It’s been a minute since I wrote the last installment of this series, but I’m back. (I reaaallly don’t feel like doing anything I ought to be doing today.)

So. We still haven’t gotten to MISA. I’m on what Amazon tells me is page 20/196 and of this book and we’re about to dive into the final part of “Chapter 2: Sacred Eroticism and Contemporary Esoteric Groups”, namely, “The Guru Jára Path: MISA’s Czech “Cousin”?”

A short and incomplete history of The Guru Jára Path

I know my impression of Introvigne last time was that his work isn’t particularly stellar and he has many blind spots, but I’ve returned with renewed enthusiasm and a lot of generosity of spirit. I’m willing to hear him out.

According to Introvigne, there are some similarities between the Czech Guru Jára Path and MISA. Cool, let’s find out what’s up with that Path!

Introvigne’s information on Guru Jára and the history of the movement is obtained from interviews with high-ranking members of the Path, as well as from two unpublished manuscripts: “History of the Church and the Mission of Guru Jára” written in 2015 by Filip Manek, and “Guru Jára: Important Moments That Created GJ Teachings” written in 2019 by Barbora Plášková. Plášková is apparently high in the organization; Manek is or was on the Path’s Board.

In other words, all of Introvigne’s information was obtained from high-ranking Guru Jára Path members. This isn’t necessarily bad - high-ranking members in any organization are more likely to know its history and inner workings. If you want a history of the Catholic Church, the Vatican can most certainly provide it. However, because they are high-ranking members, they’re more likely to be biased in favor of the organization, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Introvigne says about Jára:

As it happens for all founders of religious movements, tales of his youth based on his own accounts note precocious extraordinary events.

I bet!

So, according to Guru Jára himself, Guru Jára had a plethora of spiritual experiences as a kid, seeing ghosts and supernatural occurences. This apparently led people to believe he was mentally ill, so he was prescribed medication. At 11, he attempted suicide and was rescued by a friend. (It’s unclear when he stopped taking medication.) He ran away from Czechoslovakia to Italy, became interested in esotericism, attained enlightenment at the age of 20, went back to Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism, worked as an astrologer and spiritual teacher and visited India repeatedly, where he studied under a couple of teachers, one of whom was of very little renown.

• In 1996, the movement that would become the Guru Jára Path started emerging.
• In 1998, Guru Jára established a monastery.
• In 2000 he established the Czech Telepathic Association and his work was well-received, including his teachings on eroticism.
• Everything was nice, and they were tolerated, until one of their monasteries was burned down by arsonists in 2001.
• In 2003 the political regime changed, which Jára saw as heralding the end of their time in Europe.
• In 2005, Introvigne tells us, anti-cult campaigns led to violence against Jára and his followers.
• In 2007, Jára and Plášková fled to Asia, and „dissident students” tried to take over, closed the Poetrie Esoteric Institute and provided member lists to the police, who started persecuting students.

What I’d like to know, but Introvigne doesn’t say at this point, is:

• What did the movement look like in the beginning? Was it a group of friends, seminars, what?
• What did the “monastery” look like? Was the Path large enough to have a large home for people with no outside jobs? Was it a group of like-minded people living together in an apartment by another name? What should I picture here?
• What was the Czech Telepathic Association, who was part of it and how visible was it?
• If they were well-regarded, what was up with the arson? Was it proved that they were targeted by arsonists instead of suffering a misfortune? Were the arsonists attempting to harm the Path as such, or was it unrelated arson? (Such as kids setting a fire and things escalating from there)
• What was Guru Jára’s involvement in politics, if any? Why was the election of a new president seen as automatically bad?
• What did the anti-cult campaigns against them look like?
• Why did “dissident students” try to shut down the Path and why did they get the police involved? Could we find out more about their motivations and justifications?
• What is the Poetrie Esoteric Insistute?

The devil’s often in the details; and while smear campaigns and injustice happen, I’m suspicious when I feel like important details are omitted.

Their beliefs

Introvigne tells us about Jára’s brand of esoterica: a melange of Tantric, Egyptian, Tibetan, Christian and Kabbalistic influences supposedly started by pharaoh Nyuserre Ini in the 25th century BC, with references to Crowley’s teachings.

…As a rule of thumb, if you hear claims about Egyptian religion coming from someone who claims to be practicing Egyptian religion, just assume somebody made them up recently. Maybe they’re recent inventions (from the past 10 years) or slightly older (from the past 200 years), but they’re very often not based on what people 4500 years ago actually did or believed. Egyptologists usually have a few choice words to say about some of that.

Anyways, Jára teaches that sexual energy should be transformed into light, but people sometimes can’t do it because they are affected by “hooks” (women) or “thorns” (men) caused by previous sexual relationships. And in order to get rid of those thorns, they must have sex with a highly experienced Guru. In this case, Jára and Jára alone can do this ritual for the women in the path.

…omg, it’s not even subtle.

In its heydays, the Path had some 3,000 female members. Only some 300 of them, or 10%, were counseled, or they asked, to go through the unhooking ritual.

It is also important to note that unhooking is not an essential part of the Path’s doctrine, neither a mandatory part of the spiritual activities.

10% of the women having sex with the main authority figure is a pretty high percentage, though. Even the absolute number, 300, is pretty high. Sure, you can say “it’s not essential”, you can say “it’s not mandatory”, but if sex with a specific person is regarded as deeply meaningful and important within a certain group, there’s a high chance that people can be targeted with peer pressure regarding having sex with that specific person, while also feeling like they’re making their own decisions.

Another note regarding “mandatory” participation: it would be very inconvenient for a group or a guru engaging in predatory practices. Firstly, it would be visibly shady. But secondly, it would also be mandatory for the guru to sleep with all the women in the group. I assume that a predatory guru figure who likes sexy 20 year-olds would soon see the error of his if his movement would be joined by a host of enthusiastic grannies in search of enlightenment. It would also impose a limit on the group’s size, because there are only so many hours in the day and sleeping with 3000 people in the span of a couple of years would quickly become problematic.

Perhaps because male students represented only 25% of the Path’s membership, the cleaning up of thorns was somewhat less controversial than the unhooking, and largely eluded the attention of the anti-cultists and the police.

Who were the women who could remove thorns? Did they pressure the guys in any way, or did the guys who wanted a thorn removed and sought out one of several women who were willing and available to provide that service? What were the dynamics here?

Also, if men were pressured and abused in a situation such as this one, would they be likely to come forward, or would the social stigma act as a silencer?

I’m not saying men were abused in the Path. But if we’re exploring why the practice was less controversial for men than for women, I think it’s worth exploring how the dynamics within the group and outside the group function.

The role of the sex guru

A preliminary investigation of Jára had been started based on the complaint of a woman who had been unhooked but, rather than to the ritual, objected to Jára’s alleged misrepresentation of his own Tantric qualifications and initiations.

This is pretty interesting, and I think it shows a huge problem with cults even if you believe in their teachings. While I’m sure Guru Jára Path people don’t see it that way, in the same way in which MISA yogis don’t see it that way, the sexual role of spiritual masters in sex cults is that of providing sexual services.

Obviously, they’re in a place of power, and their position is privileged. They are seen as wise and spiritually strong. But the essential is this: they promise to use sex for the spiritual healing or spiritual advancement of the people they sleep with. They “remove hooks”, they “provide initiations”. They are not there as themselves, for romantic purposes, or even for fun between equals. They are there to use their sexual skill for the net gain of the adept. The purpose of sexuality in a group like this isn’t fun or emotional fulfillment. It’s spiritual growth, and the spiritual master can provide it.

(If you think about it, they’re spiritual sex workers. Now there’s some food for thought.)

This works in the favor of the guru, because it means their partners don’t have to like them or even be attracted to them personally. The adepts can talk themselves into sex for the sake of resolving spiritual issues or obtaining spiritual results. In the same way in which you don’t like getting a vaccine, you can not like sleeping with a guru, but do it anyway because you’ve been persuaded that it’s “good for you”.

Fascinatingly, I think this opens gurus up to accusations of fraud. If they can’t actually do the things that they claim to be able to do, then they’ve provided fraudulent services for the sake of obtaining personal gains. I think it would be lovely and absolutely hilarious if somebody sued a sex guru for being incapable of removing trauma witheir cock, despite their claims. Malpraxis, anyone?

[Jára and Plášková] were initially investigated for human trafficking and possible financial fraud, but later these charges were dropped.

What made them suspect human trafficking and financial fraud? Introvigne doesn’t tell us anything about this movement. Oh, well.

And then there was a rape investigation

The authorities looked into the women who were “unhooked”, talked to over 100 of them, and:

found eight cases of women claiming that the unhooking had been an unpleasant experience.

Hmm. Everybody else loved it? Also, why is pleasure suddenly a topic? Isn’t it kind of weird for the police to call you and ask you if you liked having sex with someone?

Aside from that, I’d like to point out that some movements like to paint authorities as inherently hostile to their members, who might distrust the police even if they have very legitimate reasons to seek help from them. I’m not sure how it is in the Path, but in MISA there was a lot of conspiracy theory stuff going around.

Prosecutors eventually regarded the case of one L.N. as the more promising. She […] [claimed] post traumatic stress and finally [left] the Czech Republic. […] Police transcripts reported that L.N., before participating in the ritual, had not understood what the unhooking was all about (although it was clearly described in the Path’s publications and lectures), tried to stop the process, and was forced to conclude it by Jára and Plášková. The latter, she said, even kept molesting her after the ritual had concluded. Plášková’s and Jára’s attorneys objected, offering photographic evidence that, after the first unhooking, a smiling L.N. came back for a second session the next week, which would be strange if she had felt raped.

They had photos? Ok, it might be a coincidence, but.

Back in 2008, when I visited Bivolaru in Paris, I lived in an apartment along with a number of women who slept with Bivolaru (MISA’s spiritual master). The atmosphere, as you can imagine, was very pro-Bivolaru. Dissent was smilingly, but firmly, discouraged. Imagine being far from your friends, with people who insist that what’s going on is the best thing that ever happened to you, unable to leave at will, and knowing nobody would approve or even understand if you said you hated what happened to you.

It was common practice to ask those women to speak about their experience on camera after sleeping with Bivolaru, and to refer to him as “my lover” instead of by name. Some obviously had good experiences, but at least a few made shit up and tried to hide their true feelings. I’d like to hear more about the context of that photo.

Although. Maybe it’s just a photo. People take photos for all sorts of reasons. I can just as well imagine her being in the kitchen and smiling when asked to take a selfie with someone. Nonetheless, a photo of someone smiling isn’t necessarily evidence.

On May 28, 2012, the Zlín branch of the Regional Court of Brno issued an international arrest warrant against Jára and Plášková, for eight rapes allegedly committed between 2004 and 2006

…Are these the eight who said their experiences were “unpleasant”? Because “rape” is a very different beast from “unpleasant experience”.

Similarities

There are several similarities between the cases of the Guru Jára Path and of MISA. Both occurred in post-Communist countries, where new religious movements and alternative lifestyles, particularly when eroticism is involved, are still difficult to accept

Fair. They are difficult to accept. However, this makes it easier to prey on people who are interested in alternative lifestyles, because it blurs the line between “weird and unusual” and “actively harmful”. When too many weird, but harmless things are rejected by society, victims will be less likely to recognize red flags or more likely to ignore them. They’ll also be less likely to find help if they’re in bad situations.

The demonization of alternate lifestyles both condemns the innocent and favors predators.

In both cases, the media played a crucial role […] by publishing sensational stories […]. In both cases, there are serious clues that the leaders did not get fair trials in their home countries

I’ll allow it. I don’t necessarily think Bivolaru would have been better off with a fair trial, though.

There are, of course, also important differences. Continence is taught as a useful practice in the Guru Jára Path, but is not the only technique the movement recommends. […] The fact that Guru Jára is the only master authorized to unhook makes (or made, before 2015) a ritualized sexual encounter with him part of the Path’s experience for a certain percentage of the women students, which is not the case in MISA.

I feel like this somewhat invalidates the whole “but sex with Jára wasn’t that important” point made earlier on. It’s also a bit odd to hear the Bivolaru comparison - what is “a certain percentage”? What would be a significant percentage? Also, where is Introvigne going with this?

MISA’s historically been a lot larger, claiming around tens of thousands of students at some point. Obviously, a smaller percentage of them will have slept with Bivolaru, on account of Bivolaru being one man, constrained by time, space and physical limitations. However, not an insignificant number of women have slept with Bivolaru, and his sexual “initiations” are of spiritual import to his adepts.

It’s hard to tell how important “unhooking” is to people on the Path, versus how important “sexual initiations” are to MISA yogis. Still, the two might be more similar than Introvigne thinks in this respect, too.

It is certainly possible that in some cases spiritual leaders take advantage of their position to sexually abuse women and men […] On the other hand, several decades of study of sacred eroticism groups have persuaded me that reconstructing their rituals in a generalized way as “abuse” is simplistic.

Sure. Not all sexual things that are out of the ordinary are abuse.

However, if 8 women testified about being raped, that’s pretty indicative of the possibility of abuse. Especially since being involved in a trial is time-consuming and unpleasant for most people, and if it’s about something such as rape, there’s stigma attached to it, too. It’s known that not all rape victims are willing to come forward, and some prefer to hide their experiences.

To me, that suggests that it’s best to take people on the Path with a grain of salt when they talked about their brand of sacred eroticism practices.

Hundreds of enthusiastic and persevering practitioners of sacred eroticism I have interviewed told me that it would be totally misleading to characterize their motivations as a quest for “fun.” In some groups, both masters and students are even supposed to keep chastity for long periods between one sacred intercourse and the next.

If anything, this is in support of the potential abuse in the Path.

It’s true that people in sex cults are seen as fun loving - but it’s been my experience, too, that this is false. Sex isn’t for pleasure alone. If it were, then it would be “shallow”. Instead, sex is for spiritual gain.

It’s easier to tell when something is no longer fun or pleasant, and if having fun is your goal, then you’re more likely to stop when things are no longer enjoyable. However, if your goal is to grow, and you’re told growing pains are a part of the process, it’s harder to tell whether the discomfort you’re feeling is indicative of a problem, or if it’s a “growing pain”. This allows for more space within which coercion can operate.

But all groups in the sacred eroticism tradition teach that only through their techniques you can achieve enlightenment and spiritual immortality: a goal for which humans have always been willing to enthusiastically engage in demanding practices, as the whole history of religions demonstrates.

When you expect to engage in demanding practices - and even in practices that might not fully make sense to you until you reach a higher spiritual level - how do you know when what’s demanded of you is good or makes sense? When do you trust your master? And where do you draw the line?