A year before the police entered four “epicentres of inner evolution” of the largest ayahuasca sect and arrested 18 members, the Prosecutor’s Office for Minors received a report from the Delegation of Social Rights of the Marbella Town Hall which warned that there were “minors at risk” within Inner Mastery, according to CASO ABIERTO, the investigation and events channel of Prensa Ibérica.
This complaint, which arose as a result of an intervention that the Juvenile Team of the city council carried out with the children, under 12 years of agethe report, together with another report prepared by the Marbella Addiction Care Center, was the basis for the intervention of the National Police within the framework of the ‘operation Kambó’the operation was carried out last June in Madrid, Malaga, Ibiza and Gerona, but was unveiled this month.
“Two moms”
“Under the guise of freedom of parenting and respect for the decisions of the child, they may be committing important negligence of minors in the group”, warns one of these reports in possession of the police and the judge. The report, signed by the head of the Group Dependency Program of the Marbella City Council, José Miguel Cuevasreports that some followers of Inner Mastery have their children “unschooled” or with “significant school absenteeism”, according to the evidence and testimonies gathered by the experts.
It points out that the following have been detected “socialization problems” in these minors and warns that they could find themselves in serious “risk of isolation”in addition to being exposed to “serious health risks” by having “access to drugs in their own homes”.
“There are indications and testimonies that there are minors who are left very frequently in the care of third parties. For example, there are children who come to express naturally that they have ‘two moms’, referring to a caregiver or group member as ‘mom’, as opposed to a caregiver or group member as ‘mom’ their real mother, who apparently did not live at the same address,” explains the specialist, an expert in treating cult victims and their families.
Alert from a school
“It must be taken into account that in these organizations it is frequent that the benefit of the group (and the interests of the leader) are above all else, also above the needs of the minors. Specifically, in this group there are testimonies and reports that point to the fact that minors have been abruptly moved from one place to another, some of them are not attending school or have significant absenteeism”, it states. In this sense, the report includes a complaint from a school alerting about the “non-compliance with the rules of the center” by several students and “lack of interest” on the part of their legal guardians.”followers of Inner Mastery.
The management team of this center even brought to the attention of Social Rights that children “were not dressed appropriately” o “they stopped going to school because the child didn’t feel like going.”.
“Children present in rituals”
The report of the Marbella Addiction Care Center also notes its “concern” that “the taking of ayahuasca, kambó and other drugs consumed by the followers of Inner Mastery are performed in homes where there are minors living together“. And he adds that “these consumptions are carried out not only by people from the children’s family system, but also in rituals where dozens of people are exposed to the effects of these drugs. There are testimonies describing that minors are in adjoining rooms in these shots, as well as testimonies that affirm that the children are present at the time of the ritual“.
Specialists recall that what group members know as “ancestral resources” it is actually about “hallucinogenic drugs”and that these “can have somewhat unpredictable consequences for people who are usually vulnerable and who come to the retreats on the basis of supposedly mental health problems“. Therefore, “it cannot be ruled out that minors may suffer from consequences derived from accidents caused by adults taking hallucinogenic drugs,” they say. A few days ago, CASO ABIERTO published the testimony of a former Inner Mastery apprentice who described how, during her time in the group, “there were psychotic outbreaks in all the rituals”.
Moreover, these drugs are “present in the home and may be accessible to minors,” the report said. At least “on the days when rituals are practiced.” Substances that are “extolled by Inner Mastery members, who consider them to be ‘medicines for the soul or for the spirit'”which entails a increased risk of consumption by minors“and that “they could be growing up in an environment in which illegal drug use is openly extolled and advocatedall in a very mystical and alternative environment that flies in the face of the norms of the social world,” he adds.
Sex and ayahuasca
The youtuber Carles Tamayo infiltrated an Inner Mastery commune in 2022 and witnessed how the minors lived: “The first thing that surprises me when I arrive at the commune is to find that there are several children there, even though it is Thursday morning…. children, with the risk for a minor to be in an environment like this,” he explains in one of his videos, in which a former member of the group assures that there “the kids see things they shouldn’t see: for example, people who are under the effects of ayahuasca and are having sex“.
According to reports sent to the Police and the District Attorney’s Office, Inner Mastery “offers personal growth pseudotherapies“According to them, they work with a team of more than 200 health professionals, but they do not show any health registration number on the web and we have no evidence that they have any registered health activity. In fact, as ‘Inner Mastery’ there is no record of any health center in Andalusia, although in Marbella they have had an office in which they carry out pseudo-health activities”.
The head of the Group Dependency Program in Marbella criticizes “the paradox that they offer to treat addictions through drug use, in a supposedly controlled and assisted environment, but which, it seems, has no health authorization, following some of the most important and most important aspects of the program” practices closer to shamanism and sectarianism than to that of a health practice”.
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