Put outside · in their own land
The Sharmadá Foundation runs annual retreats at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, led by Patrick Connor — Eton, a Cambridge master's in philosophy, a business career, then reinvention as a spiritual teacher. The published material describes the location as "the land of the Siddhas," states that the teaching is "the result of this sacred and profound initiatory process," and holds the retreat "under the Grace of the Siddhas." Every quotation on those pages is from someone else. This page examines the structure, using only the organisation's own published words, because the structure is the finding.
from the published retreat material
"This special retreat will be held in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, South India, the land of the Siddhas. The Siddhas are the yogic adepts of South India, who, through ancient time, have mastered the extraordinary process of the Descending Light… Patrick's work and teaching is the result of this sacred and profound initiatory process over many years."
Sharmadá Foundation, India Retreat 2024
That is a lineage claim. It states that the teacher's authority derives from the siddhar initiatory process. The 2026 material repeats it: the retreat proceeds "under the Grace of the Siddhas and the Forces of the Light."
the audit of the material itself
If the Siddhas are the source of the authority, the material should show some trace of them. It does not.
| Element | Present in the retreat material? |
|---|---|
| Any named siddhar — Tirumūlar, Agastyar, Pōkar, Yākōpu, Bhogar, Karuvūrār | NONE |
| Any siddhar text — Tirumantiram, Vaittiya Kallāṭam, any palm-leaf work | NONE |
| Any Tamil term — tattuvam, varmam, vāsi, kāya siddhi, suvai | NONE |
| A named guru or lineage through which the initiation passed | NONE |
| The name of the path taught | "Kaivalya Marga" — Sanskrit, not Tamil |
| Authorities actually quoted | Jesus of Nazareth · Joseph Campbell · Kabir · Khvaja Mir Dard · Ramana Maharshi · David Ben Gurion · David R. Hawkins |
| Tamil people mentioned | "the stewards of the Shanti Malai Trust" and "the Tamil elders" — as gifters of land, not as teachers or sources |
A retreat about the Siddhas, in the land of the Siddhas, conducted under the Grace of the Siddhas, quotes a Sufi poet, a Hindi bhakti poet, an American mythographer, an Israeli prime minister, an American psychiatrist, and Jesus — and not one Tamil siddhar. The path is given a Sanskrit name. The Tamil language does not appear. The Siddhas function as a source of authority, not as a body of knowledge. They authorise the teaching; they do not inform it.
absorption, in its newest form
This is not a novel phenomenon; it is a familiar one wearing contemporary clothes. The platform has traced the same operation repeatedly:
The invariant is this: the name is taken, the authority is transferred, and the people who held it become scenery. Here the Tamil presence in the material is reduced to elders who gift land and stewards who grant access. The knowledge-holders appear as hosts.
the number that frames everything
Around 6,000 Siddha palm-leaf manuscripts exist. They were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2005. Only a few hundred have reached printed-book level. A separate count puts printed Siddha texts at 180 of over 700 known works.
Set that beside the retreat economy. There is international demand for Siddha as an aura — a sacred geography, an initiatory pedigree, a lineage to invoke. There is no comparable funding for Siddha as a text: the editing, dating, translation and publication that would put the corpus in the hands of Tamil readers and of scholars anywhere.
The tradition is monetisable precisely in the form that requires none of it to be read. An aura needs no critical edition. And the less the corpus is published, the freer the invocation of it becomes — because nothing exists in an accessible form against which a claim to represent the Siddhas could be checked.
a note on the mechanics
The 2024 retreat was "by invitation only," with attendance requiring placement on a guest list. The 2026 gathering is framed as a summons — "You are not being invited to a program. You are being called by the Flame" — and describes constructing "a temporary constellation of tented temples" on land inside the inner ring of the Girivalam path, a living Tamil devotional circumambulation route, at a site described as one where "no gathering like this has ever been held."
The audience is identifiable from the public testimony: the CEO of an executive-leadership consultancy describes Connor as "my beautiful teacher" and refers to "hundreds from the Mobius community" attending. The retreat copy addresses "yogis, guides, healers, spiritual teachers, light workers, creators and leaders."
Not asserted: any figure for what participants pay. No pricing appears in the material examined, and this platform does not publish numbers it has not seen. Not asserted: that the teaching is insincere, that participants are defrauded, or that Connor makes claims he privately disbelieves. Sincerity is not the issue and is not knowable from here.
Asserted, from the published material alone: that a lineage claim to the Siddhas is made; that the material contains no siddhar, no siddhar text, no Tamil term and no named lineage; that the path carries a Sanskrit name; that every quoted authority is from outside the tradition invoked; and that Tamil people appear in it as hosts rather than as sources. Those are facts about a document, not allegations about a person.
the general case
The question is not whether an Englishman may study Tamil traditions. He may, and outsiders have produced serious work — this platform relies on some of it, and audits it openly. The question is what distinguishes study from extraction, and the material here supplies the test:
what this page claims