Original subtitles

So much old stuff.

Oh, look, here you can see all the communes in Europe.

Here, here, here, here.

UK, I count, like, 12, 15.

Netherlands. Everywhere, they had the communes.

That's me on the ranch. Dressed in red.

Here are the notes I got...

..in the message box in the Amsterdam commune.

This one says, "Beloved Chandra, you're such a sweetheart,

"and your body is so beautiful."

And this one is written by a German guy in his 30s, I think.

"Beloved Chandra, it is beautiful to be with you.

"I love to sleep with you, to feel your body, it's amazing.

"Kisses."

I'd find messages of adult men saying something about

how lovely it was to sleep with me.

And how old were you then? I was 13.

But it was normal.

I don't have any other words for it.

My name is Maroesja.

I was six years old when I was initiated into a cult

and became known as Chandra.

INDISTINCT CHANTING

My mother chose to become one of tens of thousands

of followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Children like me didn't get a choice.

The cult became our entire world.

40 years on, I've connected

with other kids who grew up in its communes.

In Britain, in America, and around the world.

Until now, the truth of what happened to us,

in a movement that still thrives today, has been kept hidden.

Together, we've decided to change that.

I was born in Weston-super-Mare.

I was about six years old.

My dad went off to India and then said,

"It's amazing! Everybody has to come!"

And sent all our family out there, together, is how it started.

Coming out the plane,

it was just this hit of hot, thick, India-smelling air.

And just being surrounded by little children,

all smiling at me and putting their hands in my pockets

and pulling on my toys.

And when we got to the ashram,

I remember people streaming in with orange and red.

And there was just so many people.

I actually felt quite overwhelmed and started crying.

And then this girl came to me,

and she said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of you."

And she took me off into the ashram.

In the late '70s, followers of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

were flocking to his spiritual commune in Pune in India.

Walking in, it was serene, it was peaceful.

I was 23 by then, so I was young, and bright-eyed, and, you know...

Most followers didn't arrive with family or children.

They were young, affluent Westerners like Erin,

who came from California.

My father was a very successful businessman.

Being part of the rich and famous world, to some extent,

I really got a chance to see how having money

didn't really give access to happiness.

And I was seeking, always, from being really young,

I was looking for answers, I was looking for authenticity

because I didn't find it in my close world.

I was transported into another reality, really.

The people seemed so happy.

They seemed like they had a secret that nobody else had.

Everybody was saying it was his energy.

"Wait till you meet him, wait till you see him."

We were all waiting for him to come.

There was a power in it.

He was this little man in a little white robe.

My experience was so profound,

I thought I had met...

..like, a saviour.

If you were living in the commune and you were a kid,

you were treated special because we didn't have all the conditioning

from the outside world, so we were closer to enlightenment.

I remember kneeling in front of him and he said,

"Your name will be Ma Prem Sargam."

Ma is for "woman", Prem is "love", and Sargam means "music".

We were completely free, just not contained at all.

Using Pune as our playground, basically.

CHILDREN CHATTERING

Did you have any idea at the time, when you were seven,

what the adults were actually doing?

Yes, absolutely. It was about meditation.

You know, my mum meditated. Worked and meditated all day long.

We did the dynamic meditation, you know,

which is a lot of catharsis and special breathing,

which is hyperventilating,

and then jumping up and down, yelling, "Whoo!"

And dancing, and the different stages of the meditation.

MAN SHOUTING

I was really open at first, and then I suddenly pulled back in

and was like, "Uh-oh, this is a little weird."

Because everybody's dressed alike and they're all wearing these beads,

and I called it "group-mind".

I thought, "I'm afraid there's a group-mind going on here

"that's not healthy, that's not safe."

And I thought, "Whoa, I'm gonna be very careful here."

But what everybody was saying, and what he was saying,

was that we had to throw out all of our doubts,

our fears, our mistrust.

That those were all in the way of attaining a spiritual clarity.

With that teaching over and over and over again,

I fell deeper and deeper

into a state of what I believed was surrender to him.

And I remember very soon having the feeling

I would do anything for him, everything for him.

Followers also took part

in what Bhagwan described as "therapy groups"

to rid themselves of the conditioning of the outside world.

Our groups were underground, the walls were padded,

and it was also nicknamed the Dungeon.

In 1981, a German film-maker gained access to the Dungeon.

SHOUTING AND WAILING His explicit and revealing film

captured followers at their most uncontained.

In some of the groups, there were no rules - anything goes.

I began to see a lot of boundaries being broken,

sexually and also in terms of violence.

People were all beating each other up,

I mean punching each other hard.

And then I turn around and somebody's raping a woman,

and she's fighting to get away, and another man holds her down.

I was told that it was necessary,

even the violence was necessary, to break down the barriers.

So I got used to things that didn't feel right,

and I got used to just assuming that they were right.

By now, Bhagwan was becoming famous as "the sex guru".

He rejected monogamy and the traditional family structure.

Sexual freedom was everything.

We were encouraged to watch people having sex.

Adults were told it was all right.

"Children should watch us having sex."

So, it became almost like a game for us

to hear somebody having sex around the place and...

go and watch.

And a child seeing this over and over and over again,

it sexualises the child and normalises sexual behaviour.

So from there, you know, we were sitting on guards' laps

and French kissing them in front of the community.

In front of the community.

You can't say it looks all right

to have a seven-year-old sitting on your lap doing that.

And that progressed to more sexual acts.

My mother and I lived as followers in the Netherlands.

I remember being bullied at school because of my red clothes.

As Bhagwan's message spread around the world,

communes opened in more than 50 countries.

There were more than 30,000 followers, known as Sannyasins.

Hello, Leela.

MUFFLED: Oh, good to meet you in person.

Yes, it is.

'Leela was 11 when her parents took her to a commune in Switzerland.'

This is in the Zurich commune.

As a Sannyas child, because we grew up so freely,

you were expected that we would become ready for sex

or wanting to have sex at a very young age.

So as a girl, if you behaved, like, flirty or sexy, you know,

and outgoing, you were being a good Sannyas child.

And if you were more, like, introverted and shy,

you were a bad Sannyas child, so...

Which kind were you?

Oh, second. SHE CHUCKLES

I was... I was... I felt...

I felt pressured. Like, you know, "You should be different."

I should be more extroverted,

and outgoing, and sexy, and...

I knew how sex works, but I...

..I couldn't really picture myself in that.

It was like sex was so over-present in our everyday life.

In our shared bathrooms, there was, big bowls with condoms.

Then we were, like, doing striptease,

or we had one kid's mum,

she wanted to make a beauty contest of our genitals.

So we had to march naked, and she would choose the prettiest one.

And, "You have the prettiest..." you know, "..genital."

When you grow up like that, I always thought, like,

"OK, that's fine, it's good, it's normal, and we live like this."

I... I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Communes were also opening in the UK.

One of the biggest was in Suffolk, it was called Medina.

Rosalind moved to Medina with her parents in 1981.

I thought it was wonderful at first.

Lovely, open space, private grounds, lots of people.

This is Medina, set in the lovely Suffolk countryside.

The cult made its own shiny PR video to attract new followers.

It's happening in every country in Europe,

it's happening in every country in the world.

Suddenly, we're all together,

and it feels just like being in the ashram.

The video paints a genteel image

of Bhagwan's utopia, while concealing the reality...

We were working 12-hour days.

We worked very hard. And you were, at that time...?

14, 15, maybe I was already 15.

So, this man had taken an interest in me,

and I didn't want to have sex with him.

And, for once, I was quite clear about that.

I kept saying no,

but he kept pursuing me, chasing me to have sex with him.

Then there was a really lovely, motherly woman.

and I remember sitting against her, and her arms around me,

and I was talking about this problem with her.

And her gentle, womanly advice to me was to let him...

have me once, and then he'd lose interest.

And... so I began to think that was what I would have to do.

One evening, I found him in my bed, waiting for me.

I think it kind of crossed my mind, the fact that my mum was...

room was just across the landing,

but it didn't really occur to me to go and ask her for help.

So I got undressed and got into bed with him

because I didn't see another way.

And even then I didn't know it was rape.

SOBS: And I didn't cry at the time. I didn't know...

..really, how bad it was. INHALES SHARPLY

And the horror for me of that is that the whole commune was aware

of what was going on.

It went on for weeks.

And people were talking about it,

and not one person said anything supportive to me...

..and that includes my parents.

I just find it really hard to get my head around that.

INHALES AND EXHALES SHARPLY

# Kookaburra sits In the old gum tree

# Merry, merry king Of the bush is he

# Laugh, kookaburra Laugh, kookaburra

# That's not a monkey, that's me! #

I actually thought this is what happened to every kid.

You don't know that it doesn't

because it's the only experience that you have as a child.

I think it was an attraction, you know, this free sex,

and, also, free sex with kids, too.

Do you know what I mean? You're not gonna get stopped.

And if you're a predator, what a great environment to go in.

Do you remember this? This is our school.

That's what our school used to look like, actually.

Hem Hera. Hem Hera, yeah.

That's my friend's eighth birthday party.

That's Sharna, our teacher.

Where are you? And I'm here.

But Sharna was always present.

Hem Hera was our school,

and Sharna was our headteacher.

He was a very, very charismatic man that all the Sannyasins loved.

He was very theatrical and fun.

And it was known that he was a paedophile.

It was common knowledge.

We used to have singing circles in the commune.

I had seen him getting handjobs from other children,

and when he gave us piggybacks, he would shove his fingers up us.

He was in a relationship with a child there.

Everybody knew.

That's why it's so disturbing

that he became our headteacher in the other communes.

LEELA: One day, we were taken to the train station...

..and sent to England.

One of the English commune was going to be our school,

the Rajneesh School.

CHILDREN SHOUTING

In 1983, the cult converted Medina,

the commune in Suffolk, into a boarding school.

Children from communes around the world

were sent there alone

so their parents could pursue their spiritual journeys

without distraction.

There were little kids,

starting from age one and up to teenagers.

At that time, I was, like, 11 and 12.

I was just really overwhelmed.

And the first couple of weeks I was there, I was hiding on the attic.

Sharna features heavily in the Medina PR video.

He's cast as an entertainer, playing the clown,

sometimes naked,

and portrayed as a teacher, who can be trusted around children.

# Most efficacious in every case. #

There was a teacher called Sharna,

and he was a very popular and very charismatic and funny guy.

He flirted with a lot of girls, and also with younger girls.

There was a girl, she was maybe...

I don't know, eight? Seven, eight.

He liked to have her on his lap and tickle her

and kind of flirt with her, and she was always sort of laughing,

but also looking little bit...

..unhappy.

I sensed, like, I was getting a double message.

SARGAM: I had to go back to England by myself, and I was ten.

And I didn't know when I was gonna see my parents again. At all.

Sharna took a few of us, made it a game.

Told us to take our clothes off,

sit on top of a Xerox machine

and took pictures of our private parts,

spread them around the men.

I could do with a cigarette break now. Yeah.

Cos I'm starting to shake. I was just going to ask you...

Oh, my God! ..how you were feeling.

I was also sent to Medina.

I worked long hours in the kitchen...

..cooking for the babies and children

that were living there without their mothers.

My mother was asked to sign a consent form

for me to be given contraception.

I was 13.

It started as a neglect.

It's not that the women,

including your mother, were neglectful mother.

They became neglectful mother

because they were brainwashed, they were under a spell.

They thought that the price for a spiritual life

was to relinquish the children.

Deeksha was a member of Bhagwan's inner circle

in the commune in India.

It was her job to see that Bhagwan's orders

were carried out without question.

As well as separating children from their parents,

Bhagwan promoted other ways to undermine the family unit.

He didn't want children in the ashram

because children are a disturbance.

And that's why he suggested the sterilisation.

ERIN: He talked about how children

were a total impediment to enlightenment.

Suddenly, everybody was getting sterilised.

And the closer you were to the centre around him,

the more people were getting sterilised.

People can make love without the fear of having children,

and it free you, in a way.

The office will give me a list that tomorrow

this doctor can do four vasectomy and three sterilisation.

And I will call people and say,

"Bhagwan want us to get sterilised, so we say, what about you?"

You know? "OK. Are you ready?"

Then we'll put the name down. That's how it happened.

ERIN: I think I was just 25, barely 25,

and my... tubes had been cut.

I remember feeling, "This is a mark of true devotion."

And I was too young to make a choice like that.

This was kind of peer pressure, also.

I knew of somebody who was underage who did it,

who was very young, in her teen.

She was 14.

Course I regret it. I mean, it's absurd.

You know, how stupid. I mean, how...

..how damaging, to do something like that.

Bhagwan's followers had searched for freedom,

but some say they found a system of control and exploitation.

Both Deeksha and Erin say they were chosen

for one-to-one sessions with the guru.

We had special dresses to wear

that were gathered above the breasts and open.

No underwear.

Oh, you know...

I mean, here, I would... if I say this to you,

I am breaking every vow of secrecy that we were to hold.

I just wanna take a break for a second.

Sure, of course.

DEEKSHA: In his bedroom, there were two beds.

So when he wanted to, you know, have a private section with you,

he will close the door and lock it.

He will say, "Close your eyes,

"take your robe, lie on the bed,

"open your leg,

"touch your breast, masturbate."

He would stand up, and he would come to me from behind.

He did weird things,

often with putting his hands in my mouth and down my throat.

He always... pleased himself, and as soon as he did,

the minute he did, he'd tell me to leave.

I think he was smart enough to identify the woman who,

as me, I was kind of naive, I was very protected in my life,

I never had to struggle, in a way.

How often did this happen to you?

Several time. I don't know the number.

I was, what... for a period. It happened several time. Yeah.

ERIN: I believed it was a privilege,

and that something was happening beyond my understanding.

It wasn't till years later when I realised that every time...

Like now, I'm shaking. Every time I wanted to talk about it,

my body would just quiver, quiver, quiver, you know?

And, uh...

Eurgh. Makes me sick.

We drove up Highway 5, up to Oregon.

There was a lot of country roads, like, to get all the way out there,

cos it was quite... quite rural.

MAROESJA PERIZONIUS: In the early 1980s,

Bhagwan's cult was expanding rapidly.

He bought a 60,000-acre ranch

in a remote part of Oregon, in America,

to build a super-commune.

Dickon was 12 when he arrived with his mother.

This white one right in front of us was the old ranch house. Yeah.

That little...

Was that little one Howdy Doody?

I remember, we pull up,

and somebody said to go to what I then learnt was called Howdy Doody.

It was this barn next to the main ranch house

that had been turned into a kids' dorm.

From the point that I arrived on that first day,

and I went off in this direction and my mum went off

in this direction, we never lived together again, ever.

Followers came from all over the world

to help build what was called Rajneeshpuram.

But this looks different.

Yes. This used to be a little stream.

I remember playing there.

I came here, too, aged 11.

It felt like we were building a real city,

complete with its own police force and airline.

Local news channels appeared to see the cult's arrival

as a bit of an oddity.

REPORTER: Antelope, Oregon was typical small-town, rustic America.

But now the streets of Antelope are lined with red -

Rajneeshee children, Rajneeshee adults,

and Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

daily driving through town in one of his 30 Rolls-Royces.

ALL: # La-la-la, hey!

# La-la-la-la-la-la-la... #

The cult overwhelmed the local town.

They bought up houses and took over the school.

It really is quiet, huh? Yeah.

'Forty years later, Antelope is like a ghost town.'

Hello. Hi! Hello!

Come on in. So nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. You are John.

I am John, you are right.

'John Silvertooth was the mayor of Antelope at the time.'

Good to meet you today.

'There aren't many of us left around that were here.'

I mean, I'm the only one in this town that was here.

But I really like to hear your experiences,

because, you know, we all suspected

that the children were in danger, you know?

I mean, everybody felt that.

I mean, you didn't have to look very deeply

to see how they were treated.

Even if there wasn't sexual abuse,

it wasn't right to separate kids from their parents like that.

Yeah. Yeah.

I was here only three months.

And it was just really hard even to find my mother,

because everybody was dressed in the same colour. Right.

I had an A-frame in one mountain,

and she had another A-frame somewhere,

and we just didn't run into each other during those months.

Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, yeah.

This is the conflict within me and the struggle within me,

that's been part of my struggle my whole life,

is balancing the good and the bad.

We had some things that were really good,

and we had some things, quite a lot of things,

that were really, really bad. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the thing that's always so confusing.

I... I don't find that unusual.

It's, like, you know, you still love the abusive parent

even after they beat you with a two-by-four.

They're still Mommy or Daddy, you know? Yeah.

But this story about child abuse is very important, I think,

because there are many, many victims,

and I've heard the victims ignored for so long, you know?

I just think, you know, those poor kids.

Kids weren't just separated from their parents on the ranch.

Some, like Sarito, arrived entirely on their own.

I got off the Greyhound bus with my, like, Indian summer dress,

you know, probably a little tiny suitcase

and flip flops, and, like, crazy hippie hair.

And everyone's wearing, like, Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots,

and I could tell that I looked like a freak.

I was put in this bunkhouse -

13 men, one boy and me.

All the beds were out in the open.

And I was going through puberty, right? I was 12.

I think coming to the ranch on my own, before my mother,

set me up perfectly to be... targeted.

Most of the followers on the ranch were single, young adults.

Milarepa joined the cult in the early days in India

and was a prominent member of the new commune.

I think he was probably, like, late 20s at the time.

He lived in Howdy Doody.

I didn't really pay attention to him except that he played music.

He started just showing interest in me, you know,

just like he seemed to almost care about my wellbeing.

He invited me to a poker game, and I said, "Sure."

Like, I felt flattered to be invited.

He had me sit next to him,

and he just kind of got really close.

He put his hand around me,

and then he started just putting his arm down my shirt.

I remember feeling confused.

There was probably four or five other guys, nobody said anything.

So this happened maybe two or three times.

But then he invited me to a party.

He pulled me away from the group, and we were on the ground,

and he started feeling me up and making out with me.

After that party, he invited me home with him.

And so that night, he took my virginity.

Yeah, I was 12.

I mean, the one thing that did come to mind

right after I lost my virginity was, like... I gave it away.

You know, I felt like I...

gave away my goodness...

..to someone who didn't deserve it. That's the thing.

Everything just seemed, sexually, it was so casual.

It was purely just this activity everybody participated in.

God, I haven't thought of this in a long time.

I was 14.

I was terribly shy.

She was older, she was late 20s, early 30s.

A couple of times, we ended up kissing, and...

..one night, she invited me to her home.

I wanted to be with her.

So I spent the night with her, we had sex.

The following day, I was kind of heady and excited and happy,

and... and then...

that following day,

she ended up sleeping with my best friend.

One or two days after that,

she slept with somebody else who was our age.

There was some celebration,

and I saw her kissing or dancing or hugging

this other guy that she'd slept with.

And I just burst into tears.

People all around, and people are dancing,

and music's playing,

and I'm just standing there just crying.

This is one of the things that I was worried about

in doing this... this project. Mm-hm.

Like, I'm telling this story...

..and to me, all of a sudden, it doesn't seem so dramatic.

But at the same time, it's such a indicator

of the culture that all us children were raised in,

where, basically, anything goes,

as long as it's kept quiet to the outside world.

Amazing how much materials... Yeah. Yeah.

'The Oregon State Archives hold a huge collection of artefacts

'and journalism about the ranch.'

Oh, Jesus. "Bhagwan's Child-Rearing."

Just that title. Ugh.

'We could only find one article

'that relates to the experience of children.'

"The children are discouraged from living with their parents."

Not discouraged, we weren't allowed to.

There was no choice. There was no choice.

Yeah, there was no... We had no say in it.

"Most of the 12, 13 and 14-year-old girls at the ranch

"were having sexual relationships.

"It was a common thing." Yep. Yep?

When was this article written?

Uh... this was published May, 1985.

Oh, Jesus Christ... I'd like to hear more.

" 'I'm a child protective social worker,'

"explains a former disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

"She told Oregon magazine that,

" 'Just from a sociological point of view, in my opinion,

" 'there's a tremendous amount of child neglect

" 'going on there at Rajneeshpuram.' "

Oh.

HE SOBS Sorry.

It's so weird.

Yeah.

It's like that. This stuff is, like...

There's so much pain that's just beneath the surface.

That loneliness, that lostness.

It just hurts, it just hurts. I get it.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

This is just kind of blowing my mind.

In '85? That this was published in '85.

Yeah. It's taken this long for it to come out,

but it was here in black and white in 1985.

The author of the article was Win McCormack.

He was one of the only journalists raising questions

about what was actually going on at the ranch.

I had a couple of reliable sources tell me that...

adults at the ranch, Rajneeshpuram,

were having sex with underage girls and that it was very common.

One man was sitting next to this girl on a bus

and started molesting her, right there in public.

You must have been the only one writing about that.

Yes, I... I was.

And there was a certain number of journalists

who dismissed what I'd written.

Maybe thought it was exaggerated. I mean, it was actually...

It went way beyond what I had found out.

You know, it wasn't just a few people at Rajneeshpuram,

it was probably a lot of people at Rajneeshpuram.

But it also included people all around the world

at Rajneesh centres, from Europe to Australia.

And I never had a clue as to that -

that it was that widespread and that much a part of the culture.

That it was, you know, it was part of the culture.

Until recently, people hardly knew anything

about our lives in the Rajneesh communes.

Everybody felt they were there at the beginning

of the great experiment, like we were the chosen people.

That changed with a high-profile Netflix series,

released in 2018.

Over six dramatic episodes,

it chronicled the cult's years in Oregon...

..but it didn't include anything about the experience of children.

The series provoked an outpouring on social media

from children who said they had suffered

the systemic sexual abuse.

Sargam was among the first to publicly share her experiences.

I ended up putting my story on Facebook.

It had a profound effect

because I named my abusers, and obviously,

everybody in the commune knew who these abusers were.

'Then there were floods of people coming through.

'Many other kids telling their stories.'

You know, people were calling me from around the world.

People I didn't know, I'd never met.

'It was sort of like a deluge

'of our abuse stories,

'and naming many different perpetrators.'

What I wasn't prepared for was for them to answer me.

One of my abusers wrote to me privately.

He did say sorry.

But he dressed it up that I was in love with him,

and I was the one who groomed him.

This is ridiculous.

A 12-year-old cannot groom a 30-year-old man.

Sargam's alleged abuser,

known as Nityanando, or Nity,

worked as a pilot for the commune's airline, Air Rajneesh.

Sargam, just 12, was a hostess.

It started with small touches here and there,

telling me I'm so beautiful, he just wanted to give me a hug.

And having spiritual conversations about connection,

and energy - what amazing energy I had,

and how he felt like we were really connected.

There was some alcohol.

I thought it came from the plane, but I don't know,

maybe he just bought it.

And then eventually he said to me, you know,

"We have such an amazing bond.

"I want you to come home with me,

"just so that we can be near each other and I can just hold you."

I really thought I understood, I was safe.

And then we got back to his trailer...

No, he raped me.

He raped me. And...

I felt so stupid.

DIAL TONE, SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

'Hello, good evening.' Hello, good evening.

Is this Nity? 'Hi!'

We don't know each other. My name is Maroejsa.

I'm from the Netherlands.

Nity is still part of the Rajneesh community

and spends his summers at a meditation retreat in Corfu.

Sargam told us he'd offered her money

to stop her going public with her story,

but she says she wants the world to know the truth.

I'm making a documentary about the Rajneesh kids.

'He doesn't know we're recording the call.'

'The truth of the matter is, a lot of big mistakes were made.

'And obviously, the kids got hurt.'

Yeah, you mean sexually... sexually abused by... by adults?

'That is one aspect of it.'

'This is a very fragile subject we're talking about.' Yes.

'There's a lot of pain, and everybody has it.

'I... I hurt Sargam incredibly, and I didn't know.'

The fact is that the two of you had sex

and that Sargam was a child.

'Absolutely. And... And I take full responsibility for that.

'And... And what I know is, that was a big mistake I made.

'And I'm really sorry for it.'

Would you be willing to speak about it with me on camera?

'Absolutely not.' Why?

'Because my story is between me and another person.

'One adult and one child.

'One of the problems we have in this conversation

'is we use the word "rape", but when we use that word,

'we automatically add violence into it.'

Yes, it is...

'But energetically, that's not how it played out.'

Well, that is where we... we really differ in opinion.

I mean, I went through the same thing

with about four people, aged 13.

You know, it's not that there's a creep jumping out of a bush

in a dark street and violently raping you,

but it's... but it is the same. It is rape.

'Technically, it was a crime that was committed.

'Absolutely, you're correct.

'Practically speaking, we were living in a different context.

'The context doesn't make it right,

'but it does put it into the perspective

'of the situation we were in.'

Very few Sannyasin men are willing to talk publicly

about sex with minors,

but one man did agree to an interview.

Toby joined the cult when he was in his late 20s

and spent four years at the ranch in Oregon.

I mean, I knew that there was sex happening

between younger people and the adults.

There were some people who were really, like,

aggressively going after these girls.

It was so normalised.

I worked around a lot of the teenagers,

and it looked to me like they were having a fine time.

Do you have any experiences yourself with the teenagers?

I had one experience with a 16-year-old girl.

Um...

and when I did it, I thought,

"Why am I doing this?

"I don't have anything in common with this person."

I was 32, I believe. So I was twice her age.

I don't really consider myself an abuser,

but I pandered to my own... lust.

You know, it was a few days, and then I realised,

no, this... this really... this is crazy.

It was not something I was proud of, let me put it that way.

The other thing, and I will say this,

it's a very unpopular view, but...

the kids themselves were acting out sexually,

so they were very aggressively flirting with men.

I mean, "acting out"...

..might have been just a way to survive in that environment.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And you've constantly got people hitting on you.

You've constantly got this pressure.

I know that the girls were fitted with contraceptives

as soon as they hit puberty. Yeah.

Can we take a break? I'm sorry. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Careful. God.

Be right back. Yeah.

I still struggle with the trauma

when I remember the constant pressure from men to have sex.

We were expected to be "juicy", as they said then,

and say yes to everything.

Hi.

'I became friends with Binu on Facebook,

'when she shared her story.'

Aww. Hi.

'We haven't met in person until now.'

I started having sex when I got there.

I just felt like I was living the ranch life,

living the commune life.

We were underneath the umbrella that all sex is OK.

And sex with whoever is OK.

You don't have to be in love with them,

you don't have to be partnered with them...

..you just can have sex with them. And that's good.

I remember sleeping with a lot of men,

and, you know, we would list the guys we slept with,

we would write them down. I would.

From 12 to 16...

like, 150 men...

..in those four years.

Yeah.

After I lost my virginity,

I get this message to go to the little medical trailer.

Three other teens were there.

And so the nurse practitioner comes out and says, "Oh, yes.

"You were all told to come here

"because you need to be fitted for diaphragms."

I mean, literally, I lost my virginity, like,

days before, like, not long.

And we all had diaphragms after that.

Age 12? At age 12.

We had a gynaecologist that took care of us.

Why would you have so many yeast infections

when you're a child?

But I did, I had a lot of them.

And you know obviously why.

And did nobody say, "Listen, this is not good for you.

"This is wrong"? No.

Not a soul. I don't recall anyone ever saying that at all.

Never do I recall anyone taking me aside and saying,

"Maybe you don't need to have sex with all these people," or...

.."focus on something else."

What else would you focus on?

I don't know what else you do.

I'm gonna take my shades off, huh?

My hair's OK? WOMAN: Yeah.

At the ranch,

the senior person carrying out Bhagwan's orders

was this woman known as Sheela.

I look real tough with shades on.

The cult's offices were in a building called Jesus Grove,

where we've been told that the order

to give girls contraception was issued from

as part of efforts to hide what was going on from the outside world.

One morning, I wake up... and the diary with the list

of the guys that I'd been sleeping with, they're gone.

I just was horrified.

Who had it? Why did they take it?

And then you come to find out it wasn't just me

whose diary was stolen, it was a bunch of other...

my roommates' diaries, us girls.

Some of the girls said,

"We were enlisted to take those diaries out of your rooms."

We were then asked to write a list of all the men

that we'd had sex with for Jesus Grove, Sheela,

to understand who would potentially undermine the commune.

And so on the list were adult men?

This was all about adult men. She only wanted to know about,

"What older men have you slept with?"

They compiled a list that contained 100 or more names.

Those people were called in to a meeting and told to be discreet.

They weren't told not to do this.

They weren't told it was unethical,

that they had to stop, or anything.

They were told to be discreet.

And apparently, what I've heard

is that the officials were sniffing around.

You know, you're 12 years old, you're working 12 hours a day.

You're not getting educated,

and you have sex with 50 men in three years.

You're... It's child labour, and you're a sex slave.

You know, this is how the law will look at it.

We found little evidence of any meaningful investigation

into the treatment of children in Rajneesh communes

around the world,

including at their schools in the UK.

I wrote about this one person

from Children's Services who went out there.

He spent a total of one hour out there.

They took him around,

and they showed him what they wanted him to see.

And he actually wrote a report saying he saw nothing wrong

going on with the children based on his one-hour visit,

which was under the supervision of the Rajneeshees.

Now that's a level of stupidity...

Well, that's remarkable.

So the children remained there instead of getting rescued.

By now, the cult was under investigation

for a number of other serious crimes,

including a plot to kill state officials.

Bhagwan was deported for immigration fraud,

returning to India, where he changed his name to Osho.

In 1985, the ranch collapsed.

When you come out of a commune, every adult in there,

they had education, they'd had property before.

They knew how to live in the world.

We came out. I didn't know a thing.

I literally did not know how to write a letter.

A lot of us turned to sex work.

Hostessing, stripping, all kinds of things like that

because sex is all we knew.

I had very, very little sense of myself,

and I didn't have any idea what to do with my life.

I had big difficulties in relationships -

how to find someone that's a good fit for me.

Nothing worked out. I was...

I ended up in abusive relationships.

It's like I'm always hypervigilant that someone wants to use me

and dupe me,

and when there's real love there,

I can't always recognise it and let it in.

I really ended up without a lot of things

that might be really fulfilling to have...

..like a child...

..or a husband.

And that is sad.

After my mother and I left the cult,

we moved into an apartment in Amsterdam

and suddenly had to be a family again.

I've often struggled to accept the choices she made

which had such an impact on me.

Bhagwan died in 1990.

Today, the Osho International Foundation

claims to be the custodians of Bhagwan's work.

Its website has glossy videos promoting

a modern Rajneesh experience to a new generation.

The organisation is run by former members

of Bhagwan's inner circle.

We've been told they were made aware

of the abuse allegations on Facebook,

but made no response.

Even as it emerged that one perpetrator,

still connected to the movement,

was an alleged abuser.

When I posted my open message to the Rajneesh commune

and a letter to Milarepa on the Facebook groups,

other girls shared that they had been abused by him, too.

This made me realise it was a pattern,

especially for a certain age.

And that, you know, he's a paedophile.

Yeah, he's got a thing for pubescent girls.

I remember the worst of the experiences.

Milarepa, he was so disgusting.

I was, like, 13 or something. It was just horrible.

Milarepa is still a well-known figure

in the global Osho community.

Good morning. I'm, uh...

My name is Milarepa,

and I want to welcome you to the event today.

We're celebrating...

Posing as a student film-maker, one of the team got access

to an event celebrating the opening

of a new Osho meditation centre in Dallas.

We live in a crazy world.

And we have a tendency to take that craziness inside.

So this meditation, we have an opportunity to...

let it go, throw it out.

Take the garbage out.

Let's get started.

At the end of the event,

Milarepa gave our team member his phone number.

DIAL TONE

'Yes, hello?' Hello?

Can you hear me?

'Not so well, it's a bad connection.'

I'm phoning from a little bit far away.

My name is Maroesja, and, uh...

'Right. I don't think I know you... I don't know you, though, do I?'

We never met.

I'm, at the moment,

making a film about the children growing up in the communes.

'Yeah, so I'm not... I'm sorry, I'm not interested in, uh...

'in participating in that. Yeah. Bye-bye.'

Would you feel open to just...? Hello?

OK.

Our undercover team member has kept in contact with Milarepa.

He invites her to another meditation retreat he's running.

YELLING

I'm going to visit him to try and get some answers.

SINGING BOWL VIBRATES

So nice, huh? Absolutely beautiful.

Right, so if you just pop over here.

It's just quite nice next to this tree,

looking back at the building. Sure.

Come a bit closer.

MAROESJA PERIZONIUS: Our undercover team member

has invited Milarepa to talk about himself

and the event he's running.

Just test this mic.

OK, testing...

OK.

My name is Milarepa.

We had an idea, why not do an event with meditation and music,

and celebration, and all the nice things,

so that's why we're here.

Events like this are always a surprise for me.

You never know what to expect,

cos it's always different groups of people,

and the energy is very high and very deep.

Hello, Milarepa? Yes, hello.

Hello, hi. I'm Maroesja.

Making a film about the kids growing up in the communes. OK.

And I'd like to ask what your response is to the accusations.

Can we turn that off for a minute?

The accusations of sexual abuse in the ranch time, in the '80s.

Yeah, you know, I'm... What's your name again?

Maroesja. Oh, Maroesja, yeah.

I don't really know you.

I'm one of the kids from back then. OK.

Um, I don't really have a lot to say. And, uh...

I don't appreciate you showing up like this.

It's because you... You know, I tried to phone you.

Can you turn your camera off? I'm not gonna turn it off.

Yeah, you can. Why don't we call the police?

You know, you threw the phone down, and I emailed you,

and I just want to... Because I don't know you.

I don't know who you are. You call me out of the blue.

I don't know where you got my phone number.

I would also like to know your response to Sarito saying...

I've already connected with her. I've already talked to her.

..she was raped by you on the ranch. That's just bullshit.

The thing with her is something between...

It's a private thing between us. No, it's not private.

Yeah, it is private. Yeah. It's being kept secret that way.

That's how things get, you know, neglected and ignored,

and it's not, you know, it's not...

Get the... Back up, back up.

Hey, get off. You're not...

You're not allowed to film like this.

There are allegations you've committed serious offences...

You're on private property. You're on private property.

There are allegations you've committed very serious crimes.

Bullshit.

Today, Osho International has its head office in New York.

Those who grew up in the cult

believe the foundation should acknowledge

that the harm they suffered is part of Bhagwan's legacy.

They should be honest.

They should be honest about the history

of this mythical figure that they are now profiting from.

They should be honest about the reality of who was hurt.

And they should be held accountable.

The most powerful member of Bhagwan's team was Sheela.

She was the star of the Netflix series about the cult,

playing her role as the most devoted disciple.

It was in this moment,

if death would have come...

..I accept.

But like everyone else in the series,

she never spoke about the treatment of children.

'Sheela is now in her late 70s and living in Switzerland.'

All all right?

'For many of us former commune kids,

'she's the person with the most to answer for.'

I wanted to show you a letter

I got from you when I was 11.

Wow. It has your signature.

That is my signature, definitely. Yeah.

"Beloved Chandra, love.

"We received the beautiful drawing you sent to Bhagwan

"and send you his blessings."

I do remember bringing, from time to time,

drawings to Bhagwan from our children. Yeah.

What do you think was the experience

of the children who lived in the communes?

That's a question you have to ask the children.

But what Bhagwan's concept was...

..to teach them freedom.

Offer them freedom.

Let them make their choices.

The culture we had as Sannyasins was

a very overly-sexualised culture.

And I want to talk about the fact

that we all were having sex at a very young age.

Did you have any knowledge of children having sex of a young age?

No.

It was nobody's mandate that you should have sex at a early age.

Nobody told you to have sex in early age.

There were no discourses of Bhagwan that I know where he has said

that children should engage in sex.

And...

..if it happened, it is children's choice.

No. I don't think you can say... Sorry...

..about a 13, or 12 or even,

you know, younger children than that.

But I cannot take responsibility...

But they can also not take responsibility,

I think you can. No. I cannot.

There was systemic child sexual abuse...

and you were in charge.

That could be your choice or your experience.

It is not my experience.

Our sources say that there were a few children

who were told to write down which adults they were sleeping with.

There was 110 people on that list -

100 men, about, and ten women.

You didn't then tell those 110 people to leave,

but you told them to be discreet

because it would be really bad if this knowledge, you know,

came to the outside world.

Maroesja, I tell you,

I have nothing to do with such story.

I have never lived this story and...

never heard about it.

I have to break off the conversation...

I'm very sorry, because, you know, I'm not...

I'm not being angry with you, I just want to...

I cannot help you.

I cannot help you

with what you want me to help with.

Sorry.

Finally, I decide to write to one of my own perpetrators.

Mitchell Gold was an American follower

who had sex with me in the Amsterdam commune

when I was 13.

Under Dutch law, this is rape.

I've had no contact with him since he left in 1986.

And I want to know if he's prepared to take responsibility.

Send.

He replies within hours and seems genuine.

"Yes, I'd like to talk, or mostly to listen.

"I have the sense that's what's needed.

"I am deeply sorry for what happened,

"for my part in our interactions.

"I have felt many things,

"but the biggest has always been a feeling of deep sorrow.

"I apologise, Maroesja, from the bottom of my heart and soul.

"Please let me know how you'd like to go forwards."

Gosh.

Over the next week, we exchange more messages.

But when I suggest doing an interview on camera,

his reply is blunt.

I haven't heard from him since.

Like so many others, he wants to keep things private.

By now, I know of 59 children who say they suffered neglect

and abuse in the cult.

That's just a fraction of the total.

There must be many hundreds who are living with the consequences.

This is the result directly of the culture that was created

under the teachings of Osho.

And we're left in the wreckage, and no-one seems to give a shit.

There was a massive failure to protect us children.

How could there have been so little oversight of the communes

in Britain, America, and around the world?

Accountability for the harm is the least we deserve.

I live with a sense of deep remorse

that I was part of anything that affected so many people badly.

And the fallout on the children is...

..the worst of it.

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