CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/7/2025

Book,  Osho,  Rajneesh, Obituary, John Huddle, Word of Faith Fellowship, Tibetan Buddhist, Book, Asaram Bapu

Sarito Carroll: In the Shadow of Enlightenment: A Girl's Journey Through the Osho Rajneesh Cult

" In the by Sarito Carroll of Enlightenment is the gripping story of Carroll's childhood inside the Osho Rajneesh cult—one of the most controversial spiritual movements of the 20th century. While in the commune, Sarito was submerged in a world where devotion and freedom clashed with manipulation, sexual misconduct, and neglect. This was the life she knew until the movement collapsed amid scandal and criminal charges in 1985, when sixteen-year-old Sarito was thrust into a society she knew little about.

Now, decades later, after battling shame, fear, and self-doubt, Sarito breaks her silence to expose the abuse, exploitation, and disillusionment she endured in the Rajneesh community. She stands up against this formidable spiritual institution that promised liberation while concealing dark secrets behind its facade of love and joy. With raw honesty and heart-wrenching clarity, she recounts her fight to reclaim her identity, confront the community's betrayal, and heal on her own terms. It is a powerful story of survival, resilience, courage, and hard-won freedom."

Remembering John Huddle: A parent, an ex-member, an activist, an author, and a truth-teller.

John Huddle lived in Western North Carolina. In addition to writing his blog, religiouscultsinfo.com, He serves as a board member of the "Faith Freedom Fund," a non-profit group helping survivors from high demand religious groups. Since publishing "Locked in," John has become a prominent figure in leading the fight to expose the practices of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) in Spindale, NC. Labeled an "activist" and "critic" of this group by media sources, he has continued to take on new challenges such as organizing and speaking at public meetings, questioning government officials and chronicling the legal troubles for this controversial church. The journey continues with State and Federal investigators now conducting investigations on several fronts involving the leaders of this church. Look for John's next book revealing the struggles and victories after leaving WOFF, expected to be published by December 2018.

Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism

" ... After nearly thirty years as a Tibetan Buddhist, Chandler snapped out, and realized she was part of a thousand-year-old Lamaist cult that uses mindfulness, and other contemplative practices, along with ancient and sophisticated techniques, to recruit, commit and entrap westerners into the Tibetan Lamaist medieval world.

Chandler had a front row seat to the Tibetan Lama hierarchy and how it operates, having taken care of the son of Chogyam Trungpa, the notorious 'crazy wisdom guru.' This gave Chandler exposure to not only Chogyam Trungpa's Vajradhatu Shambhala inner workings, but also to dozens of other, interconnected Tibetan lamas, whose ideas and amoral values have been infiltrating our western institutions, by stealth, for the last forty-plus years.

Deep inside the Lamaist Tantric net, Chandler found that all Tibetan lamas teach from the same Vajra-master, coercive plan; whether they call it Shambhala, Mahamudra, Vajrayana, Dzogchen or Mahayana Buddhism. It is all the same: a Tantric cult of mass manipulation and thought-control, designed to undermine the reasoning abilities of educated westerners, change their values, perceptions and behaviors, and turn them into obedient devotees and change agents for the lamas; no longer able to think and act for themselves.

If someone leaves Tibetan Buddhism and dares to be publicly critical, that person is labeled as 'crazy' or a 'liar'; their articles or books discredited; until their message is drowned out. Inside the Lamaist groups, they are vilified and called out as a "heretic." This seals any negative information from getting in or out.

Chandler takes the reader through her own experiences, from her first mindfulness meditation weekend at a Boston Shambhala meditation center through her next decades; studying with many celebrity Tibetan Lamas and their western inner circles; drawn deeper and deeper into their Tantric net. When she finally breaks free, she realizes educated westerners have been purposely targeted to give the lamas currency and cover, as they are slowly turned into irrational members of a regressive, medieval and dangerous cult, while simultaneously believing they are at the cutting edge of enlightened consciousness."

World Religion And Spirituality Project: Asaram Bapu

" ... Asumal Sirumalani Harpalani was born in Birani, Sindh Province (currently in Pakistan) on April 17, 1941. His father founded a coal and wood selling business. In 1947, following the partitioning of India and Pakistan, Asumal's parents moved to Ahmedabad. After Asumal's father died, he dropped out of school and took up odd jobs. In 1956, he married Laxmi Devi, and the couple had two children, a son Narayan and a daughter Bhartishree.

During the 1960s Asumal's life moved in a more spiritual direction. He began learning meditation and Yoga from Leelashah Baba, a respected sadhu in Adipur (Gujarat), although it is unclear whether he ever formally became a disciple. During this period he also assumed the name Asaram. He settled in Ahmedabad in 1971 and created an Ashram by 1973. He quickly attracted a large following and began building a network of ashrams, gurukuls and mahila kendras (camps to educate women on their rights). His following included poor villagers but also celebrities and political leaders. By 2013, he claimed a network of 400 ashrams, forty resident schools in eighteen nations, and 40,000,000 followers. His following developed most rapidly in northern India, in part because his discourses were delivered in Hindi. He adopted the title of Sant Shri Asharamji Bapu.

While Asaram's organizational network and his personal popularity were growing rapidly, so was his controversiality. There were allegations of sexual impropriety that stretched back to the late 1990s and ongoing controversy over land-grab schemes by his followers as they built his organizational network. There were controversial deaths of two students at one of his schools. He also made comments about a brutal rape case in 2012 that gained him national notoriety. However, it was in 2013 when he himself was arrested on rape charges that Asaram and his organization faced a transformative moment."

CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/3/2025

Legion of Christ, Internal Family Systems, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Los Angeles Press: New cases of abuse at the Legion of Christ: Zero-tolerance is a slogan

The takeaway of the most recent cases of clergy sexual abuse at the Legion of Christ: their zero-tolerance promises are nothing but a slogan.

"This year, one case of clergy sexual abuse in Spain and another in Mexico, both from priests associated to the Legion of Christ, offer a painful reminder of how far the Catholic Church is from achieving its stated goals of a "zero-tolerance" policy on clergy sexual abuse.

Marcelino de Andrés and Antonio Cabrera are both Spaniard Catholic priests and both belong to cohorts of the order who went through seminary formation while Marcial Maciel was a key figure in Rome. His position there allowed him to expand his order's and its supplemental organization, the Regnum Christi's reach, where both male and female members are able to join and where abuse, sexual and otherwise, has also been reported.

After Maciel's death in 2008, De Andrés's career happened mostly in Spain, while Cabrera's was primarily in Mexico. Cabrera, ordained in 1988, is a bit older than De Andrés, who was ordained in 1996, but their paths followed similar trajectories. Their cases emerge as the Legion attempts to portray itself as less disloyal to Rome than its Spaniard and Peruvian counterparts, Opus Dei and the suppressed Sodalitium of Christian Life.

Despite the new cases, the Legion has been boasting its adherence to a zero-tolerance policy as it happens with too many other orders and dioceses in the Catholic Church ever since the early years of this century.

The accusations against De Andrés and Cabrera are relevant because they come from the cohorts closest to the Legion's discredited founder, and they emerge after 20 years or so of the Legion and the Catholic Church at large talking about zero-tolerance to clergy sexual abuse."

The Nation: Internal Family Systems is the latest therapy trend for a traumatized United States. But can splitting ourselves into parts be a science?

" ... Schwartz was practicing one of the fundamental techniques of IFS therapy, which is to locate specific feelings within the physical body. Through this technique, IFS promises to "heal trauma" and "restore wholeness," while also helping to treat more discernible diseases like addiction and depression. In his 1995 book Internal Family Systems Therapy, Schwartz describes IFS as "a synthesis of two paradigms: the plural mind, or the idea that we all contain many different parts, and systems thinking"—but a more apt description might be that IFS is a combination of Jung, Freud, shamanism, Yogic theory, and Gestalt therapy, all jumbled together and simplified to make it as marketable as possible. Occasionally, Schwartz explicitly taps into other traditions. "In Buddhist terms," he writes, "IFS helps people become bodhisattvas of their psyches in the sense of helping each inner sentient being (part) become enlightened through compassion and love."

While IFS remained something of a niche therapy for much of its existence, it has, in recent years, gained enormous popularity on Instagram and TikTok and with celebrities ranging from the musician Alanis Morissette to Queer Eye's Jonathan Van Ness. ("The whole parts thing is really ferosh," Van Ness writes in his 2019 memoir, Over the Top.) Schwartz, who runs programming at one of Harvard University's teaching hospitals, has himself become a sought-after guest speaker at "healing retreats" around the world, and his books, You Are the One You've Been Waiting For (2018) and No Bad Parts (2021), have become bestsellers. When I reached out for an interview last fall, I was initially told I would have to wait until the third or fourth quarter of 2025."

" ... Some patients swear by the transformative power of this cosmology. "After taking this IFS Self-healing journey with my parts," one patient turned provider writes on her website, "I found my true Self—someone who can show up for me like a hero. Someone who champions my right to be free, spontaneous, seen, cared for, loved, cherished, enjoyed just as I am." For such devotees, IFS offers nothing less than a path to self-empowerment, self-love, and, crucially, through its emphasis on "no bad parts," freedom from shame. It also offers an encompassing, at times even spiritual worldview—or as the patient turned provider writes, IFS is simultaneously a "psychotherapeutic approach, a working model of the mind, and a lifestyle."

Amid this exuberance, however, some have sounded a note of caution. In an article in the Psychotherapy Bulletin, the researchers Lisa M. Brownstone, Madeline J. Hunsicker, and Amanda K. Greene write that "the current expansion of IFS across psychotherapy and social media has moved beyond its evidence base." The authors note that the existing research on IFS excludes people with psychotic symptoms, even as they warn, based on their own observations in clinical settings, of the "overapplication" of IFS to people with such symptoms: "Our concern is that encouraging splitting of the self into parts for those who struggle with reality testing might be disorganizing."

The American Psychological Association has noted the rise of IFS. In an e-mailed statement, Lynn Bufka, the association's head of practice, said, 'APA recently adopted a new guideline on the treatment of PTSD, where scientists reviewed treatment research extensively. IFS was noted as one of the interventions that is currently being used, but is in need of much more research before they could make a recommendation about its effectiveness.'"

Woman's Day: Ex-followers reveal truth behind charismatic gurus

"Enlightenment, freedom and belonging were just three of the promises Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh promised his thousands of followers. But in return, they had to pay several thousand dollars to take his courses or for the privilege of living and working at his Oregon ashram.

Rajneesh, also known as Osho, was one of the most famous and controversial spiritual leaders of the past century. Blending an ideology of free love, dynamic meditation and Eastern philosophy in the 1960s and '70s, he attracted worshippers from across the world to his Indian ashram in Pune. Then when the organisation grew to host around 30,000 visitors and faced investigation by the Indian government, a much larger commune was opened in the US.

This vast former ranch in Oregon was transformed into a New Age utopia where the "orange people", as they were called due to the colour of their robes, lived collectively. They worked on the land, grew organic food, raised children, practised meditation and listened to their guru's 90-minute daily discourses. But the idyll they hoped for had turned sinister by the mid '80s, when disputes among the commune leaders led to accusations of conspiracies, widespread poisoning and wire-tapping.

A plot to assassinate Oregon's state attorney was uncovered and Rajneesh – who famously had an incredible fleet of 93 Rolls-Royce cars – came under scrutiny and was deported from the US for immigration fraud. Years later, children who grew up on the commune would tell of widespread sexual abuse by the adult members of what is now widely believed to have been a cult."

Their followers were hoping for enlightenment but were caught up in something far darker."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

Revisiting Rajneeshpuram 40 Years Later: The Untold Story

Oregon Historical Society: 

April 10, 2025

Join Sarito Carroll in conversation with KGW’s Laural Porter as she discusses her memoir, “In the Shadow of Enlightenment,” a powerful account of her childhood inside the Rajneesh cult in Central Oregon. For the first time, Carroll breaks her decades-long silence to reveal the unsettling truth behind a movement that promised love and liberation but delivered manipulation, neglect, and abuse. On the 40th anniversary of the collapse of Rajneeshpuram near Antelope, Oregon, Carroll shares her unique perspective as a child caught in the turmoil of one of America’s most infamous spiritual experiments. Her story sheds light on the hidden dangers of charismatic leaders and spiritual movements, leaving readers and listeners to reflect on where they place their trust.

https://youtu.be/4IcAMJJDn_c?si=FR0Gzw05qm3c-ezM

In the Shadow of Enlightenment

In the Shadow of Enlightenment

Sarito Carroll

This deeply personal story chronicles my journey growing up in the Osho Rajneesh cult and my path to healing and understanding in the years that followed.

Here’s what early readers are saying:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Sarito Carroll survived the Rajneesh cult, and in this honest, reflective, and engrossing memoir, she focuses on her years in the cult… and the aftermath. Despite its tragic material, it can be read in a couple of sittings because of Carroll’s excellent writing. Carroll’s book is one of the most eye-opening, honest, and detailed tellings of the cult… It serves as a warning call about all past, present, and future cults.” — NetGalley Reviewer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “In the Shadow of Enlightenment is the author's rigorous exploration of her upbringing, not spiritual in any way. Her openness and ability to document the tiniest movements of her soul, every thought she had, masterfully convey the atmosphere of the communes. It’s not a light read emotionally, but it should be surveyed as a startling example of the hushed-up atrocities inside religious cults.” — NetGalley Reviewer

I’m so grateful for the support of early readers, and I hope my story resonates with you, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Enlightenment-Journey-through-Rajneesh-ebook/dp/B0DJZR95DJ?ref_=ast_author_mpb