It’s my last day in San Francisco where I walked in the Pride parade yesterday with thousands of people. It was so uplifting to celebrate diversity and queer joy as resistance against the Trump administration and its horrific attacks on vulnerable communities.
It also marked the end of a big week for me: Interviewer Dhyana Levey recorded the live event “Children from Cults” for her Generation Cult podcast at the iconic Lost Church. Cult expert Dr Janja Lalich, who many of you know as the keynote speaker at Decult 2024 and who wrote the book Escaping Utopia, dove deep into the topic with me and cult survivor Sarito Carroll whose powerful memoir In the Shadow of Enlightenment exposes the child sexual abuse at the infamous Osho/Bhagwan communes back in the 80s. It sparked a rich discussion with our audience where some had their own traumatic history in religious or new-age groups. This conversation needs to continue at a higher level of public health, justice and safeguarding children. Stay tuned for the podcast episode!
The day before, I interviewed Sarito for a big feature that will run in Germany in September, 40 years after the collapse of Rajneeshpuram – the infamous commune in Oregon also known from “Wild Wild Country”. The voices of the Sannyasin children and teens were missing from the Netflix doco. I hope that Sarito’s, along with dozens of others who suffered, will lead to more accountability, apologies and reparations.
Tomorrow I’m off to the ICSA conference in Montreal where our short doco DECULT VOICES – BEYOND BELIEF will be shown on rotation at the Decult booth. If you’re there, come and watch it and have a chat!
Other friends, speakers and allies from our Christchurch conference will also be there, like Caroline Ansley and Maria Esguerra. Go and check out their video updates on Cult Chat in the next days – can’t wait for their live coverage of all the sessions I might be missing (there’s so much). You can still register here and watch everything online.
My next stop is Hamburg for a special night on 12 July that is named after my book: Cult Trips, a “Sense Salon” for the international Weltreporter correspondent network which I belong to. My insights as a cult reporter sit alongside the unique topics of four other colleagues from around the world. If you’re in the area (and understand German), then please join us!
If you’re in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Ōtautahi Christchurch or
Pōneke Wellington in July, then don’t miss the DocEdge film festival where you can watch our incredible conference MC Andre Afamasaga in the short doco “Alofa”. The human rights advocate and former SDA pastor tells his story of courageously navigating faith, culture and sexuality in the context of traditional Samoan beliefs.
VICTORIA PARLIAMENT INQUIRY INTO CULTS
Last but not least: If you’ve been impacted by a cult in Victoria (Australia), then make your voice count in the inquiry into cults and organised fringe groups. This is a groundbreaking effort, kicked off by survivors from the Geelong Revival Centre, and could have wide reaching legal consequences which we welcome. Please make a submission before 31 July on the Parliament website.
To learn more about our work and engage with it, follow us on social media, join the FB group Culty Conversations NZ or listen to Decult Talks which had over 1000 downloads so far. I got some great feedback on my US trip about our recorded sessions from Decult 2024 and their high audio quality.
Enjoy the height or summer or depth of winter, wherever you are, and maybe catch you on the way.
Ngā mihi nui,
Anke Richter