She never spoke a word. Until now.
Erin Robbins wasn’t featured in Wild, Wild Country, the 2018 Netflix Docuseries about Bhagawan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho. She was living it all in real-time though.
She discovered the controversial guru’s teachings at age 23 in 1977. By the time he summoned her to his bedroom a year later for a ‘special and secret’ meeting (that quickly devolved into the first of many violating encounters) she thought he was the greatest spiritual master who’d ever walked the planet.
Erin risked much to follow a charismatic man who would eventually lead his disciples into a world of attempted murders, mass poisonings, and the gross sexual violation of children.
After nearly 45 years of staying quiet, Erin is sharing her story after waking up about a year ago.
Here’s to the healing power of the truth.
"The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect."
What if?
Erin's experience on how she realized she really had been in a CULT all those years.
What if he wasn’t who he said he was? What if his enlightenment was not real? What if he was a con man of the worst order, a spiritual predator and manipulator interested only in amassing power over tens of thousands of well-meaning people?
"There is no greater agony than bearing
an untold story inside you."
– Maya Angelou
A LOYAL OSHO DEVOTEE
Content warning: TW// sexual abuse, coercion, abuse of power
The following includes graphic descriptions of power & spiritual manipulation,
coercion, and sexual abuse. It may be disturbing or triggering to read.
Please take care.
The first time the acclaimed Indian guru Rajneesh, also known as Osho, called her to his room in the middle of the night, it was 1978. Erin Robbins was 25 years old and had met him only a year earlier. He was 47, when in the privacy of his bedroom he instructed her to take off her clothes, touched her genitals and wrapped his hand around her throat. She tried to relax, to “let go” as his teachings encouraged, and to surrender to him as he did what he wanted to her body without any indication of concern for her pleasure, her basic comfort, or even her safety.
To Erin, this was a great honor. She believed, as did tens of thousands of his followers worldwide, that Rajneesh was the greatest spiritual master who had ever lived on earth. She was mesmerized by the eloquence of his discourses, his charisma, and his vision to create a better world lived in harmony, respect, and celebration. Accordingly, as his disciple, or “sannyasin”, she did whatever he required, which included breaking all ties with her past. She literally gave her life to him.
He repeatedly told her to never speak of their “special” meetings. Not to anyone.
Erin Robbins, (given the name Ma Prem Maitri by Rajneesh) was part of the innermost circle of his devotees. She had a level of personal contact with him that only a very few people had. She remained loyal to him, even after she was told that he had put her name on a hit list of people who were to be killed if they left the group or dared to speak about what they knew.
She never spoke a word. Until now.
Rajneesh (aka Osho) spoke words that many tens of thousands of people found enticing, hypnotic, and persuasive. Many still do. But what happened around him speaks far louder than his words. Sexual abuse, mass poisonings, attempted murders, heinous sexual abuse and appalling neglect of children, a cadre of automatic weapons, sterilizations of young men and women, and countless criminal and corrupt activities pervaded his community.
