Behind the Bivolaru Case. 3. Enter the MIVILUDES

by Massimo Introvigne

The French anti-cult governmental agency played a crucial role in persuading those who were against other Tantric groups that they should focus on MISA.

Article 3 of 4. Read article 1 and article 2.

In the last article of the series, we discussed the court case Hugues Gascan lost again his colleague P.J., whom he had accused of being part of a “sex cult” led by Canadian independent Tantric teacher Jean Bouchart d’Orval.

We have a precious if biased document about what occurred next: the autobiographic book self-published by an ex-member called Alban Bourdy, turned anti-cultist, of the Soledad Domec schismatic branch of Ashram Shambala. The title is “Un Bisounours au pays des se(x)ctes”, Norderstedt: Book on Demand, 2018. Having emerged as a public critic of Soledad Domec and the groups inspired by Rudnev, Bourdy received a phone call from Gascan in 2015 (p. 391). The latter followed up with a second call in December 2015, where according to Bourdy he wanted the two of them to join forces to expose the Tantric groups. However, Gascan was still so obsessed by P.J. that he accused Bourdy of being in touch with her (p. 393).

Following these events, Bourdy visited the governmental anti-cult agency MIVILUDES in Paris shortly before Christmas 2015 and had an interlocutory talk with a “high representative” of the institution (p. 397). After this meeting, Gascan and Bourdy were approached by TV journalist Raphaël Tresanini. On February 26, 2016, something new occurred: Gregorian Bivolaru was arrested in France. He was wanted by Romania for the M.D. case mentioned in the first article of this series. At the same time, he had been granted political asylum in Sweden, which told France that for this reason he could not be extradited to Romania. The MIVILUDES was mostly looking for ammunitions against Bivolaru. Bourdy understood that he would be supported by the MIVILUDES only if he would somewhat connect Ashram Shambala with MISA. Bourdy tried to cooperate and wrote that, “Many websites have suggested that the two organizations [MISA and Ashram Shambala] may be connected. It is a version supported by anti-cult organizations worldwide” (p. 398). However, the only “connection” he was able to find was that Éric Baret, an independent French Tantric teacher, had reportedly lectured at seminars both of Shambala-derived groups and of MISA in Latin America (p. 398). Even if true, this would be typical of how neo-Tantric networks function, and would not prove that MISA was connected with Ashram Shambala.

When the TV reportage of Tresanini was aired, Bourdy reports that the MIVILUDES was upset because it was not anti-Bivolaru enough, even if he had interviewed one of the most angry hostile ex-members (pp. 400–01). The MIVILUDES then put Gascan and Bourdy in touch with other “friendly” journalists, more apt at understanding what was required from them (pp. 406–07).

Bivolaru was finally extradited to Romania by France on July 22, 2016, the Swedish objections notwithstanding. It would seem that the MIVILUDES got from Gascan and Bourdy what it wanted. However, the story did not end there. Reportedly, MIVILUDES had recommended to Gascan and Bourdy to approach the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (Human Rights League), a venerable organization founded in 1898 that acts inter alia as a watchdog for French secularism. Gascan ended up founding in 2020 something called the “Groupe Phénomène Sectaire (GPS) de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH)” (Group Cult Phenomenon of the Human Rights League).

However, Gascan and the League parted company in 2022. According to an email of September 22, 2022, of which Bitter Winter has obtained a copy, sent by Gascan and the GPS to those who had registered for a conference on “Cultic Infiltrations into the Institutions and Economy,” scheduled for October 14, the event was cancelled and the GPS itself was dissolved.

The mail announced that, “The Groupe Phénomène Sectaire (GPS) of the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH) has decided to disband, putting an end to its activities after two years in operation. Indeed, since January 2022, after a successful first year, we have had to deal with constant obstructions from the political and administrative leadership of the LDH, which no longer allow us to work properly and serenely, unless we want to devote most of our militant time to trying to settle substantive issues and administrative hassles, not to mention contemptuous attitudes towards GPS members. This has a lot to do with: –the financial stakes involved in obtaining a budget from the MIVILUDES 2021 call for projects, access to which for GPS is particularly difficult, even contested, making it impossible to carry out the planned program; —the fact that certain LDH officials explained to us that ‘when it comes to the cult phenomenon, the expression is plural at the LDH,’ and that ‘the LDH’s vocation is not to fight against cults.’ The cessation of our activities is effective today, Thursday September 22, 2022. We therefore regretfully and apologetically cancel the conference scheduled for October 14 at the FIAP Jean-Monnet in Paris, entitled ‘Cultic Infiltrations into the Institutions and the Economy.’ We would like to thank you for accepting our invitation, either as a speaker or as part of the audience.

And we invite you to take the necessary steps now to cancel any financial commitments you may have to attend this symposium. If this proves appropriate, we invite you to contact LDH, which has obtained a budget dedicated to cult issues from the MIVILUDES.”

Astute Bitter Winter readers would have noticed the repeated references to money and budgets. The MIVILUDES distributes substantial sums of money to anti-cult organizations and there is a Darwinian “struggle for life” among different groups for the largest pieces of the cake.

In November 2023, Gascan and his friends founded an anti-cult organization independent from the Human Rights League called Groupe d’étude du phénomène sectaire (GéPS, Study Group of the Cult Phenomenon). As they told the media, they kept focusing on MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru. As I mentioned earlier, Gascan’s grudge was against Omalpha, not MISA. He claimed Omalpha was a branch of Ashram Shambala—it wasn’t, although it had organized joint seminars with groups whose roots were in that Russian organization. Omalpha’s leader, Jean Bouchart d’Orval, later parted company with Rudnev’s parent branch of Ashram Shambala. According to Bourdy, Bouchart even claimed he had become an expert in deprogramming and offered his services to deprogram Rudnev’s devotees (Bourdy, “Un Bisounours au pays des se(x)ctes,” p. 177), although he kept in close contact with Soledad Domec.

After Bivolaru was arrested in 2023, Gascan reported that he regarded MISA as “a second branch” of Ashram Shambala, which as mentioned earlier in this series, is demonstrably false. In the same interview, he admitted contradictorily that MISA and Ashram Shambala “are two movements with shared beliefs, but separated apart from a few sporadic points of contact.” The “shared beliefs” are “sporadic” too, but it was clear that when it came to Tantric groups MIVILUDES was mostly interested in a campaign against Bivolaru. Gascan obliged.

Source: bitterwinter.org 

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January 12, 2024

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