The leader of a cult that has been active for 25 years in Romania was arrested on May 26, 2022. Ardelean Farcaș, known as Adi de la Brad, the leader of the Children of the Sun community, which I amply documented here and here, was remanded in custody for thirty days a month after I published the testimonies of abuse relayed to me by five former cult members. The man is under investigation for rape, blackmail, preempting community children from attending mandatory general schooling, and the unlawful pursuit of a profession. Each year, the community drew some 1,000 Romanian and foreign citizens, who came in for a ten-day Vipassana meditation course. Farcaș is not an authorized Vipassana master and would teach his own adapted version of his technique, which included abuse and conspiracy theories. Following these courses, some people would renounce life within society and moved to the community.
On June 2, after a contestation filed by Farcaș, the leader was released from custody and placed under judicial control for sixty days. He allegedly accused serious, potentially life threatening health issues and complained about the detention conditions at the Hunedoara – Deva Detention and Preventive Arrest Center.
The parents of the underaged children within the community are suspected of committing the crimes of ill-treatment of minors and preventing their access to compulsory education, according to sources close to the investigation. After the start of the investigation, the parents took steps in order to sign the little ones up with a doctor and enroll them in school, added the same sources.
During initial searches of the Children of the Sun community (divided between Dumbrava de Sus and Țebea, Hunedoara county), which housed 60 people, authorities identified 23 minors. Subsequently, the mothers left the place, together with their children, for fear Child Protection Services would retain them. Adi de la Brad has seven children with five partners within the community and is expecting an eighth.
A community member told a national TV channel that the children are homeschooled and are enrolled in West River Academy, an umbrella-type American school, which enrolls children schooled as such from all over the world. Yet, during the searches, community children told psychologists that they don't take part in any kind of classes. I asked school representatives whether there are children from the community enrolled with them, how many of them there are, and for how long they’ve been attending. “At this time, I can only tell you that students in Dumbrava de Sus have been enrolled in West River Academy for many years and they have benefited from receiving a good education”, was the email response I received from school director Peggy Webb. Enrolling in West River Academy can be done throughout the year. The tuition fee is $375 per student per year and $50 are paid for each extra child from the same family.
Initially, after Farcaș’s arrest, Ioan Faur, the mayor of Ribița commune, stated he didn’t have much access within the community. After several television channels broadcast photos of him attending parties held at Dumbrava de Sus alongside community members, he admitted to taking part, because they had invited him, yet claimed he “in no way favored or protected them.”
The website energetik.ro, which sold “plasmatic products” invented within the community, whose prices reached up to EUR500, is no longer active. Through an email sent to former course attendees, the community is asking for their donations. “The Children of the Sun community in Dumbrava de Sus is asking for the support of all those who can donate to hire a lawyer for the community members, as well as to cover utility bills at the center in these difficult times.” Most of the current members are siding with their leader, while former members of the community are accusing him of sexual and emotional abuse, exploitation through labor, isolating them from their own families, prohibiting them from seeing a doctor, forcing them to register their children under his family name and preempting them from sending the children to school.
The mother of a current Children of the Sun member speaks about how her daughter has changed since moving to Dumbrava de Sus, almost seven years ago, how she’s distanced herself from her family and friends, but also about what Adi de la Brad told her would happen to any grandson of hers.
The woman wishes to remain anonymous, since it’s difficult for her to talk about the situation her daughter is in now, after giving up her promising career and life. What’s more, the mother is a public figure. She did, however, agree that we mention she is a foreign citizen. The last time she was in contact with her daughter was through an email she received one month ago. Their most recent phone conversation took place in March. She had no knowledge of Adi de la Brad being remanded in custody or placed under judicial control. Upon hearing the news, she became even more concerned for her daughter, who is one of the parents suspected of the ill-treatment of a minor.
Several years ago, Alina* came to visit Romania and fell hopelessly in love with life here, so she decided to move to the country. She owned a company and lived in a beautiful house with a yard and an orchard together with her boyfriend. “It seemed to go well, but something dramatic happened and we never knew what,” the mother sighs.
Consequently, the young woman gave up on life in the big city and moved to an alternative community in the south of Romania together with a friend, where she worked in permaculture. The mother says she, too, was always open to alternative lifestyles, so she visited her daughter there and was happy to find she was living sustainably, surrounded by nature.
After a while, her daughter’s friend informed her that Alina had left that community, moved to another and cut off all contact with her. She had gone to live with the Children of the Sun in Dumbrava de Sus, to meditate, help others meditate as well, and contribute to the creation of a better world. Alina started talking to her mother on the phone less and less frequently, and when they did talk, the woman could barely recognize her daughter. Each call was short and odd, the woman recalls. “I wasn’t allowed to ask where she was really, she said I could look her up on this web page. You couldn't have a normal conversation. It was like talking to a robotic person who has been programmed at the other end, only to answer specific, very superficial questions, nothing to discover other than that she wasn't herself.” From several conversations, she gleaned that her daughter was living in a community she considered wonderful, that they grew most of their food themselves, and that they have hundreds of goats, whose cheese they ate. Besides, she was among the “illuminated,” who helped create some experimental objects based on “plasma.”
The distancing
The mother, who considers herself open-minded, initially tried to understand her daughter’s new reality. She admits to having her own spiritual side, so, at first, she called her daughter’s new home a “closed community,” as opposed to her husband, who called it a “cult.”
While she tried to find an explanation for her daughter’s choice, she thought maybe something had happened in her work life, some sort of crisis that drove her to find “what she thought was peace.”
Yet she, too, found it odd that her daughter wouldn’t tell them the names of the people in the community, wouldn’t provide any information on them, wouldn’t say how many of them lived there and spoke in a mysterious way about everything that was going on. She told her the community leader has a rich historical lineage and is vastly cultured. Adi alternatively claims to hail from a family of local princes, or a tribe of Agathyrsi (editor’s note: an ancient Scythian culture), among many other personal histories he makes up.
She was doubtlessly convinced something was wrong when her daughter informed her that, should she want to visit her at Children of the Sun, she must first take a ten-day meditation course. It’s a condition Adi has imposed onto many parents of Children of the Sun members. Some of the older ones made huge efforts to maintain the meditation position for ten hours a day and also had to lie to their employers saying they were on holiday or had a medical situation, as they were ashamed of the truth. Others did not see their children for years on end for this very reason.
The woman asked Alina to understand that she was old, had many health issues, and could not physically withstand ten days of meditation. Besides, she had learned that during the classes she would be sleeping in a shared room with several people, on a wooden bed without a mattress. She took comfort in the fact that Alina would occasionally call or text over Messenger or email and sometimes sent her photos of herself in which she looked happy. The mother would send her around EUR20 each month to recharge her prepaid card and gave her her old phones whenever she changed her own. “It was my only form of trying to keep in touch with her.” Aside from the phone money, the daughter would occasionally ask for more and she’d sometimes send it to her, but says the amounts weren’t too consistent. A few times a year, she’d post her ten kilo packages of clothes and other personal items, which the daughter shared with other community members.
Even though Alina worked from morning till evening on the farm and in the lab where the “plasmatic products” were created, which sold at prices ranging from EUR14 to EUR800, she had no income, just like the other members of the community, and was financially dependent on Adi de la Brad. In spite of all this, she kept telling her mother she wants to stay on.
“She kept telling me she won't come back home. I've accepted for some time now that I won’t possibly see her again, I've accepted, I had to, it was a very very intense coping mechanism that I had to adopt. It was my way of coping with a very traumatic situation,” says the mother. She adds that she doesn’t know anyone going through the same thing and finds it very difficult to talk about it.
“I tell myself that you can't control other people's lives. You bring kids to the world and in the end you share them with the world and you just have to let them go.”
If her daughter ever has a baby, it will belong to the Farcaș family
Three or four years ago, the woman got a phone call from her daughter, who told her she was in their hometown and asked her if she wanted to meet up for coffee.
When she got there, Alina was seated at a table with Adi de la Brad and another Romanian couple. When she saw the short, corpulent man, who sat “like a Buddha,” the mother initially nearly burst into laughter, but her former profession had taught her to react diplomatically. A mere few seconds later, as her daughter had left to get a cup of coffee, Adi gave her news in Romanian, which the other man translated into English. “Adi then told me that if Delia would ever have any babies they would have nothing to do with me, they will be of his family, not of our family. I was so shocked,” the outraged mother recalls.
How had her daughter, a determined, independent woman, come under the influence of a person who dared make such statements after having just met her?, she asked herself in horror. “My first thought was: Has she been hypnotized?” She held back her reaction, because she didn’t want Adi to get the impression he had any sway over her, but she was seething on the inside.
She then went to the ATM with her daughter to withdraw the EUR100 that she had asked for. On the way, the mother told her what she had just learned from Adi, but Alina didn’t seem surprised. “I don't think she gave me any hope that it would be different from what he had said. My belief was that what he had said would come true.” She didn’t want to react vehemently, because she realized this could further estrange the young woman. Consequently, she tried to keep in touch as best she could and kept hope that her daughter would eventually come around.
The baby
Around Christmas, her daughter phoned to tell her she was having a baby with her partner within the community, whose first name she finally told her for the first time. Alina had sent her photos of the man, but had never mentioned his name. The mother was happy to hear the news and started hoping that once her daughter becomes a mother herself, she would empathize more with her concerned parents.
Alina then asked for some EUR7,000 to build a cabin at Children of the Son, where she could live with her partner and their baby. The mother found the request inappropriate and turned her down. She’s convinced Adi de la Brad had coaxed her into asking for the money, because she says the daughter’s reaction to the refusal was very rude. Shortly after giving birth, Alina asked her for another EUR1,000 to pay for a doctor who would allegedly help her nurse her baby. She didn’t send her the money, but believes Alina’s father may have sent some of it.
All the woman knows about her own grandson is his first name and the fact that he’s a boy - her daughter told her she’s not allowed to take his picture. “We are not allowed to have photographs, we are not allowed to know the date of the birth, we don't really know the full name.” She is concerned about his future. Although she’s open to the idea of homeschooling, she’s terrified at the thought that her grandson might not be able to leave there if he wanted to.
Two months ago, Alina suddenly asked her mother in an email if she wanted to come over to Children of the Sun and help her take care of the little one. Besides, she told her, the members of the community can’t wait to meet her. The woman, whom Adi had told that any children by her daughter would belong to his family, found it strange that she was suddenly welcome without any prior meditation training. She had initially planned to go there at the end of this summer, but is unsure what will happen next, now that the criminal investigation has started.
If her daughter was with her right now, she would tell her she loves her and wants them to have a normal relationship, in which she could get to know her and her new family better.
Dacă ar avea-o acum pe fiica ei în față, mama i-ar spune că o iubește și că își dorește să aibă o relație firească, în care să o cunoască mai bine pe ea și pe noua ei familie. “I just want to become a normal grandmother.
When I ask her if, looking back, she would do anything differently, she tells me: “It's difficult to be objective as a mother. How do I change my personality? You are a parent for the first time, it's not a rehearsal, it's a full blown play and you don't really know how it's gonna turn out. You do your best, you try and do what you believe it's best.”
Translated from the Romanian by Ioana Pelehatăi.
*Alina is not her real name. We chose to protect the identity of the community member and of her mother.
*The cover photo shows a community member and not Alina’s mother.
