threatening. we will keep watching as the storm progresses. that does it for us. thanks for watching. "holy hell" starts now. okay. i am rolling. >> my name is will. i always wanted to know why am i here. what is the point. how do i live a meaningful life. i wanted to know everything. hasn't everybody asked themselves these questions?

the truth about the mystery of the universe. i went to my great grandmother's open casket when i was 4 and became fascinated by the concept of life and death. i was raised catholic. i was even an altar boy. i was quite fascinated by all of it. >> jesus carries the cross. they're nailing him to the cross. they're all bloody. >> i started making movies when i was a kid. i found an eight millimeter camera. at first they were just fun and blowing things up.

i had grown up pretty lucky. but as a kid, nobody seemed very content or happy to me. so i decided there was something deeper, a secret that nobody seemed to know. but then i went to college and i started to use film as a way to explore the meaning of life, to explore my world. but by the time i finished film school, i wasn't closer to knowing who i was, what i wanted, where i was going and most importantly, why. this is what led me to my huge adventure. this is my story about what happened to me on my 22-year search for the truth.

♪ ♪ >> it was the middle of the '80s and the upie generation. we were all searching for

something different. >> this was not my path. i got accepted into grad school. i was going to get a ph.d. in child psychology. i had my whole life planned out. then i met some of these people. they were so alive. everything was playing and jumping in ice cold rivers and hiking through the forest at night and oh, my god, i want me some of that. >> some of them were some of the smartest, most beautiful people i had ever met in my life. >> we started it. this was what we wanted. it was our little utopia in the middle of this big giant city. >> constantly you were being fed like your soul was being fed with love and with inspiration and awe. >> i wanted everybody, everybody in the world, to experience this. >> i can remember feeling so fulfilled. >> i said dad, i want to give my life to god. and he was on the next flight out there. to come get me. >> the people that were there

were looking for spirituality, but all of a sudden, you had a built-in family. >> i fell into a group of the most amazing people i had ever met. it was my sister amy who first told me about her friends who called themselves the buddhafield. >> people ask me all the time how did you end up there. i was raised in catholic school and i always had a lot of questions for the nuns. when i would go home and tell my mom what i asked, she would say you can't ask them that. i'm like no, i want to know. i wanted to know myself beyond the superficiality of the world i was living in. life can't just be this thing where you just live and work and die. there's got to be something more. >> i grew up with a family of

really expressive, artistic hippie type characters. i also had no guidance growing up. >> living in chicago where i grew up in the streets, it was very violent. when it came to the buddhafield, not really knowing what real love was, that's what i started to feel like really deeply. >> i always had this yearning to know really why we're here. >> i grew up with a very fundamentalist, fire and brimstone church with the fear of god and all. >> my mom kicked me out of the house when i was 15, so yeah, i was looking for stability. when i came to the group, it felt like okay, this is going to be for life. it was like a marriage. >> i grew up with a real problem with authority. major authority problem. really hasn't changed much, actually, i have to tell you truthfully. >> when i was very very young i wanted to be a scientist, then i wanted to be an artist. there was always a running theme through it that i wanted to be enlightened. >> i felt very lost and i felt

empty, like there was something missing. >> as a child, there was a lot going on in my family. suicide attempts every couple months, a lot of abuse. >> i wanted to be a politician. >> i wanted freedom. i wanted freedom somehow from this self. >> we were letting go of our minds. we were dropping our egos. i just started experiencing a higher part of myself that was beyond anything that i'd known. and it was the teacher who was guiding us every step of the way. >> the first time i met the teacher was at one of the buddhafield's weekly meetings in west hollywood. i was told his name was michel.

>> he just was soft and his energy was just still, you know. i just thought wow, what a beautiful man. >> if you think of tomorrow, you're unhappy. if you think of the past, you can become miserable. happiness is wherever you are. wherever you are is where happiness is. >> he spoke as if he had gone into the cosmos and come back and was here to tell us about it and take us there. >> have you made contact with the eternal or are you still obsessed with the momentary? when are you going to wake up? when are you going to realize what you're doing with this precious energy, with this precious opportunity? >> he told us he had a master

that had led him to a great spiritual awakening. >> you speak around here and you listen to what is said to you and you will be liberated. that much i can tell you. >> i wanted to have a spiritual teacher who could teach me how to be free. >> i wanted a mentor. i wanted somebody who was going to guide me. they do this in india all the time. there's gurus there. this is just the modern day version of that in america. ♪ >> he was contemporary.

he wasn't some little old man with a gray beard sitting in a doughnut. he was wearing speedos and ray-bans and he was dancing and doing contemporary music. >> he spoke four or five languages. he was amazingly humorous, witty. >> very playful like a child. he could do something like oh, my god, i can't believe you just did that. he could dance. he was artistic. he was all those things we all wanted to be. >> he was unlike anyone i had ever met before. he encouraged me to drop all my ideas of what i thought i was supposed to be. >> i finally felt like i was on the right path. i attended every meeting, every group outing we would take and even went to michel's weekly individual hypnotherapy sessions called cleansings. i really felt like something important was happening in my life. >> namaste.

>> i really fell in love with other people first. >> what are you doing? >> we were together 24/7. we lived together, we ate together, played together. everybody that i knew was in the buddhafield. my circle, my family, was the buddhafield. >> i lived in a house with about eight people. it was warm and safe. >> nobody ever went hungry. nobody was ever going to be homeless. you always had a place. >> everyone was supporting each other with helping with food, helping with cooking. it was so idyllic. >> i didn't drink caffeine, i didn't drink a glass of wine. i mean, i can't imagine living any cleaner. >> it was really advocating that we exercise and take care of ourselves. this was a lifestyle. >> we lived in houses, we paid

our own rent. we had jobs. >> i did personal training. i owned my own business. i was very successful with money. >> if i had a job obviously my money went toward my rent, my groceries but whatever needed to be bought or built, we all pitched in and paid for it. >> need some help. another example of service. >> service was an action you did selflessly. it was just for others, for god. >> i loved service. i calculated and i did service 40 hours a week plus worked. >> we started doing service for a couple of quadraplegics that were in the group and helped them through their day. it made me feel like i had a purpose. >> by the time i was in my late 20s i had taken on the role of the group's de facto film maker.

>> that would be your first, to dedicate your life to certain knowing and your spiritual master's work on this earth. >> my films were like a way of giving back to the group. they were the perfect media for sharing michel's teachings. i even directed a commercial for wings, a hair product made by some members of the group. the profits we earned helped fund the buddhafield and the master's travels. there was enough support within the group for me to do what i wanted. capture our experiences and share michel's message of love. >> we used to joke even in the early days, if this was a cult, at least it was a really good cult. >> one of the first people i wanted to help bring into the group was my middle sister, lori. >> my brother and sister said

you have to come up here, it's so beautiful, you will get all the healing you need and heal from your eating disorder and heal from your rape trauma. i knew i needed healing. i mean, i knew i was messed up. that's something i have always known about myself. >> we supported will, amy and lori to do whatever it is they wanted to do. if they needed more answers, my husband and i thought we had worked to give them those answers but apparently we didn't do enough. they needed something that they weren't getting. >> something happened. something deep in me in that moment said i will never leave this. >> one day, i asked someone to ask if there was anything i could do for him. it sounds so small. he said you can make me a fruit salad every morning. so i would go to the store and i would buy the most beautiful

fruit i could find and i started carving buddhas out of papaya. i carved the last supper out of fruit. i spent hours. within my being i was making a fruit salad for god. one day i came home and my roommate, who was very closely serving the master was taking one of my fruit salads and sliding it into a blender and making a smoothie. i was just like -- and i kept making the fruit salads even though i knew he wasn't eating them, because there was no other way that i could give him anything.

>> it's the transference of energy from the master to the disciple. blissed out and high without - drugs. >> my body started convulsing and all of these kinds of things started happening. >> when he touched me, i was no

longer myself. >> there was a profound experience where i felt a current, where i felt like there's electricity happening. and i see this sort of like flashing light, like lightning, sound so loud like a jet airplane. >> it's pretty addictive. >> i was experiencing an lsd-like state. colors were moving around him. there was a phenomenon attached to this now. it's not just these good feelings i'm having. now there's this like flashing light happening inside me. >> more than shocktie there was a greater experience that only michel could reveal to us.

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we were told that he would have a day set aside where we could come and ask him for the direct experience of god, and he called it the knowing. >> the knowing was based on this book called the bagavhad gitta,

this hindu book where the secret of god is revealed to his disciple. >> i was like yes, that resonated with me. i was like i knew, i knew it was possible. >> the knowing was the realization of being able to see and hear and taste god. >> you can only comprehend what it means to finally have god be revealed to you in his purest form, finally. >> that was something that i felt like i had been looking for my entire life up to that point. i had gone to school, i had a degree, i had a great job, i was engaged, and yet when this happened, it was like all of that meant nothing. >> so who wants to ask for the knowing today?

>> one of the things that made the knowing so intriguing was that not everyone was going to be able to receive it. >> i wanted what i thought he had. i wanted the knowing. i wanted this promise of enlightenment. >> a ceremony would occur over the course of several days, where individuals were able to ask if they were ready for the knowing. those chosen would receive the experience of god. >> he said you have to give everything up and i will know, because you will be asked before you receive this experience. i'll know if you're telling the truth or not. i was like i better really do some soul searching. >> as devoted as i was, i was

still nervous that he wouldn't think i was ready. one night he spoke to me alone. he had something he needed to tell me. he said he had been up all night fighting with god, fighting for my life. i was fated to have a terrible accident. i was supposed to die. he said i needed to follow his guidance and i would be okay. it was so hard to believe but i trusted him. the very next day, i would find out if i received the knowing. >> this day was going to make god, okay. not the president, not brad pitt. this was god. so you didn't want to take this

lightly. >> we were up in the woods and he looks into your eyes with like, you know, this open-eyed meditation that's so overwhelming. and he said what do you want. and i told him that i wanted to have the knowing revealed to me. >> he said but it was very doubtful. he was really playing with that for me. >> he said bow down and i did. he said you will receive the knowing and you will know god directly.

%-pe ready for it. >> something in me changed and literally for three days, i thought i was on an acid trip. i felt atoms and i saw things and i kept checking myself like wow, is this real? >> i wasn't trusted to have the knowing revealed to me. basically, he said not this time. i think you're not quite ready yet. >> my sister had been there for six years working like a slave. i mean like a slave. >> of course it made me feel inadequate. all i ever wanted was to attain this merging into god and

disappearing. i was looking around at people who had been there like no way as long as me. everything was always explained off by being they're just older souls. so it was really hard. he strung her along. strung her along. >> it was especially hard for me when my brother got the knowing and i didn't. '. >> the knowing was finally shown to me. it wasn't what i was expecting. i saw light and heard sound. there was no denying the beauty i was experiencing. but i was overwhelmed that too much was being asked of me and i was getting in too deep.

i loved doing service and eventually, michel pulled me in close to do service for him directly. i was always told it was an honor to serve him and i felt privileged. i could ask him anything and he became very accessible to me. i started finding out details about his life. in addition to being an actor, he had been a dancer in the oakland ballet. he danced and worked out constantly. i became one of the people who massaged him and gave him adjustments, what we called body workers. eventually i moved into the apartment next door to his with felippe and we transformed our

living room into a dance studio for his use. >> i am a very devotional person. i love to honor, and so i started putting all of that energy into him. he said you're just using me as an excuse, we all have excuses, people bow to buddha, people bow to jesus, and you're using me as that. i'm not anything. >> we were feeling special, important, loved and supported. we were constantly telling him how much we loved him and how amazing he was, and how, you know, we couldn't live without him. and really 150 or however many people telling you that all day, every day, that's pretty powerful. >> michel is very disciplined. ballet was a daily ritual for him. it became ours, too.

>> i loved it. i was in heaven. it was my favorite thing we did and 90% of the rest of the people hated it. dance was living hell. >> do it again. >> it was like going through school again. >> you have to know this. >> i heard people crying in that class. it was intense. >> it's tough love. he's giving them tough love. >> have you ever seen anything more silly than two people having sex? >> he was very clear with me to abstain from having sex. i couldn't even have a relationship in the group.

he said it was too dangerous and that my energy needed to rise. >> what happens during sexual orgasm, a little death. one who has experienced the orgasm of meditation, that's the greatest orgasm. >> what i remember him saying was basically that sex was a low energy. >> didn't have sex for three years. the ones that had been there a long time had gotten way over it. >> it became the buddhafield. after awhile it was like this spiritual haven of beautiful people that we don't have sex. in fact, everybody's [ bleep ] everybody but it was on the down-low. >> he took me traveling with him and a few other helpers.

of course, in addition to all the fun and meditation, we had our regular duties, serving michel. i was his masseur. i was on call 24/7. ♪ i never felt so good in my life. healthy, loving and loved.

i did have my doubts but i worked hard to overcome them. >> to be a person is to be a mask. and you never know who you're talking to behind the mask, the real person is somewhere inside that mask. you had to stand naked in front of god as he's made you in your body of light. the master only represents god on the earth and if you can stand naked in front of your master, you can stand naked in front of your god. know that. >> so the teacher was a hypnotherapist. he would invite me in for therapy which he called cleansing. he charged people $50 a session. >> we all had therapy every week. >> in regression hypnotherapy you tried to go back to trauma,

relive it and then change it so that they are empowered. >> he would say i'm going to count to ten and you're going down the steps and he has this really deep hypnotic voice. >> okay, close your eyes. >> back in time, down the steps. >> then he would snap his fingers and -- >> you're there. how old are you? >> where are you now? >> within a few minutes, i was wailing and crying like i had never cried in my life. >> you would hit the pillow and scream and cry. when you were done, you would literally float out of that place. it was amazing. >> i divulged every secret, every thought, every fear. exposed it all. >> whatever transpires here, it should be kept here. about anybody you talk to, about anything you do or think or say.

>> michel gave us all new names to help us move beyond our past and create a new way of seeing ourselves. it was a common practice in the group. amy was now called emiliana. lori was called crystal. i was now named francesco. >> it would come home to us and told us that they had changed their names and this was what they wanted to be called. i said well, we're not going to call you that. we gave you your names and that is what we are going to call you, and you might as well get used to it. they came for dinner and said well, what we came here for is we want to tell you we want to detach from you. i went what? i couldn't believe it. you are going to detach from the family? we had such a happy childhood

with these children. >> so my father who i was very close to, was dying. he told me that i couldn't go see him. this is so you break the bond with him. and i would make airline reservations and i would cry and cry and cry, and then i would cancel them. but it was so difficult, so difficult. >> always my intuition was working overtime. i kind of suspected it might be a cult. >> no, i did not feel like i was in a cult. he always told us for a non-group we're an anti-cult.

>> my family had hired a private investigator to follow me and they found that i was with this group. he went back to my family and said oh, this is a benign group, they're not dangerous, it will be harder for you to pull her away, it will be more damaging, just let her be. >> my family freaked out. they said i was brainwashed. they wanted to hire somebody to deprogram me. i was an adult, they couldn't do anything. >> i mean, we all joked. we knew that we looked funny following a man in a speedo but it turns out some people didn't see it the way we did. >> there is this guy kenny who fell in love with this girl in our group. >> she was this beautiful model type. he was not in the group. he was not a model type and he was not very nice. >> this guy was stalking and his motivation was to tear down the group so that he could have this girl. >> kenny started to attack michel saying he was a cult leader telling us what we could

and couldn't do. he went to an organization run by rick ross. >> when you have leaders who claim to speak for god, cannot be questioned by their followers and have little if any accountability, you have a very volatile mix. >> so he pulled in cult awareness network to try and make us look like we're holding her captive. >> parents who paid cult awareness network to go in, kidnap their children and deprogram them. this was michel's worst fear, that the buddhafield was going to be called a cult. >> now it was no longer talking about the knowing. it was no longer talking about god and love. it's talking about what are we going to do. >> he said i'm no longer in a position where i can do my work in this environment. we need to get out of here. >> michel didn't really give anyone warning. in the middle of the night, he grabbed me, his cook, another body worker, said pack your bags, we're going. i'm like where are we going? we're just going. i had no credit card, no money, no bank account, no phone.

i was living underground with him. everyone else stayed in los angeles for the time being to await instructions. eventually he would decide where they should go. >> it was like losing my family all over again. you don't want to give that up and be tossed back into the dogs of l.a. >> i was so devastated. we were just left behind. >> i wanted to go with him. i never, ever wanted to be without him. >> we went to all these places trying to figure out where we were going to live next and how were we going to protect ourselves. >> his behavior started to become obsessive. >> he convinced all of us that every christ figure that walked the earth had been killed

because they brought very unconventional, radical ideas that society didn't like so they would kill them. i was as close to him as anybody and i still didn't know who he was. i don't think anyone really knew who he was. i think he may have had his mother die really young or something. >> his brother died really young. >> he had come from a wealthy family. >> in the '60s in san francisco. >> at least that's what he said to me. >> dark arts groups. >> i know he came to america to be a movie star. he wanted to be famous. >> his first name was jaime gomez. his stage name was michel. >> he was an actor. i assume probably a good one until i saw some of his acting.

>> i know he was in "rosemary's baby." >> i know that he was in the movie "rosemary's baby." >> he was in "rosemary's baby." >> his whole role was a millisecond at the end of it looking into the camera. >> according to some that had come around, they saw him in some pornographic movies. i just thought that was such hogwash. he never made it to be a star although i'm sure that was his intention. >> he used hypnosis, his spiritual understanding and his acting methods and they all kind of merged into this way of coming to god.

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in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp... and provided by unitedhealthcare insurance company, which has over 30 years of experience behind it. with all the good years ahead, look for the experience and commitment to go the distance with you. call now to request your free decision guide. we were on the road for six months trying to find a place where we could settle down, where the whole group could come join us. and he decided austin, texas was the place. one of his disciples bought him a house in the suburbs. he changed his name so anybody who was looking for michel couldn't find him, because he

was now just called andreas. after we had been under the radar long enough, andreas thought it was time to bring everyone back together. he wanted everyone to move out in small pods. people broke their leases, sold their homes and their belongings and began to pack. people trickled in to austin and we recreated the buddhafield. >> new people would show up all the time. we were sharing this love that we were experiencing with other people. i would say the word recruit. we were all recruiting. >> i recruited lots of people myself. he was looking for people who were open and that was his instruction. >> then he started recruiting people that knew how to do ballet because he loved ballet. >> he used yoga classes to recruit more members so that he would always have more people coming in. >> it was very interesting group

of people because they were all beautiful. these beautiful bodies and these little speedos and the girls were so beautiful. you couldn't miss them. >> even though he wanted new disciples, andreas was still hesitant to let anyone get close to him. he kept telling us there was still a lot to be afraid of from the outside world. >> as you can see, the fire has indeed engulfed the vast majority of this compound. the latest figures we have -- >> just 100 miles north of us, waco happened. we watched in horror as 72 members of a presumed cult died during a government raid. this freaked him out, because he thought what happened to david koresh was going to happen to him. >> this was a spiritual leader who was being demonized and running this group, and he was afraid that people were going to draw parallels and they were going to see him as that.

>> i did feel like i needed to protect him at times. >> in austin it was keep the group secret, sacred, sacred things need to be kept secret. >> we did exercises in class to practice in case the fbi captured us. >> you're going to tell them that you don't know any andreas, you don't know anybody. >> i wasn't sure if the fbi was after us or not, but i would do whatever it took to protect him or the group. even though i wasn't a very good liar, i did it. >> i had no integrity at all. i would lie to my mother for him. >> we were instruct thed that w had to lie to my parents all the time. >> i rarely had any interaction with anyone outside the group. even my parents, who lived nearby in ft. worth, had no idea i was in austin. >> here my brother lived three hours from my parents. there's no reason for us having to keep up this lie.

they're not going to come and inspect your ashram. >> i had to come up with elaborate lies. i told them i moved to atlanta and to mexico and anywhere to give them a reason not to expect to see me. >> he would have people that were going to europe get a po postcard and mail it to my parents. >> here's a postcard i sent from florence when i was francesco. >> he would send me all these little gifts from these places to prove he was writing these letters. i still saw through it. it's sad and it broke our hearts, really. we just had to hope it would all work out. >> my role increased in the buddhafield and i had a group of new disciples eager to do service with me. i set out to make our house in austin a place of peace and beauty. by the time we were finished, we

had built not only a massive garden but also an aviary complete with peacocks, exotic birds, even a wallabee. the garden became our sanctuary and his house became like a refuge from the outside world. things quieted down. time went by and we didn't hear much from . things quieted down. we thought things might be getting back to normal. but the demands on the buddhafield and andreas became greater and greater. >> we would lift up a rog ack a hundreds of rats would go

running out. he asked us to kill the rats and we armed ourselves with shovels. i would hit them over the head or we'd have to decapitate them. it just went on and on and on, killing these furry little creatures. it was like he was playing a game with us, like he was turning us into his own personal little warriors. >> andreas loved to dance and he said he wished he had a theater. so i found this amazing piece of land. he told me to buy it and he said let's build a theater, design a theater. he would come out some days and he would look at it and say i don't like the windows, i don't like the walls, take it down. and we would. we would literally unbuild the

building and rebuild the building so he could come back and look at it. and he would say why is this taking so long? if i was doing this, it would be done a year ago. you're creating karma. he would say all i care about is you having an awakening through this theater. i would say did this just happen? >> once the theater was built, andreas began choreographing ballets. we would rehearse for hours. people would drop everything, including their job to make it to rehearsal. >> these ballets were astonishing. we had these elaborate costumes, sets would be designed. it was something extraordinary.

>> everybody was involved. we would rehearse them for a year, do costumes and everything and we'd only show these ballets once, to ourselves, and that was it. >> he lived like a multi-millionaire's life in the simplest form. he had a chauffeur, i drove him around. he had a cook, people cooked for him. he had someone cleaning his house. >> everywhere he went in public, i brought along a special chair. it's huge. it was on a back pack, it was about like this. on one end he's totally paranoid and trying to be secretive. on the other hand, he has this entourage of people setting up a

throne for him anywhere in public. he would call me and say what are you do? i'd say i'm in bed. he'd say "you better get out of that bed, you have service to do!" >> it was all designed. >> he wanted to control the social lives, interactions of everybody, what they did. >> it was presented as your spiritual guidance, what's best for your soul. >> we weren't supposed to read books, watch tv,less wrenn to the -- listen to the radio and i never did any of it. >> he came upset one day when i bought a tv and he was upset, said you did this behind my back. i said i didn't know i had to ask you to get a tv. >> i got a dog at one point. it wasn't acceptable. i ended up having to give the dog back. i had ended up going and getting this little puppy without his permission. he didn't like dogs.

>> with my friend danielle, he'd say he's crazy, with all these weird expressions. she'd look across the room and say "we're going to be here for the rest of our lives." >> it was kind of nice when it first started out and it wasn't all about adoring him, it was about achieving some kind of spiritual growth for yourself, not licking his feet. ♪ ♪

♪ la femme fatale >> la femme fatale was a song andreas wrote. the song served as a public satire against the woman who andreas thought was being too sexual. i didn't want to be part of an attack but i went ahead and made a funny video. it was a big hit. ♪ la femme fatale ♪ >> he did not like anyone who have a normal, natural sex life. and how he treated sexuality in general was juvenile.

>> there was a young lady in our group named sophia. >> she was amazing. she spent her whole life just wanting to be a ballerina. >> she danced beautifully. of course he made her her prima ballerina. >> he wanted her to be close to me but not to have sex to me and all along he knew i was growing attached to her. he told five different women not to date me because it would be bad for my spiritual development. >> there were so many confusing messages about sexuality. we were told you're not your body, don't get obsessed with your looks, yet everyone was obsessed with their looks. >> he really did not want fat

people. did not want anyone in the group that was not physically a starlet. he wanted everybody to be starlet. >> so he was suggesting that this person had their eyes done or suggesting that this person have their cheek bones and another person have their chin. he sort of got obsessed with it. >> we were going into his bathroom and just finding piles of mascara and fake eye lashes and concealers. he wore make-up like every day of his life. >> i remember one time i was in the water with him and he had an eye lash on his cheek and i'm like trying to signal to him to flick that off, but i didn't know about the plastic surgery but it started to look evident. >> he was always telling us this is the body, it's going to be a carcass one day, it's going to die and here he is over here

doing his eyes, his eyes, his this, his lips, constantly doing stuff to his body. >> but he started to look very deformed and scary looking really. >> it was of a total dichotomy of what the teaching was. >> and i knew he would have other people do plastic surgery before he did it so that he would see if it was safe or how it looked and i never questioned it. >> no one was going to say, dude, your make-up's running. no one would dare. i wouldn't dare.

>> i always turned the camera off when andreas was yelling. >> we would use this term "you need to drop your mind." >> that was something you would say to someone and it was critical. it was, hey, you're not in line with what's going on here. >> you don't want to be in the mind. no thoughts. if you're having thoughts, you're not connected to meditation and to god. >> there's a term called mutual complicity. you can't have a teacher without followers. >> the benefits outweighed the craziness. so you started to accept the questionable stuff. you just started to accept it. it's like any family.

and i think a lot of us compartmentaliz compartmentalized, rationalized always. he certainly helped us rationalize everything. >> the only truth that's left is the truth that i am told and who is the highest authority in the group? it's the master. >> do you want to have kids? >> no. >> spiritual growth and children don't always go together. >> i told him i was pregnant. he said get an abortion. i didn't not want to have this abortion but he said i could not be in the community if i had the child. i had the abortion. as soon as i'd hear his voice, i would go into surrender mode and do whatever he said.

i was with somebody in the community that i was really, really in love with and i set it up so that i would get pregnant so i thought that would be okay. andreas had told him he would be kicked out if he didn't get me to have an abortion. so i had to have another abortion. >> in all the years we were together, no one child was born. >> there were a lot of people who didn't stick around. of course they were demonized. >> when i left the group, immediately everybody was told something awful. we were told do not communicate with them, they're in their minds, there's rumors that i had turned into a prostitute or i was running prostitutes out of my house. >> when people started to assert their own independence, he would

crack the whip. >> it was tightly controlled that if you were to go out on your own, bad things were going to happen to you. >> if i ever left the group, within a year i would be dead. why? because i would be out from under the wing of his grace. >> he had told me on a couple of occasions if i wasn't with him, i would get aids and i would die. and i believed him. i believed him. >> the thing was that he was a h hypnotherapist. so he manipulated each and every personality that way. >> you only have one chance to be with me. >> and this was literally

brainwashing. we were doing hypnotic work with people every day. it's brainwashing. all in hd. yeah. i know that. so you wanna come over? i'll make nachos! i can't right now man. i'm playing. oh yeah. alright. i'll pencil you in for tuesday. (vo) get nfl sunday ticket included at no extra charge. only on directv. in my gentleman's quarters, we sip champagne and peruse my art collection, which consists of renaissance classics and more avant-garde pieces. yes, i am rich. that's why i drink the champagne of beers. and i'm michael howard. we left on our honeymoon in january 2012. it actually evolved into a business. from our blog to video editing... our technology has to hang tough with us. when you're going to a place without electricity, you need a long battery life.

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>> i got to do some of the characters in the film that we did for our group. in the scene he bends down to get water and he realizes he's not alone, that the master is there. here we are, we're actors in front of the camera. we get these shots he's having.

and i wasn't sure whether or not it was an act or whether it was real. then i started thinking maybe the whole thing is an act. >> something's wrong here. thoughts came in all the time. i was always getting the message and i chose not to listen. >> i was like what the [ expletive ] has this turned into? it's become a circus.

and some of the older people that had been around since the beginning were kind of looking at each other going i didn't hear to where this suddenly changed to where it's all about him instead of about your inner experience. >> i wouldn't refer to him other than anything he was, an out-of-work actor who stumbled on the role of a lifetime. >> one of the people that had been around for a long time wrote an e-mail and he sent it out to like everybody in the buddhafield. >> there was this e-mail that was sent out about all this stuff, it was like what the [ expletive ] is this? >> the author of the e-mail was leading the group and he laid out serious accusations about

andreas and one of the most serious was that he for years had been forcing unwanted disciples into unwanted relationships. andreas immediately told all of those around him that the letter was full of lies and not to read it. >> and all of a sudden there started to be this division. >> some people didn't believe it, some people did. >> it's just some letter somebody wrote, they could write anything they want. >> i didn't have personally any reason to believe what they were saying. >> some people coalesced around him. even i did initially. i wrote a rebuttal to the letter. yeah, it was bull [ expletive ]. id had been -- i had been in a relationship with him. i knew that everything in there was pretty much true. well, how it started was in the private therapy sessions. being a young man and very new

to sexuality at that time, i had a lot of questions. so you're talking to your therapist about these things and so he's got this dossier of information on you. >> have you ever had sex with a guy? >> no. >> have you ever wanted to? you can be very honest. >> and somewhere in there he started running you through homosexual fantasies. who do you find attractive? i'd start naming women and he'd be like, no, a guy. being attracted to women had no validity whatsoever. >> do you fantasize? >> yeah. what do you fantasize about? >> what will it be like. >> one day it was after a therapy session and he asked me

to kiss him. i was thrown. i did not want that. i wasn't looking for that. >> that moral stuff that's been put in your head, it is not your voice. you need to get what is authentic. cause you're carrying so much program in there. >> the first thing he had me do was just around the body. it was like, oh, you don't need to be uptight about your body. see, you can take off your clothes and be unattached. it's not a big deal. i felt like i was doing spiritual work initially. then it started to get like, ah, come closer to me. and he sat in his throne very upright and i'd be in front of him on my knees and he said just

do whatever you want to do, just do what comes naturally. and what came naturally to me is i wanted to get away. >> he started having sex with me, not that day but over a period of time. and it became a regular thing. every tuesday and saturday night after the gym, it was like clock work and i had never been [ bleep [ bleep ] [ bleep ] before. >> i was totally down on it. and he was completely ignoring me. imagine having sex with someone, male or female and they're just laying there, like spaced out, not paying attention to you.

oh, do you like this? and your answer is something like "yeah, sure." and they just keep [ bleep ] you, because you're like a sack of meat. then i started to hate him. >> i resisted and he would say okay, okay, let's go down the long flight of stairs, go back to your childhood, who is it that you're resisting? i'd be like i'm resisting you, i don't want to have sex with you. he's like no, no, let's go back to your childhood, when somebody wanted you to do something and you didn't want to do it -- he was a master, he was masterful of getting what he wanted. somehow after this process i would be bowing at his feet saying, oh, my god, thank you, how do you always bring me back to this beautiful place and i'd get [ bleep ] again. >> you can't say no.

no is against the rules. and then i had to pay him. i had to pay him for [ expletive ] therapy. 50 bucks every time i'd go in. here's your bull [ expletive ] therapy, we're going to [ expletive ]. give me $50. can you imagine? this went on for every single monday of my life for five years. here i am, like, helping this guy every day with his chair, with all these little details of his life and i hate him but still somehow i'm here in this group going through the motions serving him, and it was just i felt like i was going mad and --

yeah. i felt like i was going [ bleep ] mad. sophia saved my life. god. thank you so much, sophia. thank you. she knew something was funny with me. she knew when andreas told her not to hook up with me that there was something not right there and so she ignored him. so we developed a romantic relationship at age 28, 29 she was my first girl friend, like a real girl friend. >> how could you? we trusted you. we trusted you.

we trusted you. >> i still felt like i owed him everything. i feel like such an ass saying it. i felt like, wow, he's doing this for me and i never told anyone. not until everything fell apart. >> i knew right there it was like, oh, my god, i see now, i see what he's been doing. it was so clear. the curtain has been opened. the curtain's open, broke my heart, you hurt people. hmmmmm... [ "dreams" by beck ] hmmmmm...

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he abused them. he sodomized them. i'm not here to compete with anybody about anything because i don't have any agenda with you, except if you sincerely want to grow up, maybe this would be offered to you. you follow? >> he took 120 minds and manipulated each one and their own story. nobody ever knew. the right hand never knew what the left hand was doing. i knew you intimately for 25 years and never knew you were suffering. if i had never you were suffering as much as you did or that my other brothers were suffering as much as you did, i would have put a stop to it from the get-go. >> it's true. he started having sex with me when he took me to hawaii. i didn't understand what was

happening. he kept saying everything he was doing was for me. he told me his master had brought him close the same way and it was very special. he was saving my life, he told me. i would die without him. yet he was still that person in my life who could take me to this god experience, and i was dependent on him for that, in my mind even though i had suspicions i wasn't the only one, i kept quiet. i couldn't show anyone what i was feeling or going through. despite having the whole buddhafield as my family, i was

alone. he told me he was only working with me this way, and i could not tell anyone because they would not understand. >> nobody had the complete story. so some people knew some things, other people new other things, i knew the thing that i knew but nobody was allowed to really talk to each other about it. >> i had no clue that he had been seducing so many of the men in the community. >> when i heard the stories about what was actually happening, that was when i was like you mother [ expletive ]. >> along with the confessions of sexual abuse came other stories. >> he told me to say i had cancer and i had to tell my best friends, my lover, everyone, and i had to keep that a secret so that he could be the great healer and heal me of my cancer

that didn't exist. >> it was like are you [ expletive ] kidding me? >> was 70% of it a lie? was 80% of it a lie? >> and finally we discovered that the rumors of him being a porn actor were in fact true. as more people were finding out about the truth, a few started to confront andreas. >> and i said you can't do this. this is our community and you are destroying it. >> i literally confronted him. i go what are we doing? he completely denied it. he said i know that you're hearing this but i haven't done that. >> he just had this innate belief that you just keep telling the story and they'll believe it. >> i had to take a stand. i knew there were a lot of innocent new people there that would not even know what was really going on. >> i was like enough. this is what i needed to leave.

>> it got to a point where i didn't care. it was like, okay, i might be dead in a year but it is better than being here for another second. >> i said no more, i am not your sex toy. i'm done. i'm not going to take anymore. >>he looked at me and his eyes got black. his face looked different and it was freaky. >> it was clear to me i was looking at a madman grasping at straws to try to keep things together. >> that's when the spell broke. i was like you have nothing for me anymore. >> in the period of a week, boom, boom, all of a sudden everyone started leaving. >> he was on his heels. he was back pedaling. >> the buddhafield was falling apart. it was devastating to watch my closest friends leave. i began to feel the need to join them but as much as i tried, i couldn't get rid of my sense of obligation to andreas. he still denied everything and he wanted a chance to tell his

side of the story to those who would listen so he asked me to grab my camera one last time. >> we were summoned to a house one evening that there was going to be a message from andreas and they put up this big video screen and they showed this video. >> what this is cannot be put in a biographical letter. it doesn't need resumés about its story, what this is is free, untouched, unpolluted, not apologizing. >> there were some people that for the first time i saw at a gathering that got up, i don't

know, ten or 20 people left while that video was going on because it was so disturbing. >> i am in you. in truth there is no i and there is no you. how come? may all beings wake up. >> you could hear a pin drop. nobody bought it. everybody was questioning things in their head. >> but then he did something that surprised us all. he decided after 17 years it was time for another knowing session. a few loyal members took him up on his offer, including my

sister, amy, who still had no idea what had happened to me. >> and now he's desperate to hold on to those of us who still trusted him. so he revealed the knowing. and he was awful. he wasn't even connected to me at all. the day after we went for a walk and he came up and he put his hand on my wrist and he says, you know, amealiana, these people are trying to destroy your master and i need to know if you know someone or if you can find a way to have them taken out, get rid of them. if not that, find someone who can just destroy their lives through the irs or whatever way. people he wanted harmed, they were the two people who were behind exposing the truth of

what was really going on with him. the guy who wrote the letter and radia. >> how did this shatter? how did everything shatter? how did i come here being so hated and so ostracized and demonized when i loved someone so much and gave my life for someone. >> i don't know who he was at that point. to see that and finally start having my realizations about andreas, that everything he did was manipulation for some narcissistic, maniacalnd. >> this thing is [ bleep ]. >> some members warned andreas if he didn't stop his work, they would press charges against him.

we convinced him he would be left alone if he promised to stop being a teacher. i didn't want to see him harmed, but i wanted all this to end. so i reluctantly flew with him and a few others to relocate him to hawaii. here i was returning to the place where the abuse all started. but finally this time i was done with the lies. and i was done with him. so after 22 years, i left. without saying good-bye. if i booked a hotel in advance

i wouldn't need one at the last minute. sorry, captain obvious. don't be. i've got the hotels.com app, which makes it simple to book a room for... $1,000. sorry. or $500. or $100. sorry. or $25, but it won't be here. you can stay with me. thanks.

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i had just had 200 of my

closest friends who i considered to be family gone. >> it was kind of like a bomb went off and like a village that i lived in was totally destroyed. that was the feeling it was. >> i miss that community. >> it's like a big death of your family all at once. >> i did so much service for him and didn't worry about the future that when it was over, i had $45 to my name, i didn't have a bank account, i didn't have anything. i remembered just laying on the floor in fetal position. it was like i was dropping through this trap door. it was black and there was no bottom.

>> where am i going to find that awe? who is going to make me dance in the forest? who is going to be willing to make me sing when i can't sing? >> i questioned everything i thought when i came out of the group. i sold my house and i took a job as a bouncer and reclaimed my masculinity. >> i was so angry, i was so bitter, so cynical. i couldn't trust anything. >> all of us who left the group needed to heal. ♪ happy birthday >> like many of my friends, i tried to mend the relationships i had given up in the past. ♪ happy birthday to you

>> we embraced them. we told them we loved them. we never gave up on them. i had prayed that they would come back and they did. it was unbelievable really what they'd been through. and i was glad that they were rid of this man and i just feel a deep hatred, and i shouldn't, i'm not supposed to hate, but i feel that he really is evil. really evil. >> there's this social interplay that happens between highly co-dependent people and pathological narcissists. who is going to give a person who needs constant adoration and attention, who is going to give that to them ceaselessly? somebody who relies on him as the source of their self-esteem.

and they'll say you seem like a normal, rational, intelligent human being. how did this happen to you? >> it was hard for me to admit that i was brainwashed and i was in a cult. you know, looking back now, he would do all kinds of things to draw you in to him, endearing things. and he made you feel special and you felt really loved. >> there's something about seeing other people being devoted that makes you think, oh, well, those people don't seem crazy. >> it's what we do every time we come into a religion. we take on their beliefs as truth. you will do anything to defend that truth. you subjugate your best interests to the interests of the religion, the group, the corporation. >> that's what happens in a

group-think system. that's what keeps you there. that's what kept me there. >> so the better you feel, the more you get committed. and then somebody can get you to do anything. i mean, i would have killed or died for him. it's so common. it's everywhere. look around you. you've got a cult in your town, i almost guarantee you.

>> i see them all. there's andreas. >> i do think that he's created that sort of hyper protection around him again. >> andreas is now calling himself rachi, which means god

king. >> to this day i don't understand. some people still stayed, still stayed when they were told the truth. >> without those people going along and being there, he would not have been able to reconstitute the group. >> it hurts me to see he's still doing the same manipulation and it's sad because people give up their lives. you give up your power. they're going to deny their own ambitions, their own abilities and talents for him. everything's going to be done for him. >> the thing is what i would say to them if i thought that they could hear was he is not it. he is only here for himself, not for you. now, could they hear that? i know they couldn't. i couldn't hear it for 22 years. >> innocent people are coming now to this day, and they're very sincere and they should know. they should know the truth.

>> the only way we can get to him is undercover. otherwise if he sees a camera, he will disappear. ♪

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in the beginning when i came into the buddhafield, i initially thought that i was finding a deeper truth in my films. i thought i was capturing life and expressing love. but really i had just fed his cause and contributed in my own way to hurting people that i loved. >> testing. what do you think? >> yeah. >> freaked out.

>> when did you get here? >> my birthday. staying over there. and what are you doing? >> just being alive and enjoying. >> me, too. i mean, it hasn't been easy. know what i mean? you have a lot of desiiscipledi see, huh? >> no. people come and go. people pass through. >> well, are you being a good boy? >> no. i don't know what that is. >> don't you think you should learn what that is?

>> good and bad, better to find out what is best. >> have you been being your best boy? >> i'm just being. >> for years i felt like i had no power, no voice. but i was wrong. >> sorry, andreas, but somebody needs to stop you because you've hurt my brother and you have hurt my other brothers in ways

that they will never heal from, and you need to go down, you ugly, distorted, son of a bitch. [ expletive ] you. >> it's sort of this tedious process of looking, sifting through everything and looking at the good and then letting go of some of the negatives. there's a lot of good. i feel like i'm much more clear, much more knowledgeable and much more aware than i would have ever been if i hadn't gone through that entire experience. >> i don't think about the bad. it doesn't come in my kshness because i only remember what was good for me and what helped me. and what helped me was this, this connection we had with each other.

this wasn't because of the teacher, it was because of us. >> it was this beautifully, crazy, insane, horrible experience that has made me who i am today, and i can't wrap myself around it. >> i'm really glad about who i am now. i'm really happy with my life. i have an amazingly rich, beautiful life. i have an amazing -- >> i both regret it and i don't regret it and i'm super thankful and really happy about who i am now so maybe it's worth this.

mean it's worth it. >> in 2006 i shot video portraits of some of my friends. by the time i finished the video in 2007, the buddhafield as i had known it had broken apart. ♪ we'll do it all >> some followed the teacher to hawaii but most left. ♪ everything on our own >> it was a confusing time. ♪ we don't need anything or anyone ♪ ♪ if i were here, if i just lay

here ♪ ♪ would you lay with me and just forget the world ♪ ♪ forget what we're told before we get too old ♪ ♪ show me a garden that bursts into life ♪ ♪ all that i am, all that i am or was ♪ ♪ it's here in your perfect eyes, they're all i can see ♪ ♪ i don't know where, confused about how as well ♪ ♪ just know that these things

will never change us at all ♪ ♪ if i lie here, if i just lay here ♪ ♪ would you lie with me and just forget the world ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ raining down, rain down on me, rain until you heal it ♪ ♪ and the gray sky's overshadowed in the clouds ♪ ♪ up above me and see the clouds turning into clear blue sky ♪ ♪ and i'm asking you to reveal

it ♪ ♪ i'm asking you, asking you to reveal that sky inside ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ raining down, down upon me and all around i feel it ♪ ♪ raining down, rain down on me, rain until you hear it ♪ ♪ and the gray skies overshadow

and the cloud up above me ♪ ♪ where on the other side, falling down like love ♪ ♪ and i see that cloud and i'm asking you ♪ ♪ i'm asking you to reveal that sky inside ♪ ♪ now i'm standing in what you reveal ♪

okay. i am rolling. >> my name is will. i always wanted to know why am i here. what is the point. how do i live a meaningful life. i wanted to know everything. hasn't everybody asked themselves these questions?