How we fell for monster's spell

08/04/1987 Portsmouth Evening News

most of this text is difficult to read so there is a digital version below the image

see here for the other stories about John Yarr in the Portsmouth Evening News

THE NEWS (Portsmouth Evening News) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1987

News Investigation

How we fell for monster's spell

Devoted sisters tell sordid story

Lifewave Exposé

EXCLUSIVE

By Frances Hardy

I first came across John Yarr when I

was meditating in an organization called Di-

vine Light Mission.

I loved meditation and was trying to live as spiritual

a life as possible.

Whenever John Yarr spoke about   meditation and the knowledge he   gained from it. I was so struck by  charisma, power and inspiration that   eventually I decided to follow him,   and along with three others, left the   organization to live with and learn   from him. We moved to Portsmouth in August, 1975, and found jobs — Yarr at Marconi  — that allowed us to teach meditation and bring people to him. Before long he was no longer John   Yarr but the Master, then the Perfect   Master and finally the Messiah. As more people came and found the   benefits of meditation, his own position   and power became more elevated. After  six months he gave up work and for the   next ten years had a devoted group of   followers serving him from morning to   night. His wish was, literally, our command.  He began to teach us that spiritual progress depended on being 100 per cent   devoted to him personally. Since I was actually living with him,   however, I began to see the personality   behind the image. He started making sexual advances towards me and led me to feel I was special   and destined to be his wife. He made me   feel it was my duty to satisfy him and he   would he very angry and reject me in   public if I crossed or refused him. As he got more demanding I found   myself trapped because I still loved him   and valued the teachings very much. But as the guru of Lifewave, as his   organization was now called, he was advo- cating a very strict lifestyle including celi-  bacy outside marriage and fidelity to one   lifelong marriage partner, so for the sake of his image and our relationship, I felt   bound to keep his secret. Before long, however, I realised that he was also having sexual affairs with   several other women followers. Kept loyal He still managed to convince me, as I   now know he convinced all the others, that   our relationship was special, and so I kept   loyal to him. I tried, like some of the others, to   confront him with his hypocrisy on several   occasions, but he was a very clever liar and   always either dismissed or denied what   little evidence there was. Since the others (and over the years he   had affairs with about nine of his teachers   "adepts" and at least 20 of his followers)   had also been misled, and told to be totally   committed to him, it took a very long time   for the full truth to come out. As time went on and I began to know   too much about his personal life, John   Yarr started to spread lies about me to   cover his tracks, so that anything I said   against him would be discredited. Soon I lost all my friends and had no   one I could turn to or trust. I even tried to commit suicide once   because of the emotional pain he caused   me. John Yarr would try anything to make   it difficult for people to leave him. Firstly   he would make you feel sorry for him by   crying and saying how lonely and frus-  trated he was. Even after I did eventually leave him to   get married myself, I still felt guilty that, as

he said, he wouldn't have me to confide in any more.  Then if people did leave he cursed  them, or got his followers to visit them and intimidate them, or taught people how to stick pins in their photographs. One girl left because she couldn't cope with him putting his hands up her skirt and  he sent men round to threaten her, over a period of years, saying she would become blind or have deformed children. My own sister had to he admitted to   psychiatric hospital soon after spending four months living with him in Bognor while I went to India to teach meditation.   I tried to make arrangements to see her   in hospital, but he absolutely forbade it, flying into a rage and saying that she had   got what the deserved and must be pun-   ished. This was the time when I really saw the   monster inside this man. When our mother died we used the   inheritance to buy a house in Hawthorn Road, Bognor, which we then gave him. After four years of asking, he still hasn't given my sister Sally-Ann her money back, even though she has been living in poverty since she left him after coming out of hospital. John Yarr often used money or gifts to   keep people quiet or simply to appear  generous. One follower walked into a   room and found him fondling a girl on the   floor. Later that day he went out and   bought her a washing machine There were   many similar examples He always convinced people that what   he was doing was to help them. He would   take women alone into his room, to teach   them about spirituality, and then check   their breasts for "lumps", or manipulate   their back or pelvis. Then he would explain that he was freeing them from inhibitions, or the fear of sex. He would regularly send out followers   to hire pornographic videos, up to three a  night, and watch them until the early   hours. Anyone who went on holiday with  him would have to listen to an endless   commentary on legs, breasts and buttocks   on the beach. He wouldn't listen when I   and other s tried to criticise him in any way. He ran the organisation like a tyrant. He used people's devotion to him to instil   fear and guilt and if they did not adopt the   Lifewave lifestyle and agree with all the   dogma. Many families and marriages were bro-   ken up and some children — as young as   three-years old — were quite badly af-  fected psychologically by enforced periods   of long meditation. Now the whole sordid story of his   personal life has been made known to his   followers and the web of distrust has finally   been broken. While he did inspire and help many people in his organization, the fact is he also hurt and damaged many people very badly.

SISTERS Mari-Ann and Sally-Ann Barrett fell under John Yarr's hypnotic spell. They signed away their inheritance to the man they called Ishvara, The Perfect Master. When their mother died in 1978 they bought a bungalow and gave it to Yarr. The modest home in Hawthorn Road, Bognor Regis, became the "House of God" for thousands of devotees. For years Yarr deceived Mari-Ann into believing she was his only lover. But he was having affairs with a string of devotees.

Yarr sexually harassed Sally-Ann and forced her to recount past sexual exploits under hypnosis. Today Mari-Ann has renounced Yarr and is painstakingly rebuilding her shattered life with the support of a caring husband. Her sister is a recluse, still cowed and psychologically broken by her years of "hell" with Yarr. Mari-Ann agreed to talk to News reporter Frances Hardy, telling her alarming and frank tale as a warning to others.

This modest Hawthorn Road bungalow was "God's" first  

home in Bognor Regis.

Sisters Mari-Ann and Sally Ann Barrett gave it to Yarr (pic-

tured right), having bought it with their £16,000 inheritance.  

When it was sold in 1983 for £35,000, Yarr put the cash  

towards his luxury house in Slindon (below). Since Yarr was  

unmasked, Mari-Ann has been able to wrest back only half of

the original sum she and Sally-Ann gave Yarr.

Sally-Ann has received nothing back and is living as an 

impoverished recluse In Cornwall.

---

TOMORROW: Life of

luxury at our expense

WHILE his followers shunned materialism - "God" ruled  his

empire from a luxury house in an exclusive West Sussex village  

Devotees showered him with gifts of jewels, but neighbours  

knew him as the reclusive man with no name.

Reporter Frances Hardy reveals exclusively in the News tomor -  

row, how Yarr lived lavishly in the House of the Gods.