Interview with Tantra Bensko
about Lucid Fiction

by Ron Bales

Ron: You obviously have all kinds of talents with your art, writing, modeling and music. Which of these avenues interested you first, and what if any life event inspired you to pursue this path? What insights have you gained by pursuing this path?

Tantra: I’ve been interested in all the artistic pursuits, including making movies, all my life, since I was tiny. I decided back then I wanted to do all these things, and I’ve done them. There wasn’t one event that triggered it, other than being exposed regularly to the great composers, writers, artists, and filmmakers’ work, even before I started school. My mother was the main reason I had the opportunity to do that, so I’d say being born to her is what started it all. I wanted to be one of the absolute great geniuses adding to our world. I wanted to be a person people would discuss in the history of literature because of the ideas I brought to it.

However, modeling I didn’t think of until one day when I was an adolescent, looking in the mirror, and thinking I wanted to share my face with the world, but I don’t think I thought of it more than one or two days. That really came to my life later as a way to make money, starting with posing for painters when I was getting my MFA, and eventually, posing for photographers off an on, even making a living at it for years in San Francisco, at double the age most women would think of modeling.

I modeled for my own photography when I had the equipment for that, and it was a great way to express my creativity in another art form.

In others of my images, the majority of them, whether I was healthy or not, I mostly concentrated on bringing through a lot of energy through my eyes, to the camera, sending healing, transformative vibrations, the energy of honestly being open to being fully seen as a being, love, and infectious enthusiasm.

Inhabiting my physicality theatrically, using the gestures and expressions, and opening up my soul to the camera, making good compositions from the inside out is a form of art. It has never been the intense passion for me that the other artistic pursuits have, but it has certainly a lot paid more.

It’s hard to imagine William Faulker making his money to write his novels by taking off his clothes and striking poses, and it’s hard to picture people taking his writing as seriously if he did. So I’ve kept that part of my life separate to some degree, but integrating them from time to time, gingerly, experimentally. And I find that because of the type of modeling I do, all natural, generally nude, artistic, as an admittedly mature woman, and something I throw myself into with verve, celebrating being alive, without inhibitions, I get more respect, rather than less, for it.

As far as insights from all this, I’d say they are constant, when I go into the deep states of mind that I draw my inspiration from, the theta brainwave frequencies of trancelike creativity.

I’d say the main insight has come from starting this genre of Lucid Fiction, and looking at all the fiction I read now from that perspective, and seeing how rare it is to find work that explores the nature of consciousness and reality and questions the usual definitions of character, and what a person is to begin with, and that employs something other than the traditional plot arc.

I feel the lack of Lucid Fiction in our culture, feel it’s important for more of it to exist, so I am drawn to promoting it, to writing it, and eventually, I hope, to teaching it. Seeing how rare it is doesn’t necessarily show me that people don’t think like I do, but that publishers haven’t been jogged into thinking that way of approaching the world is Okay to print. Because readers haven’t demanded it, because they’re going along with what’s there. And writers have a hard time finding a market for it.

There’s a gap in between the genres, such as Sci Fi, and literary fiction. Writing about topics such as chemtrails, aliens, psyops, the paranormal, the deceits and manipulations of our government, the lies of our history books, as real life, rather than as speculation, is not really allowed. It’s supposed to be couched in Sci Fi formulas, put into the future, embued with technological details, and read alongside other stories of the untrue. But these things are true! Why not start acknowledging that?

And why not start acknowledging the quantum continuum, the ebb and flow of consciousness that need not always be labeled as stopping at the boundaries of the skin? Why not acknowledge that miraculous healing and telepathy, and synchronicities are common?

Why encourage the usual drama, conflict, ego driven, adrenalin based plot in life through constantly insisting on it in literature? I’d say my insight overall has been not only how rare this is in what’s out there now, but also, how many people I talk to about it feel the same way I do. It’s really exciting to talk to other writers, especially young ones, who think it’s obvious Lucid Fiction should exist, and that it’s the most accurate way of portraying reality. It makes me happy.

Ron: Obviously it appears this past century of western culture has used the very mediums of print, film, literature, music and such, NOT to enlighten the peoples of the earth, but to steer them away from being truly enlightened with no avenue of debate.

The views mostly allowed to be publicized are the very ones that keep the alternative, and more than likely, the true nature of things. People should be encouraged to seek ways of their inner expressions to promote higher education in hopes of spawning a new renaissance in awakening the souls of humanity to new heights.

On a deeper level, I sense a desire in you that seeks not of acceptance, but something more ‘lasting’ that you would like to leave in this world. If 50 years from now someone mentioned the name Tantra Bensko, what would be the ONE thing you would hope people would have as any lesson, message, or impression you hoped to leave?

Tantra: I completely agree. And that’s why the literature I’m promoting, Lucid Fiction, the opposite of what is generally accepted, because it doesn’t just fall blindly into the agenda we take for granted so much in the mass media we don’t even see it’s an agenda. People tend to believe life is really like what it is portrayed to be throughout history, from artists sponsored by the ancient illuminati governments, to current day sitcoms.

My own art embraces the very concept of 50 years from now by being pre-burned. I have a solo show that has been traveling from venue to venue, beautiful ones, with great openings, along the Spanish Levant.

The show is called Reality Burn! And the art is framed in what I call Scorchvision. I burned the giclées along the edges, put them in recycled frames with bits of used cloth for mats, and torched the frames as well, with a blowtorch.

This gives it an intense, unique look that complements the haunting quality of the images, made it possible to afford to frame them without using up any new natural resources, and puts them in the mindset of being found in the future, burned in the rubble of our destroyed culture.

I used to write and make art for the future of this planet, but now I don’t. I don’t know that I believe in that kind of a future.

So I think our souls may before too long be out of the realm of this earthly incarnation, and I’m still doing my work for the future, but for people’s spirits, not personalities. Luckily, that’s been my main work for the last twenty years anyway, working directly with soul-force.

I facilitated hundreds and hundreds of incredible healings with energy, and a large number of spiritual transformations as well. The process of transmitting energy that helps people raise their Kundalini, if they are ready, or open their charkas, reach new frequencies of themselves, which is always dramatic, and can be felt very physically, is called Shaktipat. Traditionally, this has been done by gurus up in the caves in the East. But I’ve lived lives like that already, and am my own lineage, and was born here, so I do it where I am.

People literally saw me disappear, very often, or become so unconnected to my form that I would change shape. I would appear to them out of the blue, seeming very physical, or amorphous. I would give them custom spiritual exercises to do, send Shaktipat, give them insights, make them start shaking as the Kriyas moved their bodies with enlightening energies. This is the real me, Ron, when you ask Who Is Tantra Bensko. And it’s something I don’t reveal all the time.

So, I want to do something like that in literature, not only with my own, but by encouraging others to do it too, with Lucid Fiction. And with my art, such as in my Metaportals series, which is mystical, and works like mandalas or yantras. Even with my movies and music. All of these things include ordinary world aspects, as they are meant to be all-inclusive, to merge the lower and higher aspects, not leave people wafting above their bodies in some sort of dissociation. They are meant to love all the levels of themselves, and treat the physical levels of this world with respect.

I address this with my writing, such as my stories about Kundra, which I’m gathering into a book of short stories (I have two manuscript collections, that one, which is Free Range Mystery Spot, and another called Lucid Windows). Kundra is a spiritual teacher, energy healer, living outside the rules of society, even outside its buildings most of the time.

Kundra deals with chemtrail disease and government mind control program victims and such, so it is lucid in all ways, from being open eyed to what’s really going on, to seeing what we are capable of beyond what the mass media conveys. It’s becoming more and more accepted that miraculous healings occur, that people can raise their Kundalini, etc. so the world is growing into my writing now, and I think it’s time for me to be one of the voices of the new, more lucid paradigm.

And my message from my actions, my writing, my DVD’s about Tantra and Interpersonal Dynamics of the Aura, Hypnotic Exorcism, etc, is that we are capable of far more than we have been led to believe. It can be hard for our bodies to do what we should be able to, more and more, because of things like chemtrails and HAARP, and the mind control waves being sent our way ubiquitously, microwaves, pollution, lowered levels of negative ions, genetically modified foods, and such. I find it much harder than before to do the miraculous things I did for decades. There are entities trying to dampen us down.

I feel it’s important to see who and what they are, to resist and empower ourselves, and to become the bright beings of loving consciousness that knows its free beyond being encased in these beautifully limiting personalities. Yet, it’s important to also completely honor and nourish these bodies, to work with their acupressure points, their nadis, their auras, their physical needs, as much as honoring these aspects of the planet itself.

LucidPlay is a term that includes not only the LucidFiction, but all the other aspects of this, ways we can go into those expanded states through Tantric exercises, for example, and stay there, interacting with others in ways that see lucidly who we are, beyond the selves we pretend to be by incarnating into these specific times and places. That is what I hope I’m remembered for, by spirits who are laughing and playing more freely where ever we end up once this planet is ready for us to leave.

RON: Okay, not sure how to place this question, but I’ll see if I can word it right. Obviously, the human species as with most creatures, perform intercourse as a means to procreate. Do you think this is a built in instinct that is pre-programmed in our DNA, or something deeper in which we as humans gain spiritual enlightenment?

Given the basic belief system put in place that once one is married, he or she can only be true to one partner? I guess what I’m trying to get at is: humans can and do have sex as a pleasurable act, AS WELL AS for the purpose to procreate, whereas animals only do it as a basic instinct to reproduce. Where does the line get drawn between the two?

Sometimes, I feel that I could communicate spiritually via physical sex, and that in itself goes against the assumption of doing it for pro-creating purposes. Is there any sin in lust? This is a pretty hefty topic, but surely, one wonders, what is right, what is necessary and what makes other views wrong? Is it something so simple as black and white, or are there multiple layers, which, could be wrong and sinful? Hope you understand how I’m trying to frame this question.

Tantra: Good question, Ron. Well, I teach Tantra Yoga which includes the whole lifestyle, and only one aspect of it is sexual, most times being much more restrictive than ordinary sex. But when you do get into the sexual parts of Tantra, you can feel from the inside out that sex can be a way of communing with the Divine, with being that part of ourselves, of all the energy that is, of the universal urge to create.

I teach people all the time to take their sexuality to higher levels through traditional exercises that form a conduit between the lower chakras at the base of the body and the higher ones at the head, between the individual self and the universal. Freeing up that cosmic energy to travel through the physical body and stay conscious in the outer levels of the aura allows incredible bliss as you feel the parts of yourself you may forget in ordinary life. And being able to share that wider sense of self with another person is so much more intimate that just relating from emotions, personalities, bodies. Sex can feel like patterns of conscious light moving together, and I agree, that’s a true communication beyond words, very powerful and transformative.

I’m not sure that all animal sex is just instinctual, for procreation. Have you seen elephants showing such love and care for their mates? Even sex between slugs is beautiful and cosmic. I don’t know if any scientists have found a way to prove that the feelings animals have during sex are limited to the ego, to physical gratification and blind instinct, as I feel animals are often more spiritual and tuned into the continuum than people are.

I have a lot of respect for people’s marriage vows. If they really chose to be monogamous, and that works for them, great. But I like the idea of it being a choice each couple makes, rather than being part of an accepted social control. As most of the planet isn’t Christian, from what I understand, there are several hundred cultures that are polygamous and less than a couple hundred monogamous. I like the ones with more than one husband! Ha. Now, polyamory is becoming very popular, and that’s the milieu I’m surrounded by in San Francisco, certainly.

I feel it’s strange when people act like it’s their right to be possessive, restrictive, upset by their partner’s attention to someone else, even in casual dating. Why not own their insecurities and jealousies and deal with them head-on rather than making the other person wrong? But that’s just my own viewpoint.

I don’t find pure lust to be interesting, and I’m turned off by pornography, though beautiful, creative sensual photography or art or film can be potent, and invigorating.

RON: After researching plenty of topics related to ‘The Serpent”, with it’s symbolism found in the caduceus, the garden of Eden, the double helix of our DNA, and even down to the likeness of semen, and even the coiling within Kundalini, do you think the earliest authors of the Bible purposely ‘swapped’ the roles ‘assuming there are 2 roles of good and evil’ to keep the masses from learning the truth behind it? And furthermore, the human is obviously a physical, chemical, electrical entity.

Yet, WHAT process “TIES” together our soul/spirit with regards to the serpent themes. There have been many cultures that have utilized potions, drugs etc. to tap into this ether as a gateway to communicate with this ‘energy’?

Tantra: Great question, Ron, thank you. And it’s a complex one, and as we are getting into the nature of the Divine, it includes the paradox of having easily more than one correct answer.

People are definitely kept from knowing the truth, but I would look at it a little differently than that.

I don’t want to focus too much on the Biblical, for fear of treading on too many people’s sore spots, but paranormal serpent imagery is all over the world, coming up in names of towns and sacred spots and churches and families. There have been serpent religions relating to snakes, and dragons, throughout all of history, and, in a way, I consider those previous stories with the same details to be the earliest authors of the Bible, and the earliest versions of the garden of Eden.

While serpents live on the earthly plane, two roles are associated with them, one being heavenly, related to the Annunaki type, apparently Reptilian entities that come from the heavens, or the mother-ship above, in the space ships of the historical drawings. That role connected serpents to deities, creativity, life force, and healing. They are particularly related to the caduceus of Ninurta, the mother goddess, who is shown in Sumerian tablets as creating our race through DNA modifications in the lab.

She is the doctor, and the creatress, and serpents relate to the central core of our being, such as the DNA, and we can be grateful to them for the genetic manipulation, if the ancient records are correct about what happened, but there is an edgy side to that as well, as they supposedly did that to create a slave race of people who are gullible, fighting their wars, doing labor for their agenda, being milked for energy and endocrine secretions.

They are also linked them the underworld and associated with evil, harm, and destructive influences, especially regarding the Reptilians which live in the caves. The Reptilians have a relation between the above ground and below ground, the ones above having accomplished being seen as angels, gods, controllers of our society, presenting themselves as benefactors. So, the snake has a mixed reputation, as the Reptilians below have worked more with unabashed fear.

Christ and Satan are both associated with the serpent. This can be seen many ways, such as that there may be less difference between their roles than is thought. Also, if you look at the serpent as symbolizing the Kundalini, it can be either healing or destructive. The snake symbolized the movement of the transformative energies up the spine because that’s how it feels, the shape if fitting, the dramatic risky intensity of it makes sense, and it helps one understand that we are one with the Divine. The Divine is associated with the snake because the Reptilian race is akin to the serpent, and they have portrayed themselves as our creators. The snake in the Garden of Eden originally had legs, if you remember, and walked upright, more obviously Reptilian.

The Sumerian god, Tammuz, who is one of the many pre-Jesus Messiahs with the same traits, was linked to the snake and so of course was his mother, and so was his companion, Ningizzida, who had horns.

All throughout history and the entire planet, there gods and the ancestors of the kings especially are scaly creatures. For example, the Egyptian god Atum was the snake who predicted the destruction of the world he created and his own reversion back to the form of a serpent or snake. Another major Egyptian diety is Kematef, once again, a snake. Amun was the god of the capital of Thebes and combined with the sun god to be Amun-Re, the main god in the New Kingdom. He and the snake goddess Mut, birthed a son, Khonsu. Their right hand man was the snake, Mehen.

Thermuthis, another snake god of the earth and “the father of the gods,” came from the earth. The main cobra-goddess of Lower Egypt, Wadjet symbolized royalty, and as we know, the reptilian symbolism is related to royalty in most cultures, such as in China, where the leaders proudly proclaim their ancestors are dragons.

Mythology is full of warring between the positive and negative serpents, with the gods and their supposed spawn, the Pharaohs, for example, used the symbols of the snake to show their hybrid divinity The worst demon in Egypt was the snake, Apophis. Both the negative and positive, the demons and gods, are seen as snakes, because they most likely both were different warring races of Reptilians.

In Mesopotamia, the Enuma Elish were chaotic evil serpents, otherwise known as dragons, that warred against the other gods. preparing to wage a war in heaven against the great gods. Tiamat was the leader of those dragons, and she was transformed into our very environment.

I could go on and on about this, as I’ve read countless books and articles about the subject. It relates to Tantra as well, as it was taught by nagas, the hybrid serpents. Well, they aren’t known to have mankind’s best interest in mind, so I feel it’s very important to look into their motives deeply. The serpent symbolizes the reptilian beings and also the Kundalini, much as the homunculus in the brain that represents our body’s sensations in the various areas of the brain, is a drawing of a human. Reptilians would similarly use a symbol of their own race. And hybrids were the leaders of the religions and the countries, and their symbols are the dragons and snakes.

Yes, many cultures have used natural hallucinogens to tune into the primal energies, the truth about history, and the serpent cults very often include rituals with those substances. They also are sun cults, and might have a Serpent mound aligned with the sun, for example, with people sitting inside at the solstice, taking hallucinogens, as the sun comes through the opening at the serpent’s mouth, and lights upon them at the exactly correct moment. Yes, snakes represented both the good and the bad because it was basically all about the scaly ones, the Reptilians who ruled this planet, above and below.

This is the kind of thing that I’d call Lucid Fiction: this kind of thing becoming more clearly seen and not hidden by the taboo of talking about it, including in literature.

Copyright © 2009 by Tantra Bensko