Preface
(Or should it be pre-caution?)
“I heard you TNT people were a cult that brainwashes people and it’s only about sex”,
she says in perfect English… barely any accent… but her ‘tell’ is the ubiquitous Martin Luther inspired finger wag… a gesture I am quite accustomed to.
“No, you moronic, self-appointed moral custodian of the tru Tantra flame… fear inspiring, self-righteous nay-sayer.”... thought echoes in my inner ear.
(Maybe that sentence should have be written in square brackets, or something to indicate it was just a thought and not spoken aloud to my attentive audience of one? Alas, I never quite got the hang of all this ‘good English’ writing/grammar thang. Never being able to achieve more than a C+ in high-school English… as will become glaringly obvious, as you (hopefully) read on.)
In a split second, (so fast… like faster than a well-rehearsed quick-change artist on America’s Got Talent), I instantly suppress my rough, uncouth Australian cultural heritage (and further constipate my reservoir of suppressed initial reactions), putting on my best (more culturally appropriate), fake American façade, in my equally pretentious British accent.
“Quite the contry madam. In my [not so] humble opinion [which ain’t worth shit… ‘cos any cult leader would say the same thing], the primary focus of The New Tantra is to give people the tools to become more accomplished at the rare art of free-thinking. Sex is just a tasty little worm wiggling on the end of our [super sexy] marketing team’s hook.”
(Did we catch any other dummies with the ‘sex’ catch word me wonders?)
She scowls back with a challenging glare (through her inferior makeup application). One of the first lessons my on-point super-hot Brazilian transsexual friend, Maya, taught me was… black eyebrows should be culturally ringfenced in ironclad heritage status for the 1970’s hookers. (Praise the Lord humans have the ability to edit thoughts before they externalise!)
But I digress…
“My [super-smarty-pants] double PhD science professor/advisor [versus my C- high-school equivalent], tells me that dopamine is the most effective way to cut through prefrontal-cortex conditioning, an area of the brain that harbours the Apollonian over-conservative gatekeeper and the subsequent overreliance on the left hemisphere of the brain. …. It may explain why hemisphere-balanced-free-thinking is so rare.”
*I bet I went overboard with the hyphen thang here, but I really can’t be fucked googling that shit right now and don’t want to slow my roll… (I’m in my right-hemisphere-creative-juice mode bru!)
“…and SEX seems to be the primary [and the most fun] method to increase dopamine production in a sustainable and natural way. Incidentally, when people have a safe and respectful way to live out their longings and renounce the addiction of the regular [superficial] “spasm orgasm” they actually stop obsessing about sex entirely [unlike you]. [Shit now she’s really gonna hate me].”
“Whatever!”
Her level of debating skills apparently matches her level of willingness to be informed by science… but she’s caught me off-guard with her out of character Gen-Z-inspired dismissive swirl of her hand and a perfectly executed head flick. Where the hell in the left-field did that little ditty come from?! She must have teen-age kids.
“I heard from someone that seems very trustable that you’re a charismatic cult leader.”
She says staring judgmentally.
She had me at ‘charismatic’, which doesn’t quite fit my internal self-image, so I’ll gladly take the backhanded compliment.
[Funny how often people like yourself, without training, education or formal qualifications in this field diagnose a group of people they don’t like as a cult.]
Suddenly the preposterous hypothesis of FOMO/envy, being an unconscious motive for the recent overusage of this latest social-media/armchair-expert/keyboard-warrior’s top 10 favourites label, flashes across my internal no-idea-how-it-all-works-in-that-random-mess that I call my mind… and was rightfully dismissed. Don’t worry. I’m on it!
“Yes, I was actually worried about that myself…. maybe we might have some unknowing cultic tendencies in our organization?”
I take a moment to reflect, but luckily, stop myself before my fingers touch my chin and smudge my MAC foundation. [Phew! Close call… crisis avoided].
“I was actually relieved and grateful when Tony McAleer, an expert on cult dynamics with extensive knowledge obtained through his collaboration with the International Cultic Studies Association, attended our tantric workshop. He came up after the workshop to introduce himself, stating “Your organisation is certainly not a cult. I have seen and spoken to participants that have outwardly challenged you without reprisal. Constructive challenges of the workshop leader by participants is a key metric. It’s an unwritten rule that is not tolerated… and certainly never encouraged as your organisation does.”
I gleefully enlighten her, with the expectation of the highly anticipated response I’ve been so longing for: [“Wow, you’re really making some rock-solid points here, ma man! Your statement of logical, verifiable truths makes my common-sense-spidey-senses tingle in all the right places! You’ve really turned me around with your dazzling, superior knowledge on this rather complex subject. High five sister of courageous and misunderstood truths!”]
“Naah… don’t believe you.”
[Awwwwwh].
“Yeah I get that… that’s why I [Elvis] left [the building] 8 years ago on sabbatical, replacing myself with other more user-friendly and sweeter folk to be in the room with participants. They lead the workshops extremely well according to their grades from the customer constructive criticism review sheets. My sloppy management skills were upgraded by a superior female general manager. She then polls the management-team’s group wisdom to vote on important decisions.”
I’m quietly hoping the absurdity of a ‘democratic cult’ isn’t above her paygrade.
“Yeah you talk about respecting the group, but I heard you are way too harsh.”
[Finally something that IS true].
“Now that is true! There is a grumpy old man hiding under these women’s clothes. It’s not something I am proud of. I can bark too loudly to my friends. I think I may have inherited some of that from my father. At the same time, asshole-honest friends can have an important role IF growth is not relegated to a back-seat by an overarching code that feelings are more important than content”.
I tentatively look up for a hint of softening, but alas, I seem to have made matters worse. Nevertheless, I live in hope, and press on in the delusional belief of the inherent goodness buried deep in all beings.
“I try my best to live in complete radical honesty with my friends IF they have given me express permission to “discuss the undiscussables”. And that works both ways. I demand constructive criticism of my friends and colleagues as well. I don’t want them suppressing their feelings… otherwise it tends to build-up and explode in a far more hateful way.
My inexperienced [stupid me] naivety was not realising that people who gave permission and seemed willing & able to handle the truth at that time, might not be able to do so in the future on their own… and later withdraw consent”. [I should have known better, too many exited stage right, directly after their core wound was revealed].
I silently bow my head in loving memory of fallen comrades that left for grayer pastures.
Not missing a beat…
“But what about the importance of monogamy then? You don’t seem to respect that at all!”
“Might it sway your opinion if I revealed to you one of our aims is to keep families together and raise less damaged children?” [Dream on Alexa!]
“We all know family is the cornerstone of a healthy society, right? And the biggest threat to that is infidelity. We tackle the elephant in the room by developing tools on how to deal with attraction to others… and use that undeniable force to actually INCREASE attraction to our long-term partner.”
“You don’t take criticism very well, you seem to have an answer for everything”.
“I like to give my perspective out-loud. It’s my way to check with others if I’m off or not. I want to know if it is… and therefore, be able to correct mistakes myself as soon as possible… it’s less embarrassing that way, right?” I ask my rhetorical question with [hopefully imperceivable] smirkishness.
*Is that even a word? I take refuge in my previous disclaimer.
“Promoting free-thinking sounds like BS to me! Then why do you think so many people talk badly about you then?”
“I don’t know for sure. I can’t read their minds… but WHO they are may allude to any possible ulterior motives. As a random example; a rival Tantra business might be using trade-libel tactics, have creativity or sales envy? Someone not receiving the attention they think they deserve might enjoy whipping up social-media likes in a culture that currently laps up underdog stories? Sometimes it’s the only way to get noticed if you can’t create something original yourself…. you just criticise a more noticeable person. I think we’re all too aware of how media uses conflict, fear and sensationalism to peddle their wares.”
[I bet you weren’t interested to read all the positive articles darl. You don’t look like someone that revels in other’s successes].
“I’m still not sold.”
I struggle on… more for my own sake of clarity on how to describe the complexities of conflict.
“In a conflict, both parties might have good intentions of trying to serve; either through teaching or warning others. We all suffer from cognitive bias. The danger arises when people think they are helping others in service of love, but their actions speak more to hating on others. One of the most clear-cut indicators the public can tell the difference is; are they using the media to directly (or indirectly using aliases) slander/libel another person? That is a very risky move. It implies a level of thinking that one has no cognitive bias and that they are right, and thereby justified to use hate speech on another person. That is not something that I do in the media unless attacked first and informed by my lawyers to defend myself.
The media plays an important role in this situation. As per the individual, it also has positive and negative possibilities:
- To educate
- To entertain
- To profit from drama (at others’ expense)
Engaging in ‘he says/she says’ debates are often futile, as the third-party observer was not present at the time… and therefore must infer what happened through both parties’ perceptions, bias, and possible ulterior motives”.
I pause to give her time to digest. (My brain is already smoking). My mind wanders to the possibility of including the joy of being the self-appointed moral police, but decide not to go there… out of self-preservation.
“A particular action can be perceived in multiple ways depending on INTENTION. The challenge is, intentions are often only known by the individual performing the action, and even then, it demands a high level of awareness of cognitive bias. Something we all struggle with.”
“Yes of course! I know all that!” She fires back with a tone suggesting it would be obvious to Homer Simpson.
Although leaving me feeling misunderstood and somewhat attacked, I remind myself that we are all doing the best we can to grow, learn, and fully experience this life… and in my heart, practice compassion and humility… that I do not know another’s journey, or how I would feel or respond being them. In my assessment, this was my biggest mistake in the past and is my biggest current learning practice.
“I bid you well”. I offer in forgiveness… as acknowledgement of our mutual ignorance of higher workings, ‘please forgive them for they know not what they do.’
She wanders off into the gentle night.
This is the preface written by TNT founder Alexa Vartman from her newly revised book 50 Misconceptions of Sex.
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