What’s Being Called “Tantra” Today Simply Isn’t Tantra

After decades of study with legitimate lineage holders and many years immersed in the Neo-Tantra community, I need to say something that won’t make me popular: most of what’s called Tantra today is just therapy with Sanskrit words slapped on top.

 

I’m not writing this to be contrarian or to diminish anyone’s healing journey. I’m writing this because people deserve to know what they’re actually practicing—and what they’re not.

 

My Journey Through the Spiritual Marketplace

For years, I was a dedicated spiritual seeker, exploring everything from Buddhism and Sacred Geometry to Taoism and from Christian Judaic Abrahamic Religions to Wicca, Earth Magick and the Occult. When I encountered what was called “Tantra,” I initially mocked it. The lingerie-clad goddesses doing breathwork on Instagram, the weekend workshops promising sexual awakening, the grand claims about controlling sexual energy to become an ascended master—it all seemed like spiritual materialism dressed up as ancient wisdom with a lot of overpromising and underdelivering.

 

But I attended hundreds of those workshops anyway, believing I too could somehow transcend through sexual techniques. I studied with acclaimed teachers who claimed “downloads” from the divine and world-renowned facilitators who offered “business” systems I could adopt for success. I learned practices like yoni massage and lingam massage that were presented as ancient temple arts, and sacred spot massage and dearmouring techniques offered as paths to freedom and liberation.

 

Then I read Christopher Wallis’s “Tantra Illuminated” and everything changed.

 

The Uncomfortable Truth About Origins

Here’s what contemporary research reveals: most of the practices being taught as “ancient Tantra” were actually created in the West during the 20th century.

 

The specialized Tantric Lingam Massage? Developed by Dr. Joseph Kramer in 1982 (Kramer, 1993). Yoni massage? Created by Annie Sprinkle in collaboration with Kramer (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Modern Tantra Massage itself? Developed by Andro Rothe around 1978 in Berlin, Germany (Traditional Bodywork, 2024).

 

“Contemporary research has not found any references about Tantra Massage in traditional, ancient Tantric texts and literature” (Traditional Bodywork, 2024).

 

These aren’t ancient temple practices. They’re modern inventions created during America’s sexual revolution, then rebranded with Sanskrit terminology to sound more mystical.

 

What Traditional Tantra Actually Is

Traditional Tantra—the kind practiced for over 1,500 years in Kashmir Shaivism and other authentic lineages—looks nothing like what you see in weekend workshops.

 

In Sanskrit, tantra means “to weave” or “system.” Classical Tantra refers to “a spiritual movement which originated in the Indian subcontinent between the 3rd and 12th century… whose end-point is embodied liberation” (Wallis, 2013).

 

Traditional Tantra is primarily solo practice. Practitioners spend hours each day in meditation, breathwork (pranayama), and mantra recitation. They study complex philosophical texts like the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra or the Tantrāloka—dense Sanskrit works that require years to comprehend. The practice involves rigorous self-inquiry into the nature of consciousness itself, visualization practices (dharana), and the cultivation of specific states of awareness that reveal the non-dual nature of reality.

 

In traditional lineages, the guru-student relationship is sacred and demanding. Students would sit on their teacher’s doorstep for days, sometimes weeks, just to be considered worthy of receiving the teachings. The initiation (diksha) wasn’t a certificate from a weekend workshop—it was a transmission of subtle energy and understanding that marked the beginning of decades of disciplined practice.

 

The daily routine of a traditional Tantric practitioner might include: rising before dawn for several hours of seated meditation, reciting specific mantras hundreds or thousands of times, studying philosophical texts with a qualified teacher, performing ritual worship (puja) with precise attention to detail, and engaging in practices designed to recognize one’s own consciousness as identical with universal consciousness (Shiva).

 

This is not sexy. This is not a weekend intensive. This is a lifetime commitment to a rigorous spiritual technology.

 

Today? You can pay a fee for a three-hour workshop and leave thinking you’ve learned Tantra.

 

The Sacred Sexuality Confusion

Modern Neo-Tantra places sexuality at the center of the practice. Traditional Tantra acknowledges sex and sexuality as part of our humanity, but that acknowledgment is about as far as it goes.

 

While traditional Tantra did include some sexual practices (like Maithuna), viewing “the body as divine,” sexuality was just one part of this path, though not necessarily the main one. In fact, many traditional Tantric lineages were celibate or viewed sexual practice as an advanced technique only for those who had already mastered the foundational practices of meditation and self-inquiry.

 

The irony? When I went looking for actual practices about controlling sexual energy—the promises made in so many Neo-Tantra workshops—I found them in Taoist teachings, not Tantric ones.

 

Real Tantra, as I’ve discovered through study with actual lineage holders, is quite boring by comparison. It’s disciplined spiritual practice focused on recognition of consciousness itself, not enhanced orgasms or relationship skills.

 

The Modern Spiritual Marketplace

I understand why Neo-Tantra evolved the way it did. As Georg Feuerstein noted, “Today translations of several major Tantras are readily available… This gives would-be Tantrics the opportunity to concoct their own idiosyncratic ceremonies and philosophies, which they can then promote as Tantra” (as cited in Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

 

Many teachers claim they received practices through “downloads”—a convenient way to avoid the years of study that traditional lineages require. But this spiritual bypassing has created a marketplace where anyone can blend breathwork, therapy techniques, and New Age concepts, call it Tantra, and charge for weekend intensives.

 

The word Tantra literally means “to weave,” and modern practitioners have taken this way too literally, weaving together multiple esoteric disciplines into one streamlined teaching that promises everything under the guise of ancient wisdom.

 

What I’m Not Saying

I’m not claiming these modern practices don’t help people. Sacred sexuality work, conscious touch, and somatic healing can be deeply transformative. Many people have experienced genuine healing through what’s called Neo-Tantra.

 

But let’s be honest about what we’re calling it.

 

I’m also not claiming perfect authority here. I’m still a student, still learning. But that learning process revealed distinctions that I think people deserve to understand. When I found an actual Kashmir Shaivism teacher with legitimate lineage—complete with a proper guru, traditional texts, and rigorous training—the difference became impossible to ignore.

 

Why This Matters

People are seeking authentic spiritual practice in an age of spiritual materialism. When everything gets called “Tantra,” the word becomes meaningless. When practices created in 1970s America get marketed as 5,000-year-old temple arts, we’re participating in cultural appropriation disguised as spiritual seeking.

Traditional Tantra offers something rare: a complete system for recognizing the nature of consciousness itself. But it requires dedication, study, and surrender to something bigger than weekend workshops can provide.

 

Neo-Tantra offers relationship skills, sexual healing, and somatic awareness. These have value. But they’re not Tantra.

 

Moving Forward with Honesty

Academic research, traditional lineages, and honest inquiry all point to the same conclusion: what’s being called Tantra today bears little resemblance to the original tradition. As scholar Hugh Urban notes, this represents “spiritual materialism dressed up as ancient wisdom” in our era of global capitalism where “everything is a commodity,” including sexuality and religion itself.

 

Maybe it’s time to call things what they are: sacred sexuality, conscious intimacy, somatic healing. These practices can stand on their own merit without borrowing the authority of ancient traditions they don’t actually represent.

 

After all, authentic practice begins with authentic naming.

 

I remain a student on this path, still learning, still questioning. If you’ve found healing through Neo-Tantra practices, I honor that. But I also believe we owe it to ourselves—and to the traditions we claim to follow—to be honest about what we’re actually practicing.

 

The traditions deserve our respect. And seekers deserve the truth.

 

References

Feuerstein, G. (1998). Tantra: The path of ecstasy. Shambhala Publications.

 

Kramer, J. (1993). A social history of the first ten years of Taoist erotic massage, 1982-1992 [Doctoral dissertation, Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality]. Retrieved from http://eroticmassage.com

 

Traditional Bodywork. (2024, January 19). Tantra massage – origin and history explained. Traditional Bodywork. https://www.traditionalbodywork.com/the-truth-about-tantra-massage-history-and-development/

 

Urban, H. B. (2003). Tantra: Sex, secrecy, politics and power in the study of religion. University of California Press.

 

Wallis, C. D. (2013). Tantra illuminated: The philosophy, history, and practice of a timeless tradition. Mattamayura Press.

 

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, March 29). Joseph Kramer (sexologist). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kramer_(sexologist)

 

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, July 17). Tantra massage. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra_massage