Feet of Clay. Anthony Storr

described the Poona ashram as ‘a spiritual garage for anyone with a method’;¹⁷ while Bernard Levin referred to it as a ‘spiritual supermarket’.¹⁸ The group techniques employed became notorious for the expression of uninhibited sex and aggression. In the course of expressing anger, so many fractures occurred that suspicious local hospitals were fobbed off with euphemistic tales that injuries had been caused by falling off ladders or bicycles. The sexual freedom offered in Poona is described by Hugh Milne as ‘quite phenomenal’. The girls wore transparent dresses with no underclothes, since Rajneesh had said that underclothes interfered with the passage of energy. There were groups in which people were forced to watch their beloved having intercourse with someone else, ostensibly to free them from over-attachment to sex. There were groups in which oral sex predominated. One favoured sexual activity was for males to eat ripe mangoes which had been introduced into the women’s vaginas.

      Rajneesh himself seems to have been an indifferent sexual performer, in spite of claiming that he had had intercourse with more women than any man in history. Like some other gurus, he helped himself to any female delights which were on offer. Becoming Bhagwan’s sexual partner was, of course, a highly prized distinction. But the experience itself was usually disappointing, since he appears to have suffered from premature ejaculation. He was more of a voyeur than a lover. Sometimes a couple would be encouraged to make love in front of him. A new recruit might be told to strip naked and be closely inspected without necessarily being touched. Others would be masturbated without intercourse taking place.