When setting out on a spiritual journey, have you ever pictured someday worshipping at the feet of a bloated paedophile? How about a serial rapist and regional pimp? Or perhaps a cold-blooded murderer? In some past and present gurus, you can find melanges of these traits, while said individuals have a curated public image and are regarded by crowds as saints, or even incarnations of certain gods.

How can this happen, you might wonder? How can swarms of people look at these bumbling fools spewing platitudes, who inevitably turn out to be career criminals, and see an aura of holiness around them?

The cult of Nithyananda (also dubbed “Poops” by ex-members)

The second most ominous word you can hear in relation to a cult is compound. The first would be island.

Although decades have passed since Jonestown, as recently as 2019, another self-proclaimed incarnation of a god managed to move his flock to an island near Ecuador, to escape rape charges in his native India. Although the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK strenuously denied the legitimacy of the Republic of Kailaasa, Poops’ disciples seem to think they live in a sovereign country ruled by their guru, who claims to be the incarnation of Shiva.

As the world laughs, this is particularly concerning for the island’s inhabitants, who now presumably think Poops is free to set his own laws, unhampered by international standards for human rights and morality.

This concurrence of factors is understandably worrying, as an ongoing investigation and impending imprisonment of the leader, followed by relocating to an isolated location, is perhaps the most dangerous time for the group’s members. While abuse is ongoing in cults regardless of external factors, extreme paranoia and defensiveness in these circumstances may result in a large Kool-Aid party.

Had he remained in India, Poops would now be a guest of the state, in other words in prison, as opposed to running his own island from a lofty throne, with worshipers at his feet.

As the founder of the Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam Trust, the guru has set up over a dozen temples and ashrams across India. But he has attracted much derision over claims of his spiritual abilities, including being able to delay the sunrise for 40 minutes, being able to see through walls, curing 82 children of blindness by “opening their third eye” and getting cows to speak in Sanskrit and Tamil. In 2010 there was further controversy over the release of a sex tape featuring him and a female Tamil actor.

The Guardian

The tape in question, as former high-ranking member Sarah Landry recounts, was explained to devotees as faked footage, which they dutifully believed. A guru, meant to be free of sexual urges, could not be known by his followers as occasionally indulging with whomever caught his eye (not limited to women over 18, or to women in general).

Nithy, or Poops, is a declared aficionado of L Ron Hubbard, using Scientology tactics of deflection and persecution of whistle-blowers. By clicking the link above, you can watch Sarah Landry being interviewed by Chris Shelton, a former Scientologist, noting the similarities between these two holy establishments. Overtime, Poops has accused and even had people charged with heinous crimes such as child molestation, for daring to describe the reality behind his so-called utopia.

Whilst many who have left the cult are still silent, a handful of ex-members have been giving interviews, describing the level of sheer insanity they had been subjected to: sleep deprivation beyond reason (to the point of passing out), being overworked, being coaxed into doing sexual favours for his holiness, witnessing children being severely mistreated and other horrors such as Poops’ devotees beating animals to near death.

Nonetheless, for some cosmically curious reason, this individual continues to have staunch believers. Here is their website denouncing the religious persecution enacted by anti-Hindu elements (their own brand of suppressive persons, a label used in Scientology to dehumanise anyone who speaks against the cult).

Sadly, members get themselves into a frame of mind which allows the belief, comical to all outsiders, that Poops, a frog-faced pathetic bully who grooms his indentured slaves into interacting with his micro-penis, is so powerful and so important that global conspiracies are focused on taking him down.

As for opening people’s “third eye”, a group of children was subjected to this nonsense, to be severely abused if they failed to prove the guru’s ability to train them. At some point they hatched a plan to collectively lie, “proving” each other’s power, so that they could, you know…eat, sleep and interact with other humans, rather than being sequestered and tortured as adults waited for their “power” to manifest.

Please keep this in mind every time a cult puts forth children with “miraculous” abilities. Those children were, very likely, tormented into faking said abilities and put out there to gain publicity for their abusers. This is happening in real time. Not to mention that Nithy, or Poops, forces children to make false molestation allegations against the cult’s detractors. They will grow up and have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

Vishwananda, the church relic thief, also a serial rapist of young men

For several testimonies from people formerly in this scam artist’s inner circle, please look up interviews conducted by Canadian therapist Henry Jolicoeur, who, as a former Hare Krishna devotee, is highly familiar with the tactics of “Hindu” cults.

Vishwananda is no small fish – he claims to be the incarnation of a Hindu god, though unlike his trade mate Poops, he doesn’t specify which one.

This Medium article also contains testimonies from young men he lured and groomed, to take advantage of when they were abroad, in a vulnerable situation. This should be shocking. But in that particular environment, it isn’t. It’s just… what happens. And everyone who has knowledge of it is complicit.

Reportedly, this petty thief, who took a 19-year-old woman on his relic-nicking journey throughout Europe, would tell his male victims that engaging intimately with a guru was the “highest experience a person could have”. He left many young men with lifelong traumas.

Pardon the source (Tumblr), but this is priceless. Akin to Jim Jones and other frauds, this particularly nasty individual has also pulled physically impossible miracles, pretending to vomit a lump of gold.

This is no new phenomenon

The mass western fascination with Hindu gurus goes back all the way to the 60s, when, in the midst of a cultural revolution, Swami Prabhupada established what is now known as the Hare Krishna movement. At the time, it was mainly embraced by hippie seekers and heavily popularised by mainstream celebrities such as the Beetles.

For all his faults, and there were quite a few (judging by his racist and misogynistic teachings), Swami Prabhupada was described as extremely forgiving and naive, welcoming and advancing just anyone who momentarily declared they were of the right mindset. His declared goal was to spread Krishna consciousness to western countries. He is not known to have shared a fraction of the depravity his successors reveled in.

Upon further research, Swami Prabhupada’s image was (surprise!) highly curated, and particularly towards the end of his life, he became preoccupied with a war against atheism, taking over the US and even acquiring an atomic bomb. As much as devotees still idealise him as the founder of the movement, he was anything but a saint in his intentions.

After his death, the movement was unavoidably taken over by the 11 western men he had appointed as regional leaders, most of whom are now known criminals, abusing their status and power in revolting ways. An excellent book on this subject is Eleven Naked Emperors by Henry Doktorski, once a devotee of the cult and of the infamous Kirtanananda, who orchestrated the murders of one disciple and one former disciple and detractor.

It’s fascinating how a bunch of … basically vagrants (and no offence to vagrants in general!) managed to reach such levels of power over masses of people, with no proof of being superior, apart from declaring themselves as such. These individuals were money and power-hungry, many with a need to satiate sexual urges which were not socially acceptable. They found a perfect opportunity by having people who were in no way less enlightened than them worshipping at their feet.

The same continues today, despite the dramatic reduction in the willingness to blindly accept religious beliefs. People fall for it. And then they get out. And fortunately, it’s far safer and far more effective to speak out as a former member than it was in the olden days.

Rest in peace, Steven Bryant.