Abuse, violence and terror — inside notorious free love guru Bhagwan’s sex cult where he ‘assaulted women and children’
THERE were luxury cars, naked therapy sessions and free love on tap.
But also accusations of sexual abuse, plots to assassinate politicians and even a mass poisoning.
The cult led by guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh sprang from India in the Seventies to global notoriety.
And for 14 years, British journalist Subhuti Anand Waight — born Peter Waight — was in the middle of it.
The former political reporter for the Birmingham Mail joined Bhagwan’s hippy commune in India.
In 1981 he followed them to the northwestern US state of Oregon, where followers had sex in corridors between frenzied meditation sessions.
It was the subject of six-part Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country — and Subhuti tells of his experiences in a book.
Sitting crosslegged in a London office, Waight, now 73, admits the guru’s methods were “dangerous”.
He tells The Sun: “His idea was to be provocative, get a lot of publicity. He said, ‘Most people are going to hate you, some people are going to love you and that’s OK with me’.”
'DYNAMIC MEDITATION'
To thousands of followers in his Rajneesh movement, Bhagwan was the ultimate source of wisdom.
Motown legend Diana Ross visited his base in India, while Prince Charles sent the guru a question while on a royal visit to the country.
But the cult had a dark side. There were accusations of sexual abuse against women and children as young eight.
And Bhagwan’s devoted lieutenant Ma Anand Sheela hatched violent plots against anyone who stood in the way of her ambitious plans to grow the Oregon commune.
Schemes included a conspiracy to assassinate public prosecutor Charles Turner and a plot to crash a plane into the county planner’s office.
Up to 750 locals were poisoned when salad bars were laced with salmonella, and there were failed attempts to make bombs.
Today, Subhuti, 73, considers it a “miracle” no one died as a result of the cult’s activities.
He first heard of Bhagwan — also known as Osho — while working as a parliamentary reporter in the mid-Seventies.
If you were in an orgasmic hug, an energy moment, and you felt sexual, you would probably go back to your room and make love
British journalist Subhuti Anand Waight
Subhuti was sceptical about gurus — until he was drawn in by the “dynamic meditation” he experienced in London and mindblowing sex he had with a devotee.
Bhagwan’s radical meditation method replaced stillness and calm with “chaotic” breathing and expressing your innermost feelings, often naked.
Describing the scene, Subhuti says: “Everyone is screaming and shouting and the place looks like a madhouse. I was terrified the first time I did it.”
When his girlfriend returned from Bhagwan’s commune in India, they enjoyed the best sex of his life.
He says: “I don’t want to be too pornographic, but it took sex to a deeper level. I thought, ‘There is something really cooking here’.”
He went to meet Bhagwan in Pune, India, in 1976. Many of the staff at his ashram, or monastery, were British, having discovered the mystic through his 1968 book From Sex To Superconsciousness.
Subhuti says: “It was very ‘free love’. The place was a pressure-cooker of energy.
“If you were in an orgasmic hug, an energy moment, and you felt sexual, you would probably go back to your room and make love. Walking through the ashram at night, you heard it all around you.”
'A FEMALE LEADER TOOK A FANCY TO ME'
Bhagwan advocated using the Pill and believed relationships should end when the initial spark died.
Followers have complained about “teacher” figures preying on students and there were allegations Bhagwan put his foot on women’s genitals, or “sex centres”, in ceremonies.
Subhuti admits Bhagwan “probably did sexually stimulate women when they were blacked out” but dubiously insists this was part of the “energy” the guru was generating.
He adds: “Women were as much into the exploration as the men. There was a female leader who took a fancy to me. It went both ways.”
Life was not easy for Bhagwan’s followers. While the so-called “Gucci guru” flaunted his wealth — buying diamond watches and an astonishing 93 Rolls-Royce cars — his red-robed devotees toiled from dawn to dusk to bring his utopia to life and were fed just enough to survive.
That was despite the sect raking in millions via meditation centres, paid-for courses and a network of other business interests.
Followers confronted each other in aggressive sessions dubbed the “Encounter Group”.
Subhuti believes he got off lightly, being whacked with a pillow by a big German man. Others were punched with boxing gloves.
On one occasion, German actress Eva Renzi didn’t want to have sex with a man she was paired with.
Subhuti says: “The whole group turned on her, ripping off her clothes, slapping her and leaving her naked and with a bleeding nose.”
Subhuti says he questioned the wild mystic’s methods at times — especially when the cult relocated to the US.
Bhagwan’s arrival — naturally, in a Rolls-Royce — was a major news event. The guru had bought a 64,000-acre cattle ranch near the tiny town of Antelope in Oregon’s Wasco County. Subhuti edited the in-house newspaper and helped publicise the commune’s opening.
While shadowing a TV crew, he had to politely ask a couple having sex on the floor of the new meditation hall to go elsewhere.
Locals were not impressed by the construction of homes for 3,500 followers and attempts to take over the running of the town.
Subhuti says: “If you want to make friends with your neighbours, you don’t collect 93 Rolls-Royces and flaunt them under their noses. You don’t have big parties of 5,000 people all wearing bright red.”
DELIGHTED BY HIS NOTORIETY
Sheela took extreme steps. In 1984 she invited homeless people from across the US to the commune. She hoped they would vote in favour of her plans in county elections. The day before locals went to the polls, voters were poisoned through salad bars infected with salmonella.
It was the first recorded bioterror attack in the US.
With a small band of extremists, Sheela discussed flying a plane into the Wasco planning office. The pilot would parachute out at the last moment — but no one volunteered.
Chemicals were bought to make bombs, a hit squad was formed and followers were issued semi-automatic weapons. In one comically inept plot, a team of would-be assassins dressed as nurses to poison a hospitalised county commissioner.
They planned to inject the drug through an IV drip. They got to his room — and he didn’t have a drip.
Most of this came to light when Bhagwan turned on Sheela in 1985, denouncing her to his followers.
Subhuti believes the guru “knew something but not everything”.
Sheela was sentenced to 20 years in jail for crimes including attempted murder yet served just 39 months.
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Bhagwan quit the US in a plea bargain over immigration charges and the commune fell apart. Subhuti followed him to India, staying loyal until the guru’s death in 1990.
He accepts “we’d qualify as a cult if you ticked off the boxes” — but believes Bhagwan would be delighted by his renewed notoriety.
He says: “He’d be quite happy with the way things are going. I don’t think he had any illusions about what history would say.”
- Wild Wild Guru, by Subhuti Anand Waight, is out now (Coronet, £13.99)
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