Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 57
harmless. It produced a general relaxation and contemplation of life that enhances life it
did not restrict it.
Louis had his disciples divided into two categories. One category was those who were on the
willful path. They were students or married people. The other category was for those who
surrendered their life and soul to God and Guru. These people were not married and
eventually took vows of celibacy and poverty. Louis fell within the second category. The
second classification was the coveted one. If you agreed to surrender to God and Guru, you
were on the highest path. If you were unable to surrender to God and Guru, you were
relegated to the secondary path.
Regardless of which path you were on, celibacy and poverty were urged for any unmarried
student. At the time I welcomed an abstinence from sexual interactions since I had spent
my teenage years in total confusion about my goals in relation to sex. In my family, sexual
abuse had been a substitute for emotional contact. As a result, I had lived a promiscuous
and dissatisfying sexual life in my efforts to gain emotional access to others. At 23 years of
age, I was too young and immature to know what I wanted or needed on an emotional and
intimate level. I was confused about my choices and options. I welcomed celibacy, not as a
doctrine but as a reprieve.
Louis seemed to be pure, and I absorbed what he taught about sexual expression, personal
evolution, and spiritual growth. So what initially had been a reprieve became a belief.
Looking to Louis‟s perfect modeling of an unblemished and more evolved lifestyle, I chose to
follow his example. I had no idea at the time that Louis would eventually seduce his female
students and that what he presented publicly was the complete opposite of how he lived. I
wholeheartedly believed that he was living a life elevated beyond the pitfalls of sex and
material wealth. I never conceived that he was having sex with his female students, most of
them at least 20 years younger than he. I had no idea that the money he accepted as
donations went into his personal fund. He was not a renunciate, he was the ruler of a small
empire that only he controlled. He did not pay taxes and he did not work instead, he
reaped the benefits of all who toiled beneath him. It was a dictatorship, and hardly benevo-
lent.
Sexual Overtures Begin
One evening Louis invited me to his personal rooms for a spiritual guidance session. I was
surprised and honored. When I appeared at the appointed time, however, I found him in
bed with the lights dimmed. It seemed so strange and sexually charged, yet I felt my
hesitations were my problem and my fears. He was a saint, beyond sexuality and beyond
material gain. What did I have to fear? Louis launched into a long dissertation about
meditation and non-action and celibacy. I tried to follow his train of thought, but was
unsuccessful. Slowly, during this long, confusing talk, it became more and more clear to me
that he was letting me know that I had entered a new phase of meditation and I was being
chosen to meditate with him. It still didn‟t dawn on me exactly what he was talking about.
He said that meditation was non-action and therefore, if one was not the actor, one could
have sex and still be celibate. He said that because of my level of evolution, I would be his
partner in this journey toward the ultimate. I was special, the chosen one.
In retrospect I can see that because of the enforced celibacy and the lack of personal
independence enhanced by the lack of personal money, an energetic and sexual tension
arose in the community. That tension revolved around the central figure, Louis. Louis used
that tension, injecting it into the meditation that he was teaching. He professed that the
sexual energy came from the meditation, rather than it being a separate issue. Since he
was the leader and wrote the rules and regulations on the exterior level (celibacy and
renunciation), he also wrote the rules and regulations on the esoteric or hidden level, the
sexual level, the “fulfill all your desires” level.

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 58
That first evening I was shell-shocked. Here was my teacher wanting to screw me, without
even being up-front about it. All of my instincts came up: get out of here, don‟t get
involved, the guy has flipped. I said no and fled the room. The next day and for several
days following, Louis pursued me and the subject again in efforts to overpower my initial
choice, using his persistence and skills at persuasion. “This isn‟t sex, this is meditation,” he
said. “Meditate with me and be liberated,” and finally, “Help me in my meditation by
meditating with me.”
The bottom line was that I couldn‟t say no to him. He knew more than I did. I felt flattered
that he even considered me. He was the teacher and I was the student. Because of the
asymmetrical relationship, he held the power. In the end, my rational thinking was subdued
by the relationship. I knew that what he was suggesting was wrong and a complete
contradiction of what he taught publicly. The basic fact was that I knew if I declined I would
have to leave and I had nowhere to go. I not only had no money, but also I had severed all
ties with my family and friends. The life at the ashram was my only life and I firmly believed
I could not make it on the “outside.” I felt completely, physically dependent on Louis. If I
disagreed with him, I would have to go quietly. To decline what I knew was wrong meant
not surviving. I stayed and lied to myself because I felt I had nowhere to go. To handle the
incongruence, I began to “believe.” Thus began the violation and abuse that was to continue
for 16 years. The damage that occurred then and throughout those 16 years has destroyed
much of the fiber and consistency that I as a person was made up of.
This occurred in 1975. He persuaded me to have sex, cloaked as meditation, whenever he
wanted. I loved him before as a father, and that love was transferred to him as a lover. Our
“meditation” was always done in secret. He told me over and over that what we were doing
was mediation and not sex. It was the highest meditation, he said it was a 7,000-year-old
yogic secret. It was an “old religious secret.” No one should be told the secret or their
chances of being elevated to this level of meditation would be spoiled. It was sin to expose
the secrecy. The initial fear of having nowhere to go if I were to refuse evolved into being
convinced that what he said was true. I began to swallow the story, hook line and sinker.
Every doubt I brought up to him was quelled by the statement that if I didn‟t want to
engage in the meditation, well, there must be something wrong with me. If there was
something wrong with me, then I would have to go. I desperately wanted there to be
nothing wrong with me. I had no idea that the yogic secrecy was no secret, but instead was
a cover-up of intense ministerial sexual abuse. And in fact it was not about sex at all, but
about power.
When it was him and me only, it was something I could handle. The secrecy was difficult,
but I had begun to believe that to expose yogic secrets was a worse sin. I promptly learned
that secrecy was justified everywhere. When Louis began to “meditate” with other female
students, at first, he denied it to avoid complications and my upset. When he couldn‟t cover
up any longer, I was told that in non-action meditation, we should not use our will. Louis
was not going to use his will not to meditate with others. It turned out that I wasn‟t the
“chosen” one, but one of several women he would choose from on a daily basis, depending
on who complained less.
The Secrecy Continues
There were about 20 people involved in the inner circle at this time --mostly women, but
also a few men who would follow Louis‟s rules and not interfere with his sexual encounters.
We all believed the yogic secret. When we doubted Louis, we all believed that there must be
something wrong with us, not the technique. The group pressure to succeed, in this case
with meditation, encompassed us and reinforced Louis‟s stranglehold over all of us. There
was a competition to survive the onslaught of sexual abuse in the form of meditation. My
life went into a tailspin. I was torn between the belief I had in Louis‟s outer teaching and the