The Binge Crimes: Night Shift - Mystic Mother | 8. Seekers

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

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Just a note before we get started. This episode deals with some sensitive subjects, including sex and sexual assault. Please take care as you listen. Hi, Ben. How's my son, son? This is a call between Ben and Tracy after her conviction. She's in the Estrella Women's Jail in Phoenix, awaiting her sentence. Tracy says it's hard to be in there, but she seems in good spirits. You know, when I'm sitting here in the Estrella Women's Jail, yep, there it is. You know, I just hang on to what the story is really about. It's not even about me.

It's not about our family. It's not about even the Phoenix Temple or the Sedona Temple. It's about everybody. It's about everybody having access to these beautiful ancient teachings which help us integrate and balance, you know, the life force. So I'm excited. I'm, you know, the life force. So I'm excited. I'm, you know, feeling better. Ben makes sure there's money in her commissary, and he updates her on the media coverage of her case.

He says they're going to be on Inside Edition, and she's on track to becoming a household name. Soon people around the world will hear about their family's sacrifice for the mother. And Tracy's grateful for that. I'm so proud of you, Ben. I know for you and Sylvie and Daniel, it probably feels like you didn't choose this. You know, like, I know for Sylvie, she feels like she got sucked into her mother's vortex. But the truth is that we all, at the soul level, came in to do something with our soul's energy and power.

And I think this is my thing that I said that I would do, is to make it so that the Mother's Temples could exist in a world of fathers' churches and fathers' synagogues and fathers' mosques. You know, there needs to be this aspect of the sacred feminine. Since I'm living in the United States of America, I know that I can have my religious freedom to think otherwise. I can think otherwise if I want to. And I can pray and practice and have ceremony that, you know, is different than what it says in the book of Genesis.

I'm learning, you know, we always have the power to bless. And how we bless is we give love and gratitude. It's that simple. Love and gratitude for what's been given to us this day. So that's my little message from jail on the 19th of March. Ben is one of several people to write letters to the judge on Tracy's behalf. He begs her to give his mom the minimum sentence. He says she's sincere in her beliefs and she did her best at trial.

But Tracy was convicted of 21 felonies. And there's still a chance she could face decades in prison. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to Witnessed, Mystic Mother. Episode 8, Seekers. Hey, Witness listeners. This is Josh Dean, your host of the season Fade to Black, and I'm here to tell you about a new mystery mobile game to give you something to do when you've finished the latest season of Witnessed. Everyone loves a good family mystery, especially one with as many twists and turns as June's journey. Step into the role of June Parker

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Tracy's conviction was really hard on her kids and her family, especially her mom. Here's her sister Shelly again. She just wanted it to stop. She didn't want to see Tracy go to jail. Nobody wants to see their child go to jail. It was hard visiting my sister to jail. Nobody wants to see their child go to jail. It was hard visiting my sister in jail. I couldn't wrap my brain around it.

To me, when there's so much other true evil, there's a lot bigger problems in the world. But the family stood behind Tracy. And in many ways, it brought them closer together. Probably around the time of the trial, I was starting to feel disillusionment with my own church in what I thought loving people meant in my faith. Shelly used to be part of a fundamentalist Christian church. I remember deciding to seek to understand her.

If I really loved her, I wanted to understand her and meet her where she was at. So I started asking a lot more questions from a place of true curiosity instead of judgment. And I knew that it was never about Tracy's ego. It was about setting a precedence for women in faith. And I admire her in her tenacity for that and her desire to make lasting changes for the sacred sexual community. And that female-led community is what some women miss most about the temple. Here's Tara. It was like some of the best time of my life. Like I said earlier, Tracy gave me a place to practice my very unusual spiritual practice.

She gave me a place to meet other women that did similar things. I loved my time at the temple. Even when I did feel slightly ostracized and kind of left out, I loved my time at the temple. It was really a magical time for me, with a lot of really weird characters in it. In a letter for the judge, one woman wrote, it's what dreams, stories, and fairy tales are made of. It still feels pretty genuine. It feels like she, because Tracy's the real deal.

Like Tracy, I mean, she, um, she really believes in the goddess and she believed everything she did was to help mankind. Arizona v. Tracy Elise, this is the time set for sentencing and mitigation hearing. Appearances for the record, please. At her sentencing hearing, Tracy had another opportunity to speak freely. And she doesn't take that privilege for granted. She said she's grateful that she lives in a country where she won't be killed for her beliefs or her actions. God bless. It's been a long journey. I wanted to thank you, Your Honor. I accepted the danger, every bit of this going forward, when I turned down that plea bargain that would have put me in

DOC for three months and then let me go. I turned that down because I thought to myself, I'm a 50 year old five-year-old mom. I cannot pick up a gun and protect the constitution or this country even, but I can stand here in a court of law and keep going. And that's what I'm going to do. Whatever the cost to my freedom, whatever the cost to the money in my life, which I have none. And even when I had temple, I gave it all to the temple because it gave me, there's nothing I could spend money on that made me more joyful than seeing someone who'd been lost in sexual darkness find their way and then become a light. I believe in the state and the United States constitutions. And so here I stand, ready to be punished for believing everything that I was ever taught growing up, that I had freedom of religion, that the government would look at everything and then make its decision.

And everything about this has been ignored at this level. Thank you. And I have one last thing. Oh, beautiful for patriot dreams that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears. America, America. God mend thine every flaw. Concern thy soul with self-control. By liberty in law. And crown thy good with sisterhood from sea to shining sea. Namaste.

The prosecution took all of Tracy's family and community support into consideration when recommending her sentence. And since these are nonviolent crimes and she has no criminal history, they suggested a mitigated sentence. They're not saying she should go away for life, but they're not recommending the minimum either. I don't dispute that when she is in session, she is trying to do what her religion tells her she needs to do. But the reality was she brought in all of these women who didn't believe what she believed and convinced them to do things they didn't want,

in many cases, didn't want to do. We don't think it's appropriate that she has multiple accounts stacked or anything like that. But what went on at the Phoenix Goddess Temple was purely and simply a workaround. But she continued to do it because there is nothing that will stop her. Ms. Elise wanted to make this a worldwide movement.

She is going to continue to do this because she frankly has no respect for this court or the criminal justice system. Tracy is sentenced to four and a half years in prison. And because she's already spent time in jail awaiting trial, she'll serve less than three years. After the sentencing, she was still submitting long, handwritten motions detailing all the ways she didn't receive a fair trial. And with the help of her family, she begins a lengthy appeals process

to take her case to the Arizona Supreme Court. The deputies and the guards were up there talking about changes that were going to happen on the two yards. We had an A yard and a B yard. And I heard this voice in the back that said, you know, I think it would be really great if we could have some public broadcasting television on so we could get some education. And I swung my head around and there was Tracy with her, You know, she has this glowing aura. That's after the break. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.

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This is Jules. She met Tracy in prison. And she says even in prison, Tracy was outspoken and a leader. So Jules went up to Tracy and introduced herself. They were kept in different yards, but there was a track where they could meet up and walk leader. So Jules went up to Tracy and introduced herself. They were kept in different yards, but there was a track where they could meet up and walk together. And so when the guards unlocked the door first thing in the morning, like five o'clock, Tracy and I were out on the track and we began walking in the morning together. And that's when she began to share her stories with me.

I hadn't been there very long and you can imagine I'm a 60-year-old and I'm in prison for the one and only time in my life. So picture this. Tracy is a tall goddess, blonde. She's probably five foot nine and I'm five foot four. I'm shorter and I have dark hair and dark skin. So we were an unlikely team and we were the ones who like navigated toward each other. Jules was fascinated by Tracy and impressed by her knowledge of Tantra and the goddess. Tracy even DIY'd her own tarot cards. She drew them from memory. She had every tarot card that she made out of the

paper that the prison gave us. And actually, she had them colored. She colored a lot. It was like one of the things she did for her sanity. She colored and she drew beautiful pictures of each one of these goddesses. And everybody would pick one of these beautiful cards that Tracy made. And then she would go through and talk about who they were, what their spiritual significance was for the women and how that could relate to their home life, to their family life. It was beautiful. That was such a blessing for those women, for myself, for us to be able to continue, you know, growing spiritually and having that conversation. Jules said the other women seem interested too. In prison, you're not supposed to touch. And even though Tracy could

still pray and minister to the women about the goddess, not having physical contact was hard. Jules said they'd rub each other's hands with scented lotion as a way of taking care of each other. So Jules told us that she and Tracy decided to find a way they could all gather and worship together. Because even in prison, you still have religious freedom. We created our own Wiccan church. It seemed to be the best fit for what we were doing since there were no goddess churches available on the list of available, you know, type of spiritual beliefs. So we put on music. We did some meditation and some prayers about our families back home.

Sometimes Tracy led those and sometimes I led those. And we got up and did some dancing and some prayers to the goddesses. And we just created a ritual around it. You know, she has a very strong personality and strong opinions, but her aura is so kind and gentle. So when she would share with people, she always had the big smile on her face. She put lipstick on.

She always looked sweet and pleasant and approachable. So I would say she had a certain amount of respect from people. They left her alone. There weren't people that were trying to pick fights with her, which is very common in the prison system. So people who were drawn to her were drawn to her. And those who were not, were not. In 2019, Tracy was released from prison.

And Shelley says the experience changed her in some ways. She was forced to be still in prison. And I think she's a better listener. At least that's what I've experienced in my relationship with her. She listens and she asks a lot more questions about me. She's not as much in her head, if that makes sense. But in other ways, she's still the same. Shelley says Tracy's still really close with her kids. And as far as we know, she doesn't have plans to open another temple. Tracy's attempts to appeal her case have failed.

Technically, she can still practice her religion. But she can't receive donations for obvious reasons. This was a major point of contention during the trial, and it's something Tracy brings up in her appeal. What Tracy called a donation, the state called a fee. But Tracy said the temple was thousands of dollars in debt, and Shelley says money is still a concern. It cracks me up. People want to say it was around money that she, you know, they made money on this. And it's never been about the money. Tracy has never, her relationship with money is

probably more like a monk, you know, just let it go. Now she's a felon. And that really bothers my mom. She's still angry about the path that this has put Tracy on. There are lasting consequences of having a felony conviction, even after you've served your time, and even if you haven't served time at all. After she pleaded guilty to illegal enterprise, Nicole, who we heard from in a previous episode, was sentenced to probation. When she first went to the temple, she said she was suffering from severe health issues, which made it difficult to work. But because of the conditions of her probation, she had to work. Part of the conditions of my probation

was that I had to get a job and keep a job, which is a lot harder said than done when you have a brand-new felony in the state of Arizona. And then in addition, I had to have a home, a safe roof, to put over my son's head if I wanted to keep custody of him. In my job search, obviously my options were very limited, so I ended up considering jobs that I never ever would have otherwise. Valina Beattie, a law professor at Arizona State University, says there are lots of licenses and professions that are just not accessible to someone like Nicole, who has a criminal record. At least not until she has her record expunged. How is someone supposed to leave

sex work that is by necessity if we're boxing them out from being able to support themselves in legal ways, in healthy ways? So I really, I'm just, I'm so saddened by this story, but not surprised at all. When Nicole applied for a job as a cab driver, she says the owner of the company told her he was going to run a background check. So she decided to be upfront about her record. So I came clean with him that I have a brand new felony. It's not even a month old. And of course, then the question comes, well, what were your charges? And as soon as I mentioned that it was linked to the Phoenix Goddess Temple, the expression on his face completely changed.

He hired me. The way that he treated me on the job and off the job was horrible. She was allegedly sexually assaulted by her then boss, but she didn't think she would be believed, so she didn't report it. And I was still terrified that he was going to fire me. I was going to go back to jail. I was going to, you know. And I knew the police would not believe me. I'm a brand new felon. Like, who would they believe? More than a decade later, Nicole is still dealing with the stigma around having a felony record and her

past experience with sex work. I'm afraid of what people are going to think. I'm afraid of not being allowed to be something different for the rest of my life. Of being called this forever and ever and never being allowed to live that down. These are choices that I really don't feel like I had any other choice. But it was just messy and complicated. I feel this need to prove myself, to prove that I'm not some kind of a bad, evil person. And yet I still feel all the time like there is just no way I will ever be allowed to live down what happened. I hope and pray for the day that I can honestly put this behind me, not just in my actions and the way that I live, but in my thoughts and in my dreams, and to the day

where I don't think about it anymore. I can live a normal life and do things that make me happy because they make me happy, not because I'm afraid of not being good enough in somebody else's eyes. In the last decade, attitudes around sex and sex work have started to shift around the world. There's been a resurgence of body and sex positivity, which has roots in the sexual liberation movement of the 60s. And a lot of Tracy's ideas around sex and sexual healing are becoming more mainstream today.

In 2021, a sexological body worker performed an intimate, hands-on session in an episode of Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix series Sex, Love, and Goop. And her work is actually legal in California. And the Washington Post recently reported on a woman who went viral after posting her previous experience in sex work on LinkedIn. New Zealand decriminalized prostitution in 2003,

and many consider it to be a successful model for other countries because government regulations offer sex workers protections from violence, STDs, and exploitation. And there's a lot of debate about whether sex work should be decriminalized or legalized in the U.S. Tracy's friend, Kamala Devi, says there's even debate about this within her Tantra community. It's amazing to me that this story started about a decade ago and that it's continuing the way that it is. It's impacted people's lives irreparably. And I would say that it did polarize the community in some ways, and it brought the community together in other ways.

When the raids happened and the community itself took stock, like it was a moment to look in and say, what is being considered illegal. There tends to be a separation between people who are like, sex workers' rights, we need to legalize prostitution, and people who are like, tantra is not prostitution, and we need to educate the world that tantra and sacred sexuality is like sacred and healing. Then there's a divide in the community who are both towards, you know, that ultimately they want sexual empowerment, but that polarization actually kind of fractured the community. Sex workers in various states have been organizing and gaining some successful traction at least being heard to actually stop arresting sex workers, kind of like how New York, you know, doesn't arrest for minor weed infractions.

Crystal Jackson says activists have achieved some progress in recent years. For example, in New York, condoms are no longer used as evidence for arrests. And in Louisiana, a law was repealed that required sex workers convicted of prostitution to register as sex offenders. But federal laws are much slower to change.

It'll be interesting to see as sex workers themselves are arguing more and more for full decriminalization at the same time as end-demand folks are arguing for what they call the decriminalization via the Nordic model, like which one's going to win out and how those things will actually be applied. So, yeah, I don't think we're going to become like New Zealand anytime soon, unfortunately. But where women's rights have taken two steps forward, the courts have taken us 10 steps back. The Supreme Court's monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has already had a devastating impact, stripping millions of Americans of their right to choose. So there's still plenty of shame to go around. Here's Tara again.

This was a huge part of my life. It was a huge part of making me who I am. And I abandoned it. I did not leave the work in a really conscious kind of way. After the trial happened, I never spoke to another person about what happened. And I abandoned it out of shame. I felt ashamed of what I had done. I felt ashamed of my work and my spiritual practice, and I abandoned it in order to gain the acceptance of some people. It's internalized misogyny and it's internalized patriarchy is what it is.

And when you don't let a woman do the kind of work that she wants to do, that's telling her that her body is not her own. And again, where are the men? That temple would have never existed if there weren't thousands of men that came through there on a monthly basis, willingly giving their money to women for sex. But not one of them was convicted of anything. And so agreeing to do the interview with you was like a reclamation for me.

Going back and reclaiming a really powerful part of myself and a significant part of my story. Nicole is refusing to let her past define her. I do find moments of joy here and there. It takes a lot of conscious work for me to try and let go enough in a moment where I can actually allow some joy in. And, you know, I think about my son and everything, and that's a bit of a double-edged sword because I look at him and I smile and I absolutely love the person that he is, but I always, always, always in the back of my mind

feel this very sharp twinge of pain when I think about him because I think of all of the harm that he had to go through and the pain that I had to endure watching him go through, and there was nothing that I could do. The damage was done, and I couldn't protect him. Her son is 14 years old now. He's a pain-in-the-butt teenager now. I love, oh, man, I just love being a mom.

He's got his first girlfriend right now. His first real, like, I'm super Twitter-pated, can't concentrate on anything, I can't remember if I ate five minutes ago type girlfriend. It's really weird as a mom to see my baby going through that. But it's also really cool. This is a very big healing opportunity for me to be able to watch my own child go through these milestones and these things that I never got a chance to go through, or to go through them the right way, the way it should have happened. It almost feels like I'm getting a do-over in a lot of ways. And to be able to preserve that magic of being a child and see his face light up and his eyes light up, you know, those were things that I lost very early on as a kid.

So to see that he still has that there is like best ever, best ever. Love being a mom. Rebecca Carrara hasn't seen anyone from the temple in years, but she still wonders about them. I think about different people from time to time and just wondering where they're at today and just feel bad. There's a lot. People suffer a lot. When she first joined the temple,

she'd been dealing with depression. And the raid, the arrests, the trial, it brought up a lot for her. I was sort of drinking a lot back then, just to numb the pain. And so, yeah, I kind of went into a depression. Yeah, so I did. After a while, I kind of went into a depression. Yeah, so I did.

After a while, I just let it go. I'm glad it's over and that I have a different life's purpose and it's more whole and fulfilling. Her kids are grown now and out of the house, and she's no longer with Kevin. When we met with her, she was working on a farm with little kids. are like totally opposite than my life used to be, but it's very fulfilling. And I take them out in the field, let them pick their own fruits and vegetables,

and there's a train ride out there, and it's like filled my soul. It's given me like some purpose and meaning. I went to the Goodwill, and I bought this overall dress. When I wear this big hat that's straw, I mean, there's no cleavage showing, and these little kids just love me. And we sing on McDonald's.

They sing it with me, and they enjoy it. And I don't know why I'm getting emotional, but it's such a sweet, wholesome job. It's just so pure and innocent. It really is. I like it. If you drive down 24th Street in Phoenix, the building that was once the Phoenix Goddess Temple is still there. When we went there last November, it looked mostly the same from the outside, with archways and a tiled roof. Just the main entrance was different.

It used to have a wooden, fuchsia-colored door. Now the door is glass. Inside, there's a 24-hour mental health crisis center. There's no sign of what it used to be. It used to be a place for seekers, who were all searching for something different. And part of that search for meaning is trying to put things neatly in a box. When we first started working on this story, people kept asking us, so is this place a temple or a brothel? Were these women healers or sex workers? And the answer isn't straightforward or convenient. For some of the women, a goddess temple, where sex is considered sacred and free of shame, was a dream fulfilled, and the polar opposite of their childhood experiences with religion. And for others, it was just a place to do work that society still doesn't fully accept.

And some women came to the temple seeking healing, but only found further harm, and in some cases, abuse. Sometimes the same people who lift us up are also the ones who bring us down. And sometimes we lose ourselves in the search. As for Rebecca, whatever she was searching for at the temple, she hasn't found it. But she's okay with that. Now I believe that there isn't a goddess. I don't even know if there's a god, but I say to God, you know, if there's a god out there, just show me the path and show me your way.

Maybe that is what the damn farm. Thank you so much. God, you guys. Right at the end there, those darn little kids. They're so cute. Sounds adorable. Thank you. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault or abuse, you can find help and resources at RAINN.org. That's R-A-I-N-N.org.

Or call their 24-7 confidential phone line at 1-800-656-4673. That's all for this season of Witnessed. Mystic Mother is a production of Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. It's hosted and created by me, Katie Hennick. And me, Leah Hennick. This series was reported by Sarah Ventry and written by Sarah Ventry and Emily Martinez. Additional reporting by Katie and Leah Hennick. Sarah Ventry is our managing producer. Our story editor and executive producer is Emily Martinez. Additional editing by Mike Meyer. Produced by Katie and Leah Hennick.

Associate producer, Sydney Fleischman. Additional production assistance from Mo Laborde and Ron Warner. A huge thank you to Rebecca Ross, our legal researcher. Our theme song was composed by Betsy Gans and Chris Norby and performed by Betsy Gans, Chris Norby, and John Rauhaus. It was recorded and mixed by Michael Krasner and mastered by Chris Norby. The series was sound designed and mixed by Claire Mullen. Our recording engineers are Mike DeLay and Gavin Rain at Real Voice LA. Special thanks to Campside's studio manager and mix engineer,

Ewan Lai-Tremuin, and Campside producer, Johnny Kaufman. Our fact-checkers are Sarah Smeeth and Callie Hitchcock. Additional research from Alex Yablon. Thanks to Debra Dawn, Hugh Urban, Susan Stieritz, Rianne Eisler, Sfrana Borkataki-Varma, Phoenix Kalita, Natalia Winkleman, and Miriam Wasser. And thanks to Tracy Elise, who gave Campside permission to use videos she created.

The Pat McMahon Show is a production of KAZT-TV. And a special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Aaliyah Papes, and Allison Haney. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriotis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scher. If you enjoyed Mystic Mother, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.