Sacred sexuality http://templelife.tv Mystic Mother Tracy Elise talks about tantra and the differences between patriarchal and matriarchal churches. In God-based religions, sex and spirit are separate whereas in Goddess-based religions, sex and spirit are one. http://phoenixgoddesstemple.org
Dear Ones,
Tracy has been in jail for over a MONTH. Her next court date is this WED. The judge will be hearing the motion to
Mother Priestess Tracy Elise
Reduce her UNREASONABLE bail (1 Million Dollars!) Let's pray that this amount gets drastically reduced so she can come home.
The judge and system needs to know it is NOT acceptable to break into a church, automatic weapons drawn, throwing women to the ground, smashing altars and sending its priestess to prison.
In order to stand up for PEACE we (friends, lovers, supporters) can show up to court with an open heart, professionally dressed, with a single fresh flower as a sign to let the judge and judicial system that this is NOT an open-closed prostitution case.
Court support has been PROVEN to help the judge see where the people stand and make a fair ruling! It is also an opportuntiy for us to show our support for Mother Priestess Tracy who has been CUT OFF from her community for too long!
If you are anywhere in PHX or have the means please meet us for a prayer circle in front of the the court at 8am.
If you are NOT in PHX please light a candle and say a prayer for FREEDOM wherever you are.
Details:
Court Date is set for October 12, at 8:30.She will be appearing before Judge McMurdie. He is in the East Court Building, Room 413, Maricopa County Superior Court. 101 West Jefferson, Phoenix, 85003. It's an open hearing so let's fill the courtroom with support!
I am proud to be a sharer of Tantrra Yoga knowledge and techniques for over 32 years. There are many technical, legal differences between practicing Tantra, teaching Tantra, doing Tantric healing, and running a Temple that uses a variety of techniques that might be breaking the law. I am in agreement that archaic laws about prostitution should be repealed.
Source School of Tantra has trained over 200 teachers in the art of teaching Tantra Yoga and none have had a problem with the law. There are big differences in the many six day "Tantra teaching certifications courses" and Source Tantra's two year certification training.
I have personally taught over 35,000 students the "Tantra : the Art of Conscious Loving" course" and know that Tantra Yoga is needed in the USA. Stand tall as teachers of conscious sexuality and continue your study and teaching.
.
I believe that Tracy Elise is genuine in her beliefs and that she has helped many seekers through her work. Please stand behind her emotionally and financially as you would for any friend that has had a serious tragedy befall them. I Join you in prayers and meditation for the protection of all the people involved in this travesty of justice, liberty and freedom.
The Sedona Temple surely deserves our help. They are mainly an educational organization and Baba Dez has served selflessly in educating the world about the positive benefits of sacred sexuality. I know Dez as friend, student an co-worker in bringing light to our least enlightened areas. He is a good man!
Niki is a pure and innocent person who has served Baba Dez and the Sedona Temple selflessly. She deserves all our support.
To all of you, I ask that you please do not let the darkness of your own fearful mind run your life. Catch it every time it wanders in that direction. That is the big battle at this time in our history. Fear is the greatest power of the forces of darkness. I ask you to remember "what happens to a dark room, when a light comes on? SHINE friends and seekers. You are the Light of the world - AWAKENING!
Charles Muir,
CHECK OUT THIS LINK:
http://webtalkradio.net/2011/09/26/sex-and-happiness-%E2%80%93-raids-on-the-phoenix-and-sedona-goddess-temples/
Laurie 
Handlers gathers a group of seasoned sex workers, sexological body workers, surrogates, and “dakinis” from around the US to discuss the recent September 7th government raids on the Phoenix and Sedona Goddess Temples that led to the arrest of perhaps twenty individuals on charge of prostitution and what these raids mean to the rest of society.
The panelists include: Betty Martin, Mare Simone, Scott Catamas, EveLynn and Shama Helena. The conversation is rich with the life experiences of these panelists who know about how our society is challenged and starved for touch. It would seem that bringing pleasure to a body can be interpreted as prostitution rather than pleasure for pleasure’s sake or healing during religious ritual’s sake between two consenting adults.
At the conclusion of the show, I discuss what options you (the listener) have if you’d like to support or make a difference in the outcome of this very tricky case against Tracy Elise, the Found-Her of the temples.
Dear Tantra/Goddess/Sexual Shamanism/Tribe,
As you know I am embroiled in a legal precedent setting case where in our religious practices around anointing, chakra balancing and sacred sexuality teachings are being challenged by the state of Arizona. Our entire Temple family is under extreme duress and we need your help with prayers and letters.
Many of you have attended lectures or trainings given by me and others at the temples in Seattle, Sedona, Scottsdale and Phoenix. Many of you have chosen not to do hands on (one-on-one) healing practices out of fear of this very scenario. What is needed (besides a patron with an activist nature and money to contribute) is letters testifying to the sincerity and traditional authenticity of our religious practices. These initial letters have to do with our religion, the sincerity of my/our practices to alleviate the common suffering around the root chakra/sex energy.
If you feel so called you may also comment on my integrity as a Temple Found-Her, teaching and leading minister in our national movement.
Most of you have not had private ritual sessions with me and so you need not comment on that. We are looking for character witnesses who can attest to my long-term commitment, past, present and future, to bringing these ancient practices to light in the 21st century.
Our religions of Tantra, Goddess Worship and Sexual Shamanism are under grave attack. Twenty letters from peers are needed at this time as "20" is the number of awakening.
Send your letters and comments to: TracyElise@gmail.com
I remain In Her Service,
Goddess Bless,
Tracy Elise
For those writing letters please email john@vigilaw.com
RAID ON TEMPLES IN SEDONA AND PHOENIX
mystic sisters and tracy elise
Sedona and Phoenix temples of an Arizona-based church were raided by police SWAT teams on the evening of Wednesday, September 7, 2011. This invokes images of black-masked, rifle-toting police officers ramming open the doors of a church and hauling out, in handcuffs, priests who were in the middle of their prayers and meditations. In this police raid, it was not priests who were arrested, but instead eleven “clergywomen,” or “Mystic Sisters” as they call themselves, were taken into custody and charged with Prostitution. The church? Phoenix Goddess Temple.
NOT YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S CHURCH – UNLESS SHE PRACTICES “SACRED LOVE HEALING”
Phoenix Goddess Temple has garnered a lot of attention, both from the media and from law enforcement. On the Phoenix Goddess Temple’s website, www.phoenixgoddesstemple.org, they state:
Our temple is an open source for all who wish to better know the Great Mother and her unique gifts for healing body, mind and soul. We seek to help women, men and couples discover their own divine connection between soul, light body and sacred vessel. Ours is the universe of the Ma-Matter-Mother! We offer group classes and one-on-one teachings and training, play shops and internships, all designed to bring HER wisdom back in this modern era. Our teachings are body centric, emanating from the resonating vessel, which is your own Sacred Self. We see the beauty of every person's story in every age, body shape, color and gender. Our healing practices make use of the gifts of the Goddess, tools for transformation that have been with humanity since the very beginning. We bring to you the Mother's bosom and body, the healing power of nurturing touch, sacred plant use (herbs & foods, essential oils, crystals & stones) together with sounds, music, and love. We also work with the Father's gifts of intention, will, self-direction and positive light polarity.
As a Neo Tantra Temple, we bring together many traditions which guide us into right and loving use of the life force within our bodies. As Priests & Priestesses, we conduct this heavenly light into the physical plane, likewise, we lift form into higher frequencies of heaven! This up-down pillar of light exchanges continuously between heaven and earth, body, soul and Source. You can feel whole and happy again in your body, you can feel safe with or without a partner near by. Your special matrix in this life source is YOURS to conduct and belongs to none other.
We invite you to:
• Relax deeply on the Altar of the Light Body in the candle-lit Transformation Chamber
• Feel the light of your own soul, located in your solar plexus
• Experience your light body and feel the chakra wheels spinning your self into physical existence
• Feel the magnetic polarity between men and women
• Learn to conduct and direct this powerful life force energy in closed 'conduits' which magnify feeling
• Experience an exhilarating shift in your energy field and come away happy and refreshed!! No part of you is ever left out when you are in the presence of the Mother, our Divine Creatrix of physical form.
I DON’T THINK WE’RE IN KANSAS ANYMORE, TOTO
This is definitely not your parents’ church, unless your parents were hanging out in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district or involved in the counter-culture movement of the 60s and 70s. What the “Mystic Sisters” are preaching can’t even be called “New Age” because it’s been around for thousands of years, it just wasn’t and still is not mainstream.
Advertised on the front page of their website is an event that sounds like an advanced community college class for very open-minded individuals:
Friday Night Sex Ed For All Classes
Every Friday evening, 7-9pm
Sept. 9: Introduction to Latihan w/ Laurie Handlers
Sept. 16: Phoenix Tantra Meetup w/ Jewel
Sept. 23: Sacred Sexuality: A Meditation on Reframing w/ Rev. Lynea Luv
The sisters have not been shy about their special type of salvation. They have a website where they promote their religion to the world. They’ve been featured on television and radio. The Sisters use social networking and tech-savvy marketing techniques to get their “good word” out, employing the use of sites such as Meetup.com, Facebook, and so on. They use the internet like nobody’s business to promote their sacred love religion, and it’s their business that has brought them to the attention of the police. And the recent raids by the police upon their holy temples have brought them not just local, but national and world-wide media attention.
CHARGES INCLUDE FELONIES AND MISDEMEANORS
In addition to being charged with prostitution, a violation of Arizona Revised Statute (A.R.S.) § 13-3208, several of the defendants were also charged with “Illegal Control of an Enterprise” and “Employee of a House of Prostitution,” violations of A.R.S. § 13-3214. Arizona Revised Statute § 13-3211 provides definitions relevant to prostitution and the business of it:
1. "Employee" means a person who conducts lawful or unlawful business for another person under a master-servant relationship or as an independent contractor and who is compensated by wages, commissions, tips or other valuable consideration.
2. "House of prostitution" means any building, structure or place that is used for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness or where acts of prostitution occur.
3. "Operate and maintain" means to organize, design, perpetuate or control. Operate and maintain includes providing financial support by paying utilities, rent, maintenance costs or advertising costs, supervising activities or work schedules, and directing or furthering the aims of the enterprise.
5. "Prostitution" means engaging in or agreeing or offering to engage in sexual conduct under a fee arrangement with any person for money or any other valuable consideration.
6. "Prostitution enterprise" means any corporation, partnership, association or other legal entity or any group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity engaged in providing prostitution services.
WILL THE CONSTITUTION BE THEIR HAIL MARY? QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, among other things, freedom of religion, speech, and assembly. When James Madison was contemplating what the Bill of Rights should include, I wonder if he was thinking about a religion steeped in “body centric” practices, what some would call a sex-based church.
Were the Sisters engaged in prostitution or were they engaged in religious activity? That may be a matter of opinion and because the arrests were only just made, more likely than not, at the time this was written, evidence obtained by the police has not yet been disclosed to the defense attorneys nor to the media.
Do the Sisters and their parishioners have a defense? Possibly. Plea offers will be made by the state and it is likely that many of the defendants will accept them. But it is also very likely that an ambitious, constitutionally-minded defense attorney will zealously try to get the charges against the Mystic Sisters dismissed based upon the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Because it is the State of Arizona, and not the federal government, responsible for prosecuting those involved in the Phoenix Goddess Temple, does the First Amendment apply in this case? Yes, if the defendants are claiming that the actions which form the basis for offenses they are accused of committing are actually a part of their religious activities.
The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the First Amendment applicable to the states. In a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Stevens wrote for the majority, “The first Clause in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ The Fourteenth Amendment imposes those substantive limitations on the legislative power of the States and their political subdivisions.” Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 US 290, 301 (2000). The city of Phoenix and other towns and municipalities in Arizona are political subdivisions.
How serious are the crimes the Sisters are accused of committing? The crime of prostitution is classified as a class 1 misdemeanor offense, unless the accused has previously been convicted of prostitution three or more times, then it is a class 5 felony. The offense of being employed by a prostitution enterprise is a class 1 misdemeanor. Operating a prostitution enterprise is a class 5 felony. For information on the difference in misdemeanors and felonies, go www.searslegal.com and click on Criminal Defense and then either Misdemeanors or Felonies.
If I do something in the name of my religion, and that act is considered a crime, can I get the charge dismissed by invoking the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause? Not necessarily. In 1980, the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals issued a two paragraph decision in a case where the defendant argued that “because he is forced to pay social security taxes, his freedom of religion has been violated.” Kelley v. Terry, 629 F.2d 572 (9th Cir., 1980). The Ninth Circuit Court noted that the “same contentions and arguments have been presented to the Supreme Court of the United States,” and that that “court has rejected them and so must we.” Id. citing Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548 (1937). So citing your religious beliefs as a basis for not paying taxes would not fly. However, the Supreme Court of the United States and Congress have exempted the use of peyote for religious purposes. See Controlled Substance Act. Also, the use of other similar plant-based products or drugs have been exempted for the same reason. See Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal, 546 US 418 (2006).
If the Sisters fight their charges and invoke religion, they might cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 as their saving grace, so to speak. The following is a link to the RFRA: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sup_01_42_10_21B.html.
WHAT THEY NEED NOW IS A GOOD DEFENSE
While the Mystic Sisters of the Phoenix Goddess Temple might need some prayers and divine intervention, what they really need is a good Arizona criminal defense attorney who understands the constitutional arguments that may be involved in their case. And the Sisters need an Arizona criminal defense lawyer who has experience in defending clients charged with the offenses of prostitution, controlling an illegal enterprise, and other related crimes. Remember the Desert Divas case? The Desert Divas case truly involved an illegal enterprise. That case was interesting.
The Phoenix Goddess Temple case could be a lot of fun, not only to watch, but also to defend. This might be a case where the name “John” could be used to invoke the term for a client of a prostitute and the name of John Adams, one of the founding fathers of our country. Just writing that felt sacrilegious, and not because I was demeaning clients of prostitutes. The big question here, is the Phoenix Goddess Temple really a church that practices a non-traditional religion? Are there practices protected by the Constitution? That will be for a judge or jury to decide.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Charles Sears is a criminal defense attorney licensed in Arizona. As a former police detective sergeant, having worked for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Phoenix Police Department, Mr. Sears brings a unique background to his work as an Arizona criminal defense attorney. Mr. Sears’ experience is useful to his clients’ criminal defense cases.
Arizona criminal defense lawyer Leslie LeMense works on many criminal defense cases with Mr. Sears. Ms. LeMense, who is of counsel to the Law Office of Charles Sears, PLLC, has been practicing in the area of criminal law for 14 years. A former major felony crimes prosecutor and supervisor for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Ms. LeMense’ experience as a prosecutor is also useful to her clients’ cases.
Together, Mr. Sears and Ms. LeMense make a formidable criminal defense legal team, offering experience, insight, and knowledge that few other Arizona criminal defense lawyers can.
Call the Law Office of Charles Sears, PLLC, to schedule your consultation now: 602-687-7676
