42 ICSA TODAY
simple assault charges. A woman was also indicted on second-
degree kidnapping, simple assault, and assault-by-strangulation
charges.
The indictment stems from allegations made by Matthew
Fenner, 21, who said a many as 15 to 20 male church members
attacked him because he is gay, allegedly threatened him with
confinement for 2 days, and slapped, strangled, and verbally
assaulted him to “free” him from “homosexual demons.” The
assailants purportedly were screaming and shaking him,
punching his chest, and grabbing his head, while telling him
to repeat certain phrases. Fenner said, “I honestly thought I
was going to die.” He also claims local officials did not take
his allegations seriously at first, and hesitated to let him file a
complaint.
WOFF, which also runs an unaccredited school, has faced
numerous accusations of abuse and cult-like behavior over
the three decades in Rutherford County, North Carolina. It has
been at the center of child-custody disputes over the years, as
well. The group was the subject of a 1995 Inside Edition exposé
that first revealed church practices, including “blasting,” which
involves members surrounding another member, whether
child or adult, suspected of demonic possession and screaming
to exorcise the demons. The practice was sometimes hours-
long and at times involved tying those suspected to chairs.
The Department of Social Services and the State Bureau
of Investigations examined the allegations but found no
wrongdoing.
Most recently, in 2012, church member Michael Lowry alleged
he was attacked and confined because of his sexual orientation.
His allegations spurred a Department of Justice hate-crime
investigation, and he was placed under FBI supervision. Lowry
later recanted his story but now says he was coerced into
recanting.
The church’s attorney told WSPA News that the accused
members were innocent of the charges and that “we are
adamant that no one ever physically harmed Mr. Fenner. … The
church does not target members who are gay.” (Southern Poverty
Law Center, 12/11/14)
Guru had sex with teens but punished married couples
In December 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, sitting in Sydney, Australia,
heard from numerous witnesses in its current investigation into
complaints of sexual abuse made against the Satyananda Yoga
Ashram north of Sydney and its former spiritual leader Guru
Swami Akhandananda Saraswati in the mid- to late-1980s.
Key witnesses in the investigation included former child resident
Alecia Buchanan, now 48 “Shishy,” the ashram’s mother figure
who lived with the guru Henry Sztulman, a GP who lived at the
ashram for 10 years and denied allegations by witnesses that
he prescribed morphine regularly for minor ailments and other
former child residents who recounted in vivid detail their stories
of abuse.
Ms. Buchanan, who lived there from the age of 13, said her
mother thought the ashram was an idyllic place where children
could roam free, but that the reality was something else. She
described falling under the spell of “Shishy,” who reportedly
procured teenage girls to have sex with the guru and had a
“fierce temper” that led to her slapping the children over the
face with the “full force of her hand.” Ms. Buchanan said she
worked hard to emulate everything about Shishy, believing “she
was perfection itself… I never for a second doubted her or saw
through her trickery.”
Ms. Buchanan said that when she was 16 the swami asked her
to leave school and work for him in the office, where he began
to have sex with her. A couple of years later, Shishy suddenly
packed up and fled the ashram overnight, leaving the youth
with Akhandananda, who became increasingly strange, with
a gun in his room, and who continued to sexually assault the
teenage girls.
Earlier, the Royal commission heard that while their gurus
preached chastity and abstinence, behind the scenes at their
isolated Mangrove Mountain ashram, children as young as 3
were sexually assaulted and beaten. Swami Akhandananda
Saraswati is alleged to have beaten them with a wooden staff
known as a Kundalini stick while Shishy lined them up in a
group from oldest to youngest and slapped them across the
face one by one.
And while Akhandananda, who died at age 69 in Cairns in 1997,
was having sex with his teenage followers, he encouraged
children to spy on their parents and report back to him if
they had sex. Then he would strike the parents with a stick as
punishment because sex, even between married adults, was
discouraged.
All this happened at what was Australia’s first ashram north of
Sydney where some followers believed that Akhandananda
had spiritual powers “and could look into a person’s soul and
know exactly what was right for that person,” the commission
was told. The ashram’s mission was to spread the message of
yoga espoused by Guru Swami Satyandanda Saraswati, the
spiritual head of the Satyananda Yoga movement in India, who
taught that those who followed him and became Sanyasins
“should practice abstinence, chastity, and austerity and would
not clutter their minds with such worldly pleasures as sexual
intercourse and alcohol,” according to one witness.
Satyananda was revered around the world and preached
celibacy as a way of life for Yoga swamis in his ashrams. At the
same time, the ashram was given tax-exempt status as a charity
and the parents of some of the children signed over their
pension checks and also legal guardianship of their children to
Akhandananda and Shishy.
In 1987, Akhandananda was charged with the sexual abuse
of four children after one of them left the movement and told
her father, who was a police officer. He was convicted of some
of the offences and jailed for a minimum of 12 months but
the sentences were overturned by the High Court because at
the time there was a 12-month limitation for laying child sex
charges.
Earlier this year as the ashram celebrated 40 years, a number
of former residents posted details of the sexual abuse on
the Facebook page but were sent legal letters warning of
“considerable legal consequences” if they did not stop. The
ashram is now under new management, and a spokesperson
for the commission said it will “explore whether the philosophy,
teaching, and management of the ashram is sufficiently
changed from what it was in Akhandananda’s time to ensure
that children attending there are safe from the risk of abuse.”
(The Daily Telegraph, 12/2/14 NEWS.com.au, 12/11/14) n
40
simple assault charges. A woman was also indicted on second-
degree kidnapping, simple assault, and assault-by-strangulation
charges.
The indictment stems from allegations made by Matthew
Fenner, 21, who said a many as 15 to 20 male church members
attacked him because he is gay, allegedly threatened him with
confinement for 2 days, and slapped, strangled, and verbally
assaulted him to “free” him from “homosexual demons.” The
assailants purportedly were screaming and shaking him,
punching his chest, and grabbing his head, while telling him
to repeat certain phrases. Fenner said, “I honestly thought I
was going to die.” He also claims local officials did not take
his allegations seriously at first, and hesitated to let him file a
complaint.
WOFF, which also runs an unaccredited school, has faced
numerous accusations of abuse and cult-like behavior over
the three decades in Rutherford County, North Carolina. It has
been at the center of child-custody disputes over the years, as
well. The group was the subject of a 1995 Inside Edition exposé
that first revealed church practices, including “blasting,” which
involves members surrounding another member, whether
child or adult, suspected of demonic possession and screaming
to exorcise the demons. The practice was sometimes hours-
long and at times involved tying those suspected to chairs.
The Department of Social Services and the State Bureau
of Investigations examined the allegations but found no
wrongdoing.
Most recently, in 2012, church member Michael Lowry alleged
he was attacked and confined because of his sexual orientation.
His allegations spurred a Department of Justice hate-crime
investigation, and he was placed under FBI supervision. Lowry
later recanted his story but now says he was coerced into
recanting.
The church’s attorney told WSPA News that the accused
members were innocent of the charges and that “we are
adamant that no one ever physically harmed Mr. Fenner. … The
church does not target members who are gay.” (Southern Poverty
Law Center, 12/11/14)
Guru had sex with teens but punished married couples
In December 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, sitting in Sydney, Australia,
heard from numerous witnesses in its current investigation into
complaints of sexual abuse made against the Satyananda Yoga
Ashram north of Sydney and its former spiritual leader Guru
Swami Akhandananda Saraswati in the mid- to late-1980s.
Key witnesses in the investigation included former child resident
Alecia Buchanan, now 48 “Shishy,” the ashram’s mother figure
who lived with the guru Henry Sztulman, a GP who lived at the
ashram for 10 years and denied allegations by witnesses that
he prescribed morphine regularly for minor ailments and other
former child residents who recounted in vivid detail their stories
of abuse.
Ms. Buchanan, who lived there from the age of 13, said her
mother thought the ashram was an idyllic place where children
could roam free, but that the reality was something else. She
described falling under the spell of “Shishy,” who reportedly
procured teenage girls to have sex with the guru and had a
“fierce temper” that led to her slapping the children over the
face with the “full force of her hand.” Ms. Buchanan said she
worked hard to emulate everything about Shishy, believing “she
was perfection itself… I never for a second doubted her or saw
through her trickery.”
Ms. Buchanan said that when she was 16 the swami asked her
to leave school and work for him in the office, where he began
to have sex with her. A couple of years later, Shishy suddenly
packed up and fled the ashram overnight, leaving the youth
with Akhandananda, who became increasingly strange, with
a gun in his room, and who continued to sexually assault the
teenage girls.
Earlier, the Royal commission heard that while their gurus
preached chastity and abstinence, behind the scenes at their
isolated Mangrove Mountain ashram, children as young as 3
were sexually assaulted and beaten. Swami Akhandananda
Saraswati is alleged to have beaten them with a wooden staff
known as a Kundalini stick while Shishy lined them up in a
group from oldest to youngest and slapped them across the
face one by one.
And while Akhandananda, who died at age 69 in Cairns in 1997,
was having sex with his teenage followers, he encouraged
children to spy on their parents and report back to him if
they had sex. Then he would strike the parents with a stick as
punishment because sex, even between married adults, was
discouraged.
All this happened at what was Australia’s first ashram north of
Sydney where some followers believed that Akhandananda
had spiritual powers “and could look into a person’s soul and
know exactly what was right for that person,” the commission
was told. The ashram’s mission was to spread the message of
yoga espoused by Guru Swami Satyandanda Saraswati, the
spiritual head of the Satyananda Yoga movement in India, who
taught that those who followed him and became Sanyasins
“should practice abstinence, chastity, and austerity and would
not clutter their minds with such worldly pleasures as sexual
intercourse and alcohol,” according to one witness.
Satyananda was revered around the world and preached
celibacy as a way of life for Yoga swamis in his ashrams. At the
same time, the ashram was given tax-exempt status as a charity
and the parents of some of the children signed over their
pension checks and also legal guardianship of their children to
Akhandananda and Shishy.
In 1987, Akhandananda was charged with the sexual abuse
of four children after one of them left the movement and told
her father, who was a police officer. He was convicted of some
of the offences and jailed for a minimum of 12 months but
the sentences were overturned by the High Court because at
the time there was a 12-month limitation for laying child sex
charges.
Earlier this year as the ashram celebrated 40 years, a number
of former residents posted details of the sexual abuse on
the Facebook page but were sent legal letters warning of
“considerable legal consequences” if they did not stop. The
ashram is now under new management, and a spokesperson
for the commission said it will “explore whether the philosophy,
teaching, and management of the ashram is sufficiently
changed from what it was in Akhandananda’s time to ensure
that children attending there are safe from the risk of abuse.”
(The Daily Telegraph, 12/2/14 NEWS.com.au, 12/11/14) n
40
