Record #1: Cult #1, Berkeley, CA

Berkeley, 2001. I was twenty-something, restless, and aching for spiritual direction when I drove eight hours through the night to knock on a tantric yoga teacher's door. He told me I needed to do something extraordinary to prove my devotion. So I showed up in the fog at midnight.

This is the record of a tantric yoga community in the Berkeley Hills led by a teacher who claimed lineage with Swami Satyananda Saraswati and Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati at the Bihar School of Yoga in India—gurus who had never heard of him.

It was a community where beautiful, devoted women enforced the hierarchy. Where silence was considered devotion. Where questioning was spiritual immaturity. Where sexual abuse was disguised as sacred tantric "practice."

I thought I was choosing spiritual freedom and transformation. I was choosing erasure.

This is my origin story—why I recognize cult patterns and manipulation in yoga communities so clearly now. Why I can't be gaslit by institutional yoga's accountability theater. Why I understood exactly what was happening when abuse allegations against Pattabhi Jois became public. Why I left Ashtanga yoga when so many others couldn't.

Years later, the truth emerged: the teacher had been raping one of his students for years. There were lawsuits. Whispers of women drugged. A pregnant woman. He eventually fled to Thailand.

Had I pleased him with the fish dinner I cooked that night, I would have lived in that house. I would have shared her fate.

I walked in hungry. I left dangerous.

This is Record #1: Cult #1

Content Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of sexual coercion, spiritual manipulation, and abuse within a tantric yoga community. Please take care of yourself while listening.

#yogacult #tantricyogaabuse #berkeleyyoga #spiritualabuse #cultrecovery #yogateachertraining #ashtangayoga #pattabhijois #yogaaccountability #guruabuse #sexualabuseinyoga #yogacommunityredflags

Next Episode: Record #2: Cult #2, Mysore, India

About Magnolia Zuniga:

Magnolia Zuniga is a former Ashtanga yoga teacher and one of only 20 women worldwide who were certified by the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) before publicly walking away from the lineage. After abuse allegations against Pattabhi Jois became public, she stopped teaching Ashtanga sequences and lost her certification—choosing survivor solidarity over professional advancement.

She now teaches at ABQ Yoga Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, focusing on decolonizing yoga practice, recognizing cult dynamics in spiritual communities, and building accountability in yoga spaces. She speaks publicly about institutional abuse, guru culture, and what yoga becomes when you remove the harmful power structures.

Find me at www.magnoliazuniga.com and https://www.youtube.com/@MagnoliaSezSo