tantric Scam | Learning Center for Inside Awareness

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP

On a cold night in the early winter months I received a phone call. It was on my house phone that normally I don’t answer when I don’t recognize the number. After saying hello the caller asks, “Do you know who I am?” My first thought was, “really?” I said, “no!” He went on to say, ” your number has come to me in meditation a few times so I am calling you.”

He goes on to say, “I am Sun and I am calling from Tibet. I was in Victoria in the fall at the Empress giving a workshop and then he asks, “Did you come?”

Hearing that my number came to him in meditation was suspicious as I believe spirit doesn’t give out phone numbers. He went on to ask as though to confirm, “you are an energy worker, are you not?” This is something I don’t announce loudly in my community. It this is personal to me and woven in my work and teachings. It is not a persona. I have witnessed too many people create a guru self-image or persona they haven’t integrated into their behaviour. My experience is that too many people have been unable to act in alignment with the self-image they portray. Rather than be a guru, I am interested in each person finding their own guru qualities within themselves.

I reflected that this person did have a slight accent and the phone line did sound hollow in the background. Hum, I ask myself, is this a new sort of scam? However I was curious and guarded. This seems to anger him and he began demonstrating his frustration in how he spoke. His way of speaking was abusive and his manner was power over. He was trying to put me in a victim position to form of manipulative connection. I thought wow and wondered how many are falling for this? Is this the direction scammers are going?

I had questioned the direction I wanted to go in the Heart Centered Coaching I do with regards to sexual issues in the week leading up to this call. I have been the confident of a range of sexual experiences and actions of others and on occasion I reflect how this is for me. I happened to be in one of these periods of self-reflection. Listening to this man proclaiming to be a Tibetan Guru asking me if I wanted the Tantric White Light, I wondered if this by chance or was something else at work here?

I heard instructions that fit with ceremony that I was familiar with and in this context, I realized that who ever was speaking with me could see what I was doing. I looked outside the windows and no one was around. I could hear others in the house settle for the night and there wasn’t anyone in the house that I didn’t know. That is when I realized the person on the phone was using remote viewing. He knew if I was doing the actions he was telling me to do. He knew what room I was in and that I wasn’t obeying his commands. At this point I was half in and half out of being committed, and now I wanted to know how far it he would go. I stayed on the line and half heartily followed along. Eventually there was silence.

During the ceremonial aspect, his instructions became absurd and, whether this was the form of a Tantric White Light Ceremony or not, I do know that in past Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies transmissions as he was suggesting he was preforming is preceded by meditation and extensive teachings that happen in a dedicated retreat. At the end of such a retreat one is then given a transmission. This telephone voice was trying to take me through a transmission ceremony with no connection to who he was or what his teaching were. What was the commitment and responsibility. Was he trustworthy? etc., etc.

All the while my inner observer was alive and partly intrigued and partly in shock. Disbelief is how I would describe it. My concern of course was that this trending tantric phenomenon was becoming a scam. This man was not invited by me to enter into my space by phone or remote viewing and certainly he was not invited to be my teacher.

As I sensed my space during this phone encounter and his remote viewing, I experienced that his energetic imprint wasn’t strong enough to engage me on a physical, mental or emotional level. I was intrigued, not convinced or committed but skeptical. Afterwards I had to laugh as the ridiculousness set in.

I did type Tantric into Google search and saw the number of professed Tantric Practitioners with western names in my area. I thought about the lineage I studied and how the teachers were born into the cultural source of the teachings that is a lifelong experience. It was not a weekend, a week or even two. It used to be a lifetime commitment.

In conversation with a mentor and friend a few days later, I was given a broader context. I heard and agreed with them that even if this person was a Guru from Tibet, they had a lot to learn about Western Culture and behaviour in relationships. As far as my phone number was concerned, I heard the perspective that my number was given to him by someone here in the community. I was told that my energy work is well-known here in the community even if I don’t focus on it in any particular way.

In August, 2020 I received a message that this person who calls himself Sun is still active. I was given a link to a forum that shares posts of him going back as far as 2004. The site is called Cult Education and the post heading, Sex Crime Alert: Fake Tantra ‘Master’ in Sedona AZ

What I manifested from this personal experience. real or not, was an answer to my inner questions of working with sexual pain people share with me about in our sessions. Whether it is a session for Functional Integration, the movement releases held sexual tension, in Heart-Centered Empathy Coaching, or healing Personal Environments, sometimes sexual issues need to be witnessed without judgement.

My commitment may have not been to Sun, however it is to experience sexual healing in a unique Western Way. Remember, I am interested in the person becoming their own Guru, not in being their Guru!