This page was translated from here
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 took Raisa Kaipainen's dance classes from 1998 to 2009 and worked at the store throughout its existence, from 1998 to 2016. I recognize the people interviewed in the article and have been involved in many of the situations the story describes, so I will tell you my own experience here.
The article seems intentionally distorted. The courses were about self-knowledge and deep inner work. The discussions during the courses were confidential, and it is very easy to create a shocking story by taking details out of context. In addition, only those people who have something personally against Raisa have been interviewed.
As an example, I can say that the dance classes and working at the store did not prevent me from building my own career, quite the opposite. I was really productive during that time, I created new works intensively and held many exhibitions. Many of my works from that time have been purchased by the State Art Collection and several other Finnish art collections, for example.
I would like to apologize to anyone I may have treated unfairly.
Hanna Holma
Graphic artist and illustrator
Board member of Hub Feenix Cooperative
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.
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
