Watching the Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country, about the Rajneeshpuram community, was not a comfortable experience for Martina Zangger. Curled up in the lounge with her husband and daughter in Newcastle, Australia, she shook her head in renewed shock that she could have been caught up with the movement for eight years, even relocating to the US and living among some of the worst of it.
“My family was telling me how crazy it was,” Martina, 63, tells Woman’s Day.
“I knew the extent of it – I’ve read a lot of books and had therapy about the experience – but the documentary was still shocking.”
The Rajneesh cult gained traction in the 1970s and ’80s, with up to 250,000 followers worldwide. The draw was its Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, known as Osho, who preached a counterculture doctrine that enticed thousands of devotees, including Martina, to a commune in Oregon.
“I was 19 when I first heard about Rajneesh,” Martina says.
“I’d dropped out of university after my first semester. I couldn’t cope with being in the world as a young adult and when I was given Rajneesh’s book, I read it voraciously and became smitten with him. He promised to bring healing, which I was searching for because of my history.”
Blinded by belief
Growing up, Martina was sexually abused by her grandfather and uncle, and the promise of healing and the escapism of an ashram on the other side of the world were very appealing. The problem was that nothing was as it seemed and blinded by a senseless devotion, Martina failed to see any of the red flags.
“Within days of finishing his book, it was like I’d fallen deeply in love,” she recalls.
“I moved into a Rajneeshee share house and started saving to move to the ashram.”
The cost of commitment
It cost more than $15,000 for 18 months in the US, not including flights, and Martina’s Rajneeshee flatmates had an unorthodox way to make this money.
“They told me about a brothel I could work in to save up to go,” she recalls.
“Many of them were sex-working and it was seen as acceptable as we were so counterculture.”
Crossing a line
Martina also ended up as a sex worker and by 1982 had saved enough to fly to the States. Her parents were horrified, but she didn’t care. Once at the ashram, she was even able to explain away the life of slavery that awaited.
“I had to work seven days a week for 12 hours a day, digging ditches for irrigation,” she says.
“I had a mattress on the floor of a tiny room I shared with three others. It’s not what I expected, but I wasn’t ready to say, ‘This is shit.’ I was only 20 and I put up with it. It was my great adventure.”
The Guru’s lifestyle
But while his 3000 followers were toiling away, Rajneesh was living the good life and had become famous for his fleet of 93 Rolls-Royces.
“We’d all line up on the road and he’d drive past, stopping if he saw a beautiful young woman,” tells Martina.
“I always prepared to look extra-sexy, but never once did he stop for me. It was my first act of rebellion that I stopped going to the drive-bys.”
While Martina did not experience the abuse others have spoken about at the ashram, she was gradually losing faith. Still, even after it was shut down by the FBI in 1984 for trying to rig elections by poisoning the local voting population, she continued living in a Rajneeshee community back in Sydney. She sent money to the cause and visited the guru in India.
The breaking point
Then after discovering Rajneesh’s girlfriend Vivek – someone she deeply admired – had taken her own life, Martina realised it was time to leave.
“It was brushed under the carpet and I lost trust in the organisation,” she shares.
“I walked away and friends shunned me. It was a very lonely time.”
Alone with her thoughts, PTSD from her childhood surfaced and Martina at last faced it head on. With the help of a psychologist, she found the healing she so desperately craved and even the strength to train as a psychotherapist herself.
Thirty years later
Thirty years on, Martina has her own family and a thriving practice. She’s also written a book, Not My Shame, about her life experiences and time in the Rajneeshee cult.
“It was very healing for me and since it’s come out, everyone knows my story,” Martina smiles.
“This has been very healing too because they’ve been so supportive. “I was embarrassed about the choices I made and I’ve had to work hard on forgiving myself and being compassionate to myself.”
Not My Shame by Martina Zangger is available at Mighty Ape and Amazon.
If you’ve experienced sexual harm, please call 0800 044 334, text 4334 or visit safetotalk.nz.
