This is an important new paper describing the power that a self-appointed guru can have over his/her followers and the immense spiritual, mental and physical harm that can befall them. Rajneesh Osho springs to mind immediately as yet another example.

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TANTRA-INDUCED DELUSIONAL SYNDROME ("TIDS")

by Charles Carreon

TIDS: Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome

Abstract

Taking clinical note of the increased manifestation of acute and chronic delusional ideation among practicioners of tantra, a new entry for DSM-V is proposed: Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome (“TIDS”). Currently, enthusiasm for tantra is high among mental health professionals seeking alternative analytical and therapeutic models, and critical awareness is correspondingly low. This article, authored not by a mental-health professional, but rather by an attorney with extensive experience with tantric lifestyles, focuses on the case histories of three American tantric teachers who manifested destructive delusional behavior. The article identifies the risk-promoting character of tantric doctrine as the etiological root of their pathology, considers how delusional pathology transfers to tantric students, and describes the social dynamics of guru-dominated communities as potential breeding grounds for self-reinforcing delusional behavior. The article proposes three types of TIDS, “Guru-side,” “Student-side,” and “Transitional,” and suggests treatment modalities.

[www.american-buddha.com]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2010 11:30PM by SeekingTruth.

It seems that cults based on Tantra (whatever that is) have not really been mentioned on the RickRoss Forums. But the link [www.american-buddha.com] lists at least three so-called gurus.

"... but a preliminary foray into a promising field of diagnostic research, three case studies provide the basis for our hypothesis that Guru-side TIDS is a particularized psychological disorder -- Thomas Rich (Osel Tendzin), Catherine Burroughs (Jetsunma), and Franklin Jones (Adi Da Samraj). As these cases reveal, Guru-side TIDS is definitively a predatory, antisocial pathology that sometimes assumes criminal proportions and leads to devastating consequences."

Are there others? Probably thousands. So what other tantric gurus and cults are out there?

One immediately springs to mind -

* the Orange sex cult of Bhagwan Rajneesh aka Osho.

His teachings and perversions (free love, substance abuse, paedophilia, etc.) are perpetuated by many of the Osho-based so-called 'schools of tantra' around the world, especially in Europe incl. the UK. Each 'school' of course has one or more Osho gurus - usually displaying Guru-sided TIDS. And I fully suspect that the loyal helpers and followers display Student-sided TIDS.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2010 04:13PM by SeekingTruth.

I found the article interesting and helpful, although I am not sure that introducing a newly named psychological syndrome for quite well understood personality traits (narcissism, dominance etc) adds much to our understanding.
Persons who get caught up in new religions often learn a new vocabulary for an existing reality and then confuse the new vocabulary with the birth of a new reality.
Naming something TIDs doesn't make it a new phenomenom. This dynamic is as old as humanity--which is not to suggest that it is in any way acceptable.

Tantra is not generally defined as being sexual in nature but it encompasses anything that is transgressive to the socially conditioned and accepted way of life in any particular society. The sexual aspects have been distorted in the west as a selling point, I think, by many cultic organisations.

In India tantra is an accepted form of worship and a recognised path--if only for the very few--and much of the bad press that it has is due to it being taken out of its original context and used as a selling point for various empire-builders.

I previously posted an interesting, non-sensational documentary in six parts that follows the life of an Aghori, a genuine practitioner of Hindu tantra in India. It makes good viewing if only to understand the difference between a genuine tantric path--which involves giving up everything and is recognised as being supremely risky (with many casualties left crazy) -- and what is sold in the west as 'tantra-lite' as bait to build a cult organisation.

aghori-part 1

Quote
Stoic
Tantra is not generally defined as being sexual in nature but it encompasses anything that is transgressive to the socially conditioned and accepted way of life in any particular society. The sexual aspects have been distorted in the west as a selling point, I think, by many cultic organisations.

....snip...

There is a new kid on the block in the UK, a school of tantra for gay men. At its retreats not only is it all based on sexual energy, and full naked bodily contact even anal penetration &/or ejaculation can be part of the deal. This is basically cashing in on the natural promiscuity of gay men, even transcending otherwise monogamous relationships. That is if a guy is present without his committed partner he may still be urged to have sex with another participant during an exercise. Safer sex is compulsory, but condoms don't prevent all sexually transmitted infections. The tragedy is that married guys also attend these retreats, with the risk that they could take an STI back into their marriage.

Corboy posted a good link to a blog that makes a clear case for looking at this mental confusion as three separate levels of mind. I thought it a very useful model for distinguishing and thinking about the different spheres that these realities operate in. An awful lot of confusion arises from applying the ethics and laws of one sphere to another:

[tiptoethruthemindfield.blogspot.com]

'At the level of Truth, you and I are One. Okay, I actually accept that as a metaphysical principle, but you don't have to. You can see that this level is abstract and only has one applicability to physical life as we live it. Maybe I will be better to you, do unto you as I would want to be done unto, to use the classic Christian words. But how does that affect me when I want to get a mortgage or a glass of water? I still have to get it as 'me,' not as One. If you threaten to kill my baby, how does it help me to see you, me and the baby as One? It is absurd. Why? Because the you and I that get mortgages and have vulnerable babies do not exist on the level of advaita. These are the levels--not explicitly spelled out in ACIM, but I understand them to be:

the metaphysical level, at which we are all one (unimaginable Oneness)
the consciousness level, at which we are affected by others and can affect them (thought, prayers, etc.)
the ego level (psychological and physical identity as an individual)

At the ego level, we have to have boundaries and operate as if we were all separate and responsible for ourselves. Not to do so is to be deluded within the delusion.'

The entire article is worth reading and also explains the rather dubious reference to ACIM. Although it won't do much for those caught up in, for instance, the gay mens tantric excuse for anything-goes-hedonism it could prove helpful for anyone still dealing with the aftermath of cultic mental confusion. I wish I had been able to see it laid out on a page as clearly and baldly as that, it might have saved me a few years of grief-- then again, maybe not.

What went on during Muktananda's 'reign' has producted some very insightful memoir material.

Many who seek, entering the seekers circuit and make their way to or are recruited for gurus are persons sincerely trying to find a sense of power, dignity and agency. To be told they were exploited via tantra can be so unbearable that many would rather convince themselves they were empowered and ignore their own visceral feelings that they did not feel that way at all.

And to those who love to chant 'Its always your choice, its your delusions that are the problem never the guru---

the problem with molestation rationalized as tantra is that the perpetrators such as Muktnananda did not disclose up front and in full who they actually were. Muk presented as a celibate hatha yogi who secretly went after young and malleable girls who fit his preferred pattern. There was no way to know in advance what one was in for. So, this was not a choice of 'choosing for oneself'.

Okay back to the programme.

A crucial question is, would you want your own child to go through this? THats a good test for whether you felt genuinely improved or empowered.

(Though a few persons may be so grievously harmed that they zone out as adults and dont protect their own children--which is how this kind of abuse can be repeated through generations)

[leavingsiddhayoga.net]

Radha Bridges describes a question from a therapist who helped her to understand.

Quote

I shared my experience with
an incredible therapist who has lived in buddist ashrams in the past
and understands true tantra . She told me that Baba's actions were
not true tantra (true trantra elevates participates to a new level
of enlightenment). After asking me all the details about the rituals
Baba used, this therapist then asked me one last question that was
immensely powerful for me: " Knowing what you have been
through,would you now take your 10 year old daughter by the hand and
send her through that door to have the same experience that you
had?" Of course I said, "No!". My therapist said without
hesitation, "This was abuse".

Another person wrote to Radha Bridges during this dialogue and suggested
some editorial changes an author (Brooks) could make to a publication)

Quote

Maybe yu should send it your part of the next
> edition called: "Stalking and choosing your prey."
> A. assign rooms on same floor as you
> B. have them consider this an honor
> C. send special invitation to be part of small
> chosen goup in next city
> D. get curtains with holes
> E. smack your lips and observe their coming and
> going

[leavingsiddhayoga.net]

Two one was supposed to do tantra only with qualified consorts who were experienced and wise practitioners--one's intellectual and yogic equals. Selecting young persons vulnerable to flattery by an older more powerful person is a travesty of this.

Quote

One passage that especially caught my eye was Abhinavagupta’s description of the perfect Duti (literally, “Messenger”), the ideal sexual partner for the Tantric rites:

A D¨ti, necessary in the performance of the secret ritual, is to be a woman who can personify Çakti; has the eyes, rolling with intoxication;
lips red like the ripe fruit of Bimba;
teeth; face with well knit eyebrows;
eyes, beautiful like those of a fawn in fear;*
charming smile;
hair, dark like a multitude of glittering black bees;
eye-brows, bent like the bow of cupid;
complexion similar to that of melted gold;
ears, decked with ear-ornaments, beautifully engraved….13 17 Nova Religio

The passage went on to enumerate the beauty of such a Duti’s neck, rising breasts, arms, fingers, thighs, abdomen, hips, ankles, voice, and face, in the “head to foot” praise genre found in such poems as the Saundaryalahari (Ocean of Beauty, a hymn of praise to the goddess Tripurasundari).

However, I had at that time never heard of such a genre, nor had I ever read anything quite like this erotic wish-list.

The passage went on to mention that the mind of such a partner should be fully enlightened, “continually experiencing the pure bliss of identification with [God].”

While her physical attributes are desirable, the “exponents of Kaulism had realised that such a woman is extremely difficult to find,”14 and thus had placed their emphasis on the woman’s mental qualities and capacities for enlightenment by means of the secret Kaula ritual.

(Corboy comment: to me, this line 'eyes beautiful like those of a fawn in fear' gives the agenda away. How about 'eyes beautiful as a proud tigress'?

'Eyes beautiful like those of a fawn in fear' would belong to a girl or woman who would be lovely but not any threat to a man's ego--eyes beautiful like those of a frightened young deer'--how convenient.)

Later, Caldwell, who was living at Muktananda's ashram noted that he had selected a girl who resembled this description.

Quote

In those relaxed, sparsely attended afternoon audiences with Baba in August 1982, I had noticed a young Indian girl who came to darshan every day like a doe, shy as if meeting her lover. She was the most exquisite girl I had ever seen. It struck me that this young woman precisely fit the description I had read of the Duti. She seemed nervous and aroused when she came to sit at Baba’s side, shyly looking at him and then averting her eyes.

Caldwell had the honesty to admit that at that time she felt jealous, not knowing that what she was actually witnessing was a pattern of opportunistic selection, one she was later glad to have escaped. Sadly some gutter minded types sniped at Caldwell, trying to make it seem her entire article was based on jealousy when what she quite successfully did was analyse a pattern of opportunistic predation that gurus had enjoyed without accountability until women of Caldwell's acuity learned Sanskrit and exposed the old tantric texts to long overdue feminist scrutiny.

For Caldwell wrote that though tantra has a potential for wisdom,

Quote

the authors of Meditation Revolution publicly acknowledged that the decision not to include discussion of the accusations against Muktananda was a mistake in judgment that would be corrected in any later editions of the volume. 48 Brooks in Meditation Revolution notes the tendency of the high-caste smarta Srividya commentarial tradition to “overlook discrepancies between word and deed, and read selectively to suit themselves,” remaining silent about “potential indiscretions of others” in order to protect the status of the community (179);

and

Quote

Despite their diversity, these accounts bear little resemblance to the ecstatic Kaula rituals described by Abhinavagupta in his Tantraloka, and lack their most essential component, a fully aware, consenting female partner or yogini. Whatever Baba was doing, claiming it to be a form of Tantric initiation, seemed rather to retain only the bodily shell of a Tantric practice that once held out the promise of profound enlightenment experience for both the man and woman.

Quote

Social forms that tolerate secrecy, hierarchy, and corruption can and should, I contend, be eradicated as the tradition moves to the West. I know from my field studies in Kerala that women in India suffer, and that their suffering increases when they cannot voice it or express it through meaningful spiritual outlets. There is something in the way that left-handed Tantra evolved that stinks of such oppression to me

[www.google.com]

and

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]



"The Emperor's Tantric Robes"

This article can be read on Leaving Siddha Yoga's website

"Below are a few excerpts from this article)

....................................................................................................................................

Tricycle: You ended up feeling sexually exploited? Used for personal indulgence?

Campbell: Obviously at the time and for some years afterwards I didn't think this. How could I? It would have caused me too much distress to see it in this light. It took me many years of thinking about the whole thing to see it differently, and to begin speaking about my experience. This wasn't easy. I tried through writing to understand why people rationalize these acts as beneficial, and it made me question a lot of things. I've got no doubts now that when a male teacher demands a relationship that involves secret sex, an imbalance of power, threats, and deception, the woman is exploited. You have to ask, "Where does the impulse to hide sexual behavior come from?" Especially if it happens in a system that supposedly values the sexual relationship. Of course, there are those who say they are consenusally doing secret "tantric" practices in the belief that it's helping them become "enlightened," whatever that means. That's up to them, and if they're both saying it, that's fine. But there's a difference between that and the imperative for women not to speak of the fact that they're having a sexual relationship at all. What's that all about it it's not about fear of being found out? And what lies behind that fear? These are the questions I had to ask."

[www.leavingsiddhayoga.net]


Another article by Sarah Caldwell on tantra and its secrecy

[www.google.com]

In a book entitled The Cave in the Snow a British born Gelugpa Buddhist nun named Tenzin Palmo, a great practitioner who did a solitary retreat in a cave in Ladkh, India for 7 years, said that one way to evaluate the behavior of masters claiming to do tantra is this:

If the purported tantra guru selects only young and beautiful partners, you can bet that he's (it is usually a he, though in rare cases women have been reported to do this) --he is just guided by ordinary lust and is rationalizing horndoggery by using tantra as an excuse. Someone who had pure view would see the Absolute in everyone and not select tantric consorts based on mere personal attractiveness and psychological docility.

The really injurious features that are usually reported from alleged tantra are

*Secrecy
* Selecting prey who are already young and possibly unable to defend themselves because without knowing it, they have already been pre-formatted by growing up in abusive households in which their bondaries as children, were not honored. THe tantric seduction is just molestation of adults who are unknowingly wounded children seeking a feeling of empowerment and agency and instead, via the misbehaving guru, subjected to a re-enactment of what was done to them as children.

Worse, the guru molestation is in a setting where all this is rationalized as spiritual and in which the guru has a protective entourage skilled at shame bullying and who love to chant 'There are no victims, its all your projection.'

This from Rituals of Disenchantment blog

[ritualsofdisenchantment.blogspot.com]

Now...note the (reported) failure of SYDA Yoga to notify its trusting customers of this matter.

If people find that their stolen data is misused and that this occurred because SYDA did not, in a timely manner, promptly alert them so that they could then protect themselves by notifying their own credit card companies so the accounts could be closed--

Dont dare suggest that these customers 'asked for it' or 'choose for this to happen' or 'assumed the risk' or 'that their deluded minds' brought the misfortune into their lives and its up to them to use it as a practice opportunity.

Its due diligence folks.

Anyone who runs a business where shit is purchased using credit cards and on a database, business you gotta alert your trusting customers-ASAP- if you find out that the store database has been hacked.

Quote

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Has Someone Stolen That Ego You Were So Desperate To Lose?



From the Better Late Than Never Department comes this news that hackers breached the firewall of the SYDA bookstore accounts and stole an undetermined number of credit card numbers and their associated financial data. You can view the DataLoss report on the incident here (cut and paste url into your address bar):


[datalossdb.org]


Interesting how SYDA does not give a date when the incident occured. However, they let SIX WEEKS pass in between the time they discovered the hack (Jan 4, 2008) and the day they finally reported it to the authorities (February 21, 2008). Let's chalk that up to 2 weeks of incompetence and 4 weeks of attempted cover up.


None of the lost data has ever been recovered, no arrests have been made and--as of yet--no lawsuits have been filed in connection with this breach of security, according to the report.


So, if you suffered any financial/credit card related fraud issues in Jan/Feb of 2008, and you purchased anything from the crookstore via credit card at any time in the past, I'd start looking for a link if I were you. Because I can't believe SYDA would not be liable for allowing your personal financial info to sit in the hands of identity fraudsters for 6 weeks without doing anything about it.


SYDA's belated filings, including names and contact information of SYDA General Counsel Ken Braziller, and SYDA Board of Trustees Officer Joseph Buga can be found in the PDF docs embedded within the above website page.