Behind the doors of a discreet yoga school, classes transformed into indoctrination and torture sessions for young women. The head of the Kundalini yoga school in Saint-Michel-les-Portes, a village of less than 300 inhabitants in Isère, was indicted for sexual assault and placed under judicial supervision on Friday. He is also being prosecuted for “concealed work” and placed “under the status of assisted witness” for accusations of “abuse of weakness in a context of sectarian aberrations”.
The indictment of this 73-year-old man follows the complaint of a young woman in August 2022, denouncing three sexual assaults committed between July 2020 and January 2022. Four other victims “of similar acts committed during this period”, including some reside in Germany and the United Kingdom, have since been identified by investigators. “Master Yogi would have taken advantage of personal “guidance” sessions to sexually touch young women at a time in their lives when they were psychologically vulnerable and in a state of astonishment,” explains prosecutor Eric Vaillant.
60,000 euros in cash found at the director’s home
In addition, the investigations revealed a “use of hidden work through volunteers”, “interns at the center who decided to stay there for a certain time, paying rent and providing household services without remuneration, apart from the room and board (frugal). Six to twelve victims were identified over a period of one year but their number is “potentially greater”, the system operating “since the creation of the center in the early 2000s”. The courses, provided “to several hundred people per year, are billed at around 1,500 euros, not including accommodation (between 25 euros and 130 euros per night)”. More than 60,000 euros in cash were also found at the home of the school director during a search, according to the same source.
Installed in Saint-Michel-les-Portes below Mont Aiguille by a yoga teacher named Satyavrati yogi, the Amrit Nam Sarovar establishment presents itself on its website as “a learning community” and claims to constitute “a global network » as an “international school”. It offers different products ranging from online courses to one-week cures in order to “purify” oneself in the place called Martinet.