In April 1987 the Portsmouth Evening News ran a series of articles by Frances Hardy. They were all exposing John Yarr and his cult Lifewave.
1 08/04/87 How we fell for monster's spell Devoted sisters tell sordid story page 6
2 09/04/87 Yarr - the 'god' with all mod cons page 6
3 10/04/87 Dream world of a neurotic 'Messiah' page 6
4 08/04/87 CULT 'GOD' IN HIDING page 1
5 09/04/87 Inside a 'god's' home page 1 (see below)
6 10/04/87 Cult 'God' unmasked page 1 (see below)
7 16/04/87 Positive Lifewave page 6 (see below)
8 18/04/87 Cult cost my peace of mind - and my home page 4
These pictures of John Yarr come from the Portsmouth Evening News articles.
The first of these articles How we fell for monster's spell shows how two sisters, Mari-Ann and Sally-Ann Barrett, suffered at the hands of John Yarr. You can see it here. Mari-Ann Barrett was one of the four women who were with John Yarr from the beginning of his cult. She and Yarr were in the Divine Light Mission.
The second article Yarr - the 'god' with all mod cons tells about two of Yarr's Adepts, Dennis Simmonds and Simon Bowes, who I had never heard of before. You can see it here. They stayed loyal to him, at least for a while.
One person who didn't stay loyal was this person.
"One boy was made an "adept" (spiritual teacher) of the organization when he was seven years old. At 18 he now admits that he did not understand the concept of enlightenment and pretended to possess spiritual powers to please Yarr."
I have been contacted by this person and he has given me his name and certain information.
The third article in my list Dream world of a neurotic 'Messiah' mentions Simmonds and Bowes again. You can see it here. Another who stayed loyal was Bristol lecturer Geoff Mullett - again someone who I'd never heard of.
The fourth article is the first page of the Portsmouth Evening News on 08/04/87. CULT 'GOD' IN HIDING. You can see it here. Page 6 of the same edition goes into more detail, How we fell for monster's spell.
The fifth and sixth articles are from the front pages of the next two days. They are just mentions of what is on inside pages about John Yarr. Not much detail. The seventh is a letter defending Lifewave. 5, 6 and 7 are shown below, whereas number 8 is worth showing in a post. The eighth is letters to the newspaper showing how people suffered as part of the Lifewave cult.
Inside a 'god's' home
THE SELF-STYLED god of the religious cult Lifewave has fled his luxury West Sussex home and gone into hiding.
The News revealed exclusively yesterday how the organization he founded has collapsed amid revelations that John Yarr (pictured above), who called himself the Messiah, kept his own "harem" of lovers while demanding celibacy of his unmarried recruits.
Today on Page six, feature writer Frances Hardy continues her investigation into the cult. Day two of an exclusive series of inter- views looks at the earthly home of "God" in the select village of Slindon.
Cult 'God'
Unmasked
TODAY in the third of an exclusive series of News interviews, reporter Frances Hardy reveals the humble origins of the Lifewave religious cult "God" John Yarr.
The downfall of Yarr has been brought about by his own disciples, who have accused him of molesting female recruits and keeping a string of mistresses.
Full story page six.
Positive
Lifewave
SO JOHN Yarr Ishvarah, the self- styled "God" is exposed and "Lifewave" is no more.
While I deplore the fact that he was a mere confidence trickster and caused a few young people severe mental problems, I think it is also fair to remember that Lifewave also did some good.
I belonged for a while, leaving be cause I couldn't believe in their ideology or live their life style, and while I suspected that Ishvarah was not all they believed him to be I got to know at least one of the adepts very well and found her to be a very caring person and completely devoted to the young people she tried to help.
The News has portrayed adepts as all powerful stern people who ruled their young flock with a rod of iron. I found them to be more like parent figures who did their utmost to look after the welfare of their young charges.
We live in a sick society where the young have little motivation and can fall victim to alcohol or drug abuse; some turn to crime.
The youngsters in Lifewave were taught self discipline, how to look after their health and most of all to love one another and the rest of humanity.
Much of the ideological teaching of Lifewave was wrong, but please try to publicize also the good done, not by Ishvarah, but by a band of caring people getting together, many of whom are now devastated by discovering the facts about the leader many of them had never met. Hazel Parry, Wingfield Street, North End.
IT HAS been sad and worrying to read about the Lifewave organization, and the terrible affect it has had on so many young people.
If only more churches taught the power and joy of the Holy Spirit young people would not need to dabble in weird religions. Lives are still changed today as were the disciples 2,000 years ago. Why don't we hear more of the Good News and hope of Christianity?- A. M. Smith (Mrs.). The Dale, Widley.
I found an old website about John Yarr and Lifewave. It is no longer possible to see it in the usual way. You would need to use a web archive. On one of their pages they have an article from the Daily Telegraph from 1980. I'm not going to put it on my blog because I can't authenticate if it is a genuine article in a respected newspaper. I will give details below and if anyone wants to search for it they can.
Also this webpage has everything that the Private Eye magazine has written about John Yarr. I haven't bothered to authenticate these because they are quite jokey and possibly contain inaccuracies. They, like the Daily Telegraph article, don't contain important information. Unlike the Portsmouth Evening News series of articles.
What would be very interesting though is to listen to the three radio programmes that Radio 4 did about John Yarr and Lifewave. They can't be accessed from this web archive. Neither can the photographs of John Yarr that were on this site. I can't find them anywhere. They may turn up one day.
'GOD" IS IRISH AND LIVING IN BOGNOR REGIS
By James Allen Daily Telegraph 17-03-1980
These are the dates of the Cult Corner items in Private Eye for anyone who wants to look them up
November 28 1986
23 Jan 1987
March 6, 1987
June 26 1987
August 7, 1987
September 18 1987
November 13 1987
December 25 1987
October 12 1990
This is the URL of the old website
http://www.johnyarr-lifewave.co.uk/
It can be accessed here
https://web.archive.org/web/20031207171657/http://www.johnyarr-lifewave.co.uk/
It might be possible to access it using a different web archive. Then the three radio programmes and the missing pictures might show up. There's a lot of stuff about his court case on it.
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