then I looked, they've got a human rights story, and they

had a website about it.

And, like, at the time, he's been stripped of his refugee status now, but he believed

he's been stripped of his refugee status now.

But he was a refugee.

And I was like, well, you know, the government must have given him that for a reason.

So maybe there's something in that.

And I consulted a friend who was completely external of the school, and she was studying

psychology at the time.

I trusted her judgment, and I said, hey, can you just, like, look this up?

Like, does this seem weird?

And she's like, oh, yeah, I guess it does seem weird, but it sort of looks like a human

rights issue.

And I was like, yeah, cool.

That's what I thought as well.

So I kind of then squashed it, and I thought, I'm just paranoid.

I'm just being paranoid.

This is silly.

That's one of those spiritual tests.

Squash.

And we move forward.

Yeah.

Once you do that, the next one's easier.

Yeah.

The next red flag to Norris easier.

Especially as you're away from home, and this becomes your community.

It's just harder to walk away.

Yeah.

Because of what it's called.

There's so many cognitive biases, sun cost fallacy, and extra justification.

Yes.

Did you read Amanda Montell's book, The Age of Magical Overthinking?

I want to.

And it gets into all of those.

It's not necessarily a cult book, but all the different cognitive biases that we have.

Yeah.

Sun cost fallacy she covers.

We covered also in our book.

And it's, I think every guest we've ever talked to has some version of that where they're

just, they're bought in, and you want to make it work.

And you want to go on the path, and it's hard to walk away.

And the more you invest, the greater that cognitive dissonance gets, and the more uncomfortable

it is, and the more your world's going to shatter if you swallow that earth shattering

truth.

They keep swallowing the lies because they're comforting and they're easy.

100%.

But the road now is through swallowing that uncomfortable truth.

You don't get your life back until you embrace that.

Absolutely.

Which is on the other side.

And we'll get to that.

Before we do, I don't want to get into all of it.

It's in the doc.

I don't want to bring it all up for you.

But what's important for people to know about your trajectory from being an earnest student,

having similar flags you squashed, to getting invited to the villa?

What do we need to know about the belief system and Greek to understand what's happening

here?

Well, I guess there's a little spiritual bypassing going on.

So in your doubts that you have can be spiritually bypassed and written off as a spiritual test

or just negative thinking or being in your ego or something like that.

And once you start putting that lens on it, you can dismiss anything and you can justify

anything at that point in time.

If you're just trying to become a better version of yourself, a better person, a more loving

and a more kind person, these are all very healthy aspirations to have.

And they're also very human.

We all have these aspirations for growth and connection and belonging.

And that's what gets exploited, but they're so human and they're so natural.

So I guess that's really important to understand that we all have these vulnerabilities.

I mean, I would add that those vulnerabilities are preyed upon by a certain type of person.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

They know your psychology.

You don't know theirs.

Yeah.

There's an unfair advantage at play and there's, you know, there's power dynamics there.

When you're putting a person in the position of total authority and I'm questioning authority,

then you're just eroding your own agency.

There's that really slow erosion of your boundaries and any boundary that you put up is your

ego.

Yeah.

There really isn't room for boundaries in a spiritual community.

Well, your boundaries are seen as limitations to you.

One of the things that Mark Vicente, who was one of the guys that left with us, was like,

we talked about how Keith, the guy in our group, saw people's morality as their limitation.

So he would see that you have a morality and he would do things to get you to challenge

it so you might dismiss it, which made you more malleable to his whims.

If you had a strong morality, you weren't close to Keith.

Yeah.

And then the more that you challenge that morality, the harder it is to come back from that because

you're probably also enduring moral injuries when you are violating your own moral compass.

And you hand it off to the guru.

The guru's morality is now your own.

And anything they do that's questionable is explained as, you know, sacred rage or they're

an enlightened master.

Yeah.

So what they do, you know, it might seem strange that they're yelling or bellowing at you.

We don't need to understand it.

And your need to understand it's the problem.

Yeah.

Exactly.

It reminds me so much of Yogi Bajan from Kundalini and all the teachers would say he was a

Saturn returns teachers, Saturn, Saturn rising, that's the name of Saturn as like the excuse

for why he was such a rageaholic.

Yeah.

Oh, he's just, yeah, that's just, you know, that's just probably Kali in this, yeah.

Yeah.

No, Saturn's like the father, the father figure, the structure and the, I know exactly

what they mean in that reference to astrology because the school had everything.

I had astrology at Tantra, they had yoga, it was another class I briefly dabbled in as

well.

They really kind of covered all of their bases.

So there was something for everybody.

Was it a hodgepodge of, or like our last episode to be a spiritual self-health smoothie?

Did they take from other methodologies or was anything new like in your deconstruction?

Have you noticed that it was like plagiarized or was it like a new spin?

I think they drew from everywhere.

I think it was probably a lot of plagiarism and then twisted for his own agenda where

desired.

They had, what do they have some galactic group where they were communicating, they was talking

about communicating with extraterrestrials and yeah, it was a bit of like a secret group

within the group because there was lots of those, but I do remember some galactic, something

in there as well.

They were in everything.

Yeah.

It's like Mother God mixed with Kundalini, mixed with some Bikram, mixed with some Nexium,

it's just that original Grig, come on.

He may have been the OG though.

He might have been.

He's been around for a while.

We didn't really cover this, an investigative reporter in the doc that really covers the

history.

Is there anything in particular that you think gets important for our audience to know

about him loosely that you can touch on?

Like who's this guy?

Well, the school, he was a dissident in the communist era of Romania.

You say his name?

Gregorian Bivalaro is the name that he grows by.

Bivalaro.

Yeah.

And the story that's woven by the school, or there's pushed out by the school, is that he

was persecuted for teaching yoga during the communist regime.

And that's why he was imprisoned.

And that's why he was tortured, I think they said as well, when they looked into it and

they really did a deep die of this investigator that was in the series.

It wasn't to do with the yoga at all.

He was arrested, I think, for other sorts of deviant behavior.

And I'm not going to say what it is because I actually can't remember exactly the details

of it, but it was not because of yoga at all.

I do think it's interesting that in the communist Romania, yoga was banned, correct?

It was.

Yeah.

So he was teaching it.

And then it seemed like he saw, this is my take, yoga as a path to women.

I would say that.

Yeah.

That seems kind of obvious, like I'll teach yoga and I'll have women in these positions

and I'll be the guru and then I'll get sex.

That seems to be his motivation.

Yeah.

Okay.

Tell us about the invitation to the villas.

So my invitation came, it actually came when I was in Romania and it was a, an on the

loop.

And I received it when I was at a spiral meditation, which is its own interesting anecdote.

But they do these spiral meditations in the field where you all hold hands and you

all line up in the orders of the Zodiac and listen to music for a few hours.

Pretty interesting meditative experiences, I have to say.

But that aside, I received this invitation when I was there at the field and it said, yes,

definitely go to the villa.

We welcome you, go immediately.

So I went to where I was staying and I got my bags.

It was fairly late at night and I went to the villa at night.

So when I was reading through all of these pages of rules and having these photos taken,

it was the middle of the night.

So I wasn't about to sort of back down or say no.

And I think in the series, I do talk about how, you know, you could also see it is impairing

of like, okay, well, I don't have a problem with my body.

So I'm going to, I'm going to take my clothes off because why should I be ashamed?

And they say that they say if you have a problem with nudity, that's a spiritual challenge,

your problem, you need to get over that.

And I think it wasn't so much that I genuinely felt it was impairing, it was how I rationalized.

That was my effort justification, you know, that was my way of saying, a way of making

myself comfortable or trying to make myself comfortable with the situation because I felt

extremely vulnerable in that moment.

It was very late at night.

And if I didn't do it, what was going to happen?

Would they just leave me out on the street or would they kick me out and never let me come

back?

Or would I be kicked out of the school and the spiritual path that I was on?

You know, there was just too much at stake because I know and they'd taken your passport

and your wallet.

Yeah.

There's a lot of buy-in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's very vulnerable.

I want people to watch the series and I also want to tell the story.

So I'm struggling with like, how much to share, but I kind of want to skip to the fact

that like, you opted to not go through within the initiation.

Yeah.

And I think partly that's probably why and tell me if I'm wrong, why you're able to be

a voice for these women because you didn't have the, I mean, obviously you had your own

trauma and it was awful, what happened.

And you don't have the same amount to, I don't know, I feel like there's probably women

that this happened to that wouldn't have the strength to speak as you are because they

must feel...

Will you stop the abuse on your own accord?

Yeah.

You stop the abuse.

Based on your own morality.

Yeah.

And that's very commendable and you found your out and can speak to it now because you

didn't go to that next level.

Do you feel comfortable sharing what it was supposed to happen and what happened to these

other women?

So our audience knows what the end game was.

Yeah.

And I have to say, I think the reason that I was able to get out was one because I was

a bit of a glitch in the system.

I was in a normally, I kind of got catapulted to the center of this school very quickly.

And if you think of the boiling...

Oh, skip steps.

Yeah.

The boiling frog analogy, you know, they turned up the heat too quickly.

And I think normally that's not what happens.

And so I think it was partly that.

And I'm just really lucky.

Like it could have been me.

It's not that I hadn't considered going to meet him.

It's not that I hadn't considered that this might happen and felt viscerally in my bones

repulsed at the thought of it.

But was like, is that just a spiritual test?

Do I?

Should I be doing this?

Do I go through with this?

So, you know, it's not that I didn't almost go through with it myself.

And yeah, I just want to say that like it could easily have been me and I'm so lucky that

I didn't.

What was your question again?

Yeah, I've forgotten now.

You know, that's great.

I think it's a really good point.

You just made that they brought you to the inner circle too soon.

So you weren't...

You didn't have the same buy-in.

The skip steps.

The skip steps.

It sounds like I'm just going to guess that he got greedy and was like, I want her.

And so, you know, brought you up to the front of the line.

You don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I also think it was just such a complex, sophisticated system of control.

I don't even know how much he was...

He was having a say in the specifics of who was coming when I really don't know.

I think it was just an operation of like, we get as many women to him as possible.

Any new person we can get to him, we get to him.

Any person showing promise and, you know, potential susceptibility or openness refund all

towards him.

I mean, I really don't know whether he even knew much about me.

He might have...

I guess we'll never know.

I guess we'll never know.

Maybe people...

I have a feeling people are going to watch the series who went through it and reach out.

I think you're going to get some answers.

Well, imagine too.

It's processing a lot of people.

I don't know if you have that number.

What's that number, do you think?

If he's processing a lot of women, what do you think that's like?

All hundreds every year, I would say.

So he's going to make some mistakes.

He made a big mistake with me.

Yeah.

He did.

He really did.

No, Keith made previous mistakes because people left.

Obviously, he made previous mistakes, which is why he was on the run.

And he was refining his system in the same way that Keith was refining his system to cover

his own ass.

And that's a hard thing to do when you're processing that many people.

It's hard to control a lot of people.

Both Greg and Keith learned to get women to make consensual statements to say I'm doing

this because I want to and to protect their butts.

But we still haven't said the question was, what's the end game?

Yes.

Women were invited to...

Is it when I get in this right?

Transfigured?

To transfigure and be initiated?

Yeah.

So essentially to have an initiation into the tantric.

To be initiated by a tantric master, this is under that, guys, through the sexual ritual.

And it became pretty clear, well, while you're in this house, I call it the holding house.

It's the house where you're held before you go to him and they indoctrinate you or you're

already pretty indoctrinated usually by the time you get there.

But being required to go through a lot of steps and watch a lot of videos and a lot of

paperwork to prep you, essentially.

And they told like, oh, he will never, ever make you do something that you don't want

to do.

You know, he's one of the few real ones out there.

There's so few real masters out there.

And he would never make you do something that you don't want to do.

And it was just becoming more and more clear to me as I was there that they said that.

But every woman that had come back from him had gone through with this initiation.

I wasn't meeting anybody that hadn't.

And what really alarmed me was one particular incident.

And it had a very strong influence on me of a woman that I met.

And she said, she'd just come back from meeting him for the second time.

And she said, the first time she went, she's sitting in front of him and she was crying.

I think you have to be naked when you meet him.

And she was saying, no, I don't want to.

This is crazy.

I have a boyfriend who obviously had no idea that she was there.

And he's saying, why not?

You know, like, you know, it's integrated for you.

And so she went through with it.

And I said, and how did you feel afterwards?

And she sort of shrubbed and goes, good.

And I was very unconvincing.

And I said, okay.

And then she said, and then I got home to my family and I realized how good I felt.

And you know, I realized it was good for me.

And I had this thought of, or were you so relieved to be back with your family and loved ones

that you thought that, you know, maybe you got confused about that relief.

I don't know.

And then she came back and she said, and then I was, you know, again, I was sitting in front of him.

I was crying.

I was saying, I don't want to.

Are you saying, why not?

And then it was back and forth.

And then eventually she went through with it.

And I said, and how did you feel?

And she's like, good, little shrug.

And then she goes, and then I told him I didn't want to do it again.

And I don't know why I said that.

And then he got really mad at me.

And then she was menstruating and he won't go, he won't touch you if he menstruating.

So she got sent back to the house here, obviously holding a bit of shame.

And I was, I just, I couldn't get that out of my head because I thought they're telling

me that he would never make me do something that I didn't want to do.

And I know that I would be her.

I would be sitting in front of him crying, going, I don't want to do this.

And I was afraid that he would wear me down in the same way that he wore her down.

And I was afraid that if I actually met him, and I was sitting in front of him, that

I wouldn't be able to say no.

Smart.

And how soon after that realization were you invited and tell us about how you got out

of there?

It was a couple of days after that.

I'd been watching the required videos.

And there were some videos that we had to watch.

They were all pornographic.

And some were a lot more difficult to watch than others.

They knew that.

They said, which one did you watch today?

And I say, oh, this one is, oh, yeah, this one is very challenging.

Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just, I'm curious.

Is it pornographic and tantric or it's just like just straight porn?

It's just straight porn.

Yeah.

So you're not even watching like tantra demos.

No, not at all.

That's so strange.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's desensitizing.

It's desensitizing.

And they're saying that the women, you meant to be watching the women embodying these states

of total openness and total, I guess, empowerment.

And they're not empowered at all.

No.

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OK, so then you get the invitation.

What would you say was you've already spoken about sort of like these seeds that you

had of doubt and that you would probably say, no, what do you think gave you the strength

and tell us about your leaving and how you did that?

I went down to the basement to meditate because I knew that nobody could speak to me in

there because that was a room of silence because I had to write to him at one point.

I was writing to him and I'm trying to remember why now, but I was basically expressing to him

that I don't see that I will ever be ready in my lifetime for this initiation.

If you are my master, could you please continue to support me and my growth through the yoga

practices that previously in all of the teachings promised my salvation and my liberation from

suffering?

You know, if these yoga practices are so effective, please guide me in them.

I just don't think that I'm going to be ready for an initiation like this.

I have too many demons to work through because previously he was seeing my doubts and saying,

make her watch more testimonial videos of other women who've been through with it.

It will exercise her demons and he wrote this letter back that's described in the series.

And then he had attached to it saying that she's being superficial and a changing

shifty woman.

Tell her to watch the testimony of this particular woman who I'd befriended, who did not manifest

this bizarre, morbid, sickly reaction.

And they brought that to me when I was in the meditation room.

So I was in the meditation room asking for a sign and praying because I was at breaking

point by this point.

And I was starting to feel like I didn't know what reality was anymore.

And I felt like I was sort of in this state of, am I having a nightmare?

Am I dreaming?

Am I in a state of psychosis?

I don't know what to do.

They brought me the letter that said, watch this video.

And I snapped in that moment and thought, you are not my master.

If you knew me, if you really were this spiritual master, you would not tell me to watch that

testimony because that is not going to convince me of anything.

And they said, I want to go.

I want to leave right now.

And they said, you can't.

Like we have to have his permission.

And I said, no, I want to go now.

And I couldn't.

I was not allowed to leave because I had to write to him and tell him why I wanted to leave

and get his permission to leave.

And that has to be done by hand.

So I had to physically write this letter.

And we had to wait for a car for them to go and take the letter to him and then wait

for a response from him in order to be able to release me.

And in that interim was when I had to make that video and write out all these forms of

these statements saying that I was there, my own free will, I was not mistreated in any

way.

Very legal sounding jargon.

And that took an entire day.

So by the time this return response came back to me, they said, okay, fine, he said that

you have permission to leave, but it's really late at night.

So we have to take you in the morning.

We can't take you now.

It's too late.

So in all of this time, I was trying to stay lucid and I was worried that brainwashed

Ashley was going to take over that somebody was going to talk to me and plan to see

it in my mind.

And I would unravel and I would go and meet him.

So I was writing to myself in a diary trying to stay lucid and just in a state of terror

for that entire day until eventually the car was available the following morning.

I could not get into it quick enough and get to a hotel.

And then I was in a hotel room for a day just trying to decide what to do because I was

meant to be going back to Romania for the camp again afterwards straight from there.

And that was in a few days' time.

And so I was like, do I go to this camp?

Do I fly home to Australia?

Was that a cult?

I think it was a cult that have I just fallen off the spiritual path?

Have I just been riddled by demons?

Am I going to devolve now into insanity or, you know, is my soul damned?

Because it's not just your life that's at stake, you know, it's your soul.

And so I went for a walk and I just ended up booking a flight home to Australia.

And that was that.

Were you welcomed back into your family's arms where they're supportive?

Absolutely.

I have such a wonderful family.

I didn't talk about it for a while.

I came back.

Did they know?

No, because I had to tell them I was on a retreat in Denmark and I wasn't ready to talk

about it yet.

I was too afraid to talk about it.

And I got back.

And I just said, yeah, I don't know.

I just had a weird feeling on the retreat I was on.

I just wanted to come home and I came home.

And they didn't really ask that many questions because they didn't really have any reason to.

But then, strangely, I got caught out in the lie by the mother of one of the people

that, you know, brought me into the school.

So I had to go and drop something off.

And she said, oh, where have you been?

I said, oh, I was at the retreat center in Denmark.

And she said, oh, okay, also you would have seen, you would have seen Ziggy there.

And I was like, oh, no, I was in a different part.

And she knows because she's been there, she goes, there is no other part.

And I was like, and I froze because she knew she, nobody else in the world that I could

have told would have known that there was no other part, but she knew.

And she looked at me and she said, are you okay?

And I couldn't hold it together.

And she still tells me that, yeah, that she could see that I was just not okay.

And I really needed that to happen.

So that was then what kind of drew a little bit out of me.

The truth to some extent, because she just saw right through me.

She knew that I wasn't okay.

And so did you tell her, I did, but I didn't.

I told her some things, but I wasn't ready yet to break the bells.

I was still too scared.

And then it took a few months.

And then I saw a counselor.

So had some professional therapy.

I totally remember telling somebody about the brand who wasn't in the next year.

And that was the first time I was like, like to see the reality of somebody who wasn't

indoctrinated back, reflected back to me.

So it could be very confronting.

Yeah.

So you go to therapy, you're finally sharing, what year was that, by the way?

I'm trying to, I feel like it's hard to remember the exact timelines.

I think it might have been 2020 by then.

I came back in 2019 and then I had that encounter where I didn't really say what happened,

but I sort of alluded to it because I was too scared to break the bells.

Yeah.

Then it was a few months later.

Yeah, then COVID.

Yeah, and it was a few months later that I started to word vomit.

And once it started to come out, it just wouldn't stop.

Like I just, the more I talked about it, the more I needed to talk about it.

And there was a period of my life where I just couldn't talk about anything else.

Just had to get it out.

It was just like, this like regurgitation.

And then after a while, that stopped, which was nice.

Yeah.

The word vomit is definitely a phase where like you want to scream from the rooftops.

I can't remember exactly the year we connected by a member thinking at the time that your

story, when you started to be speak publicly about it, that there was like more to it

that we didn't know yet.

Like that's how I was like, she's, I felt like you were still kind of grappling with

the depth of it.

Is that accurate?

Like when you first started being public, doing press.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was still working through it and I still wasn't able to practice yoga.

You know, I was still having symptoms of PTSD at the time and I was still trying to make

sense of it.

And that's why I started my called awareness page because I was looking for resources

at the time.

And where was your book, guys, when I needed it?

All the way back there.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You did.

This is the book.

Fair question.

Fair question.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's why we wrote it.

Like there's so many people like you that like how and also how are you going to wade

through?

There's lots of books about calls, but they're very academic.

Yes.

And lots of them are very dry.

And they're not super palatable.

Yeah.

You read them.

Yeah.

So did we.

You know, yeah.

Good.

When did you like admit to yourself or others it was a cult?

How was that recognition?

That was after I started reading the dry academic stuff and sort of just going down

a rabbit hole of reading a lot of it.

And I started calling it a cults probably, probably within six months of coming home.

So I think by 2020 I was calling it a cult.

What do you think is the most healing thing that you've done for yourself to get back

your life?

So really good question.

I think the biggest thing for me has been time and distance, physical distance from

the school and from the whole thing.

And then just moving forward with my life and my goals and my aspirations and creating

this life that's unrecognizable now to the life I had back then.

That's been healing for me to look at where I am now and I ended up studying psychology

and I've finished my master's now.

I've just started working as a provisional psychologist.

So that's amazing.

Yeah.

There's like a really big.

Right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It took five years.

So I feel like that was something that was helpful in my healing because I think I turned

to academics.

I turned to the science and research to try and understand what happened.

And that was, and then I just kept, you know, following that path and studying psychology

and I really threw myself into that for years.

But then that kind of took its toll on me because I started falling into a nihilistic

doom spiral and started to believe in nothing and that wasn't fun for me.

So what's healing for me as well is slowly being able to return back to spiritual spaces,

back to yoga practices and spiritual exploration and themes to kind of come back to a place

that feels more grounded and feels safe and have a belief system that works for me

where there's a lot of unknowns and there's a lot of uncertainties about big questions.

But that's okay.

I don't need to have the answers now and I have a strong faith that works for me.

So that's been also been very healing.

Do you feel like the documentary might be another level of healing?

Has that been good to have it out in the world?

Yes.

Definitely.

Good because we were fortunate to have such brilliant filmmakers and such a brilliant team

making the series because people have gone through similar ventures and it hasn't gone

so well.

So we were really mindful of that, you know, we don't get any control.

We're not making it.

All we are is contributing and sitting there.

Subjects.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Subjects.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it certainly feels that way sometimes.

Yeah.

You have to put your trust in somebody.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had kind of, I was a little closed off.

Just to wrap up the dark real quick, I'm just wondering what was it like to watch it?

But I was just curious.

There's what that one woman I forget her name who had such a positive experience.

And then at the end, she kind of, you know, takes in that other people didn't.

Was that triggering at all to, to hear her speak so highly of it?

It was initially.

Yeah.

The first time I saw it, I wasn't prepared for what exactly I was going to see.

So I watched it and it was a little bit triggering.

But I think it was an important angle for them to include, to kind of show.

I think it shows a, it's balanced reporting, you know, it's, it shows that they're willing

to, they're willing to show another side.

But I think she does come around towards the end of the series.

And I think, yeah, I think it would be very hard for, I think it's very commendable that

she's able to arrive at that place when her experience for her had big positive.

Yeah.

And I actually do think, I mean, I was triggered on your behalf, but I was also thinking

it is good to show what was good and what was the, like, what was the carrot that was being

dangled as people's experience like hers.

And also how strong the buy and buy and it can be, okay.

Sorry, Neppy, you had asked, yeah, there's still women, what's happening?

Being abused and how can they get help and what's the status?

Well, I mean, he has now been arrested and he's in custody.

So that operation has been stopped.

Great.

Yeah.

I cannot say whether people are still being abused through the webcam work or through

strip clubs.

I don't know.

My feeling is that it's very possible and probably likely, but I really don't know.

I cannot say with any certainty, but the main operation with him cannot operate while

he's in custody.

So that's been put to a stop.

But the schools are still open and the schools are still operating.

And no culpability.

I saw absolutely.

Yeah, zero accountability.

The fact that he's in custody was a real positive aspect of the dark.

And I was actually really impressed with the French police that have a, like, a whole cult

section.

I forgot what they're called.

Kaimad, that's amazing.

I had no idea.

I just think of all the countries that you're going to run this operation from.

France was not the country.

Like they have Kaimad, they have a specialist anti-cult police unit.

For exactly this, what other country has that?

Yeah, we need one in America and get, well, every country needs it.

But it's rabbit and Australia, too.

There's so many cults in Australia.

I mean, that tells you everything.

Yeah, we did an international cult awareness thing, a little bit culty, a little bit culty.

Ashley, I really want you to go to sleep.

And I also want to know, is there anything we didn't ask you that you want to share?

That's the important for you to share with our audience or the world about your journey.

I guess that for anybody that's in this particular school or in similar schools and is afraid

of breaking their vows because that is such a strong control and an isolation tactic

where you cannot talk about, you cannot talk about what's happened because you're spawned

a secrecy.

I broke my vows and I've never been happier since, you know.

It's been a good thing for me.

So, you know, if you do want to break free from this organisation or similar ones,

there is supports out there and there is hope you can get out.

And yeah, if anyone has been affected by Mesa Atman or any of their affiliated schools

and actually wants to be involved in the legal proceedings as well, please reach out.

We're working through the excellent lawyers in France and your voice matters.

So, there's that as well.

I think that should be the sound bite that we put on Instagram to also make sure that

people know that this is happening and can get involved.

Absolutely, yeah.

Well, I think for me, it's been like, and there's been so many things that have been healing.

I've kind of rattled off a few, but there's a lot, you know, one thing was doing the documentary

and having that be in the end a really positive experience.

Another thing was actually being able to be heard by the justice system

and be able to move forward with that in the legal avenue as well.

That's reassuring.

Yeah, it's the justice system understands it.

You'll have to testify where you'll be a part of the trial.

You don't know yet.

I really don't know.

And I'm hoping that there'll be a trial soon.

I don't know when, but I mean, we don't technically even know if,

but I have a feeling like that I do think there will be a trial.

It's just a game of patience.

I think with these cases when they're so big, nothing happens quickly.

Well, we may have to have you back after that.

And you can tell us about it.

And it's a tricky one with the way that he framed everybody's consent.

Like, you know, he coerced consent out of people.

And the lawyers will have to prove that.

But I think they may have in the elaborate system in place to do it.

Yeah, it's pretty they may be able to get him on the underage stuff.

Yeah, that might be the angle.

But hey, I'm no lawyer.

I'm just no lawyer who's played one on television.

You did.

I did.

But I'm really just so thrilled to reconnect with you, Ashley.

And to see the, you know, your trajectory that you've been on.

It's so happy and glowing.

And to see what's next for you.

Ashley, thank you so much for your time for being so brave.

And for putting your life for us into something that's so important.

And I know it's going to help a lot of people.

Thank you so much for having me.

And for listening to me talk again and again about my experience.

Thank you so much for having me.

Be well.

Not bad for our first 7 30 AM.

So what you got to do for the Aussies?

She stood up late.

We got up early.

Yeah, the parallels in her story in ours are

obvious and her draw to leaning into the academic and putting

language to it is I think a natural process.

And she nails it and she's turned it into a career.

Yeah.

And we will share all the best for her.

And we hope that this docuseries and our episode gets out far and wide and

starts to wake people up who might still be part of these yoga groups.

Tara, yoga in London, Misa in different parts of Europe.

Let's keep shining that light.

Light shone.

Shone.

Shone.

Shone in Canada with the shone.

Shined.

Shined.

Shoned.

Shined.

Shining.

Bye bye.

Bye.

We hope you're enjoying a little bit culty.

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A little bit culty is a trace 120 production.

Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippie Ames

in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound.

Our co-creator is Jess Temple Tarty.

Our production coordinator is Leslie Densborg.

Riding by Sandra Nemoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarsinski

and Brooke Kean.

Our theme song cultivated is by the artist John Bryant and Nigel Asselin.

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