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Cult Trip: Inside the World of Coercion and Control Paperback – 6 April 2023

Purchase options and add-ons, the international bestseller.

A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cults.

At a new age festival in Byron Bay, Australia, German journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman – a survivor of the Centrepoint cult – who will change the course of her life and career.

Over the next ten years, Anke pursued a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse. 

From the emotional and criminal carnage of Centrepoint in Auckland, New Zealand, to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho’s ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering. 

Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath.

Praise for Cult Trip: 'A powerful must read’ Style 'Phenomenal. I cannot recommend this book enough' Today FM 'Wild stuff. Anke Richter is one of my favourite writers, blurring the line between participant and reporter' David Farrier, journalist 'What a book and what a writer! An incredibly immersive, intense and necessary reading experience put together with doggedness and skill' Noelle McCarthy, author Painful and powerful - an eye opener, a tour de force and a call for justice' Janja Lalich, author 'Bringing together information from around the globe, Anke Richter pinpoints the internal struggles of those coming out of cults, and the debilitating harm that lingers afterwards' Rachel Bernstein 'Thorough and compassionate ... Cult Trip is a brittle, sensitive book' Steve Braunias

• Print length 352 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ad Lib Publishers Ltd
• Publication date 6 April 2023
• Dimensions 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
• ISBN-10 1802471766
• ISBN-13 978-1802471762
• See all details

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‘Bringing together information from around the globe, Anke Richter pinpoints the internal struggles of those coming out of cults, and the debilitating harm that lingers afterwards’

‘Wild stuff. Anke Richter is one of my favourite writers, blurring the line between participant and reporter’

‘Thorough and compassionate . . . Cult Trip is a brittle, sensitive book’

About the Author

Anke Richter  is a columnist and reporter who has worked in newsrooms and on TV productions in Hamburg and Cologne. Her investigative and personal features have been published in  Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas  and others. She has written three previous books that were published in Germany. She now lives in New Zealand.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ad Lib Publishers Ltd (6 April 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1802471766
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1802471762
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
• 40 in Contemporary Cults
• 41 in Cults & Demonism
• 547 in Anthropology & Sociology Biographies

About the author

Anke richter.

Anke Richter is an international journalist and author based in New Zealand. Previously, she was a magazine writer, a producer for a TV interview show and a show business reporter in Germany.

As a freelance foreign correspondent in the Weltreporter network, she reported from the South Pacific on climate change and social issues before she started researching cults, which resulted in her latest book, Cult Trip. It became an international bestseller. Three other non-fiction books were published in Germany: Aussteigen auf Zeit, Zweihundert Tage in Tokelau and Was scheren mich die Schafe.

Her investigative and personal features have been published in Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, mare, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas, Sunday (Stuff), Listener, The Fair Observer and others. She was associate producer and researcher for a number of documentaries, including Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story and We Are One: The Mosque Attacks One Year On.

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CULT TRIP Paperback – January 1, 2023

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• Print length 343 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ad Lib
• Publication date January 1, 2023
• Dimensions 5.04 x 1.02 x 7.72 inches
• ISBN-10 1802471766
• ISBN-13 978-1802471762
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ad Lib (January 1, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 343 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1802471766
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1802471762
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.7 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.04 x 1.02 x 7.72 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #3,846,637 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books )

About the author

Anke richter.

Anke Richter is an international journalist and author based in New Zealand. Previously, she was a magazine writer, a producer for a TV interview show and a show business reporter in Germany.

As a freelance foreign correspondent in the Weltreporter network, she reported from the South Pacific on climate change and social issues before she started researching cults, which resulted in her latest book, Cult Trip. It became an international bestseller. Three other non-fiction books were published in Germany: Aussteigen auf Zeit, Zweihundert Tage in Tokelau and Was scheren mich die Schafe.

Her investigative and personal features have been published in Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, mare, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas, Sunday (Stuff), Listener, The Fair Observer and others. She was associate producer and researcher for a number of documentaries, including Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story and We Are One: The Mosque Attacks One Year On.

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Cult Trip: Inside the World of Coercion and Control Paperback – 6 April 2023

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At a new age festival in Byron Bay, Australia, German journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman – a survivor of the Centrepoint cult – who will change the course of her life and career.

Over the next ten years, Anke pursued a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse. 

From the emotional and criminal carnage of Centrepoint in Auckland, New Zealand, to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho’s ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering. 

Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath.

• Print length 352 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ad Lib Publishers Ltd
• Publication date 6 April 2023
• Dimensions 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
• ISBN-10 1802471766
• ISBN-13 978-1802471762
• See all details

Product description

‘Bringing together information from around the globe, Anke Richter pinpoints the internal struggles of those coming out of cults, and the debilitating harm that lingers afterwards’

‘Wild stuff. Anke Richter is one of my favourite writers, blurring the line between participant and reporter’

‘Thorough and compassionate . . . Cult Trip is a brittle, sensitive book’

'What a book and what a writer! Cult Trip is an incredibly immersive, intense and necessary reading experience put together with doggedness and skill. The stories are heart-rending, told with bravery and care.'

A ‘powerful must read’

‘Cult Trip is incredibly painful and powerful - an eye opener, a tour de force and a call for justice. Those voices of survivors can’t be silenced. Thanks to Anke Richter’s courage and compassion, they will be heard.’

About the Author

Anke Richter  is a columnist and reporter who has worked in newsrooms and on TV productions in Hamburg and Cologne. Her investigative and personal features have been published in  Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas  and others. She has written three previous books that were published in Germany. She now lives in New Zealand.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ad Lib Publishers Ltd (6 April 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1802471766
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1802471762
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 274 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ United Kingdom
• #4,251 in Anthropology (Books)
• #27,009 in Christianity (Books)
• #423,218 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

About the author

Anke richter.

Anke Richter is an international journalist and author based in New Zealand. Previously, she was a magazine writer, a producer for a TV interview show and a show business reporter in Germany.

As a freelance foreign correspondent in the Weltreporter network, she reported from the South Pacific on climate change and social issues before she started researching cults, which resulted in her latest book, Cult Trip. It became an international bestseller. Three other non-fiction books were published in Germany: Aussteigen auf Zeit, Zweihundert Tage in Tokelau and Was scheren mich die Schafe.

Her investigative and personal features have been published in Die Zeit, Spiegel, FAZ, taz, mare, New Zealand Geographic, North & South, The Spinoff, Canvas, Sunday (Stuff), Listener, The Fair Observer and others. She was associate producer and researcher for a number of documentaries, including Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story and We Are One: The Mosque Attacks One Year On.

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Cult Trip Trade Paperback

Inside the world of coercion and control.

By Anke Richter

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Posted on 10 Nov 2022 in Non-Fiction |

ANKE RICHTER Cult Trip. Reviewed by Mary Garden

Tags: Agama / Anke Richter / Balyogi Premvarni / Bert Potter / Centrepoint / cults / Gloriavale / Howard Temple / Narcis Tarcau / Neville Cooper / Pune / Rajneesh / sexual absue / Swami Vivekananda Saraswati

Anke Richter’s stories of New Zealanders’ experiences of cults raise universal questions about the appeal – and danger – of such groups .

No one joins a cult. They join interesting groups that make them feel special, that give them solace, hope and answers. In her new book Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion and control, Anke Richter reveals the lure of these groups and the harm they can cause.

Although other groups are mentioned, Cult Trip focuses on three: Bert Potter’s Centrepoint, which operated in Auckland from 1978 to 2000; Gloriavale, situated on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island; and Agama, a tantric yoga school in Koh Phangan in a remote part of Thailand.

Centrepoint and Gloriavale have been in the news for years. Bert Potter and several senior members of the Centrepoint community were convicted of drug offences and child sexual abuse. The founder of Gloriavale, Neville Cooper, an Australian-born preacher who renamed himself Hopeful Christian Hopeful, was convicted of sexual abuse in 1995. He died in May 2018. Despite continuing controversies that have been the subject of court cases, some ongoing, Gloriavale continues with Howard Temple as its new leader.

Few would have heard of Agama, whose leader is a Romanian man, Narcis Tarcau, who calls himself Swami Vivekananda Saraswati, although he has New Zealand and Australian disciples, with a large number from Melbourne. There are countless other yoga-based groups with similar stories of abuse and control.

I joined one in India in 1973, run by Balyogi Premvarni, whose secluded ashram is in the Himalayan jungle north of Rishikesh. Some years after I escaped, I wrote a book, The Serpent Rising: A journey of spiritual seduction . It was my story of finding heaven and the hell that went with it. Sadly, there has been no end to yoga teachers ‒ many claiming to be enlightened or even God himself ‒ behaving badly. Such as Tarcau, who established his yoga school in 2003.  

For 15 years women were allegedly assaulted, raped and gaslighted by Tarcau and some of his instructors at Agama. One of the victims was an Australian woman who filed a complaint, but it was never investigated by police. Although it closed in 2018 for a short period when these allegations were aired, the school soon resumed operating with Tarcau teaching classes. No criminal charges have been laid.

Richter writes:

What had started as innocent and exciting, attracting bright, ambitious members of society with a hunger for connection and growth – because those are the ones cults want as members, not the broken and dispossessed ones – led to cult carnage and trauma.

Cult Trip differs from other books on cults in that Richter is not an objective reporter but part of the story as she moves from enthusiastic participant to critical observer. She understands the attraction of groups and is disarmingly honest as she reveals her hopes, fears and disappointments.

In 2012, Richter attended a neo-tantric festival in Byron Bay that gave her the first taste of infatuation: 

I experienced what thousands of people do when they begin to get hooked by a teacher or a group: a feeling of distinct before and after, of not wanting to be my old boring self anymore, a sense of tapping into something profound. It is like falling in love ‒ with so much potential.

At Byron Bay, she meets Angie Meiklejohn, who was 15 when her mother took her and her younger siblings to live at Centrepoint. It is Angie’s story that first piques Richter’s interest. Why, she wonders, has this disturbing chapter of New Zealand’s history not been written about? After his death in May 2012, Potter’s victims started to break their silence and Richter interviewed dozens of them in New Zealand and overseas. She also interviews several former members who were convicted for the sexual abuse of children, including Bert’s son, John. She travels to Australia to reach out to those who were in a community established in rural New South Wales by Dave Mendelssohn, Potter’s most loyal devotee. He left New Zealand after his jail time and changed his name. Suffering from cancer, he killed himself shortly after Bert Potter died. 

In 2017, Richter travelled with her husband to Pune, India, to attend a week at the Osho International Meditation Resort, previously known as the Rajneesh Ashram. Rajneesh   (who renamed himself Osho) was the first Eastern guru to embrace psychotherapy, with many of his group leaders having trained at the Esalen Institute in California. Potter visited Esalen and the Rajneesh ashram in the early 1970s. Centrepoint clearly had its genesis in the encounter therapy groups popularised at Esalen and on offer at Pune. In many respects Potter modelled himself after Rajneesh. Both thought they were God.

Shortly after I escaped the clutches of Premvarni, I became a devotee of Rajneesh and spent a year in Pune. There are several chapters on Rajneesh in Richter’s book. A few things need clarifying.

Bert [Potter] had also stayed at the ashram of Indian guru Rajneesh, or Bhagwan, who later rebranded himself Osho.

The kids who grew up in his ashram or other centres that had sprung up around the world were separated from their parents as early as five years old.

Most harm is done in groups which live together, in a closed compound or ashram. Visitors, including Bert Potter, did not stay at the Rajneesh ashram, situated on a lush, 32-acre piece of land in the Koregaon Park area of Pune. The ashram was gated with fences surrounding the perimeter. Most of us sannyasins did not live inside the ashram; we lived independently outside, renting huts or apartments. No-one told us what to do or controlled us. We were at the periphery of things. I was oblivious to some of the darker things going on inside the ashram around Rajneesh himself and his inner circle, which included the therapists, and the sexual abuse of underage girls. Their stories are only now being shared, with several memoirs to be published in 2023. 

At  Pune children were not separated from their parents as early as five years old, as Richter contends, although this happened in centres in other parts of the world. Children were not allowed to live in the ashram, but hung around there during the day, left to fend for themselves, as they were at Centrepoint, something that deeply troubled me.

Much has been made in the media of the rampant sex and orgies that occurred at the ashram. Richter mentions this too. These reports are exaggerated. In the year I was there I never witnessed or was part of any orgy, although they occurred in the encounter groups, which I did not consider doing. These groups were known to be extreme, with physical violence and even rapes occurring.

I was not harmed by being in this group ‒ some were, though, especially those in the inner circle ‒ and, luckily, I left before they relocated to America.

In Oregon, the Rajneeshees established a self-sufficient compound, Rajneeshpuram. The community morphed into a truly destructive cult as portrayed in the six-part Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country . This documentary focuses on the crime saga that played out in Oregon, and not, as Richter points out, the psychological damage suffered by followers. Nor does it mention the neglect and sexual abuse of children.  

You’d think that the therapy-based cults of Rajneeshpuram and Centrepoint would be worlds away from a conservative Christian-based cult like Gloriavale, but as Richter discovers, they have much in common. Their leaders dictated all aspects of members’ lives, including their sex lives. The control of an authoritarian leader is the main hallmark of a destructive cult.

Richter writes, ‘Charismatic leaders turn their followship into parallel societies that look like safe havens in an insane world but cause harm.’ Leaders who proclaim to be enlightened or God (as Bert Potter did) invariably end up exploiting their followers sexually, emotionally, and financially. Rather than spiritual lights, these gurus turn out to be deluded con men. A few are downright psychopaths.

Although Cult Trip focuses on the harm caused by certain extreme groups, Richter reminds us that the same dynamics of control and influence are present in mainstream society, with institutionalised harm done in the name of religion and the state, from paedophile priests to child welfare.

Children are given a voice in Cult Trip . Unlike their parents, they did not choose to be a part of these closed societies, removed from the ordinary world. Their stories are deeply disturbing and heartbreaking. They deserve a genuine heartfelt apology from those who abused them and from those who stood by as it happened.

At his father’s funeral, John Potter apologised. He explained to Richter, ‘I wanted to send a message to the people who feel they were damaged by this place.’

Richter wants to know, ‘ Feel that they were damaged? Or were they damaged?’

Potter replies, ‘I’m sure they feel they’re damaged.’

The perpetrators’ lack of remorse is the most troubling thing about these stories .

Richter writes that often social services are oblivious, naive or ignorant, and calls for counsellors specialised in cultic abuse. There were none around in the late 1970s when I emerged from the world of cults. Nothing much has changed.

At the beginning of her journey, Richter says if those who were there at Centrepoint could share their stories, it might help the collective healing. Personal stories have the power to heal. They make people feel less alone. This book will help heal, not only those who have been harmed in the groups investigated, but those who’ve been caught up in other groups where there is coercion and control. Too often our experiences are ignored, disbelieved or dismissed. We’ve been blamed and shamed for speaking out.

Anke Richter Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion and control HarperCollins 2022 PB 352pp $34.99

Mary Garden  is a writer and author of two books,  The Serpent Rising , which won the High Country Indie Award 2021, and  Sundowner of the Skies , short-listed for the 2020 NSW Premier’s History Award . She has a PhD in Journalism, and her writing has appeared in a range of publications.  

You can buy  Cult Trip  from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW or you can buy it from Booktopia .

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library .

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Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion and control

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A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cults At a new age festival in Byron Bay, journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman - a survivor of the Auckland cult Centrepoint - who will change the course of her life and career.

Over the next ten years, Anke pursues a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.

From the emotional and criminal carnage of Auckland's Centrepoint to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho's ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand, and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the West Coast of the South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering. Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath.

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Published by Harper Collins New Zealand and written over the  preceding  10 years, Cult Trip is Anke Richter's adventures into Cult Land, a personal journey by a journalist who not only was deeply affected by her enquiry, but was fundamentally  changed  as a result of what she learnt and who she came to know. Cult Trip is a balanced exploration of what makes a cult a cult, and why Centrepoint developed into one. The story of Centrepoint - told from the  perspective  of those Anke  interviews - parallels those of the Agama yoga school which closed down in a flurry of controversial sexual assault accusations, and New Zealand's own West Coast community Gloriavale, which continues to be hounded by controversy and legal cases. Right in between is Centrepoint. Side by side each other in the book these accounts reveal the parallels; that despite the wildly different values and belief systems, these groups followed the same playbook of power, control and coercion. Cult Trip is an excellent read, by a thoughtful, compassionate and intelligent investigator.

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At a new age festival in Byron Bay, journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman - a survivor of the Auckland cult Centrepoint - who will change the course of her life and career.

Over the next ten years, Anke pursues a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.

From the emotional and criminal carnage of Auckland's Centrepoint to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho's ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand, and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the West Coast of the South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering. Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath.

'Wild stuff. Anke Richter is one of my favourite writers, blurring the line between participant and reporter' David Farrier, journalist behind Dark Tourist and Tickled

'Thorough and compassionate ... Cult Trip is a brittle, sensitive book' Steve Braunias

'What a book and what a writer! Cult Trip is an incredibly immersive, intense and necessary reading experience put together with doggedness and skill. The stories are heart-rending, told with bravery and care.' Noelle McCarthy, author of Grand

'Phenomenal. I cannot recommend this book enough.' Tova O'Brien, Today FM

'Cult Trip is incredibly painful and powerful - an eye opener, a tour de force and a call for justice' Janja Lalich, a uthor of Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships

'Bringing together information from around the globe, Anke Richter pinpoints the internal struggles of those coming out of cults, and the debilitating harm that lingers afterwards' Rachel Bernstein, cult specialist and educator

Anke Richter: delving into the world of cults and control

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A chance meeting with a former resident of Bert Potter's Centrepoint community started journalist Anke Richter on what became a decade-long deep dive into groups that exert high levels of control on members.  

The result of her investigation is a book, Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion and control  exploring a myriad of manifestations, from Centrepoint and Gloriavale to India's infamous Osho ashram and the tantric Agama Yoga school. 

Photo: Stephanie Defregger

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Cult Trip: Centrepoint, Gloriavale, ISTA, a journey into the dark side of 'woo-woo' wellness

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'The Taste of Love festival was my accidental entry into cult journalism after a decade as a foreign correspondent.' Journalist Anke Richter. Photo / Emma Wallbanks

After visiting a new-age festival, Anke Richter pursued a 10-year investigation into high-demand communities from Centrepoint to Gloriavale. In her upcoming book Cult Trip, she grapples with her own explorations around the world that became increasingly conflicting.

On a wet tropical night in 2012, I stood on the balcony of the community centre in Byron Bay, stretching my arms out into the rain to cool off. "This", I thought, "is how I always want to be." I was on a euphoric high after a session of ecstatic dance at the Taste of Love festival – the largest annual gathering of tantric teachers, sexual healers and shamanic practitioners in Australia. It wasn't really my scene, but I had an assignment. And I was curious. Within a day, I was intoxicated by what the shiny happy people there called "life energy". Something clicked. My cynicism vanished along with my apprehension.

Without any sneaky recruitment, Taste of Love gave me my first taste of infatuation with a new tribe, as it called itself – a word that years later became conflicting and even repulsive, besides its cultural appropriation. But on that hot and sweaty weekend, when I hugged, laughed, danced and exhaled into "Omm", my internal shift on the balcony became a reference point. I experienced what thousands of people do when they get hooked by a teacher or group: a sense of tapping into something profound. It felt like falling in love. The new-age festival was also my accidental entry into cult journalism after a decade as a foreign correspondent. On my last day, while sipping iced chai in the courtyard, I met Angie Meiklejohn. The fellow New Zealander who gave sensual massages in Wellington opened the door to an historical tribe far more extreme than the gentle seekers floating around us.

Angie, in her 40s, had lived at Centrepoint as a teenager: Bert Potter's therapy commune in Albany where many children were sexually abused, and adults later ended up in jail. As her survival strategy in this intense environment, Angie became a "commune concubine".

When we first met, Potter was still alive. I had never heard about him. Only months later, after he died, was Angie ready to talk about what had happened to her at the place that was a happy home for many, but an ongoing nightmare for others. Hers was a story of drug rape, grooming, alcoholism, prostitution. It still lingered.

The lasting shadow of New Zealand's "free love" community soon became my obsession. I embarked on a labyrinthine investigation, more into the emotional carnage than the criminal side. "Centrepoint was a selection of average, normal people," Angie had told me. "Not monsters or freaks." They had pursued a utopian dream of sexual freedom and self-realisation. What had gone wrong? I wanted to know what they were thinking, the gullible lovers who competed for their turn in Potter's bed, and the idealistic parents who placed their daughters at his mercy. How did their children move on?

I spoke to dozens of survivors, but also enablers and perpetrators, including the guru's convicted son, John Potter. I surprised the cult's drug chemist at his home. I met a woman who had arranged a "threesome" with a teenager for her husband's birthday. And I found a girl who had barricaded herself with junk in her caravan on the property so men couldn't come to her at night. Louise Winn was possibly the most violated victim of the warped ideology about the sexualisation of "free children". She had never told anyone the horrors she suffered, to the point of attempting suicide at 11. Her disturbing account was a turning point that affected me deeply.

The years I spent mired in the damage wrought by Centrepoint eventually took their toll. The weight of all the unresolved trauma of others crept under my skin while the legal and psychological challenges seemed unsurmountable. I was overwhelmed by what I had unearthed and eventually gave up.

While struggling with the aftermath of a disastrous sex cult, I became entangled in current cult-like groups myself. Since the Taste of Love festival in Byron Bay where I had my own blissed-out awakening, I went on a roller coaster of personal exploration around the world and into every corner of my heart.

The initial week-long training I took with ISTA (International School of Temple Arts) turned out to be more cathartic than erotic. We learned "emotional release tools", where you bash cushions and scream into your hand – teachings from the human potential movement and 70s encounter groups. In one of the roleplay exercises, I channelled a younger Louise from Centrepoint. Overcome with rage, I kicked and yelled at invisible men until I collapsed.

We held rituals out in nature that were raw, tender and physical, and we sat in sharing circles to reveal our fears, wounds and desires. Men embraced their dormant femininity, women expressed their inert masculinity – all to heal parts of us that are repressed and to gain self-awareness. I thought I had found the real me through "embodiment", the buzzword for these visceral experiences promising higher states of consciousness. From now on, I hoped, this adventure ride was going to enrich my life on every level.

Soon I started to pull more friends in so they could get the same benefits. But a few years on, the sparkling world of love, liberation and learning that had enticed me revealed its cracks. There was a covert harem culture at ISTA. Male pioneers surrounded themselves with young female lovers, often from their trainings, who were then accelerated to apprentices and facilitators. Although my unease grew, I mostly ignored what felt off and instead held on to what worked for me – like the hundreds of people who had joined Centrepoint and found it to be a good place for personal growth.

In 2018, the international tantric school Agama Yoga in Thailand was rocked by a sex abuse scandal. Thirty-one women had submitted reports, including rape allegations, about the Romanian head of the school and other lead teachers. A woman had been hospitalised with psychosis after being urged to have group sex. I flew to Koh Phangan to help break the story.

Like Centrepoint, Agama was full of likeable, smart and caring people: spiritual seekers who wanted to deepen their knowledge or become a yoga teacher. Those who had concerns tried to bring them up, hoping to change the patriarchal system from within. They were dismissed. Some students stayed until it was too late to leave. Or too late to look away.

Agama became another turning point for me. The neo-tantra field, which I was first sceptical and then so passionate about, was tainted. Finally, the wellness and woo-woo world came under scrutiny and #MeToo caught up with some of its worst perpetrators. Brazilian faith healer John of God fell from grace. The heads of large Western Buddhist organisations had to step down. NXIVM, the American multi-level marketing cult where women were branded with hot irons, was exposed – as well as OneTaste, an exploitative enterprise selling "Orgasmic Meditation" which I had only visited the year before.

Millions of people who'd never heard of any of these groups or gurus watched the series Wild Wild Country about Osho, formerly Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. His slick ashram in India was part of my cult trip too. But my curiosity soon curdled to concern.

While I finished a "Wheel of Consent" course in Byron Bay that gave me more insight into the nervous system's trauma response, I also closed a chapter in my life that began in the seaside town six years earlier. My former workshop highs were now demystified. Constantly "dropping the mind" while you're loved up or turned on can result in overriding your inner "yes" or "no" – assuming you're even aware of it, especially if past trauma is retriggered and not handled professionally. In the week-long 24/7 training full of rituals, circle confessions and cathartic release, a potent cocktail of brain chemicals floods your system and clouds your thinking. If you crave a desired outcome like the rest of the enthralled group, then you won't speak up when something doesn't feel right – especially if you don't want to be labelled as "acting from your wounding" or "stuck in victim consciousness".

I stopped recommending the ISTA trainings I once raved about. My innocence was gone. This edgy work had helped me but, while I was chasing transformation around the world, I had blocked out its shadow. Spending more money on it felt unethical. I was wary of charismatic leaders creating a residential community around them and was frustrated by faculties that didn't have sufficient complaint and aftercare systems in place because they felt exempt from ethical codes of conduct by their evolutionary cause. Justified criticism was labelled as a "witch hunt" or "gossip". If there was a problem, it was your "projection". I'd seen too much arrogance and obfuscation but not enough accountability from the top.

I even wondered where I had unwittingly pushed people's boundaries as a workshop assistant, with best intentions so that everyone gets with the programme – and because I wanted to keep playing with the cool kids. Suddenly, I could empathise with those who wanted to call out the dark side of Centrepoint or Agama while trying to hold on to their community and friends. Both is rarely possible. Despite my misgivings, I was also grieving what I had lost.

Gloriavale became my next project: a saccharine-looking world that is really a gulag where children became slave labourers and women breeding machines. I went in there twice and did not expect to find many similarities between the fundamentalist Christian enclave and the radical new-age cults I had researched. But late charismatic leaders Hopeful Christian of Gloriavale and Bert Potter of Centrepoint had more in common besides being convicted paedocriminals. They defined what their people's sex life should look like, how it should be done, how often and with whom.

In all cults, not just the recent high-profile ones that turned into sex-trafficking organisations, sexuality plays a central role and is either amplified, suppressed, or distorted. It becomes a means of control. Sexual abuse is also a mainstay. According to cult expert Dr Janja Lalich, author of Take Back Your Life, 40 per cent of women in cults – or high-demand groups, as they're called – have experienced it. So had every woman from Gloriavale I met. It was heart-breaking.

Once I realised what had pulled me into a "tribe", it became harder to demonise those who had done questionable things in their own closed-off environments. Where would I have found myself on the sliding scale from bystander to apologist in such a pressure cooker? After exploring the minds of once-loyal cult members, I'm now less interested in the role they played back then. I want to know where they stand after the downfall. Are they still holding on to their old ideology, making excuses for it, or are they involved in a process that helps the survivors?

So far, only a few former Centrepoint members have shown commitment to reconciliation with the second generation. Agama Yoga is still up and running, with the main alleged abuser at the helm instead of in a courtroom. Gloriavale is going through a legal upheaval and has apologised to its victims, but lasting change and reparations still need to be seen.

While wrapping up my book earlier this year, another call-out stirred up the cultiverse — and my own past. After flying under the radar for years, ISTA and the adjacent "mystery school" Highden Temple in Palmerston North have come under scrutiny. Six hundred people joined a Facebook group called "Issues with ISTA and Highden Temple Trainings", where more and more disturbing details are shared. Many of them were new to me.

Fifty-four reports have now been collected by a group of independent sex educators. They're holding the rapidly growing organisation with a strong antipodean foothold accountable for ignoring serious complaints, for sex between predatory teachers and vulnerable students, for manipulation and gaslighting. One accused ISTA lead faculty, a former rabbi, has since taken a break and all his courses in Israel were stopped. The head of Highden publicly responded to being called "a dangerous cult leader" while others are pushing for change. Emotions are flying high and people have stepped out.

It will be crucial to see how ISTA handles this crisis. If the wild child of the conscious movement won't make amends and listen to its critics, then I'm left with a sad conclusion: I, too, have been in a cult.

"Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion & control" is out next week (HarperCollins, $38). Anke Richter will be speaking at VERB Wellington on November 6 and at the Women's Bookshop in Auckland on November 9.

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