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Hub Feenix is a community founded five years ago and a full member of the international eco-community network GEN Europe. Meltola’s historic 15,000m2 large sanatorium has been given a new lease of life as a non-profit international art and wellness center.
We are home to events of various sizes, an international artist residency and approximately 30 residents. The activities are coordinated by the Hub Feenix Cooperative, which we founded and currently has eight members. The property is owned by the cooperative from 2025.
Recently, an article has emerged in the public and on social media, discussing the dance classes held by one of our founding members, Raisa Kaipainen, in Helsinki and Uusimaa from 1991 to 2009, and the shop she owned in Viiskulma, Helsinki from 1998 to 2016.
In this statement, we briefly shed light on the matter. We commented on the matter a couple of weeks late, and we apologize for this delay to our partners, customers and everyone affected.
The current members of the cooperative have known each other for a long time and have participated in the dance courses discussed in the article. We were all very young and perhaps, as young people often are, seeing things black and white. However, all of us, including those interviewed in the article, were looking for self-knowledge and tools for a better life above all. In this search we overshot sometimes, and the dance courses at that time could undoubtedly be seen as cult-like. On the other hand, there are certainly as many experiences of the events as there are participants. Raisa has apologized for the overshots to those she has been able to, and extends her apology to all those whom it reaches here.
Although the members of our cooperative have a long history together, we want to make a clear distinction between the courses and shop activities of 15–34 years ago and Hub Feenix. At Hub Feenix, we have all set out together from the beginning to build a community where every member of the cooperative has equal voting power and responsibility. Decision-making is based on democracy/sociocracy. We aim for transparency and openness in all our activities.
(For example, information about international volunteer work with feedback can be found on our workaway page: https://www.workaway.info/en/host/735959816971/feedback)
Hub Feenix Cooperative
Meltola, 15.9.2025
Also included are statements from Raisa Kaipainen and a few others who have taken the courses.
I am responding to the story that has been shared on social media. The courses mentioned in the article happened about 16-34 years ago.
I had pneumonia when the journalist who was writing the article called me unexpectedly. Right from the beginning of the call, it became clear that we did not have a common understanding. She said that Hub Feenix was a dance community, to which I replied that there were many people in the house who did not dance. The journalist wrongly quoted me in the article as saying that there was no dancing in the house. Off course there are dance events organised in the house, among many other events.
I also felt threatened when I suddenly received a phone call with an accusatory tone. An essential part of all this is my own traumatic past. Both my parents were alcoholics. My father regularly abused my mother at night and broke all the furniture and dishes in the house. As is common in homes with alcoholic parents, the money went to alcohol and there was no food at home, for example. From a very young age, my father sexually abused me.
Later in my youth, punk, meditation and dance saved me. I started physical therapy early on, and worked hard for years to finance regular therapy sessions. I understand very well that to people who are not called by the spiritual path, all of this can seem suspicious from the outside.
I had learned during my travels in Africa and Asia how people dressed in colorful outfits when they were just going to the market to buy food, for example. For me, it was inspiring and liberating. At a dance camp in Senegal in 1990, I had also had a deep “enlightenment experience” about how everyone can dance, how the body accumulates trauma and can release it through movement.
I discovered Barry Long’s teaching in 1990. It brought me the clarity I needed about how meditation and love can be part of everyday life. The teaching was simple and at the same time very profound.
I was young and wanted to share the good news of these three things (meditation, dance and inspiring, joy-of-life clothing) with others. I hoped to share information about deeper well-being and the possibility of being free from even difficult traumas. (Note: At that time, in 1991, no one used the word trauma yet.)
From 1996 to 1998, I studied to be a clown in London at the Fool at Heart - School of Sacred Clowning. With that, the courses also included improvisation exercises related to breaking down inner walls and overcoming fears. We played a lot and most of the time we had a lot of fun together. An important part was self-awareness: during the courses, we practiced, among other things, speaking authentically, without repeating learned phrases, and everyone aimed to find their own, genuine voice.
In 1998, I heard a voice inside me saying: you need to start a shop. (I understand that it may sound crazy that someone would act on such an impulse.) At first, the store seemed fun and I felt that I was bringing color and joy to the somewhat dreary atmosphere of Helsinki at the time. But already in 2000, it became clear that the store was not commercially working. My partner at the time, with whom I lived for 15 years, worked regularly as an art teacher. He gave courses together with me, we worked a lot for the store and did not pay salary for ourselves. The store's warehouse was in our home, in the apartment owned by my partner's parents. At the same time, we built a home and a course center in Barösund, on the land of my partner's parents.
From 2003, my traumas surfaced and I felt that my ex-partner did not love me as he did before. I started talking more about things in the courses that I had no personal experience of. Because I understood many things, I thought I was somehow wise. I became tougher and controlled people. There is always an abuser inside every traumatized victim, and I see now that it also arose in me.
Because I was still a so-called spiritual teacher, I used spiritual violence in the courses. I have apologized to those I could, and I apologize here to everyone who experienced spiritual violence from me.
In 2004, my ex-partner left me for a younger woman who had attended the courses, and my heart broke. I saw the so-called bitter woman inside me, and I decided to change this energy by doing whatever it took. I meditated for hours every day and jumped into the icy sea or lake whenever that energy was taking me away from the presence. This experience acted as a powerful mirror and helped me return to love.
In the spring of 2004, my now husband Torsten Rüger and I fell in love. This love healed me so much that I recognized that I had used spiritual violence in the courses. In the middle of the summer course in 2009, I saw that the courses that had been a source of inspiration and energy had become stifled because of me. I stopped giving courses at that time. This happened 16 years ago.
In 2017-18, after an eight-year break, I briefly held dance evenings called Tanssitemppeli. The courses were no longer about talking, only dancing.
In 2016-2019, I was the first Finn to take the Soul Motion dance teacher training, and in 2019, the Ecstatic dance DJ training. I currently do Ecstatic Dance DJ gigs at festivals and Ecstatic dance events, among others.
I have done a lot of trauma work, meditated and learned a lot about myself. I love life and I love dance, but contrary to what the article implied, I no longer teach the dance courses discussed in it.
Raisa Kaipainen, dancer, dance teacher, clown and DJ
Board member of Hub Feenix Cooperative
I participated Raisa Kaipainen's dance courses from 1998 to 2009 and worked at the Auringosta Itään, Kuusta Länteen boutique throughout its existence. I have been present in most of the situations the article tells about. I have also known all the interviewees, some of them very closely, and spent a lot of time with them.
Raisa's dance courses were groundbreaking for me.
Right at the first weekend course (which was my first experience of Raisa's dance classes) in the early spring of 1998, I felt seen and accepted in a way that I don't remember experiencing before. I was allowed to be. I experienced unprecedented freedom and it felt like I came alive, out of the package that had surrounded and squeezed me. While dancing, I noticed that I was flapping my wings in the same way that I always did as a child when I was excited, until my classmate in elementary school said that it looked stupid. That was the end of flapping. During the first weekend course I told about this in the circle. Raisa said it didn't look stupid, it looked nice. It felt incredibly and deeply liberating. It felt like I was allowed to be who I am.
That spring was amazing. After the weekend course, I attended Raisa's wednesday classes at Tanssigalleria the whole spring.
We did different exercises. Once we went back to being primordial beings, we were some kind of protoplasm, where we all were one. I remember that I only saw green primordial slime and was part of it. Then, little by little, through evolution, we started to crawl and get limbs, we got on all fours and from there gradually on our feet and started dancing, all new and reborn.
We were often one when dancing. We flew together. Once we were a group of mushrooms that moved together to different parts of the hall.
I remember that we learned to give, to tell something good in the circle. From this perspective, from where I look now 27 years later, it seems unbelievable, but I and the other course participants at the time didn't know how to say anything good. Or at least it was very difficult. I remember telling the others about my sweaty socks. I couldn't do any better.
We learned to be still. I remember that maybe a year after I started taking the courses, I was able to feel the inner sensation of my whole body all at once. I felt complete and it felt like a wonderful gift from life, being at rest and fully awake at the same time.
It is obvious that all of this was immensely inspiring and had a huge impact on the fact that after my studies I became a professional artist who constantly made new works and actively held exhibitions. Pictures just came out of me because I was one with life. At the courses I found my own way of making pictures, so that it was a joy for me and an activity that only did me good. And so that the results of my work were nourishing, encouraging and uplifting for myself, and at the same time often touching for the viewer too. This was a valuable gift for me and a constant confirmation that life speaks and sings and blows like the wind behind all the visible things.
Already in 1998, I saw the first picture on a Wednesday class that I made into a monotype, "Something starts moving". At the first summer camp in 2001, I saw a series of pictures, "The Mountain is Dancing" and "The Mountain is Soaring", and afterwards I made them into monotypes. I began to trust the pictures I saw and that I didn't have to interfere with them with my own mind or personality, just do the practical work of making them exist. (What a relief!) "The Mountain is Soaring" was in the Finnish artists' exhibition at the Helsinki Art Hall in 2002, where it was purchased by the Wihuri Foundation. Last year, it was included in the "The World Goes On" exhibition at the Rovaniemi Art Museum. In other words, the pictures I saw during the dance classes also worked for other people. For example, The Finnish State Art Collection and other collections bought specifically the works seen in dance classes several times over the years.
When Raisa told me on the phone in the summer of 1998 that she was planning to start a shop, I immediately said: I will help you. I worked in the shop almost from the beginning. The shop was like an oasis in the middle of a bit of a sombre city of Helsinki, and the customers also loved it: those who needed a silk scarf of a certain color for their wedding dress or the right piece of jewelry or handbag for their outfit for the president's Independence Day party. Customers also came to the shop when they needed inner support: I remember a woman whose mother was in the hospital undergoing surgery. The woman didn’t know what to do or where to go and came to the shop. Or a woman whose boyfriend had died. The woman said that she had been grieving for so long and everything had been terrible, but now she knew she had to start to live again. The chest of drawers that she found in the shop represented a new beginning for her. In the shop we also learned to talk to people so that we were internally alive, not lost in the world. It was a safe place to learn and also a support for us in the midst of everyday life. Even though I came to the shop burdened by the weight of the world, the shop refreshed me and helped me come to life. And it was always a good starting point to head into other things in life, refreshed and renewed.
Raisa has the ability to see which color, outfit or style would support the inner strength of a person. I remember the first outfit I bought from Raisa's store, a yellow-red sunflower dress. It was hard for me to accept the dress at first, I couldn't imagine that it would suit me, in terms of design or color. But when I put it on and wore it, I felt more like myself than in any other piece of clothing before. It had yellow in it, which had been my favorite color since childhood, but I had always thought that it didn't suit me. It was wonderful, revolutionary and liberating to be able to wear yellow after all!
Clothes that didn't follow the normal pattern that dressing in the world is based on (blend in, hide away, be assertive, be tolerable) but instead asked: which of all the wonderful color combinations in the world would speak to and inspire you today? gave me strength and energy. Especially in Finland, it takes courage to wear colors. If someone says that wearing colors is a sign of sectarianism, I have to ask: what is this huge sect of black-clad people that we see around us wherever we go?
In January 1999, we were at a weekend course in Vihdin pirtti. We danced in a circle with one person leading and the others following. "Salla", who was interviewed in the article, had her turn before me. The song was "I will survive" and "Salla" started a wild dance, waving her legs and arms. When it was my turn, I was about to continue doing the same thing as "Salla". But Raisa saw that I was performing and not being me, and she stopped me. I stood in the middle of the circle silent and crying. I stood there for a long time, looking everyone in the eyes, my mask falling off, and it felt completely impossible and scary. It felt like I came out of my shell and was reborn again, as me. I remember looking everyone in the eye in turn and seeing "Jaakko" (who also was interviewed in the article) crying. After that weekend, I had a long period of relearning everything: I didn't want to speak the same way as before, from the outside, so I was much more silent.
The article is written in a nasty way. As if only piles of poop (with flies buzzing around in interest) had been dug up and examined, from among the plants and flowers of a vast, beautiful open landscape. Below I will comment on some details that, without their context, the article made to sound absurd:
Porridge
Porridge sometimes got cold because we had more important things to do and talk about. I remember many wonderful mornings at weekend courses and summer camps when we sat together for breakfast. If the weather was sunny, we sat on the terrace at treetop level. When something was bothering someone and was getting in the way of the good that we all experienced in the courses, Raisa tirelessly drilled down to the core of the matter until the cause was clear. Raisa was not against anyone, it was never personal. When something that had been bothering someone was cleared up, the air felt clear, everything was wonderful and perfect, and it felt like we were all together inside a jewel.
Menstruation
We were all young, and some were a bit lost in their lives. Sometimes the basics were a bit lost: how to eat sensible and good food, what kind of apartment one could afford, etc. When I was looking for a new apartment in 1999, for some reason I decided to try the advice that my confirmation teacher had given us: "Dress as you should. Eat worse than you should. Live in a better apartment than you should." I also listened to the advice of a friend who was close to me at the time, about a parquet floor in the apartment being very important, even though it wouldn't really have mattered to me. I rented a bigger and nicer apartment than I could have afforded. At the same time, many of my illustration jobs at the time suddenly stopped and after paying the rent there was not much money left for food. I ate really badly at times, whatever happened to be in the cupboard, e.g. just rye bread. Because I didn't eat well enough, my periods stopped for a while. When I told Raisa about it, she was horrified and said, "Now you have to start eating properly." It's possible that the article's reference to some of the course participants' periods having stopped was related to this experience of mine, which had nothing to do with Raisa's activities. Since that experience, I've always eaten sensibly and in a healthy way.
Unemployment
The sentence "If you're unemployed, you have to be unemployed" must have been a random exclamation picked out of context from a conversation. It seems completely absurd that such a sentence is in an article about Raisa and then even used as a subheading. Raisa specifically advised and encouraged everyone to be responsible for their own lives and to go to work. Not everyone was willing to take such responsibility, young and a bit of a dreamer like many of us were. I remember several situations where Raisa advised a daydreamer who had just resigned to go back to work. I also remember Raisa encouraging realism: can you really manage with a part-time job? Raisa also encouraged everyone to apply to study in the fields that were perfect for them, including dream jobs, but the doors of the schools did not always open. I also remember Raisa encouraging strength of character: once I was tired and in despair, about to leave my exhibition unframed, and I called Raisa in the evening from my office, Raisa said: now you just do it. And I did, and the exhibition was framed.
And here's some background to the "hunting for men at Helsinki night" described in the article:
I was learning a new way of living, and it was natural to focus on finding my true self before a new relationship. Inside me there were old patterns related to relationships that I recognized and wanted to change. My father comes from a conservative Laestadian family and as a result he had a hidden but strongly influencing attitude that the man is the one who is important, and that a woman has basically no reason to exist other than her possibly good looks. Whenever I met a man, I behaved inauthentically and superficially, from the outside. I felt that I needed to do more work on myself in order to truly meet another person.
On Midsummer Eve 2004, Raisa spoke to me and "Kaisa" very seriously in the shop. Some of us women who were taking dance classes had been overjoyed at the beauty of life we had discovered and had learned a lot about ourselves, but had turned our backs on men. I recognized this in myself immediately. My intention had certainly not been to run away from men, but my idea was that the time for a relationship would come when I was ready. Raisa had in no way advised us to start avoiding men. But sometimes, for us dance course attendees, some kind of collective behavior patterns formed due to misconceptions, or because someone took something too literally and put it on others. For example, "Salla", who was interviewed in the article, sometimes made dogmas of things Raisa said and often behaved like a pack leader who watched over others. I sometimes felt this was limiting possible new creative solutions and behavior patterns.
At that time, together with "Salla" and "Kaisa", we thought about where we could start meeting men and practicing talking to men as our own, authentic selves. I thought, for example, about joining the woodworking group at the workers' college. I started to dare to talk to men everywhere I went: on trains, at teaching jobs, in professional situations. We also started going out to gigs, each according to our own interests. Since many of us had even avoided men (which Raisa had not advised anyone to do), the beginning was difficult and sometimes required willpower and effort.
But there was no talk of us hitting men in restaurants, and Raisa never encouraged any of us to do that, nor did she encourage us to drink. But here too, there was some kind of misunderstanding and collective dogma. To some extent the baby got thrown out with the bathwater: for example, "Salla", "Kaisa" and I started going out a lot, and it became some kind of thing for us. The original reason, to practice talking to men as our true selves, was forgotten. Later, I blew the whistle on my part and didn't go out to gigs again for a while, because I saw that I had made a kind of compulsive pattern for myself. In the end, the most genuine encounters for me were found elsewhere than in restaurants.
Behind every detail brought up out of context in the article, there is a broader story, where the aspiration was self-knowledge and honesty in life. In the courses, Raisa tried to show us how to get through our own challenges to the joy of life and lasting well-being that is open to everyone. Raisa put her whole life on the line in her efforts to help everyone who wanted to listen. I think Raisa did a very good job. However, we were all people with our own obsessions and problems, and in addition, there were dynamics in the group that Raisa did not always even know about. Sometimes it could also happen that things coming up from their inside were just too hard for some people to look at, and the defensive reaction to protect one's own unhappiness took over. Then the accusing finger turned outside - pointing at Raisa. It's clear to me that the starting point of the article is partly the bitterness that developed from such accusations.
Hanna Holma
Graphic artist and illustrator, MA
Board member of Cooperative Hub Feenix
I met Raisa in my early twenties, now I'm almost 60. Besides my wife, daughter and parents, she has been the most important person who has influenced my life.
I have been involved in all the years that are mentioned in that very contradictory and strongly opinionated story. I have been on those courses.
I do not belittle the difficult experiences of the people interviewed in the story.
I am not in a sect, and never have been. I have been involved because I wanted to learn something that I did not know, and I have felt that I have gained a lot of important and valuable things in Raisa's courses for my life.
Raisa's courses dealt with things that were really personal and went deep. Personal, but at the same time often common to everyone.
What am I, what is it in me that chooses, what is selfishness?
In our culture, I, myself, is a really important thing. But is there also something there that makes us unhappy, something that is really difficult to let go of and give up?
That article paints a picture of the courses and Raisa's friends that those who participated were misled and manipulated. It is also clear that the authors have not understood what Barry Long's teaching is about.
I have been on a shared journey, searching for something sustainable and good. I have wanted to participate, to be involved in learning something that is different from what I had learned at home, at school and in my working life.
There have been difficult times. Both painful things inside me, and also difficult situations where someone else in the group has acted in ways that I could not accept.
I am truly sorry for what I read. I imagine I recognize the people behind the stories, even though the names have been changed. For my part, I am sorry that as a member of the group I have not been able to support them in the way they would have needed.
Life goes on. A large part of my close circle is still the same as in those course days. With time, new stages have come, and the way we work together has changed a lot. Both what we do, but also how we work together.
All of us, also Raisa, have had to look at our mistakes and dishonesty. It is part of life and growth, and I am happy that I have been able to share my life with people who have been ready to look and change, even though it sometimes really hurts.
I feel that the article was written in a very attitudinal way. Also, the picture it gives of the Ecstatic Dance event and the people who participated in it is very foreign to me. The article says more about the journalists' own prejudices, and gives a false picture of the people who participate in the events in search of meaning in their lives.
Markus Janhunen
Board member of Hub Feenix Cooperative
I have been with Raisa since 2004 and married since 2007. In that time, people have been born and grown up. We have been together almost every day and done many different things. I am certainly the person who knows Raisa best in the world. The main thing I would like to say about the article is that I have never seen her hurt anyone or be mean to anyone on purpose. She was eager to give advice when she was young (she learned that from home, too), but she got over it. Today she would definitely be an influencer (if she was young).
In terms of money, I have to say that we lived off my programmer's salary at first, later on the B&B we built, and then on my construction company. Of course, people have helped, and sometimes we have exchanged, but mainly we were entrepreneurs and worked a lot. We also got a house from my mother as a wedding gift and recently an expensive camper van to support our community.
Of course, as Raisa herself said, she had a really difficult youth and she is very traumatized. It wasn't clear at the beginning of the relationship, but the trauma rose, I would say more and more strongly after 2008, and we tried to process it as best we could through love. My current understanding is that the traumatic experience is so bad that it is not processed but pushed down. Then later (when it has been triggered) shrapnels rise and fly out. Since the experience was pain, what comes when it rises is pain, and then it hurts everyone around. So she has certainly hurt people, but I would say that since I was closest, it hurt me the most. She has tried to apologize for everything, but it doesn't always work, for her own and others' reasons, and that's how the pain goes on. I think that process is called karma. Working on my karma gives my life meaning.
Raisa and my connection was very spiritual from the beginning, we had the same spiritual master, the same aspiration for love, truth and higher consciousness. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the spiritual path, no one knows what all this means, and we had misunderstood things mentally, and thought we knew, especially during the times the article is about. Today that has passed, we have lived a lot, created a lot, a lot of "mistakes" were made but learned from. And maybe that means that those mistakes were learning experiences and necessary, including those made during the courses.
Maybe because I was not born here, I had a hard time believing many aspects of this story at first: the perseverance of the story's initiators, the enthusiasm of the writers and the gullibility of the audience, but now I am very glad. Happy that all the past is out in the open, it feels liberating that we are now (after a long time) closer to this present moment again, and that this process, through the miracle of life, has helped bring more awareness.
We continue to build a meaningful community and are also a little wiser and more grateful for life after going through the process the story initiated.
Torsten Ruger
Board member of Hub Feenix Cooperative
"I have to write this: what an unusually distorting and slanderous article! As if Raisa Kaipainen and her courses had been examined through a distorting lens.
This is not my experience of Raisa Kaipainen and the dance courses she led, which I attended for 11 years. I got to experience genuine love and care from Raisa and learn many things, above all joy of life and self-knowledge.
Raisa's methods were inspiring, of course also very unconventional and surprising, arising from the moment. And she knew how to be wild and did not deny it. But not emotional. Does a woman always have to be a mild sheep? Love was sometimes "tough love" when necessary, not stroking the fur or being lazy. But also great gentleness. I find it valuable.
I certainly did not feel like I was in a cult or sect, but I understand how rational and superficial, mental examination can sometimes give such impression.
I got a lot of energy, joy and courage from the courses. I didn't always have to agree with Raisa on things. She didn't interfere with my eating, she did give me advice on how to dress sometimes and I found it useful.
While I was taking the courses, I also worked 100% and studied in my chosen field. Raisa encouraged me to study. I only worked a few shifts at the store, and I was compensated in goods, which suited me perfectly.
I noticed that people who only took the courses for a very short time and of course only those who had a very negative image of Raisa were interviewed for the article. I wonder about this.
I also don't have time to comment on everything in the article that seems untrue or completely unrelated to me.
In short: What I got from Raisa Kaipainen's dance courses still partly support me. Now there are other things in my life and people that I love and who love me. I am very grateful for all of that."
A course participant's experience,
excerpted from a Facebook comment
