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

About this episode

Ashleigh Freckleton discusses her experiences with MISA/Atman Yoga and the impact of high-control groups in the context of yoga and spirituality.

In this episode, we finally sit down with Ashleigh Freckleton, one of the central voices in the Apple TV docuseries Twisted Yoga and a former devotee of MISA/Atman Yoga, the transnational yoga-tantra empire orbiting fugitive guru Gregorian Bivolaru. We’ve been trying to line this conversation up for years, and it was worth every time-zone fail and calendar mishap to get her in the (virtual) studio. Ashleigh takes us back to the moment yoga and meditation felt like the only things keeping her afloat—and how that genuine relief became the doorway into a “serious spiritual school” that slowly revealed itself as a high-control group with a global footprint. She walks us through the pipeline: starting with online Atman classes, moving into the in-person community at the Tara Yoga Centre in London, and eventually realizing the whole network feeds back to one very problematic “master” in hiding. We also get into how these groups weaponize spiritual language to train you to ignore that constant low-grade anxiety buzzing in the background. Ashleigh describes what it’s like to see her story hit the screen after years of healing: the stress before the doc dropped, the relief of being…

People in this episode

Hosts: Sarah Edmondson, Anthony “Nippy” Ames

Guest: Ashleigh Freckleton

Topics covered

• yoga
• spirituality
• high-control groups
• personal trauma
• documentary
• cult dynamics

Keywords

• MISA
• Atman Yoga
• Gregorian Bivolaru
• Twisted Yoga
• high-control groups
• spiritual language
• personal healing
• yoga cults

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MISA, Atman Yoga, Tara Yoga Centre

Books & works: Twisted Yoga

Places: London

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