Child Abuse At Rajneesh / Osho Schools and Ashrams - New Film (edited with links)

Despite the recent Netflix expose of the Rajneesh aka Osho sex cult little has come to surface about the horrendous and widespread child abuse at the Osho schools and ashrams etc. from Pune to the U.S. to Europe and to the U.K. And which is STILL going on.

Now a major new documentary film is due to be released detailing the horrific sexual abuse that was experienced by three now adult victims.

See this link where Dr Lilly Dunn writes:

CHILDREN OF THE CULT

[lilydunn.co.uk]

At the start of October there will be an international cinema release of a documentary, Children of the Cult, which I helped develop, after which it will air on ITV Exposure (13th October, 2024).

It is directed by award-winning filmmaker Maroesja Perizonius, and Alice McShane, and produced by award-winning David Modell. I am consultant producer.

Children of the Cult is a deeply personal investigation into the Rajneesh movement, of which my father was a member. One of the world’s biggest and most successful cults, it had communes in more than 30 countries in the 1970s and 1980s and was immortalised in the Netflix series Wild Wild Country.

[youtu.be]

Perizonius’ unforgettable film reveals a shocking central truth about the organisation that has long been concealed.

Perizonius, herself a child of the communes, travelled around the world connecting and interviewing other commune children, recording their testimonies in a documentary that uncovers the truth that Wild Wild Country failed to tell [the rampant sexual child abuse at the Rajneesh / Osho schools and ashrams].

So many of the children who grew up with parents who were disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (also known as Osho) were shocked that there was no mention of the damage the Rajneesh cult did to families and specifically the children.

Children of the Cult evolved from a friendship between me and Maroesja, but it was made possible by the flood of testimonies that appeared on Facebook pages by those who had grown up in the communes and suffered extreme neglect and abuse. Maroesja and I met during the pandemic after I watched her first film, Child of the Commune (2004)

[m.imdb.com]

, while doing research for my memoir, Sins of My Father

[www.oshonews.com]

Together we hatched a plan to shine a light on these crucial stories. It took years to find the right production company to bring this film into being. I am thrilled that it will finally receive the audience it deserves.

Children of the Cult will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 4th October, with a preview at London’s Curzon Soho on 2nd October, followed by a Q&A discussion with director, Maroesja Perizonius.

Part retrospective, part unfolding investigation, this film tells the barely believable story of the treatment of children within the cult—children who grew up in an environment where sex was pervasive, where they were separated from their parents, and where there were no boundaries. Cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh [now known as Osho] built an entirely new society with its own moral code, where terrible crimes against children were facilitated and normalised.

The organisation still thrives today, now renamed Osho, profiting from Bhagwan’s teachings, yet no one has been held accountable for the harm caused to children in its communes around the world. In the course of her unflinching investigation, Perizonius unmasks perpetrators and demands answers from the closest members of the cult’s inner circle.

If you want to read more about how this film came into being, you can read this here

[lilydunn.substack.com]

For more information please contact:
Yung Kha / yungkha.pr@gmail.com
+44 7788 546 706

ABOUT MAROESJA PERIZONIUS

Maroesja Perizonius is a Dutch director and writer with a background in journalism and copywriting. After working as an assistant documentary producer she directed her debut in 2004. In CHILD OF THE COMMUNE

[m.imdb.com]

she spoke with her mother about joining a cult at a very young age. The film was broadcast all over Europe and won the prize for the best debut.

As a writer Maroesja published a memoir about living in a cult which was translated to German. She lives in Amsterdam with her family.

DARTMOUTH FILMS

Dartmouth Films are pioneers in Britain of independent documentaries—finding new ways of funding, making and distributing films which have impact.

Recent titles include the 2022 summer box office success ERIC RAVILIOUS: DRAWN TO WAR, winner of the 2022 Screen Awards for Best Documentary Campaign of the year. Grierson-nominated and the UK’s 2022 entry to the Oscars® DYING TO DIVORCE, BAFTA-winning MEN WHO SING and BIFA-winning CHILDREN OF THE SNOW LAND. Non-theatrical successes include RESILIENCE, which had a direct impact on the health policy objectives of the Scottish government, and MAGIC MEDICINE, which continues to be used as a crucial resource in cross-party efforts to reform drug policy.

Website: dartmouthfilms.com
Instagram: dartmouth.films
X: @DartmouthFilms

TICKETS

Tickets are now on sale for the premiere and Q&A

BUY TICKETS HERE

[www.curzon.com]

Copyright © 2024 Lily Dunn, All Rights Reserved | Designed by Geek Fairy Design Studio

Another link here …

[www.ndtv.com]

The sexual abuse of kids at the now closed Medina commune in Suffolk and Ko Hsuan school in Devon UK is alluded to in the late Tim Guest’s book My Life In Orange.

[www.theguardian.com]

In My Life in Orange, he recounts the disturbing practice of sexual initiation, involving adult men and girls as young as eight. He reports that certain photos were lost or mislaid when school inspectorates were due.

At Ko Hsuan they freely stated “The boys and girls of all ages are allowed to explore each others' sexuality. This is tempered by the rules that govern co-educational boarding schools.”

[ivor123us.tripod.com]

Apparently the dormitories were co-ed.

But the school did not close due to lack of finance. It was closed due to the death of a teenage boy who hanged himself because his girl friend would not swap clothes with him, in some bizarre teenage game. This was reported in The Times.

Those involved with the Medina commune and Ko Hsuan school are still active in promoting Osho at communes such as OshoLeela in Devin. The commune has kids there who must be revolted at the sight of strange adults having sex during ‘love festivals’ etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2024 03:04AM by SeekingTruth.

The Daily Mail …

[www.dailymail.co.uk]

‘Exploitation & abuse’ in Osho’s cult: UK woman shares harrowing childhood experience

Prem Sargam's interview in The Times

[www.thetimes.com]

My years in a cult that groomed children to have sex with adults
Prem Sargam was six when her parents became followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, seven when her abuse began and twelve when she was first raped. The cult’s systematic sexualisation of children has never been made public — until now

(Small excerpt)

Quote

Osho’s philosophy was that his disciples should “live in love”, having as much guilt-free sex as they desired. Children should watch because sex was not shameful. Freedom was to be found through love, surrender and sex. So they wouldn’t obstruct and limit their parents’ sexual freedom, children were separated in their own living quarters.

At seven, an adult male performed a sex act on Sargam, having groomed her for months with chocolate. “It was only at 16 I understood what had happened,” she says. Between the ages of 7 and 11, she and her friends were performing different sex acts on the ashram’s “guards”.

In India, she had quickly been sexualised to perform these regular sex acts on men. This abuse continued in the cult’s Medina ashram in Suffolk, an Arts and Crafts house near Mildenhall, where she was sent alone to attend its “boarding school” aged 11.

[www.thetimes.com]

Medina was run by Tim Guest’s mother. He fully describes what went on there in his book My Life In Orange. His unexplained early death has all the markings of a revenge attack by a cult of vindictive adherents, sannyasins?

DOCUMENTARY: Exposure
On: STV HD
Date: Sunday 13th October 2024 (starting in 6 days)
Time: 22:15 to 23:45 (1 hour and 30 minutes long)

Children of the Cult.

An international investigation into the Rajneesh movement, one of the world's biggest and most successful cults and which in the 1970s and '80s had tens of thousands of followers as well as communes in more than 50 countries. Film-maker Maroesja Perizonius, herself a child of the Rajneesh communes, made contact with other former Rajneesh children and together they revealed an awful truth about the organisation that has been hidden for 40 years. Part of the Exposure strand.

Abused at British 'Sex Cult's Schools

[cultnews.net]

From Xxxx in Cambodia on Facebook

There was also an excellent segment on a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Women's Hour, available worldwide via the BBC Sounds app. Starts at 28:35 in …

[www.bbc.co.uk]

In 2021, Netflix premiered the documentary Wild Wild Country which drew global attention to the Rajneesh movement, a group of around 30,000 people at the movement’s height, who followed an Indian spiritual guru called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. But what really drew the attention of many of the people who had grown up as part of this international community was that the experience of children was barely reflected in the six-part series. Maroesja Perizonius and her mother were part of the Rajneesh movement, joining when Maroosha was six. Maroesja has created a new documentary, Children of the Cult. She joins Kylie to talk about this very deeply personal project along with Sargam, another woman whose family became followers when she was a child.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2024 04:00AM by SeekingTruth.

Sarito Carroll

[www.theguardian.com]

My abuse in the Osho Rajneesh cult has haunted me for decades. Now I’m ready to speak out

In 1978, when I was nine years old, I unexpectedly moved to India with my free-spirited mother, who had recently become a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho). Like others of her generation, she was swept up in the allure of Rajneesh’s promises: enlightenment, freedom and belonging. Osho denounced traditional religion, offering a new path to self-liberation through cathartic meditations and therapy groups, communal living and free love. In the west, they called Osho the “sex guru”.

==snip==


Though I was loved by many sannyasins (Rajneesh’s devotees) and some looked out for me, there was no formal structure to ensure my emotional or physical wellbeing. Over time, the facade of love and celebration began to crack, revealing darker undercurrents that quietly enveloped me. It began innocently enough – a guard teaching my friends and me how to french kiss. But soon I began to sense the inappropriate attention of certain men.

One day, a man coaxed me and another girl into giving him a hand job. We were both only 10 years old. Though I tried to convince myself it was just a game, a reflection of the open sexuality around us, it felt grossly wrong. Deep down, I knew that unless I remained vigilant, situations like this would continue to occur.

These darker undercurrents entangled me more fully when, in 1981, the commune moved to the US. I was among the first to arrive at the ranch the commune had bought in central Oregon. It was during those early days that I was lured into what I thought was a love affair with a much older man. I was only 12 years old; he was 29. However, what I believed to be love was no such thing.

At the time I suffered silently as he repeatedly drew me in with affection and took me to bed only to ignore me for days as I watched him pursue adult women and, in time, my peers. At the same time, other men circled, and eventually I gave in, as sleeping around and being “liberated” was the norm that was modelled to me. As time passed, I felt increasingly worthless and angst ridden, and took my bad feelings to mean I was flawed. We were to be positive, not negative, so I didn’t speak of my pain and confusion.

When the commune collapsed in 1985, we were all flung back into the world unprepared. I was 16, disoriented, broke and unsure of who I was. The trauma of my upbringing haunted me, but I couldn’t yet name it. As the years passed, I came to see it for what it was and came to see how Osho’s teachings tilled the soil for abuse – under the guise of spiritual freedom to boot. It sickened me. I distanced myself from the movement, from the teachings, and forged a life of my own.

==snip==

I reached out to several peers I knew had also experienced abuse, hoping they would join me in speaking out.

They all initially declined, but three years later, in 2021, I received an unexpected call from one of them telling me she was finally ready. We began to share our stories, igniting a reckoning in which many other commune youth, and even adults, came forward and shared their own stories of abuse. Each new revelation was heart-wrenching. One of my peers from Rajneeshpuram said she had slept with 70 men, another said 150. This was before either of them had turned 16.

==snip==

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