Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 61
The destination was Australia. In the meantime we lived in Hawaii working on instructional
manuals. Louis soon had a group of women living around him. My husband and I tried to
live a semi-normal existence alongside the group. We had a baby. We did not participate in
the multisexual partners, but we knew it was happening and that fact began to erode an
already precarious relationship. Louis continued to pursue me, but now I had a small child
and so Louis began to lose interest in me sexually. But he used my competence and my
belief in the outer teachings, just as he used my and my husband‟s capacities to keep
students and to make money. We made money on his behalf and gave it all to him.
The property in California sold, and as the ashram‟s director, I handed the check for
$400,000 to Louis, as I had been instructed by him. At this same time I was expelled from
the Board of Directors, a move that allowed Louis to take complete control of the money
and a Board of Directors entirely devoted to him. He began to actively pursue the flight to
Australia. My husband worked long hours convincing the Australian government to allow us
to immigrate there. My husband and I were readily accepted, while Louis was not. The
Australian government had received a letter from a former student about the abuse
charges.
Meanwhile, I was becoming more and more involved in family life. My son was 1 year old.
Although the arranged relationship with my husband was strained and there was much
discontent, we had a family and our energy went into the family and into building our new
life in Australia. We moved to South Australia in 1984. I was secretly pleased that Louis
would not be allowed into Australia. I felt I could live there and lead a life based on the
more ethical philosophies that I had learned.
Louis was finally admitted to Australia in 1985. He chose to live as a hermit in a remote
area. My husband and I and our son lived about 2,000 miles away. Louis had his money and
was leaving us alone. We were slowly making money on our own. We decided to live in a
community of Louis‟s students who had not been involved in his inner teachings. These
were people with families, people who wanted to live a good life. I began to experience
relief and freedom from the years of suffering in California. I was not aware that Louis was
heading for broke as he had used up the $400,000 of church funds on bad stock market
dealings and frivolous spending (first-class air travel, first-class hotels, etc.). One day my
husband received a call from Louis asking if he could come to South Australia. Would we in
the community take care of him? My husband said yes. I think I would not have been able
to say no either, but I was not happy.
Recreating the System
Louis arrived in the South Australian community under the condition that he agree not to do
in the new community what he had done in California. He agreed not to have sex with his
female parishioners. He promised, and we believed him. Slowly he built up a life in the new
community in which he began to exert tremendous control. Louis began with weekly Sunday
meetings and individual classes and therapy sessions. The community began to revolve
around him and his teachings rather than around people‟s lives. He instructed people on
how to have and raise their children. He reproached people about their personal lives. He
shamed them into getting rid of their televisions, stopping outside recreation, taking their
children out of the public schools and putting them into home schooling. He began to
categorize people into the more evolved and the less evolved. The propensity to misuse his
position, to pit people against each other, to solicit funds in the name of the church began
to take hold once again.
By 1989 he had a group of women and men around him who once again believed what he
taught about meditation and sexual energy. He was starting the inner circle over again, this
time with families. Now the people getting involved had children and much more to lose.

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The upset and jealousy and insanity increased on a daily basis. There were beatings and
threats, between the adults. There were guns and knives. The turmoil was incredible.
Our personal life and home were in jeopardy. My peace was shattered, and soon so was my
family. Our marriage was in shreds. My husband was constantly depressed. He wanted to
become involved with other women, but I refused to open up our marriage. I pleaded with
the other couples involved to stop and save their marriages. I was laughed at. Again, I was
told that those were my weaknesses, my inability to grow and my lack of emotional
maturity. Cleverly, the sexual behaviors were kept secret from most of the new students,
but for the 15 to 20 people involved, it was a new generation of “evolution.” These were the
chosen people in a renaissance of personal growth.
My husband and I were not directly involved with the inner circle happenings, but we knew
what was happening. We watched as people came and went in the cloak of darkness. We
watched their families bend over with stress. I listened to the stories about the continued
abortions and mishaps among the families involved. The children, while not directly
involved, began to exhibit manifestations of severe psychological difficulties in school and
inappropriate sexual acting out.
I pleaded with Louis to stop. He laughed. He had his power. The people around him believed
him. They had completely changed their philosophy of life. Before Louis came to Australia,
the people in the community seemed interested in their families, their work, and their
children‟s schooling. After Louis, family life became a duty to fulfill only minimally, since
meditation was more important than working. People‟s businesses began to fall apart
because the focus was on sex, not work. Louis disdained education, so they withdrew their
children from public schools in order to home school them. I watched as they accepted the
secrecy completely, and were willing to put their families and children in jeopardy in order
to become one of the elite in the march toward enlightenment.
On the outside my life continued as if unaffected. I aspired toward a better life. I followed
and believed the outer teachings. More and more people began to move to Australia and
join the community. More and more money was being collected for Louis. He had money
under his mattress and in hiding places. He created another nonprofit religious organization
like the one in California, and without having to pay taxes, he was amassing large quantities
of money. The students in Australia were more affluent, so Louis received large donations
from them, as well as from my husband and me. We continued to support him publicly. I
felt then that I had no alternative. I was afraid to break the code of silence, a code I agreed
to so many years earlier. I was afraid of my life falling apart and that I would have no other
life beyond that which I had lived for close to two decades. Financially, our counseling work
was tied up with Louis‟s students our home was part of his communal deed and all of our
friends were followers of Louis. My life was a house of cards, and to expose the secrecy
would destroy my life, of that I was certain.
My son and the other children in the community were showing continued signs of distress
from the secrecy, the sexual trysts, and the stress of their parents. People were becoming
so dysfunctional that they were losing jobs, and eventually their property. With our
marriage disintegrating even further, my husband began to gravitate toward the multiple
sexual partner scene. While we were not involved in the sexual rendezvous with the other
families, we were constantly bombarded with requests. My husband finally revealed to me
one day that he had gone to prostitutes in Bangkok (exposing myself and my son to the
AIDS virus). He said he felt justified as it was non-action – “It just happened.” The whole
situation sickened me. The misuse of power in the teacher was being transferred through
the generations. I knew that I needed to get out of the whole system, yet found no outlet. I
didn‟t know where or whom to turn to. But I began to plan a way out.