Twisted Yoga: 3-Part Documentary Lifts the Lid on an Alleged Tantric Sex Cult
The three-part documentary presents a disturbing arc in which seekers of spiritual growth were pulled into what former members now call twisted yoga, a movement that promised enlightenment but allegedly masked manipulation, sexual exploitation and trafficking. The film follows women who volunteered their accounts of recruitment, ritualised sex, and enforced work, and places their psychological journeys at the center of its investigation.
Twisted Yoga: how the film reconstructs recruitment and rituals
Viewers are taken from a London studio that specialized in tantra to a grim “villa” in Romania, and to encounters with a central figure identified in the film as the movement’s guru. Interviewees describe ceremonies that included mass orgies, drinking each other’s urine, and a sequence in which recruits were isolated, had their sim cards wrapped in tin foil and were moved to flats where they were expected to perform prolonged sexual acts framed as spiritual initiation. One contributor, identified in the film as Ashleigh, recounts being told she was being manipulated by demons when she resisted sexual contact and was urged that refusal would block her from receiving divine power.
Psychological mechanics and exploitation beneath the surface
The documentary intentionally centers personal narratives to trace how people searching for community and moral growth could be drawn into extreme practices. Filmmakers show how language of evolution, love and expanded consciousness was repurposed into directives that coerced participation and, in some instances, led to unpaid sexual labor. Several women describe being moved into online sexual work, with one participant told she was saving clients’ souls by helping them connect to a higher sexual energy. The film treats the process as psychological: it maps how trust, spiritual promise and communal pressure intersected to erode personal boundaries.
Rowan Deacon, director of the series, frames the central harm as largely mental and social: “The crime that’s taken place here is, in many ways, psychological. The drama of the story has played out inside these women’s minds, ” she says, explaining why the filmmakers foreground survivor testimony rather than a conventional investigative arc. Deacon adds that the unfolding legal landscape gives the series a journalistic purpose at this moment because there is substantial uncertainty about whether the case will reach trial.
Voices in the film: contributors and filmmakers
The film features multiple former participants who had attended loosely affiliated studios and experienced similar escalations in control. Some of those women accepted what the movement termed sexual initiation with the guru; others refused and were met with spiritualized coercion. Suzanne Lavery, executive producer of the documentary, emphasizes the contributors’ role in driving the project: “It was always going to be centered on the contributors’ stories. The series exists because the contributors themselves wanted to tell what happened to them, ” she says, characterizing the filmmakers’ responsibility as translating those journeys to the screen.
Legal questions and regional consequences
The legal status of the guru featured in the documentary remains unsettled. The film notes that he is currently in custody and that French authorities are investigating whether evidence exists to bring the case to trial. Authorities are exploring alleged offenses under a French law related to coercive control of a group, a legal route the film highlights as difficult to prosecute. That uncertainty — survivors testifying while investigations continue — is central to the documentary’s sense of urgency and to broader debates about how legal systems confront spiritual movements that cross into coercion and sexual exploitation.
The series also surfaces wider implications: practitioners attracted to tantra’s promise of transcendence can become susceptible to commodified forms of spiritual leadership; communities offering care can, in some cases, morph into structures that normalize abuse. By centering survivor testimony, the filmmakers aim to shift public focus from sensational details toward the mechanisms that enabled sustained exploitation.
As the film closes its three episodes, questions remain about accountability, the reach of coercive-control laws, and what safeguards might prevent similar harms in other spiritual or wellness spaces. Will legal proceedings clarify responsibility, or will the psychological and social damage outpace formal justice for those the movement harmed? The documentary leaves viewers with a clear prompt to watch for answers.
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