Such careless words.” Her fury, powerful in its calm focus, is at its most pointed when describing the children who grew up under a “free love” decree that, at best, did little for their welfare and, at worst, enabled a culture of neglect and abuse. Her father, a writer and publisher, attempted to write his own spiritual text influenced by the Bhagwan Dunn states that she can “barely tolerate this incoherent rubbish, the fuzz and evasiveness. She puts the rest of it together as if she is a detectiveīut a cool anger emerges again and again. The cult is only one piece of a complex puzzle. Dunn is not dismissive of the cult’s appeal, and is surprisingly empathetic towards its followers, considering the havoc it wrought upon her own life.
#SINS OF OUR FATHERS SERIES#
In 2018, the Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country told the story of the cult’s move to Oregon in the United States, introducing its orange-clad sannyasins to a new generation.
He joined a great number of white, wealthy westerners whose search for enlightenment found a home in the Bhagwan’s teachings and communes. This is a desperately sad story, but there is beauty in its crisp, cold clarity.ĭunn’s father – named by initial, but then referred to as “Dad” or “my father”, which has a steadying effect, both intimate and distant – took to life in the Rajneesh cult, and much of this story is about his time as a devotee of the Bhagwan. Dunn describes the severing of family ties as “this operatic rupture of flight”. Sins of My Father has its roots in a memorable 2016 Granta essay, and has become a memoir of two lives: her father’s, rippled with grandiose drama, and her own attempts to harness the pain that he left in his restless wake. He bought a one-way ticket to India, travelling to an ashram in Pune with a woman he met in a strip club, who wanted to introduce him to her guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho.
Lily Dunn was six years old when her father left his wife and two young children, walking out of the family home in London, without any mention of when he would be back.
0 kommentar(er)
