This month I am excited to share with you another winter story – an extraordinary experience that happened over the new year and set me thinking about something – I think you will agree – is both important and fascinating!
So it’s cold outside, let us once again, gather around the storytelling fire 
Picture this…
A train.
A plane.
Another train.
A 5-kilometer trek in the freezing dark, through a forest in the north of Denmark. The smell of ancient gnarled trees. The darkness is complete, sweet, velvet. My hands, stiff without gloves, my nose stinging in the cold.
At last, a house looms. Its lighted windows, ghostly bright in the dark.
I have arrived at the Ting Gathering—a conscious event, no drugs or alcohol allowed, anarchist in spirit, no official leadership and all decisions are made in a circle, passing a ‘speaking stick’ from hand to hand. Think workshops, kundalini yoga, and songs of oneness around a fire.
And as I stumble out of the night and into the warmth, I find that the group is midway way through the evening circle. The atmosphere in the room is sour with tension.
Why?
A Palestinian flag is hanging on the wall and a man, holding the stick is demanding its removal: that flag, he says, should be burned.
My rib bones feel as if they are being crushed.
Before I know it, despite the fact that I’ve just arrived, I’m standing up, words pouring from me unbidden. “My father is Palestinian. He could be shot by a settler or soldier at any moment. How can you say that?”
Silence, thick and suffocating fills the room.
“It was a joke,” the man mutters.
The stick is passed.
Another man stands up and says: This flag should be up as a protest against the Rothschilds who are behind these atrocities.
Again, I’m on my feet: “My mother is an Israeli Jew who like countless Jews opposes this genocide. How dare you defend Palestinians by spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories?”
The next days are a knot of frustration. I am utterly bewildered by the opposition to showing solidarity for the two million Palestinians in Gaza who are being systematically exterminated in the most horrific ways with the support of our governments. I am shocked at the levels of explicit antisemitism tolerated at the gathering.
Some spend hours and hours in circle debating the issue. Men and women in their 50s’ and 60s’, acting like three-year-olds, rave on and on while the room slowly empties and people shout for them to pass on the stick.
I don’t seem to be able to walk from my dormitory to the bathroom without being harassed about the issue.
A man, full of aggression, shouts at me for wanting the flag on the wall. When others intervene to protect me, he starts sticking his tongue out and making farting sounds whenever anyone speaks to him. Another man follows me around, wanting to find out if I am an Ashkenazi jew, trying to convince me that they rule the world. Yet another harasses me telling me to build a “watermelon shrine” for my father.
Poor mental health seemed to abound at the gathering: an ambulance is called for a woman who is suffering from acute psychosis.
Finally, the conflict over the flag reaches a climax when someone steals the flag. It’s never seen again.
Disillusioned and concerned by what I had witnessed and experienced, I chose not to spend New Year’s Eve there..
Why does the conscious community attract people with Far-Right views and mental health issues?
Spiritual modalities such as tantra and shamanic plant medicine are powerful tools for healing. They can address PTSD, depression, anxiety, and more. It is no surprise, that those grappling with mental health issues are drawn to such spaces. I was one of those people and I am deeply grateful for the benefit I received from such practices.
However, there is a more sinister reason for the prevalence of far-right views within conscious communities.
Spiritual experiences often open us up to the possibility that the world is not as it seems.
For example: I remember the first time I felt my aura with my hand or when, in a trance, I spoke a language that I did not know. These moments shook me to my core. I’d been told such things were impossible, and yet there they were. I felt I had been lied to. This made me open to the idea that there is more going on than I have been told.
Social media companies know that individuals who have had mystical experiences tend to be more receptive to questioning conventional narratives and established explanations of reality.
It’s for this reason there algorithms define those who are ‘spiritual’ as ‘persuadable’.
We are then targeted with Far-Right propaganda which reinforces the idea that “we are being lied to”.
Sophisticated campaigns frame democratic systems that limit corporate profit, as threats to individual freedom and portray women, immigrants, trans people, Muslims and black communities as threats. This propaganda directs anger at scapegoats and diverts attention from the real cause of the crisis: the largest transfer of wealth to the richest 1% in human history. Today, inequality has reached unprecedented levels.
Why does this matter?
In Europe, nearly all indigenous wisdom was eradicated during the brutal slaughter of Pagans. In the Americas, over 95% of indigenous peoples were wiped out.
The origins of the spiritual practices that you may have used will have l roots in indigenous and non-western communities and cultures. These practices survived because of the bravery of those who fought and refused to let their cultures and traditions die.
If you’ve benefited from spiritual practices, I urge you to honour their origins and to recognize the courage of the Indigenous and non-white peoples who, despite colonization, genocide, and violence, kept these powerful worldviews alive.
If for no other reason than gratitude for the bravery and sacrifice that enables you to now benefit from such powerful healing modalities, let’s confront the ongoing harm caused by racism, imperialism, and violence.
Let’s speak out against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and against antisemitic conspiracy theories. Racism is not an abstract issue—it is deeply connected to the history of the wisdom we now depend on for our own healing.
My commitment to you
I will continue to offer deeper tantric practices which support healing, understanding and pleasure in and through the body: for tantra is the teaching of something beyond language without language.
My spaces are inclusive, I avoid pseudo-spiritual language and welcome all sexualities, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
Together, let us honour the roots of these practices and ensure they serve as tools for collective healing, not division. Let us embody the interconnectedness they teach us, as we strive to create a better world.
And with that in mind I’d be deeply honoured if you would join powerful tantric shamanic rebirth ritual I will be holding with Scarlett. Of all my work so far, this winter retreat is the profound exploration I am most excited about facilitating.
