A LONG time participant of OneTaste - a reported 'sex cult' being investigated by the FBI amid damning claims - has revealed she spent $50k on orgasmic meditation classes.
Alexis Lauren Ware is still a supporter of the rebranded Institute of OM and attended the recent Los Angeles demonstration, hosted by controversial founder Nicole Daedone.
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She sat down for an exclusive chat with The U.S. Sun to discuss her experience with the wellness company, which became a multi-million-dollar business and was previously lauded by Gwyneth Paltrow.
It is also the subject of a recent Netflix documentary, Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, revealing shocking allegations of prostitution, sex trafficking, and violations of labor laws.
The company has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and Daedone previously told The U.S. Sun she is confident justice will prevail after she was canceled.
No criminal charges have been filed, and the only lawsuit which was brought by a member in New York in 2018, claiming sexual abuse and fraud, has been dismissed by a judge.
Alexis, who works as a theta healer teaching a meditative technique, revealed she got involved with OneTaste back in 2013 when she attended an intro course.
The demonstrations involve a woman having her genitals stroked for up to 15 minutes at a time while in a meditative state.
Alexis admits she was initially "terrified" but later spent time training at the first OM house in LA during a weekend-long course in Venice and felt it was life-changing.
"What was really pulling me towards OneTaste and orgasmic meditation was that in my adult life I hadn't really climaxed much in sex with men," she said.
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"I ended up getting so much more (from OneTaste). I'm just like driving on the city street in Venice and my (genitals) were experiencing all of these sensations. I was like what the f***, I didn't know this was possible.
"I didn't even feel that kind of sensation when someone was touching me during sex before (the course). And now all of a sudden my (private parts) are awake and alive. I was like what is this?
"I signed up immediately for the coaching program. And it was my first weekend-long immersion in San Francisco in 2013 when I saw Nicole (Daedone).
"I really didn't have too much invested at that time, I had put down a small deposit, but after that first weekend she completely blew my mind, she's literally the most brilliant woman that I've ever met.
"From that weekend forward I was like, 'You're my teacher and I want to learn as much as I possibly can from you.' It was just like a whole new world opened up for me.
"After the ten-month coaching program ended, Nicole announced the intensives. And I grew up in a family without a lot of money. The first one was $20,000.
"My mom really got it, surprisingly, because she's the more religious one of the family, she just totally understood and backed me fully.
"My brother I think is just a little bit baffled by the whole thing, we've never really talked too much in-depth about it, but I know he supports me in anything that enriches my life.
"My dad, when I told him I was gonna sign up for the intensive, he was really concerned. I knew I had to tell him to get right with myself before I went towards gathering that $20,000 somehow for myself.
"And he said flat out, 'I'm afraid you've joined a cult. I'm afraid you're being brainwashed. I'm afraid you're being taken advantage of.'
SCRAMBLE FOR MONEY
"In my father's mind, because there was nothing that they were going to give me at the end of it that I could then show to the world, it didn't have value to him, he didn't understand.
"Whereas if I had said, I'm gonna sign up for graduate school and it's $20,000 and when I graduate I'm gonna have this diploma and people are gonna be like, 'Great job.' He would back that. But it was really scary for him because he didn't understand it."
She said he still supported her choices and finally came around, despite worrying accusations about OneTaste.
Company founders were accused of encouraging sales staff to have sex with clients to lure them into paying tens of thousands of dollars for year-long memberships.
Alexis insisted she wasn't pushed into buying any courses, but she often struggled to get the money together without help.
She said receiving $10,000 through donations from friends was "mind-blowing" and the "greatest gift," and explained through tears: "I said is there any amount, like even a dollar that you would like to gift, loan, anything?
"It shattered everything that I had been taught about money, how it works, how scarce it is, how people don't want to give it to you, how it's not appropriate to talk about it.
"There is one person, who I'm still slowly paying back his thousand, but I paid everyone else back. I earned the other $10,000 by working and doing my healing work.
"The first intensive was two weeks long, we lived inside of a mansion in LA somewhere by the ocean.
INTENSIVE COURSE
"We would wake up early in the morning, have OM, practice fear inventory, to get in touch with your subconscious fears ... seated meditation, breakfast, then we would start a full day of coaching circles with Nicole.
"I think that one may have had something like 20 people, it was around 2014. Nicole didn't stay there. She would come in to do the coaching circles.
"I'm a unique case because I did do quite a bit of work trade, but if you include the thousands of dollars I did in work trade with my theta healing, I probably spent like $50,000 at OneTaste.
"Then there's all this press like, 'Oh, it's a cult and she's a cult leader and people are being swindled outta their money and pressured to buy these intensive courses and blah, blah, blah.'
"What do I think about the accusations and the FBI probe? I was as deeply involved in OneTaste as a person can be without actually being on the OneTaste payroll.
"If anything had been going on, I most likely would have seen it, I was there for mostly everything. I didn't see anything. I'm quite certain that the FBI investigation will not find anything because there's nothing there to find.
"I do not have a single regret. When I did the first intensive, I was really conflicted, I had a hard time owning my desire, and I had much lower self-worth.
"I had a lot of issues with men and I felt really challenged being vulnerable and being seen, I always felt super comfortable being seen doing my healing work.
"Now I can go in front of an audience of hundreds of people and not have a problem. That first intensive was really about working a lot of that stuff out of my system.
"And then I did a demo at the end of the intensive just for us and whoever we would want to invite, like a very small group. That was a really big deal for me to just let myself be seen and be vulnerable."
Alexis said she was living in an OM community and working for free for OneTaste, both in production for events and for Nicole herself, setting up her teaching area, and making her tea.
WORKING FOR FREE
"For me, it was never a question of like, 'Oh, I should be paid for this work. I wanna be paid for this work.' It was more, 'I'm getting access to Nicole and not even having to pay money.' I was receiving so much."
But Alexis admitted she did leave the community for a brief period around 2016 because she "personally took on too much" with her role and being in an unstable housing situation.
"There was a particular peak that I got knocked out on and it was related to housing," she said. "We were all living together in these two lofts and we decided to move out, but we didn't know where we were moving.
"There was a period where people were bounced from one Airbnb to another and my nervous system just couldn't handle it. There were moments when there was instability."
Alexis has since returned from spending time in Santa Cruz and is once again living with Institute of OM participants at a coliving house in Los Angeles.
Among other accusations the company has faced, OneTaste's "aversion therapy" has been described as involving clients partaking in sexual acts they did not feel comfortable with or sleeping with people they had argued with.
One woman described in letters in the Netflix doc how a man allegedly shook her and "screamed at me how he would like to rape me, beat me, use me” while onlookers from OneTaste watched.
Alexis revealed she once lived with the woman, saying: "There was a moment when she was really going through something, but I never saw anyone try to coerce her into anything."
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She said some of her friends have been approached by the FBI, but nobody has contacted her, and she hopes the investigation doesn't result in criminal charges.
"I haven't talked to many of them in depth about it. I think for some people it's just a little bit jarring, like 'What the FBI wants to talk to me? but none of us feel like we have anything to hide, or that we have anything to hide for Nicole."
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