John Friend Anusara Scandal: Within The Wiccan ‘Sex’ Coven

A previous person in John Friend’s Wiccan coven details their sexually charged rituals—and explains why she left Anusara.

Lizzie Crocker

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For a chilly New Year’s Eve last year, John Friend—the popular and charismatic creator of Anusara yoga—lay naked on a bearskin rug in the front of a blazing fire at their house when you look at the Woodlands, Texas, while three underwear-clad females hovered over him, massaging sweetly scented oil to his body. One applied their mind, throat, and arms, another labored on their arms, while a 3rd applied their internal legs and pelvic area, her body writhing sinuously into the new-age sitar melodies playing when you look at the back ground.

Friend had invited the ladies, all Anusara workers, towards the Woodlands to commemorate the wintertime solstice,

A “high time” honored beneath the contemporary pagan faith of Wicca. Six months early in the day, buddy as well as 2 of the ladies held their Wicca that is first ritual Montreal, where these people were investing the week-end for a yoga workshop Friend ended up being web hosting. These people were 1st users of exactly just what would later on be an“coven” that is official Friend known as the Blazing Solar Flames.

“John desired us to complete the ritual in sexy underwear and kiss one another in the lips, tongue-y kissing, ” said “Melissa, ” a former person in the coven whom asked that her genuine title never be utilized.

Buddy, who’s currently on sabbatical and may never be reached for remark, happens to be during the center of a commonly publicized intercourse scandal which lead to a breakdown of trust within their yoga community and a mass exodus of top teachers, also a debate about whether he abused their power—even though all of the females included had been adults that are consenting. But little happens to be revealed about Friend’s leadership associated with the all-female coven, which a few individuals formerly near to him saw being a pretext for their own sexual satisfaction.

Melissa, 39, initially came across buddy in 2002 whenever she started exercising Anusara, a college of old-fashioned hatha yoga that Friend founded in 1997 and refined to mirror “Universal Principles of Alignment” coupled with simplified tantric maxims and a “philosophy of intrinsic goodness. ” Buddy taught pupils which they had been all stunning, divine beings and that through asana practice—through “opening to grace”—they would experience innermost joy.

On the next few years, as Melissa learned to become an Anusara instructor by herself, she discovered she distributed to Friend an interest in pagan traditions thick and curvy and philosophies. Whenever buddy mentioned pagan days that are high course, he known as on the to articulate them to another pupils. “I happened to be the Hermione, ” she said, talking about the brainy Harry Potter character.

It wasn’t until 2009 that their student-teacher relationship became intimately intimate, Melissa stated, to some extent due to their Wiccan connection. Buddy, then 49 and 13 years avove the age of Melissa, declared her the “High Priestess” for the coven and asked her to mentor one other, more youthful girl whom took part in their ritual that is first ended up being a worker of Anusara.

Typically, Wiccans worship pagan deities and celebrate seasonally based festivals or “Sabbats. ” Buddy advised to another coven users that intimately charged rituals would heighten everyone’s sensory faculties and consequently raise more power, relating to Melissa.

“It was certainly never ever just how as a leader and teacher that I had experienced Wicca, ” Melissa told The Daily Beast, but she was initially open to the experience, in part because of her intimate relationship with Friend and because of her confidence in him. “A teacher’s voice is indeed profoundly engrained in your head, and you also implicitly trust them because that’s what makes it possible to do great things in your practice, ” she stated.

Nevertheless, she was uneasy with a few of Friend’s rituals, such as for instance their suggestion which he and Melissa take off hair of the pubic locks and place them in a container which will be put on the 3rd coven member’s altar.

A woman that is fourth another Anusara instructor, had accompanied the coven ahead of the solstice party,

And buddy had introduced the theory that everybody will give one another sensual massages that are naked your day. Melissa would get very first and Friend, who known himself since the GM or “Grand Magus, ” would go final.

“There had been no electronic penetration, but there clearly was certainly this mixture of kissing and rubbing, ” Melissa recalled of her therapeutic massage. “Suddenly we began crying and I also didn’t understand why. I really couldn’t inform I became designed to trust. If I happened to be ashamed, despite the fact that they certainly were individuals” She recalled unexpectedly experiencing the problem “was like something away from Hustler or Penthouse, and I also simply thought, Wow, this person is residing the fantasy. Whenever it arrived time for Friend’s therapeutic massage, ”

It had been a time that is auspicious various ways for buddy. The newest York circumstances had simply run a lengthy profile of him, declaring Anusara “one associated with world’s fastest-growing types of yoga. ” The more expensive Anusara community had swelled to incorporate 200,000 pupils in 70 various nations and 1,200 licensed teachers whom experienced a rigorous, costly, and years-long training procedure to make their Anusara official official certification. Today, the training boasts 1,500 instructors that are licensed 600,000 pupils.

Based on the days profile, buddy ended up being developing plans when it comes to Center for Anusara Yoga, known as “The Center, ” in Encinitas, California—his biggest task to date—which remains under construction. He had been additionally traveling the planet to instruct workshops to a huge selection of individuals and, because the sole owner of Anusara Inc., spending himself an income of $100,000, in accordance with the occasions.

Earlier that spring, buddy had told Melissa exactly exactly what she referred to as “a world-expansion plan” for their yoga college and business and their need to trademark the Anusara philosophy.

But additionally by that point, in accordance with another previous instructor whom desired to remain anonymous, Friend’s initial philosophy of “intrinsic goodness” had become watered down by their brand name, therefore the dynamic within their internal kula—Sanskrit for “community”—had become tainted by way of a “culture of favoritism. ”