Only a select group of employees were allowed to see the body.

It had appeared in the valleys of southern Peru, and word quickly spread to Jirka Rysavy, a former athlete from Czechoslovakia turned serial entrepreneur.

Rysavy, who now operates a fledgling streaming service called Gaia, went to work, dispatching a video crew from the company's headquarters, nestled in the shadows of the Colorado Rockies, to document the find. The team swore to silence, hiding their mission even from their co-workers.

The body seemed, at first glance, almost human. He was sitting hunched over in a fetal position, his bones visible through his wrinkled, ash-white skin. But the mummified corpse had only three disturbingly long fingers on each hand. Each foot had a trio of incredibly long toes. His eyes were strange, unnatural slits.

After months of quiet preparation, in June 2017, Gaia presented the "mummy of Nazca" to the world. The company's documentaries about the archaeological discovery racked up millions of views online. They also sparked global headlines speculating about the potentially extraterrestrial origins of the remains.

The reality of the body seems less supernatural. Experts believe it was probably the work of grave robbers who stitched together the remains of ancient indigenous corpses to create a macabre and inhuman effigy.

But the publicity it generated was a major milestone for Rysavy, a strong-willed entrepreneur with deeply alternative beliefs. So was he to Gaia, a company that has grown from selling yoga mats to becoming one of the world's leading sellers of occult knowledge and information.

With roughly 700,000 paying subscribers and a market value of nearly $200 million, Gaia has become a niche video service able to thrive in the shadows of streaming giants like Netflix and Hulu.

Instead of the Hollywood fare offered by the big actors, Gaia's catalog is a kaleidoscopic collection of wild claims, conspiracy theories, and new-age mysticism, loosely classified as "media conscious."

Claims of a "shadow government" behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks are mixed with instructional yoga videos; Forbidden truths about President Dwight D. Eisenhower's secret summits with aliens in Palm Springs are presented alongside meditation techniques.

The video content is presented in a hallucinatory mix of time-traveling CIA psychic spies, supposed dangers of vaccines, Bigfoot sightings, alchemists' secrets for transmuting gold, and JPMorgan's clandestine plan to sink the Titanic.

Gaia's quiet rise comes amid a rising social tide of dangerous misinformation and illustrates how conspiracy theories can still be professionally repackaged with a veneer of respectability. Gaia is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq; Wall Street analysts are optimistic about its growth and its shares are owned by brand-name mutual funds.

The impact of such "alternative events" is most evident in Gaia's own operations. The company's conspiratorial mindset has seeped into the office itself, merging with traditional business concerns to create a surreal post-truth workplace riddled with paranoia. Some panicked workers have speculated that their employer is using supernatural means to invade their dreams. They also believe that they are being manipulated by crystal energies.

Insider spoke with 30 current or former Gaia workers to look inside the secretive Colorado company and try to understand how a company that was once a pioneer in the yoga industry became a monger of disturbing conspiracy theories — and what it looked like. Wrapped in the same fantasies she sells.

The story begins with Jirka Rysavy

The king of office supplies that talks to bears

Every prospective Gaia employee faces one final test: a conversation with Gaia's CEO.

Sitting across from the imposingly tall Rysavy, his svelte figure often attired in a purple turtleneck and flared jeans, a massive 60-something "Steve Jobs," applicants have found themselves discussing the psychic abilities of Rysavy's mother, her love of crystals, psychoactive drugs, and astral projection, a meditative technique that supposedly allows the spirit to leave the body and roam freely in the cosmos.

Sources said it's part of the CEO's push to ensure employees are "in the space"; that is, aboard the distant philosophies of Gaia. "He sat at the table, cross-legged, and just looked me in the eye," a former employee recalled. Some employees speculated without evidence that Rysavy would "use those opportunities... to psychically scan people." Gaia denied that Rysavy supernaturally valued applicants. He also said that he hires "based on business needs, candidate qualification and best fit."

Another topic of conversation in these interviews may be the CEO's enigmatic arrival in the United States.

Before Gaia, before the dawn of the consumer internet, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Rysavy was a champion fencer for what was then Czechoslovakia. He left home in 1984, settling in the United States after being fascinated by Boulder, Colorado, and found himself in a run-of-the-mill line of work: office supplies.

After buying a small company in the city, his self-made businessman transformed it into a giant. Thanks to Rysavy's trademark acquisitions and astute business sense, Corporate Express grew to employ more than 27,000 workers, enjoyed nearly $5 billion in annual revenue, and was the biggest player in the industry.

He even then he was deeply spiritual. He explained to fashion business magazines how he lived in a remote mountain cabin with no running water, meditated for hours every day and befriended wild bears. Selling pencils and toners was clearly never his dream. "Look, it's not like he has this deep faith in office products," he told Businessweek in 1997. Rysavy is now intensely private and hasn't given a widespread interview in years. A Gaia representative declined to answer questions about his life or beliefs.

In 1999, he sold Corporate Express for more than $1 billion (it was subsumed by Staples the following decade). Flush with cash, he began the next chapter of his life.

"He created this out of nothing, he's a fucking genius, and you have to give him that," said a former employee. "You have to know, there is nothing normal about him."

Yoga, vaccine misinformation and secret Nazi research

During the Cold War, American scientists built on Nazi research to perfect antigravity technology for flying saucers; however, they suppressed the findings due to their potentially ruinous effects on the fossil fuel industry.

At least, that's according to the Gaia documentary series "Deep Space"; one of more than 8,000 titles the company has in its eclectic and growing catalog of alternative media.

There is yoga-focused material such as instructional videos. There are videos, called "Transformation," about spirituality and faith. "Alternative Healing" harbors several pseudoscientific claims, including that alternative medicine can beat cancer and that vaccines are linked to autism.

At the other end of the spectrum is "Seeking the Truth," a wild collection of conspiracy theories and outlandish claims. Speculation about secret plots, chemtrails, and "powerful elites" abounds; an entire section of the site titled "Cabal," featuring sinister images of puppeteers, purports to expose "shadow governments" and "strategic deception."

The disparate threads are unified by Gaia's mission to power an "evolution of consciousness" among its 697,000 members and a rejection of the "dominant narrative," for just $11.99 a month.

It's a world apart from the yoga mats that Gaia started with.

Until five years ago, Gaia was Gaiam, one of the world's leading yoga lifestyle brands. Jirka Rysavy had founded it in the late 1980s, helping to popularize the ancient Indian practice in the United States and building a business that included yoga equipment, mail-order exercise videos, and other "conscious" products. Around 2009, Gaiam began developing a streaming service and eventually decided to spin off the yoga business.

The Gaiam brand and yoga equipment unit were sold to Sequential Brands Group for $167 million in 2016. Gaiam remains one of the most popular consumer yoga brands; its products are sold in tens of thousands of stores throughout the United States. Rysavy kept the streaming video part of the business, which would operate under a new name: Gaia.

The sale left Gaia with an overstretched bank account, a leaner team and a more limited focus, energizing the CEO and the employees who stayed on. It also precipitated deeper cultural changes. Gaia continued to offer yoga content, but leaned more towards fringe conspiracy theory and new age material. "There was a very narrow narrative that he was focused on," a source said. "It almost seemed like a curriculum for a religion."

Gaia's rep said that their "content covers mind/body/spirit and is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people" and that the majority of their current audience is for yoga and "transformation" content.

But as a repository for such a wide range of alternative content, Gaia has created a powerful platform to draw users into its shadow worlds. They may come for yoga advice, but they leave convinced that giants once roamed America and that music can activate secret information in their own DNA.

"Gaia made me fascinated with conspiracy theories," said a former employee. “What is the behavioral path that you find yourself on with these? Once you meet one, you meet them all and Gaia connects them."

Gaia has at times sought to encourage users to move along this spectrum, motivated in part by financial considerations, former employees said. “We start with super soft spiritual stuff… then slowly that would recommend them content that is a bit more extreme,” said one.

Gaia is also careful not to overwhelm users with content outside of their preferred lane, aware that many yoga devotees are just as likely to be repelled by claims of "cabbalahs" as they are to become converts to the cause of "Seeking TRUE".

Crucial to Gaia's success is Facebook's sophisticated ad targeting tools. Gaia has poured tens of millions of dollars a year into the social network's ad machine to build its audience.

While Facebook now says it's cracking down on misinformation, it touted Gaia's prowess in using its tools to target new users in a 2017 case study. video to utilize Facebook's mobile best practices, captivated their audiences and encouraged them to subscribe to their streaming service." A Facebook representative declined to comment.

@cmorrisoncecil A couple of thoughts: at the hospital have him ask the nurses to show him how to diaper, feed, chan… https://t.co/10ZgWIKuQf

— Janis Fri Jun 26 14:31:46 +0000 2020

welcome to the crystal palace

When Gaia was producing a documentary about "Blue Avians," employees were instructed that promotional material had to be approved by the Blue Avians themselves, six sources said. Some workers found it an unusual request.

That's because the Blue Avians are, according to Gaia, an "alien species" that "exists beyond the confines of space and time." This poses bewildering logistical challenges for employees. In practice, the sources said, Rysavy served as a conduit for "feedback" from the aliens. Gaia's representative said this is "untrue, unfounded and without merit."

This dilemma is just one of the ways that Gaia is radically different from more conventional workplaces.

In Louisville, Colorado, near the trendy mountain city of Boulder, Gaia's 12-acre campus and open-plan office is adorned with extraordinarily large and dazzling crystals. To rejuvenate, the 130 employees can walk through a vast stone labyrinth or go barefoot to support themselves on the ground. There is a meditation room and regular yoga sessions. Workers hold ceremonies to mark the solstice and equinox, burn sage indoors, and shamans have visited the office. Numerous sources were effusive about his co-workers, his open-mindedness, and Gaia's mission to expand human consciousness.

"On the first day, someone next to me cried a lot... I had been attending a meditation session during lunch," a former employee said. "Apparently it was a very spiritual experience."

Some workers became involved in more ambitious metaphysical projects. One group retreated to an employee's mountain home for community meditation in an attempt to make contact with extraterrestrial life, the sources said. Other employees practiced special prayers and rituals to try to control the weather and make it rain to fight wildfires, according to multiple sources.

It is a culture that Rysavy deliberately cultivated.

In late 2016, employees were confronted at year-end reviews with a document informing them that Gaia was determined to weed out unbelievers. “There is no place on Gaia for people who reject our mission or are cynical about our goals…or our content,” he said. That alienated some longtime employees who had pledged to sell yoga, not alien cover-ups.

For less spiritual workers eager to fit in, there is a surreal kind of corporate conformity. "People realize it's their livelihood... They show up, they start putting the crystals on their desks, they take part in the conversations, they go to all the corporate events. Some are starting to believe some of the stories," said a former employee. "It's just putting on a mask." Today, Gaia's employee base falls along similar lines to its content: some are passionate about yoga, others follow "Transformation," and a subset fully embraces "Seeking Truth" philosophies.

Employees also dealt with earthly corporate problems. Rysavy, which controls 81% of the company's voting shares, maintains tight control over decision-making, leaves little room for dissent and is intensely financially driven, a stance some workers saw as antithetical. the utopian rhetoric of Gaia.

Sources described infighting between executives and said chief financial officer Paul Tarell was sometimes verbally aggressive with employees. (Gaia said he conducted an investigation and took "swift action" and that he takes "allegations of employee misconduct seriously.")

When conspiracy theories meet workplace concerns

Amid the glittering crystals and leafy plants of Gaia, deeply bizarre concerns have been circulating among the more paranoid employees.

Unfounded rumors have been circulating that Rysavy is watching the workers. While some speculated baselessly about bugs, others believed this espionage was more supernatural: the CEO was invading his dreams.

Eight former employees said they had been told by their colleagues that they thought the company's founder used various psychic techniques to get into their minds; to alternatively spy on or manipulate them.

It is emblematic of how at Gaia, concerns about corporate culture have combined with a workforce primed to believe in the supernatural to create a perfect storm of misinformation and fear in the workplace.

The company can be intensely secretive, sometimes sharing little with the base about strategy or why things are happening, multiple sources said. (Gaia disputed this, saying that it "does its best to be transparent and communicative.") Cell phones are banned from company meetings, and Rysavy seems viscerally opposed to being photographed.

Among the most suggestible employees of Gaia, "Seeking the truth", is a fertile ground for rumors. There are "a lot of people who join the company because they're interested in things like conspiracies and they really believe in conspiracies," said one former employee. “You put them in an environment where management doesn't want to tell them what's going on. And you end up with a bunch of crazy stories and people not trusting things."

Many of the false claims refer to Rysavy, who has told some employees that he has unusual abilities. These include bending spoons and astral projection, according to eight sources who said they heard him make various claims. (When asked what powers Rysavy had, Gaia said "this claim is false, unfounded, and without merit.") Rysavy's unsubstantiated claims of levitation, mind reading, and walking through walls are also swirled among some bases.

“He told me that he had been a psychic since he was born and that his mother was also a psychic,” said Silvana Isaza, a former customer relations employee. "Because of the belief systems that the people of Gaia had, this opened the door for a lot of silent fear and control to work... They felt like I was spying on them, intimidating them, or psychically attacking them."

Gaia offers employees blood tests, prompting speculation that the company may be secretly testing or manipulating workers' genetic data. Some employees have been concerned, without evidence, that the building's energy is negatively affecting pregnant women. Another unsubstantiated claim sources heard is that Rysavy set up a machine on the roof to psychically monitor employees.

Even the crystals in the office, a source of aesthetic and spiritual wonders for many employees, have been accused of manipulating the "energies" of the building. Some workers have even refused to use certain entrances due to the huge precious stones placed there.

Gaia also has ties to the Telomeron biotech company, on the same campus, which is researching life extension; some employees suspect that Rysavy is searching for the secret of immortality.

Sources said this paranoia varied depending on the beliefs of the employees and the department. They also said that more sensible workers, such as engineers, were much less likely to be swept away by magical thoughts. Gaia said all of those employee conspiracy claims were false. She added that "Gaia does not monitor employee conversations, regulate beliefs or freedom of expression, and therefore cannot comment on conspiracy theories or discussions anyone may or may not have had."

Rysavy has also fought wild rumors in public. In 2018, conspiracy theorist David Wilcock parted ways with Gaia, accusing the firm of promoting "Lucifer propaganda." The claims sparked a torrent of hate mail towards Gaia, including death threats, and the company briefly hired an armed security guard to defend the office. Wilcock eventually apologized to Gaia, saying that he didn't think Gaia did this and that his resignation letter had been "taken out of context."

Gaia also filed a defamation lawsuit against Patty Greer, a former content producer and crop circle aficionado, over allegations that the company had targeted her and other critics with covert energy weapons, local news outlet Westword reported. . The case was settled the following year. Wilcock and Greer did not respond to requests for comment.

New Age Mysticism and the Far Right

A few years ago, Gaia Chief Content Officer Jay Weidner claimed in a podcast that Blacks and Native Americans had lower IQs due to "inbreeding."

The comments sparked outrage among employees, with some expressing disbelief at how he could work for a spiritually enlightened organization while professing such beliefs, and highlighting a disconcerting confluence of the new age movement and the far right. (Weidner ultimately left Gaia and did not respond to a request for comment. The company said it "does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.")

Parts of the spiritual yoga community have embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, and some wellness influencers have bought into far-right coronavirus claims. This seemingly contradictory convergence has played out within Gaia and reflects how fringe ideas that were once simply outlandish can now be charged with political emotion.

Some employees enthusiastically discussed QAnon in the office and its latest claims of an upcoming crackdown on elite pedophiles by President Donald Trump. “It was kind of part of the zeitgeist and up in the air, what QAnon posted last night,” said one.

Some workers were reading Infowars, the right-wing conspiracy theory site run by Alex Jones, at their desks. Workplace chatter sometimes turned into “false flag” conspiracy theories about mass shootings, Illuminati theories, aliens, anti-vaccination falsehoods, Bible prophecies, 5G concerns, and other fringe theories. Gaia said it does not "monitor employee conversations or regulate individual beliefs."

"You were having conversations with people about the craziest conspiracy stuff, and everyone was treating it like it was normal," one former employee said. "You became institutionalized to a certain degree, so things that were very strange became normal."

Gaia features videos by David Icke, the veteran conspiracy theorist whose claims about a race of lizard people controlling Earth have been called anti-Semitic. His videos for Gaia explore the idea that humans live in a false "matrix" reality. Reached for comment, Icke accused Insider of promoting "fascism." Gaia said that he could not comment on Icke's beliefs and that none of its content is anti-Semitic.

A business boost for a pandemic

As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads across the United States, Jirka Rysavy has pushed for employees to keep coming to the office.

Gaia erected partition walls to divide spaces, increasing the legal number of employees allowed in the office, and its status as an "essential" media organization meant it avoided office closures in Colorado. (Even before the shutdowns, the CEO, oddly enough, was old-school in his opposition to employees working remotely, sometimes hanging around the office to make sure workers were at their desks.)

Employee beliefs about the pandemic are mixed, as is the wearing of masks in the office. "I know employees whose families lost their grandparents," a source said, "and I know people who think it's a complete hoax."

Gaia's representative said the company follows all local health and safety guidelines. He also said that employee beliefs "are not the company's business and are not mandated or necessarily shared."

A live events initiative Gaia launched before the pandemic is on hiatus, but business is otherwise flourishing, bolstered by a shift in focus from growth to profitability and an audience stuck at home, searching for answers in a world confused. "The biggest thing we saw was the fact that people, forgive them, were captive after they signed up," Tarell, the chief financial officer, said during an earnings conference call in November.

Revenue grew 28% year over year, to $17.5 million, in the third quarter. The company even made a one-off profit as it added more subscribers than expected and saw increased engagement and retention. Analysts point to its library of unusual and arcane content as a key asset in an increasingly crowded streaming video market. "People want content, and they want content where it's easy to consume. I think there are a lot of streaming companies coming up,” said Eric Wold, an analyst at B. Riley Securities. "The key, however, is to have unique content."

Many of Rysavy's former employees are effusive about his financial intellect and foresight. “One of the things that has fascinated me about Jirka over time: She is incredibly smart and has the ability to look five or eight years old and understand how she can put a puzzle together,” said one. "Very, very few people I've worked with or seen can do that."

Gaia predicts that by 2024 there will be more than 500 million households around the world paying for streaming video services. It claims that more than 360 million of them are interested in Gaia content, and that it could capture up to 7% of that market. That's 26 million prospective members who have their consciousness expanded by Rysavy's unique vision.

"If they can get to a million, several million, they can do extremely well," Wold said. “A few more years growth at 20%, 30%, at an already profitable level, is very attractive.”

But as awareness of the dangers of misinformation grows, some former employees are now expressing concern about their role in spreading conspiracy theories through their work on Gaia, and how normal everything seemed at the time. "When you see a bunch of other people who are promoting something, and they're professional and so sure of what they're doing," one former employee said, "you don't really question it."

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