Bringing Sacred Sexual Abuses within the ISTA Network to Light

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The February 28, 2025 article in New York Magazine exploring abuse within the International School for Temple Arts (ISTA) network brought back memories of my experiences covering the ISTA for Only Sky back in 2022. Upon initial glance, their website appears to be full of seemingly New-Agey type jargon that comes off as more goofy than goddess-like but seems to be relatively harmless.

ISTA is part of a global transformational movement where human consciousness is being opened to its source as love and harmoniously integrating with other sentient kingdoms and dimensions.” This movement functions not as an organization but as an organism led by a faculty consisting of facilitators, assistants, and apprentices.

Their vision may be “to create a world where humans have a peaceful, delightful, shameless, fearless and loving relationship with their own bodies, sexuality, emotions, hearts, minds and spirit.” As a global organism, the group claims to be leaderless despite the establishment of a 501(c) (3) (EIN: 61-1888116) and a hierarchical structure of leadership within ISTA. (Very telling that the pages for both the founder and a key leader charged with multiple abuses have been removed from the "Community" page though these pages are still live and hosted on the ISTA website.)

Despite the glowing praise on their website, in the first article I penned about ISTA, I cited examples of reported including sexual assault and rape committed by ISTA leaders based in Israel and New Zealand. After this article was published, I received numerous messages from some who participated in ISTA and were asking similar questions.

In particular, they expressed concerns about ISTA’s role in a six-day ceremony titled “WILD LOVE: Love from the Ashes” originally scheduled for July 13–19, 2020 at Auschwitz, a German network of concentration and extermination camps in occupied Poland during World War II. Two of the abusers I referenced in my first article were among the lead faculty for this happening. According to the digital archived webpage describing this event, WILD LOVE was canceled due to the global pause and not because this event description reads like a very dark twisted comedy sketch.

I sent out emails to those who were listed on the WILD LOVE webpage asking a few questions about this event. In response, ISTA decided to send (aka sic) their crisis PR representative in Israel after me. After my piece was posted "Questioning a Shamanic Sex Camp in Auschwitz" on Only Sky, the subsequent blowback I received from those connected with ISTA was on par with the intense gaslighting I received while reporting on Christian charlatans for The Wittenburg Door.

To this day, I get denigrated by those so addicted to their ISTA experiences they cannot see the myriad abuses committed by select leaders, who market their wares via the ISTA logo. This includes ancillary groups led by those with ISTA connections and affiliations such as Awaken as Love, Empowered Pleasure, Highden Temple Training, Kabalove, The Pacific Northwest Tantra Festival Community! Facebook Group, The Red Serpent Tantra School, Transform Into Love, the Tantra Not Trauma Facebook Group, and the list goes on and on ad nauseam.

In response to the rise of allegations made against select ISTA facilitators, ISTA posted an announcement on its website indicating several proposed changes. Along these lines, a small volunteer group of survivors, allies, and activists from within the sacred sexuality, sex-positive, and neo-tantra communities came together to form Safer Sex-Positive & Spiritual Communities (3SC). As per their mission, the prime directive of their work is to make sex-positive and spiritual communities safer for all.

According to anecdotal accounts, some former ISTA participants have found genuine healing through this process, and changes appear to be underway at least in some circles and trainings. However, as the New York Magazine article illuminates, some stories of abuse continue to spread like a virus that continues to infest the ISTA organism despite their ongoing verbal “responses” to multiple concerns. Such misuse of sex magick makes me wonder if the overall ethos of ISTA is more about protecting predators in their pursuit of pleasure than addressing the needs and concerns of the participants who are seeking awakening only to be met with abuse.

These reflections will be included in my forthcoming book Gaslighting for God: A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists (Lake Drive Books, Spring 2026).