The appearance of Deepak Chopra in the Epstein files has been met with a familiar mix of shock and outrage. But, for many of us who have been around spiritual and wellness spaces for decades, it’s all too familiar. Chopra’s presence in those documents reads less like an anomaly and more like another example of patterns that have long shaped wellness and yoga cultures and many other industries. The reasons these patterns persist are many and complex. They include patriarchy, unexamined power, situational narcissism, spiritual bypassing, and a culture that elevates individuals while discouraging challenge. They also include our tendency to confuse wisdom with authority, and devotion with integrity.
It would be impossible to address all of this in a single piece. Instead, I wanted to focus on the dynamics that are especially entrenched in spiritual and wellbeing spaces: how power accumulates, boundaries erode, harm is reframed or minimised, and how abuse is allowed to persist even in communities that sincerely believe themselves to be committed to healing. Chopra’s appearance in the Epstein files is not the centre of this story. It is a point of entry into a much larger conversation about authority, accountability, and what we continue to tolerate in the name of spirituality.
What’s in the files?
One of Chopra’s most quoted remarks in his correspondence with Epstein about God being a construct while ‘cute girls’ are real is, to me, among the less concerning things he said. Much more concerning is their 2016 email exchange where Epstein sent Chopra a link to a Daily Mail article (now buried, of course) reporting that a woman who alleged she had been sexually assaulted at age 13 by both Epstein and Donald Trump had withdrawn her civil lawsuit against the future president, saying she was too afraid to continue. Chopra replied by asking Epstein whether the woman had also dropped her case against him. Epstein responded affirmatively, to which Chopra replied with a single word: “Good.”The reply shows a complete absence of concern or moral hesitation in response to an allegation of sexual assault against a child. A CHILD! There is no expression of empathy for the person who said she was too afraid to continue. No recognition of the gravity of the claim. Just a relief that the case had been dropped and that the outcome is favourable, tidy, and, well, “good” - an affirmation that the withdrawal of a frightened woman’s case is a positive result.
Another exchange in the files is just as unsettling, though in a different way. The redacted contact writes: “I liked watching you zero in on your prey. Made me smile.” Chopra replies: “I not a predator. Just a lover.” This exchange matters because of what it reveals. Women are discussed as objects of pursuit; the word “prey” is neither challenged nor rejected. Chopra’s response is not to object to the framing, but to soften it, replacing “predator” with “lover,” as if that distinction resolves the problem.
Not an Isolated Case or a New Story
This, let’s call it what it is, predatory pattern has deep roots. Yoga communities have many times been confronted with scandals and extensive harm caused by some of the most influential figures at the time. Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga, faced multiple sexual assault lawsuits and civil damages claims brought by former students, leading to the collapse of his global brand. Yogi Bhajan, who played a central role in popularising Kundalini Yoga in the United States, was the subject of an independent investigation which concluded that allegations of serial sexual abuse by female followers were most likely true. A key figure in the Sivananda Yoga tradition has been accused by former students of long-term sexual and psychological abuse, raising serious questions about how large spiritual organisations respond (or often don’t) to complaints.
For decades, women have spoken about sexualised touch, coercive adjustments, and abuse of authority associated with K. Pattabhi Jois, the Ashtanga lineage’s most influential teacher. Numerous former students have described being touched without consent during adjustments and being unable to object or refuse because of Jois’s immense authority over access, certification, and legitimacy within the tradition. These accounts, shared publicly over many years, fundamentally challenged the idea that harm in Ashtanga was isolated or incidental. Recent public discussions around Taylor Hunt, an Ashtanga teacher, emerged after multiple women came forward describing sexual relationships that took place while they were his students. These women reported that the relationships occurred within an ongoing teacher–student context and were intertwined with access to teaching, mentorship, and professional standing. Several have publicly stated that they felt confused and harmed.
Scrutiny of Tara Yoga in the UK and figures connected to Gregorian Bivolaru has centred on testimonies from women who reported being sexually exploited within a hierarchical ‘spiritual’ organisation. Former members described being pressured into sexual acts framed as spiritually necessary or initiatory, often after being isolated, closely supervised, or told their resistance reflected psychological or spiritual blockage. These accounts have been documented in investigative reporting and survivor testimony, and discussed on the Bad Guru podcast (which is quite disturbing, so perhaps skip if you feel it might be triggering).
How Power Works in Spiritual Culture
Like some of the above-mentioned, Chopra has spent decades building his empire as a spiritual teacher, wellness entrepreneur, and author. He speaks about consciousness, healing, and transformation, while also moving comfortably in elite social and political circles. Spiritual authority and social power can reinforce each other, making it harder to question behaviour or examine ethical boundaries. The truth is, he has faced public criticism, lawsuits and claims of boundary-crossing behaviour since 1991. While none of these claims has resulted in criminal charges or verified legal findings, allegations about him have continued to resurface. Still he continued to build his empire without much scrutiny.
So did Bikram Choudhury. After the release of an appalling documentary that laid out the extent of the allegations against him, and after facing serious charges that ultimately led him to flee the United States, his influence did not simply disappear. What was most confronting, for me, was seeing how quickly normalisation returned. I watched in disbelief as more than twenty students enrolled in and attended his Yoga Teacher Training in Spain. Even after years of public testimony, legal findings in civil court, and widespread media coverage detailing harm, there was still enough loyalty, denial, or indifference for some of his authority to remain. This made something painfully clear: exposure alone does not dismantle power. Without collective refusal, meaningful accountability, and structural consequences, even the most well-documented abuse can be ignored, and business as usual can be carried out.
In spiritual and wellness cultures, the line between insight and authority is often blurred. Teachers are assumed to possess moral clarity, emotional wisdom, and ethical soundness. Questioning them can feel like questioning the practice itself. Over time, this creates environments in which power accumulates, protected by admiration and a shared desire to preserve the story of enlightenment or something. When figures like Chopra appear connected to known sites of exploitation, the instinct is often to separate the person from the wider system. But doing so misses the larger issue. The question is not only whether one individual crossed a legal boundary. It is how spiritual prestige so often operates without the clear limits, oversight, and ethical safeguards we would expect in any field involving closeness, influence, and vulnerability.
The Conditions That Allow Abuse to Persist
What links these examples is that when authority is elevated and some form of spirituality is involved, boundaries seem increasingly ambiguous. Within such environments, harm is rarely addressed directly when it emerges. Instead, the language of spirituality is often used to soften its impact, to reinterpret it as personal growth, or to redirect responsibility away from those in power and back onto individuals or the community itself. Therefore, predatory behaviour in spiritual and wellness contexts (and all others) rarely leads to meaningful consequences because of a set of overlapping conditions, including spiritual bypassing and relational dynamics at both interpersonal and collective levels.
Selective access to the teacher is one of the key structures that enables this. Certain students are invited into closer relationships through private sessions, special adjustments, mentorship, travel, or informal one-to-one contact, while others remain at a distance. Within this climate, patterns of grooming and exploitation can take hold. It is often the case that predators often direct their attention toward women who are already vulnerable, including those carrying histories of trauma or seeking safety, belonging, or repair.
This selective closeness functions as a powerful conditioning mechanism. Attention and validation are experienced as being seen or chosen and are often interpreted as signs of trust, readiness, or spiritual development. Soon enough, consent and agency become progressively compromised; individuals may feel pressure to tolerate discomfort, override internal warning signals, or remain silent about boundary concerns out of shame, self-blame, or fear of losing connection or approval.
Those who remain outside this inner circle often do not see what is happening, or choose not to see. In this case, spiritual bypassing often functions as a collective defence mechanism, allowing communities to avoid the psychological discomfort of ethical confrontation by reframing harm as growth, conflict as projection, accountability as ego, or whatever fits the narrative. Psychologically, bypassing serves to regulate anxiety at both the individual and group level by discouraging doubt, anger, and moral ambiguity. However, harm often occurs in private, while the teacher’s public persona remains intact. When concerns are eventually raised, they can appear isolated rather than patterned, making them easier to dismiss as personal issues or unresolved projections.
In this way, selective access and spiritual bypassing operate together as a closed system. Selective access creates vulnerability, dependency, and silence, while spiritual bypassing provides the language that redirects attention away from behaviour and impact and back onto the internal states of those who are harmed. Together, they allow exploitation to persist while remaining largely unrecognised, even within communities that sincerely believe themselves to be committed to healing and care.
Situational Narcissism and Our Role
Alongside spiritual bypassing sits situational narcissism, a phenomenon that develops when individuals are repeatedly placed in positions of admiration, authority, and exemption from ordinary challenge, describing a context-driven process in which sustained reverence, lack of feedback, and privileged access gradually distort self-perception. Over time, elevated status fosters a sense of exceptionality, undermining accountability and boundaries.
Spiritual and wellness contexts are particularly vulnerable to this dynamic. When teachers or leaders are understood as awakened, advanced, or uniquely insightful, they may come to see themselves as special, unusually attuned, or entitled to resources, including relationships, that would otherwise raise concern. At the same time, the surrounding community often reinforces this self-image, not through explicit endorsement of harm, but through silence, deference, and a reluctance to disrupt the meaning the teacher provides.
Seen this way, the problem points to a broader cultural pattern in which we continue to place people on pedestals. The era of the guru, at least in its unexamined form, needs to be over. People are people, shaped by context and character, and often capable of both care and harm depending on the conditions around them. Dismantling these dynamics requires clearer boundaries, oversight, and a collective willingness to tolerate discomfort in the service of accountability. Most importantly, it requires letting go of the fantasy that wisdom, charisma, or spiritual language place anyone beyond questioning. We all play a role in sustaining the structures that protect power when we confuse reverence or wisdom with integrity.
Final Thoughts
Spiritual and wellness cultures often present themselves as spaces of healing, safety, and ethical awareness, yet they repeatedly reproduce the same dynamics that enable harm. Seeing Chopra appear in the Epstein files testifies to that and reveals much about the powerful men (and sometimes women) we helped create. The result is not just individual harm, but a collective one.
If we are serious about healing, we must move away from guru culture and toward clear boundaries, transparency, and accountability. Perhaps the real work is not about deciding who deserves our admiration, but about building communities and cultures that do not require pedestals at all. At the risk of cliché, the light we are seeking is already within.
