Be kind for a Neo-Tantra event
Neo-Tantra or Spiritual Tantra comes with its own set of beliefs, mainly from the New Age.
The two main difficulties for a scientist, skeptic, or zetetician venturing into a Neo-Tantra event are:
- Understanding the lexical field used: For this, this New Age <=> Tantra between Skeptics rosette table should help you
- Respect the different beliefs that circulate in Neo-Tantra events.
It is important to distinguish between what is said by the facilitators, who will usually use the lexical field taken up by the New Age (chakras, energy, yoni, lingam...) mainly to explain an exercise or a massage, so you just need to have your Rosetta's stone in mind to understand what is being said, and the informal discussions between participants during breaks and meals, whose content can be much more complicated for a skeptic to handle.
**The goal is clearly not to change the beliefs of the participants, and it is much easier to avoid getting into the details of how we understand the world via scientific methodology and zetetics.
So when we go to a Tantra workshop, we go first for self.
It is important to prepare yourself mentally for these informal discussions, as there may be topics that will be considered Truth by the group.
Also, scientific medicine and science in general will be considered topics and/or practices to avoid.
Topics that may be discussed
- Shamanism
- Naturopathy
- Family constellation
- Sweat lodge
- Lithotherapy
- Reiki
- Homeopathy
- Quantum medicine
- Antivax
- Astrology
- Witchcraft
- Radiesthesia
- ...
Some tips to stay zen
- Change the conversation or walk away when these topics come up.
- Try to explain that we have a different world view, but this may make the audience tense.
- Imagine traveling back in time, to a time when science was a minority, and projecting yourself to a time when New Age beliefs were in the majority and science was very little present in daily life.
conclusion
It is important to focus on the practices and not on the explanations given, most Neo-Tantra events are very much about practice and spend very little time on explanations.
It also allows you to work on your empathy and respect skills face to face, even if it is sometimes complicated on some subjects like vaccination or 5G.
Finally, it is quite possible that none of these topics will be discussed, or even that you will meet other skeptics in tantra training, who knows?