A Highden Temple / International School of the Temple Arts (ISTA) update

Because it has been a hot second since I wrote about Highden/ISTA, I thought it was time to provide an update on what's been happening since RNZ published their piece on Sacred Sexuality in October 2022.

Anke Richter joined us on the Yeah…Nah podcast in December to discuss her book Cult Trip, and has since kept the momentum going through a book tour, workshops, and the formation of the Culty Conversations Facebook group. If you are in Christchurch on May 24th, you can catch Anke at the eXchange as she presents her workshop, How Not to Start a Cult.

Both ISTA and Highden Temple are still in operation, with their respective founders, Robert “Baba Dez” Nichols and Bruce Lyon, traveling the world and doing their bit. It appears that Bruce might be landing a new temple in California, and is facilitating a ISTA course in Texas this week as well as the Level 1 (SSSEX) and Level 2 (SSSIN) ISTA courses at Highden later in the year. Other kiwis or Highden acolytes associated with ISTA, like Rex Rafiq, Caitlyn Cook, Laura Deva, and Winter Jade Icely, are maintaining a busy programme of ISTA workshops worldwide.

Bruce has also been busy supporting and advising Highden attendee Jon Eden Khan on a couple of projects. The mission of Avatara is cultivating new approaches to politics, economics, love, spirituality, etc through a collective awakening that will help bring about a new phase in human evolution. All of it is grounded in Trans-Himalayan teachings, aka Ageless Wisdom/Theosophy and Bruce Lyon.

Singularity, on the other hand, is a transnational political party that works “...towards global governance sourced in the One Life at the core of all beings, the Earth, and all kingdoms of nature by 2050” . While Avatara was a product of Bruce's Shamballa school project, which Lyon handed over to Khan to run, Singularity was initiated by Khan, with Bruce placed as the lead of the Life Circle, which seems to be the spiritual side of operations. Less Trans-Himayalan than Avatara, the structure of the Singularity organism is reminiscent of the structure ISTA had until recently. While Avatara could be dismissed as a little bit of silliness, Singularity's white paper is somewhat more problematic in its grandiose designs, and its implication that the persons who are currently holding the leading roles in the life, pillars, operations, governance, and international policy circles could hold such major roles in global rule without question is, frankly, wild. The further egoism of the document continues with a list of experts that they may approach when forming the aforementioned circles.

It was through Avatara and Singularity that I saw a new player on the scene named Marcus Woo. Woo is a self-described social entrepreneur and techno-shaman who attended Highden in 2019, as well as working at the 6-week Temple Training in January-March 2023. Marcus established his own temple in Chesapeake near Washington, DC, and is part of a network that includes Highden and a temple in Finland. In his end-of-year report, Woo implies that there may be a new temple (or two) being established in the near future. It will be interesting to see if ISTA offerings pervade this new temple as well, or if it sticks exclusively to the occult side of the business.

Baba Dez, on the other hand, is no longer officially listed on the ISTA website as part of the organism, and has been removed as a faculty member - but he is still referenced as the founder in a video on the About page. Dez also actively promotes ISTA events, as well as “non-ISTA” branded events facilitated by ISTA faculty. He also publishes posts that imply he still attends ISTA events in some capacity, and occasionally shares glimpses of his ISTA-informed “sailing community experience”.

A recent publication of Anke's for the German market has made a big revelation: a rape complaint has been filed in Israel against a major ISTA leader, Ohad Pele Ezhari. Despite earlier allegations made against Ohad, he is still listed on the ISTA community page as both a lead faculty member and a recommended practitioner, unlike Dez. Ohad played a major role with Highden, and was listed as one of the major posts in a 2022 version of Highden Temple's About Us section. Ohad was considered a post which, according to this 2021 facebook post, might have involved a $60,000 donation. Ohad's spiritual background also came up during my Adidam research, as Ohad admired Adi Da and listened to him speak several times. Whether Ohad was an Adidam devotee, and when this connection occurred, is unknown, but Ohad did claim to be in continuous correspondence with the guru, and published a book, Wilds Nights by David Deida, in which Adidam was presented as the teacher of the main character, Mykonos. This excerpt is certainly pure Franklin Jones:

_**"One night, my teacher knocked on my cabin door. It was late, and I had been sleeping, alone. He was laughing hysterically when I opened the door. I asked him what he wanted, but he just kept laughing, signaling me with his finger to follow him. We walked along the forest trail, past a few cabins, finally stopping outside the window to a cabin of one of my friends. My teacher pressed his ear against the window-the curtain was closed so you couldn't see inside-and then he fell to the ground laughing."

Mykonos paused for a few moments as a set of waves rolled beneath us.

"Finally, I pressed my ear against the window of the cabin," Mykonos continued with his story. "I could hear two people having sex, loudly. The woman, especially, was moaning and screaming in pleasure. And then I realized, it was my wife!”**_

ISTA itself has undergone some changes. Chiefly, they no longer have a wisdom circle of three, but instead have a council of five. They are also engaging in a mediation process, in particular with the Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities (SSSC) team that spearheaded the Issues with ISTA and Highden Temple Trainings facebook page. The SSSC did temporarily lock the facebook page for a couple of reasons. First, to maintain privacy and security for those sharing their stories; screenshots, with identifying information, were being sent to ISTA and Highden, despite the group's Admins being clear that the facebook wasn't a space for facilitators or teachers from either organisation. Secondly, it was alleged that members from the page were contacting venues which could have potentially made the Facebook group Admins financially liable for loss of income.

Whether ISTA has changed at all in terms of its curriculum is debatable, as it is an “ongoing process”, but we may be getting a glimpse soon via a new podcast on ZM.

Sex.Life is a podcast co-hosted by ZM DJ and comedienne Hailey Sproull and somatic sexologist Morgan Penn. Penn prior to becoming a sexologist, Penn worked for 15 years in media and radio managing promotions and advertising. She started training as a life coach, but found it lacked depth. Then she heard of the possibility of being a “Sexologist”, which she thought was much more in her wheelhouse. In an article on Capsule, Penn makes this statement:

“There were two directions to go in – the clinical psychology route, or the more hands-on approach. “I'm a bit of a hippy and I wanted to do that holistic work. For me, it's important because it's about the integration of mind and body. The brain is the biggest sex organ and then sex is something we do with the body.”

The training was courtesy of an Australian school that offered a remote-learning course. Penn co-hosted a podcast called The Trainee Sexologist, which lasted for two seasons and documented Penn's journey through this training. Between her LinkedIn, professional page, and Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australia profile, I cannot for the life of me confirm where she completed this training or if she has other certifications.

Sex.Life was brought to my attention via the Culty Conversations Facebook page. While Penn does not name the school outright, her descriptions of the school (including the “You Chose This” sign at the entrance) is very strong evidence that she is talking about Highden. In promos for the podcast and in the intro episode, Penn summarised the scenario as going undercover to a rural New Zealand sex school - and even ventured to call it a sex cult. Penn's rationale was that she was aware of the controversy about sacred sexuality (verbage used by RNZ), and felt she had a duty of care and responsibility as a sexology professional to see what was happening in the NZ sexual landscape. The timeline of when Penn did this, and whether she attended an ISTA-specific course, is unclear. Penn said she visited last summer, and some on the Culty Conversations page believe it is ISTA or even two consecutive ISTA courses based on the curriculum. However the ten-day duration doesn't seem right for one course, and Penn only shares some of the activities but not all, which makes it difficult for former attendees to definitively confirm. As well, the last ISTA course in NZ to be publicly listed on the ISTA page is January 2021, and if there was an ISTA course at Highden after that, any reference to it has been scrubbed.

As for the content of the podcast, the dynamic between the co-hosts can get a bit silly - but I do appreciate that for many it will strike the right level of candor and judgment-free advice that will help many. The proper homeplay/homework is sex-positive, which is a plus.

The negatives come from Penn's recollections of her time there. Penn's self-confidence and sex-positivity is both a blessing and a curse. It takes a lot for something to rattle her (as it does in Episode 5), but otherwise the episodes released so far show Penn to be a joiner. There's no shame in that, as it gives insight into the Highden way, but it does mean there is no discussion on what it means to refuse or withdraw consent in these spaces; whether there is an established protocol to do so; and how facilitators manage that. Sproull's comments about her possible reactions in such circumstances touch on important questions like “is it shyness or is this a major boundary”, but receive no answer or deeper investigation.

The facilitators, who have historically been the problematic personalities in the dramatis personae of the ISTA/Highden story, are barely referenced; The exception being the most recent episode, Episode 5, where we get a better sense of when and how they intervene and mediate the Highden experience to promote more intimate connections. Penn does try to balance when she is being given spiritual explanations for things with sharing the actual biological/biochemical explanation with the audience. However, since only 5 of 10 episodes are up, there is no clear point yet where Penn reflects that her perception has changed from it being a slightly weird/slightly edgy summer sex camp to feeling comfortable calling it a sex cult.