He was going to save me. He was the most enchanting creature I’d ever met

around London banging on telephone booths. He hit them so coins poured out as if they were jackpot machines — the heavens were providing.

He said he was half Jamaican, and a quarter Chinese, quarter Indian. His name was Dr Mohan, a staunch disciple of Osho, and he was going to save me. I thought he was the most enchanting creature I’d ever met.

That evening we went to another disciple’s apartment. By that time Mohan had bought me a red dress like Yasmin’s, and I was out of my black.

Only women were in the space and they busied themselves in the kitchen while we sat on the couch and got deeply into a conversation about our saviour Osho, and made plans to go to Puna, to Osho’s sanctuary. I was told by one of the women to sit on the floor at Mohan’s feet. He told me that my mother was “a bitch” who would try to keep me from my true path to purity and spiritual ecstasy. We watched videos of Osho’s teaching for hours and later he cleaned my aura with a clump of burning sage. My friend, he said, was a vampire and I should leave her and join him. He took me into the bathroom to show me my glowing aura. Then he got naked and invited me into a run bath to baptise me into glory.

When I refused he said that 20 years of conditioning had made me shameful of sharing my naked body. I said that it would take another 20 years to “decondition” me and that I would like to leave immediately. Mohan drove me home and left me with a vial of pills. I threw them down the toilet. And I never did get to Puna. Andrea Nagel

●

L