Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, and last Wednesday police in Phoenix arrested what appear to be some of the world’s oldest prostitutes. Judging from their mug shots, they may rank among the world’s unseemliest strumpets, too.

At least fifteen accused “sex workers” were hauled away in handcuffs from the Phoenix Goddess Temple, with three additional quinquagenarian alleged temple harlots busted at an affiliate purported New Age brothel in the flake-magnet vortex known as Sedona. Police are still seeking an additional 17 indictees who may have escaped into the astral plane or simply died of old age. Wednesday’s roundup was allegedly Arizona’s largest prostitution bust since law enforcement ensnared a ring of wizened gila monsters known as the “Desert Divas” back in 2008.

Wednesday’s arrests marked the culmination of a six-month undercover investigation allegedly spurred by a simultaneously hilarious and nauseating profile of the sex-positive House of Holy Holes published in February in the Phoenix New Times. On Thursday, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery triumphantly proclaimed that the Phoenix Goddess Temple “was no more a church than Cuba is Fantasy Island.”

One marvels at law enforcement’s ace detective work in this case over the past half-year. I mean, it’s not as if Encylopedia Brown or The Hardy Boys could have figured it all out in ten minutes.

One also wonders what was the final clue that allowed these tireless sleuths to piece it all together. Was it the online testimonial where a client thanked his “gypsy goddess” Iyata for bringing him to a “state of extraordinary orgasm”? Was it High Priestess Gypsy Iyata’s personal page on an escort site that depicts her in various stages of undress and wearing several silly pseudo-spiritual costumes? Was it the “naked life coaching” seminars or the fact that they offered a three-hour “Sacred Cacao Hot Chocolate Ceremony” for the low, low price of $645? Was it the fact that the Temple’s founder, Mystic Sister Tracy Elise—who looks like Martina Navratilova and Glenn Close had a genetically engineered baby that was incubated in Ellen DeGeneres’s armpit—advertised in the Female Escorts section of a local website offering a “2 hr Tantra Immersion…fantasy & light silky bondage optional” for only $420?

Was it the New Times article’s revelations that the Temple’s designated “touch healer” Wayne Clayton teaches a course called “Spanking as a Healing Modality” and performs “cervical work” and “anal release”? Was it his claim that over several “healing sessions,” he enabled a woman who’d lost a breast to cancer to grow back her vanished boob? Was it the live session in front of the reporter where he digitally penetrated a woman after spanking her and then offered her the sage advice to “Keep the breathing going”?