LUST-CRAZED MONKS KEPT ME AS SEX SLAVE
Girls tell of explicit ‘massages’ & orgies
A YOGA retreat on a Thai paradise island has been accused of being the front for a tantric sex cult.
Two former tantra students have opened up about the “abuse” they faced seeking spirituality and enlightenment at the backpacker trail retreat.
They have told a new Netflix documentary that Agama Yoga on hippy hangout Koh Phangan is “a sex cult”.
New docu- series ( Un) Well says it’s exploring the dark underbelly of the global wellness industry.
Saskia Mahler and VijayaSree Feres are the former students who have gone public with their sex cult allegations, which have been hotly denied.
Organs
Saskia said she first learned about Agama Yoga when she was comparing spiritual schools.
Touted as a dream “destination for your soul”, it was founded by Narcis Tarcau, who calls himself Swami Vivekananda Saraswati but is simply known as Swami.
“Agama is a well- known school for tantra, especially the sexual aspect of tantra. So many do come to Agama and seek healing, especially on a sexual level,” Saskia said.
“I was really hoping to learn to control this anger that I carried, which was mostly against men. I admired the Swami and opened myself up to him emotionally.”
Saskia said Tarcau offered to give her a “yoni” massage – the Sanskrit word for female sexual organs.
He told her it was “to release my pelvic area, to crack open my energies, to gain more power over my personality, and to solve issues of my childhood.”
Saskia said there was never a discussion about what was going to happen or boundaries, saying Tarcau had pushed her farther than the massage.
“He was like, ‘ Oh, you know what is the best way to massage the yoni is using my lingam,’ which is his sexual organ,” she said.
“And without any consent, he completely abused me on every level that you can. I don’t know if I can use this word, rape.
“I definitely can say that I felt sexually, emotionally, abused.”
VijayaSree says she had a similar experience – only she was pressured to take part in group sex at the end of her retreat.
She said: “I was a part of a six- week intense program called the Tantric Initiation that was basically working on finding the truth of who we are that involved a lot of sexual tantric things along the way.
“The final ritual was a group sex ritual. And from the first date, I was saying that was something I feared and didn’t want to do.”
VijayaSree said the backlash she faced for not wanting to participate in the ritual was immense, and she was ultimately peer pressured into it.
“There was a lot of reaction towards me, telling me that I had to stop playing the good girl,” she recalled.
“After six weeks of being blamed and pushed down, I felt so pressured I just broke down. I was like, well, you know what f** k you. I’m just going to do it.”
In 2018, it was reported that 14 tourists had claimed they were sexually assaulted by Tarcau at the retreat.
Amid the scandal, disturbing audio of him supposedly recorded by one of his students appeared online.
The male voice said: “I would have said, ‘ What you are saying is your, your cervix is hurting – when you are penetrated deep, you have cervical pain. I can solve that in five meetings’.
“I can say like, ‘ I can open your yoni like a flower, you know’.
Ecstatic
“And like why wouldn’t I do it if I can? This thing is happening less and less because I’m getting older and older.”
Agama said in a statement at the time that “the recording doesn’t indicate in any way that Swamiji would have committed abuses.”
David White, a professor of comparative religions at the University of California, explains in the documentary that tantra is a religious practice that first started in India around 500AD.
It has become synonymous with ecstatic sex and full- body orgasms in the Western world, even though the majority of the ancient tantric teachings have nothing to with sexuality.
In a statement about the allegations, an Agama spokesman said: “There are no group sex rituals in the curriculum at Agama.
“Of course, people are free to do whatever they like in their free time.”
The yoga school also addressed claims that it is a cult, saying: “While charismatic leaders like Swamiji enjoy a certain respect, he refuses to be put on a pedestal.”