Photo: Google Maps. Some former students and teachers of so-called "sacred sexuality" courses in New Zealand and overseas are accusing those running them of turning a blind eye to predators. ISTA markets itself as a path to self-discovery, freedom and spiritual awakening through individual and group sexuality. On the first night of her Level 1 "Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Experience" in Israel, students were told to strip and shed their fear, judgement, anxiety or whatever was holding them back.
We were being initiated into the retreat," Anna said. Exercises during the week-long course vary, but may include the "removal" ceremony just described, the "self-love" ceremony public masturbation , the "sacred spot" ceremony vaginal or anal massage in randomly assigned pairs and "yoni gazing" in which female volunteers expose their genitalia to the rest of the group.
Participants who have done ISTA training in New Zealand and overseas have described how at "temple nights" each evening, people are free to approach others and make requests of them, usually sexual.
Israel's lead facilitator Ohad Pele Ezrahi - a former orthodox rabbi - was leading Anna's training, and she said she could "feel his eye" on her from the start. He was there with his wife of 30 years, Dawn Cherie Ezrahi, who is also an ISTA facilitator, and his girlfriend a Dutch woman in her 20s , but Anna said it was not long before he approached her at a "temple night".
He asked what her boundaries were and she told him "no penetration" - but then without warning, she says he pulled down her underwear and started performing oral sex on her. And I thought, 'Maybe this is what my body wants', so I submitted. Ezrahi is not currently teaching, reportedly having taken time for "reflection" after an article earlier this year in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz , accusing him and other key figures in the conscious sexuality movement of sexual abuse.
