Inside sickening orgasm cult where kids as young as 10 were forced into vile sex games & teens fed LSD by warped leader

AT the age of ten, Louise Winn was taken to live with a cult where she was regularly abused by leader Bert Potter, who forced her to watch as he performed a sex act on his wife - knowing she was next.

At night, she took to barricading herself into a caravan, with piles of hoarded junk, to stop men climbing into her bed, uninvited.

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Louise was one of many children who suffered sexual abuse in the twisted Centrepoint Community in Albany, New Zealand, disbanded in 2000 after Potter and six other men were convicted of child sex abuse.

Kids were taken away from their parents, mothers were encouraged to perform sex acts on their teenage sons, and sexually abused girls - some as young as ten - were idealised as being “in touch with their loving.”

Louise, who was taken to live at the commune at the age of ten by her suicidal mother, has revealed her horrific story in a new book by journalist Anke Richter.

In Cult Trip, Anke - who has spent a decade investigating the darkest secrets of the new-age 'wellness' world - unveils the shocking pattern of sex abuse, coercion and violence in cult groups.

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But she says the parents of abused children are 'indoctrinated' and most get involved for all the right reasons.

“No one says ‘let's move into a cult where my kids are taken away and may be sexually abused’,” she says.

“They join because there are a lot of good things and they don't see the cult stuff until it's too late and they are too entangled.

“What makes people end up in cults are the best human qualities, like wanting to engage with others, a spiritual-seeking, wanting to help the world be a better place.”

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Sex therapy

Set up in 1978, on a sprawling 30-acre farm, Centrepoint was modelled on the encounter groups and radical sex therapies made popular by Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh - also known as Osho - in the early ‘70s.

Charismatic leader Bert Potter had built up a following with his therapy workshops, where he gained a reputation for “unblocking” women who couldn’t orgasm and, at the height of its popularity, the commune housed around 300 people.

“Psychologists flocked to join and counselling services sent women to Bert Potter because he could sexually open them,” says Anke.

“People thought they could get daily therapy, the kids could run free and be looked after, food is provided.”

The children slept in dormitories, away from their parents, had toilets with no doors and communal showers, where men would often come past and watch the naked girls.

Potter developed warped sex techniques, which teenage boys would be taught to perform on lines of naked adult women.

Girls were expected to have sex with adult men from sickeningly early ages, and mothers were encouraged to aid their teenage sons’ 'sexual awakening'.

Potter’s wife Margie held 'sex education' courses for the teenage girls, and members would go off into the bushes to have sex with anyone they chose - a practice dubbed STT or Spending time together.

Potter also introduced group drug sessions for all followers over the age of 12, introducing them to MDMA - known as ecstacy - and LSD.

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Abused from ten

Louise had been at the commune for just a month when Margie took her to meet Potter in the first of numerous instances of horrific sex abuse by the couple.

But Potter wasn’t the only one who abused the frightened little girl. Son John Potter followed his dad’s lead and Dave Mendelssohn, Bert’s right-hand man, also performed sex acts on her.

When Louise tried to kill herself, at 11, Bert told her she wasn’t getting “enough loving” and demanded she came to him every day for a week.

After Louise moved to one of the caravans on the property, there was no lock, and she would wake in the night to find men in her bed.

She stopped washing, in an attempt to make herself repellent to her attackers, and became a hoarder, stuffing the caravan full of junk to deter them.

When Mendelssohn had asked mum Hilary if he could have sex with Louise, early on in their stay, she had threatened him with a knife and was ordered to undertake more “therapy” as a result.

Anke believes parents were brainwashed into ignoring and even participating in their children’s abuse.

“It wasn't obvious to these parents that they would be so neglected and, apart from the real sexual predators like Potter and a few others, I don't think the abuse was intentional.

“People were indoctrinated into believing that it's normal for a child to run around naked and if someone touches their genitals it's good for them.

“They didn’t know what we know now - that if a child is hyper-sexualized, it's probably because they have been abused."

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Chilling response

Anke's ten-year investigation into the twisted cults was sparked by a chance meeting with Angie Meiklejohn, also a Centrepoint survivor.

Having moved to the commune with her family, at the age of 14, Angie was groomed, drugged and raped by older men, including Potter, and told Anke she became the “commune concubine”.

She also had a sexual relationship with a much older man, Henry Stonex, who she saw as her 'surrogate father'.

Anke, who spoke to both victims and perpetrators for the book, says many of the abusers have a chilling response to allegations.

“The perpetrators I spoke to, including John Potter, said ‘overall, these girls seemed to want it,’ and some former members still believe that society got it wrong.

“If you visited Centrepoint, you may have run into a bunch of 13 and 14-year-old, mature-looking, frisky girls who would offer a quickie in the bushes.

“But that was their survival mechanism in a hierarchical system where you were shamed if you weren’t promiscuous as a teenager.

“I heard one girl described as ‘a lover of Bert Potter’ but she was 13 years old - she was his sexual abuse victim.”

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Lifelong trauma

Louise escaped the commune with her mum when she was 14 and later testified against her abusers.

In 1992 Potter, then 67, was convicted of 13 charges of indecently assaulting five girls and sentenced to seven years in jail.

Justice Blanchard said he had "systematically corrupted children for his own sexual pleasure and had abused the power and trust community members placed in him".

On release Potter - who died in May 2012 - said he still believed that "intimacy" and "exploration" between adults and children was natural.

Six other male leaders, including Bert’s son John Potter and Henry Stonex, were convicted of sexual assault on a minor.

“When I started investigating this, I tried to have empathy for the adults who weren't there to abuse children, but were too entangled and turned a blind eye.

“They'd given all their money to this community and had no other place to go.

“But after I met Louise, then in her 40s, I became really angry. It was an absolutely horrific story and I was deeply affected by it.

“The aftermath is so awful and these traumas linger and turn into addiction, suicide attempts, promiscuity or, in some cases, becoming asexual.

"Angie has been through addiction and prostitution. Louise has never had a family, can't hold a relationship and is not able to recognise faces because of her trauma.

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“It breaks my heart to know that adults were responsible for this - and not just the abusers but people who knew and didn’t stop it.”

Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion & control by Anke Richter is published by Ad Lib Books

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