Ah, I stand corrected on the topic of exploiting Christianity:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-02-17/news/feature/2/
There are two floors and eight rooms called "transformation chambers," each decorated in a different theme, including the "Judeo-Christian room" (all white with paintings of Jesus), the "Egyptian room" (black and gold), and a blue "water chamber" featuring a big bathtub. Every room includes a massage table (which they call an "altar of light"), as well as a bed (called the "grand altar").
Though, "Judeo-Christian" with pictures of Jesus is pretty vague. Then again, their whole pseudo-religious front is purposely vague. Wonder what the saner Christians think of butt massage with Jesus.
Trafficking networks are not fussy about what type of spiritual beliefs they adopt in order to camouflage their nefarious activities.
A former member of the pseudo-tantric cult / criminal THB network MISA who managed to infiltrate their latest "yoga convention" has reported back that MISA is launching an evangelical Christian wing of its trafficking network.
In fact MISA in its various territories internationally represents itself as a Christian organisation and even campaigns against "Satanism". On Halloween they dress up as angels, complete with long white robes and wings, and go onto the streets to offer people free hugs and thus thwart demonic powers. They also like to hang about outside hospices and hospitals, dressed in their angelic garb, again offering free hugs. In the latter locations they can help seriously ill people to understand that "ayervedic" and herbal remedies are better than conventional medicine and that leaving worldly goods to your relatives is futile when you can leave them to a spiritual guru. Anyway, I digress.....
There is a long history of Christian missionaries either facilitating genocide and sexual abuse amongst tribal people by others or even committing it themselves.
The excellent documentary, which a dear friend showed me recently, Prisoners of a White God viewable here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c5Xa5EOfukdemonstrates how paedophiles and people traffickers started Christian orphanages and schools in Thailand and stole children from their families, put them in orphanages, ostensibly to teach them Thai language and to help them find Jesus. In the schools and orphanages the children were taught that their tribal identities and cultures were primitive and ignorant. The children were forbidden to speak in their own language and were trafficked, used as a slave labour force and sexually abused, all by Christian missionaries.
In such cases it does not really matter whether the traffickers and abusers consider themselves to be real Christians. Children are trafficked and abused and that is the important issue, religion is just a distraction.
In this case of the Phoenix and Sedona Temples it does not matter to me whether people consider themselves to be authentic tantric educators or sex workers.
It seems to me that there is very likely to be a significant differences between people arrested in the brothel raids. Some may be predatory, in receipt of significant revenue streams and be knowledgeable about criminal issues unknown to others, some may simply be sex workers keen to work safely and learn diverse skills, some may be people who have been coerced or tricked by a cult (often believing that they are burning bad karma or personifying a goddess by doing sex work), some may give all or most of their earnings to a pimp / guru some may keep all of their earnings after paying the "house".
I feel upset and disturbed by the "perp walk" as most of the people shown are probably just sex workers trying to put food on the table and there is a real possibility that some may have been trafficked and coerced. Pseudo-tantric cults, by their nature specialise in pimping out women who have no idea they have been trafficked and who believe that they are enlightened or saving the planet by doing sex work.
I just think that this is a complex situation and that putting everyone in the brothel together for a perp walk demonstrated either a lack of understanding of that complexity (and of the THB issues) or a lack or concern for the rights of THB victims on the part of law enforcement.
Some of the "tantric" retreats and intensive training courses offered at the Sedona Temple and by the ISTA are fronts for recruitment into enslavement.
I do not know the personal or professional histories of the sex workers arrested at the Phoenix Temple but I think it is entirely possible that one or more of them have been trafficked.
I wonder how much the LEOs investigating this really know about the trafficking links? I suspect that they are not fully aware or they may have treated potential victims with more care and respect and not subjected them to the perp walk.
This is the thing that really concerns me about the arrests and charges so far and also the fact that it was local LE and not the FBI (at least to my knowledge) that planned and executed the raid.
The cops would have my support more fully had they not subjected possible THB victims to a perp walk and had this been a bigger operation.
As I said earlier I do not feel it is my place to condemn a group of adults who, without coercion or guile or force decide to work as sex workers in a brothel.
I feel concerned that the cops have gone for the angle that this was a church disguised as a brothel but seem blithely unaware (as shown by the perp walk) of the THB angle.
