Gregorian Bivolaru also known as Magnus Aurolsson and nicknamed Grieg, Grig or, by the press, Guru (born 12 March 1952) is the founder of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA).
MISA started as an idealistic organization, and degenerated into procuring and forced prostitution.
1971
Gregorian Bivolaru, born in Tărtășești, Ilfov County, (now in Dâmbovița County), Romania, completed high school in Bucharest, he joined a predecessor to the Bucharest Metro company as an unskilled labourer in 1971.
He began practicing yoga at the age of 17.
During the communist regime Gregorian Bivolaru was kept under observation by the Department of State Security, because he was practicing and teaching yoga, yoga being outlawed in Romania at that time.
He was jailed twice and forcefully hospitalized in a psychiatric ward once.
1977
In 1977, he was arrested on the charge of distributing pornographic materials and sentenced to one year in prison, but he did not complete it due to an amnesty granted for all minor convictions by the President of Romania Nicolae Ceauşescu on his birthday.
1982
In Romania, yoga was forbidden in 1982, in connection with the "Transcendental Meditation scandal", whose victim Gregorian Bivolaru was also.
1984
On 17 April 1984 he was arrested again for the distribution of pornographic materials.
He was locked up in a Securitate cell, from which he managed to escape.
He was captured a few days afterwards, then tried only on the charges of escaping from prison and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
1989
On 17 August 1989 Bivolaru was arrested again, on the grounds that he was mentally unhinged and a menace to the general public.
Prosecutors requested he be hospitalized, which was granted two days later on 19 August 1989 by the sector 1 Tribunal of Bucharest based on a report submitted by National Institute for Legal Medicine IML.
He was sentenced to hospitalization at The Poiana Mare Neuropsychiatry Hospital in Dolj county.
In the IML report the diagnostic was schizoid personality disorder, paranoia with obsessive-phobic elements.
Yoga was illegal in Romania until December 1989, the time of the Romanian Revolution.
After it, Gregorian Bivolaru founded the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA).
1990
MISA has been founded as a non-profit association, by judicial decision on 23 January 1990 by the Court of Bucharest's First District.
It claimed a socio-professional, philosophical and educative character, aiming to increase the spiritual level of people by spreading the yoga knowledge and practices.
MISA included bogus lectures on related disciplines such as Kashmirian philosophy and Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine).
The yoga courses were first held in Bucharest but quickly spread all over the country.
Finnish broadcasting company Yle published a program under MOT series on MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru.
In the program, ex-Natha members were interviewed.
Natha is described as being rooted to Romanian MISA movement.
The interviewees described controversial activities like vomiting as a way of purification.
Also sexual tendencies like pornography and sexual relations with the teachers and pupils were reported.
1993
Apparently confirming the diagnostic of schizoid personality disorder, a psychologist, a close friend of Bivolaru when asked by a young girl in 1993 about attending Bivolaru's courses, advised her to stay clear of him because he is a "psychopath".
Cecilia Tiz, a yoga teacher and formerly associated with MISA, has publicly stated that "Bivolaru is a sick man who needs therapy".
2005
In 2005, the Supreme Court of Sweden agreed to grant political refugee status to Bivolaru in response to his claims of persecution by Romanian authorities.
2012
In 2012 two courts acknowledged that Gregorian Bivolaru was sentenced and jailed for political reasons during the communist regime (pornography was also illegal during the communist regime) ("the political nature of the convictions decided against the claimant by penal sentence no. 68/1977, penal sentence no. 960/1984 and of the claimant's hospitalization ruled against him by penal sentence no. 616/1989").
2013
On 14 June 2013, the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania definitively sentenced Gregorian Bivolaru to 6 years in prison, without suspension, for sexual acts with a minor.
Furthermore, he was acquitted for all the other charges against him (e.g. minor trafficking).
Gregorian Bivolaru is also on the 'wanted' list of Interpol, for criminal charges of aggravated trafficking in human beings.
In a European Court of Human Rights judgement in 2021, he was proclaimed to be criminal on-the-run for forcing his followers to turn over their life savings to him and have sex with each other, and him, at his command.
Young female members said they were forced to work as strippers and appear in hardcore porn films.
In 2013, he was convicted in absentia for having sex with a minor.
2016
France executed a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for him in 2016.
He was again arrested in France in November 2023, but not for extradition purposes.
During his 2016 extradition procedures, Bivolaru pleaded irresponsible (his defense produced some certificate that he is legally insane).
He thinks he is unfairly persecuted, just as Jesus Christ was unjustly crucified.
