Women in Irish ‘cult’ encouraged to take part in sexual healing sessions with ‘master’

Former members of a cult-like group which once boasted 2,500 members in Ireland have told how some female members were encouraged to take part in sexual healing sessions with their “master” to rid themselves of “negative energy”.

Former soldier Dennis Curran, from Athy, Co. Kildare, was the leader of Japa Meditation Ireland – a group which had branches across the country who took part in meditations based around chanting mantras.

Mr Curran died earlier this month and was lauded at his funeral service on Friday where he was praised as “a beacon of light, a source of inspiration, a wellspring of love.”

Mourners at his well-attended funeral service in Newlands Cross cemetery were told that Mr Curran’s “healing touch helped countless individuals find solace and strength”.

They were also told he had “psychic abilities” which were a testament of his depth of his connection to the universe.

The chapel was packed for the service and many condolences online talked about how Mr Curran changed people’s lives for the better through Japa.

Japa is a form of meditation based around chanting mantras and, in itself is not an organisation, but there are groups around the world built around that form of meditation with a hierarchy of masters and disciples with a guru figure at the top.

However, a number of former members have told how they left the group after concluding it was a cult.

One woman told the Sunday World that Curran massaged her breasts as part of a “healing” session after telling her that energy in her chest was blocked and needed to be released through healing.

“When he did that in the room my body was paralysed. It was grooming, it wasn’t being nice or trying to help me, it was using me.”

She said the way the group worked was that there were masters and disciples.

“When I went to a healing with Dennis in Kildare he asked, ‘do you trust me, am I your master?’ And that’s when the inappropriateness comes in.

“A lot of women would have spoken about a tongue being stuck in their mouth. Their body being inappropriately touched, being told energy is stuck here but it’s never on your ankle or foot.”

She said Dennis described what was happening as tantra – a yogic practice developed on the Indian subcontinent which involves meditative and sexual practices.

She said she was aware of other women being encouraged to take part in tantra on visits to India with an Indian “master” based there. There is no suggestion any masters other than Curran and the Indian master were involved in tantra.

“They’re obviously not going to say to you I’m inappropriately touching you. What they say is, ‘it’s tantra. If you want to be a big master like Dennis you do tantra with me, if you want to attract a husband into your life you do tantra with me, if you’ve been sexually abused as a child, you have negative energy from that sexual abuse and if you do tantra with me that changes that negative energy’.

“None of the men were asked to do tantra. They weren’t trying to ride men here.”

She said she didn’t know if Dennis genuinely believed in tantra or not.

“You can see the logic in it but the way they used it was manipulative. Did he believe he was doing tantra with me and it was changing my energy? Possibly so, if they really believed in it, why didn’t they do it with the men?

They didn’t say, ‘listen I’m going to stick my tongue in your mouth and then we’re going to do this.’

“You don’t know what’s coming afterwards. [For me] It was massaging. For me it wasn’t sexual intercourse, thank God. Other women have reported it was. For me it was clothes on and massaging.

“It was a horrible encounter. I didn’t let it happen a second time.

“I knew it was all bullsh*t. I knew he was not going to change my energy.”

Another former member of the group, who visited India a number of times, told the Sunday World that she was also aware of tantra taking place on the trips after a friend, who it happened to, confided in her.

It is understood no complaints were made to authorities about any of the incidents.

As well as being uncomfortable with the tantra element, former members say they paid large amounts of money for various courses and trips with the group believing they would be “healed” through Japa.

The second woman who spoke to the Sunday World, who also asked not to be named, said she spent tens of thousands of euro after becoming involved in Japa before leaving disillusioned.

“Behind it was an ulterior motive of getting as much money out of you as they can. They tell you they’re going to fix your life but end up f***ing you up more.”

She said she became involved when she was in a bad place in her life.

“It felt like everybody else was in a bad place as well, so you didn’t feel alone being in that bad place.”

She said it started with paying €20 for a two-hour group session but soon members were encouraged to take part in more sessions and more expensive courses.

“You were told you should be doing advanced meditation. You have to go to class every Sunday from maybe 10am to 5pm. That was €2,000.”

“When you completed that, If they thought they could talk people into becoming teachers they said you needed to do the teachers course and that would be €2,500.

“If you said you didn’t want to be a teacher they said maybe you should do the healer’s course. Then the healer’s course is €3,000.”

She said people were also encouraged to go to Dennis for psychic readings.

“You’d be sent to Dennis for a reading. He was supposed to be a psychic. He was no psychic, you’d see more through a window than he would.”

Members were also encouraged to go on expensive trips to India which cost €2,500 not including flights and this figure increased to €3,000 over time.

“It was this constant barrage of money that had to keep coming. People would say they didn’t have the money and they’d take out loans. I took out a loan myself to keep the money going.

“If you weren’t compliant you were shunned. They’d totally ignore you because you weren’t doing what they told you.”

She eventually left the group.

A man who was a former member said he spent around €30,000 on courses and trips before coming to the conclusion he was wasting his money.

He said he was never asked to take part in tantra.

“You could be talking €30,000 I lost. That’s big enough for me. Another friend of mine lost about €50,000. He copped on.”

Mike Garde, director of Dialogue Ireland, a group who assists victims of cults, researched Japa and told the Sunday World that 15 women contacted him saying they were former members and told him their concerns about how the group operated.

“They were groomed and came under ideological manipulation,.There was a culture that allowed this crap to happen and with hindsight women are now recognising they were groomed.”