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MY EXPERIENCE WITH A MANDALA WOMEN'S GIVING CIRCLE

by Imola Tóth
May 2, 2022

It is from a place of deep respect, love and concern for all the women I met and
the connections made and opportunities created, that I write down my experience
with a Mandala Women’s Circle. My concern stands for the potentially harmful
scheme in the disguise of Sisterhood, empowerment, social support and a promise
of turning dreams into reality. You might heard of these circles as “Loom,”
“Gifting Circle” or “Lotus” Groups.

In 2019, a wonderful, successful, trustworthy and intelligent friend of mine
invited me to a “non-hierarchical, feminist, spiritual, secret-society-esque,
women’s empowerment weekly emotional support group”  called Mandala Women’s
Circle. I will find my best friends here and spiritual, emotional support and
even make money while growing in many ways. It will transform my life. Don’t
worry, it’s not a pyramid scheme—she said. I was urged to keep it private,
especially from men, and told not to read anything online about the circles. I
should have been suspicious there, but I was not.





The pitch is designed to make you feel valued and like you’re special to be
invited to such a secret group. As most women who are invited to such women
circles, I was at a very vulnerable state of my life—I’d just broken up with my
narcissistic fiancé which made me a perfect target for manipulation, I was broke
and left alone with barely any friends living locally to support me. I did not
really care that I had to pay money to belong to this secret community of women
who were all welcoming me on our first introductory meeting. I just wanted to
belong somewhere. I suspect most circle members (including me back then) don’t
realize what they’re participating in. Other members joined the group because
they became unemployed, had to pay off student loans or had 4 hungry little
belly to feed on their own.

My friend originally invited me because we started to work together on a
business and these mandala groups had helped her many times out when she needed
money to invest in her own business, so she thought it would be a great
opportunity for me, too. I received a beautiful video about the history of
Mandala Circles which told me about the African origins of the group and how
women used it to help each other to build their houses or whatever they needed
at the time. So the original goal of a women’s circle was to support each other,
which is wonderful and should be done everywhere in my opinion but a bit
differently.

Everyone who enters the circle had to bring their unique gift, which could have
been anything that was needed at the time. A person in the middle of the circle
would receive the gifts and when the gift is received the circle splits so it
can grow. In our modern times these groups are limited to one gift everyone has
to bring in: money.

Later I joined a Zoom call with my soon-to-be Mandala Sisters, which was
wonderful and actually felt empowering and cherished and accepted. Then I
received an introductory document sent via an encrypted email address that
stated: ‘By joining our circle of women you enter a magnified creative field
where the art of giving and receiving is balanced and aligned to support the
flourishing of our soul’s purpose and deepest heart’s longing’. I also received
a long document attached that contains all the rules of the mandala.



How does the circle work?

The circle starts a previous circle has been split when it reaches the maximum
15 members. The new mandala has seven women in it: one in the middle receiving
(usually called water element or lotus), two around her supporting (basically
the 2 women the middle person had to bring in, called blossoms or earth
element)  and four around them  (recruited by blossoms, also called as seedlings
or air element) attracting.



The woman in the ‘receiving’ position acts as a moderator or leader of the
group, leading weekly support groups or meetings in person or online. The women
go about recruiting new members to so-called giving positions (fire element or
seeds). These new ‘giving’ members all gift a certain amount of money to the
woman in the ‘receiving’ position. Our groups worked with angel numbers and
there are different groups working with smaller or bigger amounts.  But don’t
worry—everyone who joins will, at some point, become a lotus, the center of the
mandala and cash in on 8 times as much as she paid in. The whole thing is
“cyclical” and “non-hierarchical.”

As these giving positions has to fill up in order for the Group (and the cash)
to flow, the members continue with their weekly meetings. Frankly I really loved
our meetings (and sometimes I still miss them). I loved and made friends with so
many people in our group who had such a wonderful spirit and loved our sharing
circles, meditations, and yoga classes together. We often had moon ceremonies
and other celebrations as well. Once our Mandala was complete, the receiving
member finished with her circle experience (read: she got her money). The
remaining 14 women branch into two new groups of 7.  Everyone levels up. The two
former ‘supporting’ women become ‘receiving’ facilitators in their new circles
and usually give a lovely name to their groups. (We also had a WhatsApp chat
with the same name, where we shared daily inspirations, stories, music,
experiences or actually supported each other with our problems.) ‘Attracting’
members are now in ‘supporting’ roles, and the ‘giving’ members are now
‘attracting.’

 

Why is it a pyramid scheme?

The defining feature of the pyramid scheme, and its scheme relative, the Ponzi
scheme, is that no actual value is being created. Money from the majority at the
bottom of the ‘Circle’ is simply redistributed to the minority at the
top—exactly the hierarchical structure the sisterhood wars against. Many other
women-centric multi-level marketing companies have also been exposed in recent
years as pyramid schemes, such as LuLaRoe and Scentsy, to name a few.

Pyramids Schemes are inherently exploitative structures which are illegal in
most of the world. Now, in these groups the same pyramid shape is present in the
new form of a mandala or lotus or something else. But if you re-organize it,
you’ll see how there is on person on top and as it levels down there are more
and more members, who shape a pyramid.

The level of growth of these groups is impossible to sustain in the long run and
collapse is inevitable. Generally, the well-connected and charismatic women—the
spiritual leaders of the sisterhood—are the ones who complete their circle and
“blossom.” It’s the women who come in late, and often out of desperation, who
are usually are left hanging, losing their money.

So it happened in our group. I joined in before our group split into two and was
left with the members I least liked, with a woman becoming the lotus or water
element, who only cared about quickly receiving her money. This ruined
everything. She didn’t fulfill her role as the leader of  our group, so often we
organized our meetings for ourselves, simply for fun and to chat, share,
meditate together. This caused a lot of tension in our group as we mainly just
engaged with each other and rarely invited a potential new member in. This led
to many fights as our leader of course, wanted to receive her money and without
new members there is no flow, so she insisted we invite new people in. Which we
did. I introduced amazing women to our group who were all in for the empowerment
and support and connections we shared, until our sister started to talk about
money which scared every new member away.



I eventually left the circle, not caring about ever seeing my money again
because our leader was personally harassing me and the other members as well,
with long messages and voice notes because according to her, we did not do our
“job” properly, did not invite enough women, nobody joined under us, our
negativity is affecting the group and our lack mindset stopped the flow of
abundance. She threatened me with kicking me out of the group so I knew it’s
time for me to let this sh*t go.

Even when circles work perfectly and there is so much we can take with us from
these groups (and so did I while I was participating) I believe this is not
financially empowering women. It is rather exploiting every member. If everyone
would bring in their unique gifts and share those with a small circle of women
without the continuous need to grow and split the group, it could work
perfectly. As we did when did not care about the flow of money, we shared our
gifts with each other—someone led meditations, others breathwork or yoga, some
simply helped us with their amazing life advices. There’s so much we can bring
to the table, share and grow together as a Sisterhood without exploiting each
other for money. So why do we still do it?

Related: Why Mormonism Is A Cult & How I Left It

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Photo: Becca Tapert via Unsplash


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Imola Tóth
Imola is a Hatha and Ashtanga yoga teacher, tree planter and writer and editor
of Raised by the Wolf, an online magazine for Wild Women, with a passion for
exploring and life outdoors. Originally from Hungary but currently planting
trees and rewilding the enchanting forests of France. Hop over to RBTW magazine,
and blog and follow her on Instagram @yogiraisedbythewolf
View all author posts →

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