Yoga Guru Scandal

In what’s shaping up to the be latest in a long line of alleged yoga-guru scandals, a woman has

targeted popular New York City yoga studio Jivamukti with a $1.6 million sexual harassment lawsuit, saying it was “more akin to a cult.” Slate dove into those claims on Tuesday, finding an environment “where the lines between workplace and ashram were blurred and where supervisors doubled as gurus,” according to current and former teachers there.

“Now that I’m out of it, I’m like, yep, that’s a cult,” a teacher who left Jivamukti last year told Slate. She’s now digging herself out of the debt she amassed by following the tribe to yoga gatherings. “Everybody follows it so blindly,” she said.

The case, filed in February, hinges on the claims of Holly Faurot, who started a teacher-training program at Jivamukti in 2007. She was 27 at the time, recovering from an eating disorder and an abusive childhood, and felt that the yoga program would save her. “Jivamukti gives you this antidote. You have something now. You’ve been in therapy, you’ve done all these things, but you’re still not healed,” she said. “You feel like you want a way to move forward with your life and transform, and they give you something. They give you something you can dedicate your whole life to.”

Faurot wound up studying under Ruth Lauer-Manenti, aka Lady Ruth, and, soon thereafter, worshiping her, along with a tight circle of women who had been her apprentices. “You kind of felt like if you became her closer student, you would be further along the spiritual path,” she said. “The fact that she liked me so much, and I was her favorite, — somehow I felt so special. I really had never felt that way in my entire life, to feel that kind of love from an authority figure.”

But Faurot now believes that Lauer-Manenti took advantage of her devotion to sexually abuse her — sleeping in her bed, spooning and caressing her, and allegedly manipulating her into posing for nude photos that made her uncomfortable.

A statement on Jivamukti’s website disputes her claims: “We adamantly reject the very serious accusations against Ruth Lauer-Manenti and the New York City Jivamukti Yoga School that have recently appeared in the press. This negative campaign is being waged against our satsang, our principals and competency. These allegations are wrong and misguided, moving outside the realm of critical dialogue. There has been no proof to substantiate any of the allegations.”