Cult Trip: Coming Too Close - Anke Richter

Cult Trip: Coming Too Close - Anke Richter

ICSA International Conference 2024
Barcelona, Spain

Sam Jahara (Part 1) The Children of Rajneesh and Centrepoint

Cult Chat Episode 31: Sam Jahara (Part 1) The Children of Rajneesh and Centrepoint

This is part 1 of an in-depth interview between 2 former cult children, now a doctor and psychotherapist. 

https://youtu.be/MvDPV1SmVwc?si=PvNeXFCubSuOHTtP 

Site of NZ's most infamous cult fails to sell

Ben Leahy

STAR NEWS

January 18, 2024

A multimillion-dollar property that was the site of New Zealand’s most infamous commune, Centrepoint, has been withdrawn from sale without finding a buyer.

The huge site in Auckland's north has a council valuation of almost $9 million and had been billed as “one of the last significant underdeveloped landholdings on the fringe of Albany”.

It also has a dark history as it was where Bert Potter served as the spiritual head of the Centrepoint commune.

Potter was arrested in 1990 for sexual abuse and drugs crime, with survivors sharing stories of life in the commune in the acclaimed documentary, Heaven and Hell - The Centrepoint Story, in 2021. Many of them had been exploited as children by adults living at the commune.

The commune was shut in 2000 and Potter died in 2012, aged 86.

Since then, the property at 14 Mills Lane has been run as a wellness and retreat centre, before being put up for sale and marketed last year as a big development opportunity.

However, agent Michael Nees, from Bayleys North Shore Commercial, said the property did not get a buyer “so it was withdrawn from the market” at the seller’s wish.

Advertisements for the sale of the site were taken down from property website OneRoof in December.

Council has valued the 7.62ha site at $8.7m, but it is believed the owners had hoped to get more than $10m.

Owners Prema Charitable Trust bought the property in 2008 for just over $4m. The trust operates the Kawai Purapura retreat at the site, which was also home to the Wellpark College of Natural Therapies.

It had been advertised as “an incomparable opportunity” to secure a huge slice of city land where applying for rezoning could generate “considerable value uplift”.

The site sits on land overlooking Albany’s commercial precinct and is close to Albany Bus Station and Westfield shopping centre.

Centrepoint was opened by Potter in 1977 and at its peak had a permit for 244 fulltime residents.

It was based on therapeutic encounter groups popularised in California in the 1960s, promising social transformation by encouraging open communication.

The commune was shut down in 2000 after some leaders, including Potter, were convicted of sexual abuse and drugs crimes.

Potter was convicted and sentenced in 1990 to three and a half years in jail on drug charges and in 1992 to seven and a half years for indecent assaults on five children, some as young as 3.

Other men were also convicted of indecently assaulting minors, sexually assaulting minors and attempted rape of a minor.

A 2010 Massey University study revealed that one in every three children at Centrepoint was sexually abused.

Three survivors from the infamous cult spoke out in 2021, writing an open letter calling for restorative justice for children who were abused.

Christchurch GP Caroline Ansley wrote the letter with two other Centrepoint survivors, who are featured in the TVNZ docudrama Heaven and Hell - The Centrepoint Story.

Ansley said realising she was not the only one who was abused was empowering.

“I had to ask myself what’s worse - fear of exposure or the disappointment of not advocating for the right thing.”

The trio asked in their letter that former Centrepoint members consider “their obligations towards the children of the community” and acknowledge the resulting social, emotional and psychological difficulties many still experience as adults.

“We ask you to hear our voices. We ask you to set aside your complex feelings surrounding this issue and acknowledge our realities. We ask that you work with us to find ways to enable healing and restoration of the history.”

Drugs such as LSD and ecstasy were manufactured on the property and taken in group experiments that involved youngsters.

“This potent mix of social control, parental child neglect, drug use and hyper-sexuality set the scene for child abuse to occur,” the letter stated.

The signatories, some of them anonymous but known to the authors, include Louise Winn. She was only 11 when she was brought to Potter’s hut by his wife Margie. She was later also sexually abused by his son John Potter and other men.

To keep predators away at night, the girl barricaded herself with junk in her caravan on the property or escaped into the bush.

 NZ Herald

 

https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-national/site-nzs-most-infamous-cult-fails-sell

 

 

Cult Trip w/ Anke Richter

 

Daily Wisdom Words Podcast
Episode 91: Cult Trip w/ Anke Richter
April 1, 2023

Episode produced & edited by Abuh Monday Eneojo.

What makes a cult a cult? Why do people get interested in them in the first place? This week we welcome best-selling author Anke Richter. Anke is the author of the very popular book Cult Trip which comes out for sale in the U.S. on April 6th. Anke talks about how her interest in cults started, some common traits she's observed about cults and their leaders over the years and what hurdles she faced writing her book.

Connect with Anke via her website at:

http://www.ankerichter.net

Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion & control

Anke Richter is an international journalist and author based in New Zealand. Previously, she was a magazine writer, a producer for a TV interview show and a show business reporter in Germany. 

As a freelance foreign correspondent in the Weltreporter network, she reported from the South Pacific on climate change and social issues before she started researching cults, which resulted in her latest book, Cult Trip. It became an international bestseller. Three other non-fiction books were published in Germany: Aussteigen auf Zeit, Zweihundert Tage in Tokelau and Was scheren mich die Schafe. 

Her investigative and personal features have been published in Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, mare, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas, Sunday (Stuff), Listener, The Fair Observer and others. She was associate producer and researcher for a number of documentaries, including Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story and We Are One: The Mosque Attacks One Year On. 

A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cults.

At a new age festival in Byron Bay, journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman - a survivor of the Auckland cult Centrepoint - who will change the course of her life and career.

Over the next ten years, Anke pursues a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.

From the emotional and criminal carnage of Auckland's Centrepoint to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho's ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand, and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the West Coast of the South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering. Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath.

'Wild stuff. Anke Richter is one of my favourite writers, blurring the line between participant and reporter' - David Farrier, journalist behind Dark Tourist and Tickled

'Thorough and compassionate ... Cult Trip is a brittle, sensitive book' Steve Braunias

'What a book and what a writer! Cult Trip is an incredibly immersive, intense and necessary reading experience put together with doggedness and skill. The stories are heart-rending, told with bravery and care.' Noelle McCarthy, author of Grand

'Phenomenal. I cannot recommend this book enough.' Tova O'Brien, Today FM

'Cult Trip is incredibly painful and powerful - an eye opener, a tour de force and a call for justice' Janja Lalich, author of Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships

'Bringing together information from around the globe, Anke Richter pinpoints the internal struggles of those coming out of cults, and the debilitating harm that lingers afterwards' Rachel Bernstein, cult specialist and educator

“Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion & control” – which became a bestseller in New Zealand – will be released internationally as a paperback this week. Rachel Bernstein, Janja Lalich and others have given me supportive blurbs (see press release), and I’m on a number of cult podcasts over the next weeks.

Available on Amazon