A British woman raised in the sickening ‘Sannyasin’ sex cult led by Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – where she was allegedly abused and raped multiple times as a child – has revealed her hell amid the upcoming release of a documentary that tells her story.
In an interview with The timesPrem Sargam, 54, spoke about the rampant sexual abuse she suffered from the age of six in the three Sannyasin communities – or ‘ashrams’– where she grew up.
Sargam explained how Rajneesh’s Sannyasin spiritual movement, which her parents joined when she was a young child, believed that children should watch sex regularly and that girls going through puberty should be guided by adult men on their sexual journeys.
“It was considered good for the children to be exposed to sexuality,” she told The Times, explaining that it was a normal event for her to watch adults having sex.
Sargam began witnessing these very public displays of sex at the age of six, when her family moved from their home in Devon to a Sannyasin commune in Prune, India, after her father, who had become disillusioned with his job, sought relief from Rajneesh – a bearded guru and mystic whose New Age sex cult was unparalleled in its embrace of ‘free love’.
Prem Sargam, 54, speaks about the sexual abuse she suffered in a cult that groomed children for sex with adults
Sargam says the abuse started when her parents became followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (pictured)
The cult in which Sargam grew up was previously explored in the 2018 Netflix documentary ‘Wild Wild Country’. The image shows documentary footage of the cult’s commune in Oregon
But the movement also believed that children were getting in the way of their parents’ sexual journeys.
This meant that Sargam lived far away from her mother and father in the children’s homes, where she received no education and worked 12 hours a day in the kitchen.
But it was only a year after her arrival in India that Sargam’s innocence was taken from her.
At the age of seven, Sargam was cared for by an adult man, who had her followed ‘like a little dog’ and bribed her with Swiss chocolate.
“It wasn’t until I was 16 that I understood what had happened,” she said.
The disgusting sexual abuse of children in Rajneesh’s communes is explored in the upcoming documentary ‘Children of the Cult’. The film tells the story of three British women, including Sargam, who escaped the clutches of the cult.
And while the documentary shows her courageously opening up about her abuse, Sargam only opened up about her past on Facebook three years ago, when she wrote an open letter to her abuser.
In it she explained how ‘he asked me to take off my panties, he said he would ‘introduce me to sex’, that I should lie back on the bed and that [is] when he first performed a sexual act on me,” she wrote on the social platform in September 2021.
‘I was scared and just didn’t know what to do… my body froze in fear and a sick feeling came over me. This is not right, or maybe this is what adults do with children, maybe this is normal? But if it’s normal, why does it feel so wrong and I can’t move my body?’
Pictured: Rajneesh in 1985
Pictured: Sannyasins in their orange robes
Rajneesh founded a spiritual movement and commune in Pune, near Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1970.
Rajneesh’s unorthodox meditation techniques and sheer outrageousness attracted tens of thousands of followers from around the world
‘Even in my [seven]-year-old mind, I thought what a strange thing to do. I was already very confused mentally and emotionally.’
Sargam also told The Times that between the ages of seven and 11, she and her friends were expected to perform various sexual acts with adult men living in the commune.
She would then be sent alone to the Medina Ashram in Suffolk to attend a ‘boarding school’ program, where the abuse continued. At the age of 12, she had moved to the US to be with her mother, who worked at an ashram in Oregon.
There she was raped by a man who had also groomed her.
“I was subsequently raped fifty times by different men,” she told The Times, adding: “Stealing my virginity at the age of twelve pretty much opened the door for the other fifty men.”
Despite the abuse suffered by hundreds of young children in Rajneesh’s global communities, little has been documented until now.
According to The Times, there was only one investigation by U.S. Child Protective Services into the cult in Oregon.
Even when Netflix released a highly successful documentary about the Oregon branch of the cult in 2018, called “Wild Wild Country,” there was no mention of the children’s experiences with abuse and neglect.
But by speaking out, survivors like Sargam are encouraging others to come forward, she said.
However, the 2018 Netflix documentary provides further insight into what life was like in the free love cult.
Rajneesh’s unorthodox meditation techniques and sheer outrageousness attracted tens of thousands of followers from around the world, including celebrities such as British journalist Bernard Levin and London-born film star Terence Stamp.
In the US, Rajneesh was dubbed the ‘Rolls-Royce Guru’ considering he owned 93 of the luxury cars
As a philosophy teacher who founded a spiritual movement and commune in Pune, near Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1970. Rajneesh’s teachings were a bizarre mixture of pop psychology, ancient Indian wisdom, capitalism, sexual permissiveness and dirty jokes lifted from the pages of Playboy magazine.
Rajneesh argued that monogamous marriage was unnatural and advocated unlimited promiscuity, including partner swapping, from the age of 14.
In India he was known as the ‘Sex Guru’ while in the US he was called the ‘Rolls-Royce Guru’ considering he owned 93 of the luxury cars.
Like Sargam’s parents, his followers were often highly educated professionals willing to reject the structures of middle-class convention and seek enlightenment, first in India and later in communes in Oregon, Cologne, and Suffolk.
Some left behind spouses and children, while others donated everything they had to the sect.
But it was the group’s attempt to build a $100 million utopian city in a remote corner of the northwestern state of Oregon that became its undoing in the 1980s.
Rajneesh’s move to Oregon in 1981 was prompted by an investigation by Indian authorities into immigration fraud, tax evasion and drug smuggling. The group bought a 64,000-acre ranch near the small settlement of Antelope, and the 7,000 disciples who moved in swamped the Bible-based population of 50.
Construction began on a self-sufficient Rajneesh city intended for 50,000 residents, with dozens of homes, shops, restaurants and even an airport, but he faced strong opposition from local politicians who believed he led a dangerous cult.
In 1985, he asked authorities to investigate his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her supporters for a number of crimes, including a massive food poisoning attack intended to influence the provincial election, an aborted assassination plot of lawyer Charles H. Turner and the attempted murder of the guru’s doctor.
Sheela was also accused of embezzling $55 million in funds and bugging his quarters.
This led the FBI to discover 10,000 tape recordings of its massive wiretapping operation, plus an arsenal of unregistered weapons.
While interrogating disciples, the FBI uncovered even more diabolical plots.
In an attempt to eliminate non-Rajneesh supporters from the electorate in the local area, the Rajneeshis had attempted to poison the water supply of the nearest major city and also contaminate the food displayed in restaurants.
This led to Sheela’s arrest. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but served only 29 months behind bars before being released and deported.
Three other disciples were imprisoned.
Meanwhile, Rajneesh was charged with immigration fraud, resulting in him being sent back to Pune, where he died of heart failure in 1998 at the age of 58.
Today, there are still small numbers of Rajneeshi devotees around the world.
