Meditation, Women, 3HO, MLM, Zizians, Legal
The Guardian: When meditation turns toxic: the woman exposing spiritual sexism
The Guardian: When meditation turns toxic: the woman exposing spiritual sexism
Since suffering a miscarriage at a women's retreat, Tara Brach has tried to reform the world of meditation by arming its practitioners with a single weapon: self-compassion.
"Tara Brach was four months pregnant when she miscarried at a women's retreat in Española, New Mexico. She was 30, and had spent the last eight years as a devoted member of 3HO, a community promising spiritual awakening.
The loss devastated her. She believed that extensive physical activity in the desert summer heat might have contributed to her miscarriage, so she wrote a note to her spiritual leader, Yogi Bhajan, suggesting they exercise care with pregnant women in the future.
Bhajan waited until the next public gathering to respond. In front of a roomful of her peers and without previous warning, he sternly declared that no summer was hot enough to cause a woman to miscarry. He then called on Brach to stand up and "hear the truth".
She had lost the baby, he said, because she was too worried about her career – and "motherhood is not a profession". Now shouting, he accused her of being a liar; he could tell she was one from her aura. "You wanted to have a child, that is true. Everyone knows that. Otherwise you would not have spread your legs," he spat. "But you got it, and then what?"
He told her she needed to go sit and "work it out".
Brach, in shock from the public humiliation, retreated to a little one-person meditation hut called a gurdwara, where she spent most of the night.
Meditation in her ashram – which she practiced for several hours after meeting the day at 3.30am with a cold shower – focused on cultivating a "state of peacefulness, energy or rapture". This practice usually made her feel less distressed or anxious, if only temporarily, by pulling her out of her feelings.
That night, she decided to try something else and forced herself to sit with her feelings of shame, sorrow and fear, instead of trying to escape them. After several hours of doing this, she asked herself if she was feeling bad because, as Bhajan said, she was bad, or because she had lost a pregnancy and had been abused by her spiritual teacher in front of her community.
That moment changed everything. She started to listen to her body and her intuition, and came to the realization that the world of meditation had a serious problem with sexism and patriarchal practices. So she decided to do something about it – starting with self compassion."
"Sabrina wanted to make some extra cash. Chloe* followed other local mums. Ellen* was looking for love.
All three took part in multi-level marketing (MLM) businesses that they say left them in financial or emotional ruin.
And they're not alone.
There are about 300,000 MLM consultants in Australia, according to Direct Selling Australia (DSA) – about 80 per cent of them women. MLMs are legal in Australia but research shows most consultants will only lose money.
The industry has also been plagued with allegations of "toxic" culture and unethical business practices for years.
Yet more than 90,000 Aussies joined MLMs in 2023 alone, many just trying to make ends meet.
"They prey on vulnerable people, they offer hope in this financial crisis," Ellen told 9news.
"It's all a lie."
What is multi-level marketing?
MLM businesses, also known as direct selling or network marketing, work by recruiting individual salespeople or "consultants".
But they don't receive a salary or wages.
Instead, they make money by selling MLM products, which they must purchase themselves from the business then sell at a markup or through recruitment.
Consultants can make hefty bonuses by recruiting other consultants under them (known as their "downline") to earn a percentage on all those recruits' sales.
This model, popularised by brands like Avon and Tupperware, has been compared to those of illegal pyramid schemes but MLMs are legal under Australian Consumer Law because they offer tangible products.
But fewer than one per cent of MLM consultants make a profit, according to US research, and a slew of MLMs have been accused of unethical sales and recruitment tactics.
Consultants predominantly sell and recruit through their personal networks, targeting friends, family and social media connections to buy or join.
And most MLMs require consultants to make regular purchases and meet sales targets just to stay in the business."
"Three members of a violent cultlike group, including its alleged ringleader, will be tried together in Maryland on charges of trespassing, gun and drug possession after police discovered them camping in box trucks.
The group known as Zizians, which attracted a fringe contingent of computer scientists who connected online over their shared anarchist beliefs, has been linked to six killings spanning three states in recent years."
" ... Jack "Ziz" LaSota and her associates, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank, were arrested in February after a man told police that "suspicious" people had parked two box trucks on his property and asked to camp there for a month, according to authorities. The trucks were found in a largely remote wooded area near the Maryland-Pennsylvania line, a mountainous region dotted with small towns.
LaSota, a transgender woman who's regarded as the group leader, entered the courtroom Tuesday, hoisting a brown paper bag filled with documents. Throughout the hearing, LaSota and Zajko repeatedly interjected to address the judge directly, disregarding conventional courtroom practices and occasionally speaking over their attorneys. The regular interruptions added to the already unusual circumstances of the case, which hinged on the findings of federal investigators, despite being prosecuted in state court.
The main issue discussed on Tuesday was the timeline of the proceedings. After the trio was arrested in February on trespassing and illegal gun possession charges, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment last month with new allegations, including LSD possession."
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